Gallery 2: 60 days and counting, a FSC campaign
Free Speech Collective (FSC) launched ’60 days and counting’ on 04th October, marking two months of the intolerable and untenable blockade of communication in the Kashmir Valley.
The campaign looks at the current crisis in Kashmir through the unique perspective of cartoonist Suhail Naqshbandi, who faced censorship and was forced to quit his daily cartoon with a prominent newspaper on May 1 this year. As some cartoons dating back to 2016 show, the abrogation of Art 370 and the attempts to change the demographics in Kashmir were very much on the anvil. Other cartoons record the hypocrisy and opportunism of political leaders while still others bear the anguish of the violence and killings.
The blockade
The Union government has been obdurate and refuses to lift the communication blockade, despite reports of hardships faced by citizens. The impact of the internet shutdown has been felt in a myriad horrific ways, from the inability to reach timely medical help in emergencies, the immense problems faced by students, job-seekers, litigants unable to access justice, those engaged in trade etc.
The media has been struggling to get these important stories across and its very existence has been jeopardised. A report entitled ‘News behind the Barbed Wire: Kashmir’s Information Blockade’ from Free Speech Collective (FSC) and Network of Women in Media India (NWMI) had documented the effect of the shutdown on the media and on citizens.
The widespread condemnation from international agencies and authorities like the UN Special Rapporteur for freedom of speech and expression has not made an iota of difference. Petitions in the Supreme Court of India challenging the communications blockade have not yielded any relief from the apex court.
Image Gallery of campaign
Now, it is 70 days and counting. At the end of the Free Speech Collective campaign series, we leave you to see how it translates on the ground.
Cartoons by Suhail Naqshbandi @suhailhnaqshbandi
Design by Shweta Vachani (http://shwetavachani.com)
Digital campaign: Sarita Ramamoorthy
60 Days and Counting
(To view as a slideshow with captions, please click on any image below.)
Gallery 1:
Suhail Naqshbandi’s folder of unpublished cartoons
“What do you do if your cartoons don’t get published in your newspaper, day after day?”
On May 1, 2019, Suhail Naqshbandi decided to call it quits from Greater Kashmir after four years of turning in a cartoon daily (Read his interview here).
The cartoons spanned a range of issues and concerns, from media bias (and media war-mongering television anchors) to the Rafale deal and missing documents, the violence and killings in the most heavily militarised zone of conflict in the Kashmir Valley, internet blocks and republic day celebrations without any public!
There were also cartoons about the Unilever Surf Excel advertisement which the rightwing protested as being anti-Hindu, the treatments meted out to Kashmiris – mass incarcerations and large-scale killings and the historic Shawl Weavers Movement of 1865 when poor Kashmiri shawl weavers were killed for protesting against the cruel taxation system of Dogra rulers, the last cartoon Naqshbandi submitted before quitting the newspaper.
A selection from Suhail Naqshbandi’s sheaf of unpublished cartoons which he shared with Free Speech Collective.
(To view as a slideshow with captions, please click on any image below.)
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- On May 1, 2019, Suhail Naqshbandi decided to call it quits from Greater Kashmir after four years of turning in a cartoon daily.
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- How the mainstream political parties take to opportunism.
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- Kashmir figures amongst the top places in the world where internet is blocked very frequently.
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- The biased media’s entertainment show.
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- Media dictionary promoting Islamophobia
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- The day the Indian army entered Kashmir in 1947 and how it translated into the current political situation.
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- In Nov 2018, when mainstream political parties tried to stake claim to the government, Gov. Malik cited an outlandish excuse of his Fax machine not working.
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- How the Republic day pans out in Kashmir. People are confined into their homes due to restrictions and hartal, their means of communication(phones, internet) are suspended and it looks like a curfew.
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- Just when the Rafale controversy was bringing down the BJP, they used the airstrikes against Pakistan to push it away for electoral gains.
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- The condition of mainstream parties in Kashmir.
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- When the important Rafale documents are lost.
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- A future behind bars or under the ground.
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- This was when India decided to take up the case of Kulbushan Jadhav at ICJ. Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru sighed up there, wondering if they had gotten a chance of a fair trial.
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- The historic Shawl Weavers Movement when poor Kashmiri shawl weavers were killed for protesting against the cruel taxation system of Dogra rule.
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- How independent institutions were undermined, following the installation of a Governor by the BJP government.
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- With the recent highway ban for civilians, a magistrate stamped and wrote on the palm of a civilian to permit him to move. It was similar to Nazi Germany where the Jews were forced to wear yellow badges.
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- During last year’s spring, there was a series of unabated killings of youth on the brink of blooming into adulthood. And the government was gung ho about the tulip gardens.
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- In 2018, a young boy was killed in cold-blood in downtown Srinagar in a pre-dawn crackdown in a locality where militants were hiding. Later, when his people were carrying his dead body for burial, the procession was tear-gassed. That is when one of his neighbours tore his shirt off in frustration and asked the police to shoot him in the chest. I saw his picture, crying with flailing arms. This posture reminded me of the Christ on the cross.
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- During the infamous Kathua rape case of a 8 year old girl, the BJP and its right wing allies supported the rapists, which included a couple of ministers in the government, who were sacked after a lots of protests. But there was a campaign to reinstall them.
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- A news report revealed a shocking fact that a 63-year-old file related to Art 35A is missing from North Block. An obvious surmise is malafide intentions, like the sabotage of Kashmiri lives.
