Kashmir Essay

COLONIAL HISTORIOGRAPHY The systematic history writing in the Indian subcontinent started with the coming of the Europeans, who, for their administrative compulsions were required to know the land and its inhabitants whom they were going to rule. But the history produced by them was always imbued with the notions of oriental despotism and self-sufficient village economy, the main characteristic of which was the changelessness from the earliest times to the coming of colonial rule. Hence, all the…

Midnight’s Children The history of India and its neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh, is a rich and luminous tale as it encompasses the countless successes and hardships each country experienced during its development as independent entities. In 2012, Deepa Mehta, an Indo-Canadian film director with a screenplay by Salman Rushdie, a British Indian novelist, produced the film “Midnight’s Children.” Together they brought to the screen a magical yet historical tale on the partition of…

The resumes of the Great Socialist and his cabinet colleagues in The White Tiger exemplify Bernard Shaw’s dictum. Politics has indeed become the last resort of the scoundrels. In India, it will remain so until the middle class with its acute sense of political morality starts participating in it more actively. Political thinker Pavan K. Varma observes that “politics is dirty because good people do not enter it, and because good people do not enter, politics is dirty” (154). In the Inheritance of…

Writer, Bill McKibben, first warned the world of global warming twenty years ago with his book “The End of Nature.” His warnings went unheard and now he insists we listen and become more informed. McKibben urges for people to realize we’ve waited too long and now the many changes of the world are already underway and there’s not much we can do. Our once sustainable Earth is now melting, drying, burning, and acidifying. McKibben says the old Earth we lived on, no longer exists. The carbon rate in…

whether in the time signatures, minor-keyed chord progressions, subject matter in the title or lyrics, or through imagery on stage or in their album covers or music videos. The examples are endless, the Rolling Stone 's Paint it Black, Led Zeppelin 's Kashmir, The Clash 's Rock the Casbah and some more modern hip-hop like Jay Z 's Big Pimpin '. The genre of heavy metal, which comprises a large part of my personal musical background, also has a surprising amount of middle eastern influence,…

UNDERSTANDING JIHAD IN THE CONTEXT OF HINDU-MUSLIM CONFLICTS In order to understand the concept of “Jihad”, let us first understand the culture it comes from, i.e., Islam. As the Quran states, “The word Islam means, “surrender” to the will of God (Allah in Arabic). Since there is only one God and mankind is one species, the religion that God has ordained for human beings is one.’’ Islam also preaches that God in His mercy had sent messengers to convey His message, to different…

The Himalayas: A Mystic’s Viewpoint Himalaya literally meaning the abode of snow. Apart from being a geographical entity, it has in various ways shaped the life and culture of South Asian people. Comprising of nine highest peaks in the world, this awe inspiring range has been an object of veneration for people and epitomizes the concept of sublime beauty. The Himalayas are bordered on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain, on the northwest by the…

After the 7 July 2005 London bombings, British-Pakistani Muslims began to be discriminated against by white people in public spaces. For British-Pakistani Muslims, their ethnicity, religion and nationality all became sources of their identity, and became problematic if they were constructed against the British ideal. These forms of discrimination occurred in many spaces, one such space was cricket in England. Cricket in England since the 7 July 2005 London transport bombings has become a…

South Asia, is home to over one fifth of the world’s population and is known to be the most disaster prone region in the world. It is also home to a majority of the world’s poor. According to FAO (2009), 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide in 2009. About 456 million people in South Asia are estimated to be undernourished. In the recent past, climate change emerged as the single most pressing issue facing society on a global basis, with serious implications for the food security of…

After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda outdone the government to be the world 's most obnoxious terrorist organization. Al-Qaeda means “the base" in Arabic and the amount of terrorists are ordered by Osama bin Laden. In addition, Osama bin Laden was killed in a united action by the U.S. army in May 2011 (Hayes, L., & Brunner, B.).However, people believed that this group will be encouraged to look for a revenge from this incident, whereas others questioned if they will…