PhD student Binish Ahmed speaks out on Kashmir conflict, fears for family’s fate
During a recent visit to Kashmir, PhD student Binish Ahmed leads a writing workshop with children. Ahmed grew up in the region before she and her family moved to Canada due to war. All photos courtesy of Binish Ahmed.
On August 4, Ryerson PhD student Binish Ahmed’s world turned upside down.
That’s the day her native homeland of Kashmir – situated on a perilous border between India and Pakistan – was thrust into an escalated crisis.
A security crackdown led by the Indian government sent 14.7 million people in Jammu and Kashmir into house arrest.
All access to communication – in what has been characterized as the most militarized region of the world (external link) – was severed, including internet, cell phones, landlines and mail delivery. Media all but disappeared– with reporters blocked from entering the region. Essential supplies, including food and medical resources, were cut off.
In an interview 10 days after the crackdown, Ahmed said, “It is a part of the world that has literally been taken off the radar,” noting that due to the information blockade, Kashmiris are unable to communicate with the world or each other.
“We have no idea what is happening,” she said.
“I studied the Rwandan genocide in my undergrad, and later, I researched Indigenous genocides globally. I can’t believe I’m writing about my own people today.” –Binish Ahmed, PhD policy student and Muslim Kashmiri
Scholar of Indigenous rights and self-government
The Ryerson Policy Studies PhD student knows all too well the severity of the situation. Not only is she a Muslim Kashmiri who grew up in the affected region (she and her family left the country when she was 11) – Ahmed is also a scholar of Indigenous rights and self-government, colonialism, racialization, land governance, anti-Muslim racism, human rights, Indigenous rights policies and more.
“I studied the Rwandan genocide in my undergrad, and later, I researched Indigenous genocides globally. I can’t believe I’m writing about my own people today,” she said, referring to a recent article she wrote for the Conversation (external link) on the conflict. That article has since been republished by Genocide Watch (external link) , and a Genocide Alert has been issued for Kashmir (external link) based on her research and analysis.
Ahmed explains that Kashmiris are a multi-faith Indigenous people, who until Aug. 5, had a semi-autonomous Muslim-majority state. Their territories are divided between Pakistan, India, and China – each one asserting ownership over parts of the region.
Violence has plagued the territory for more than 70 years, but the conflict abruptly escalated on August 5. That’s when India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist party, abolished Kashmir’s autonomy, rounded up and imprisoned approximately 4,000 Kashmiri activists (external link) , civil, political and human rights leaders, and launched its military invasion.
All of this has raised tensions with Pakistan and set off fears in the international community over the fate of Kashmiri people.
Binish Ahmed is pictured in Kashmir. Communication has been cut off in the region since Aug. 4. Ahmed has not been able to reach her family since the crisis escalated.
Messages to family unanswered
Among those affected – Ahmed’s family. The Toronto resident has countless aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews in the region.
Today, her desperate phone calls and messages to family remain unanswered.
Glancing down at her cell phone, she says, “I look at my phone [to check] morning and night, even in the middle of the night.”
She pauses, adding, “The messages still haven’t been received. We don’t know who is alive or not.”
Sitting at our interview, Ahmed is armed with stacks of paper – reports, policies, treaties, UN documents – that help show the human rights violations she says are currently underway.
Since the crisis began, she’s been determined to sound the alarm on what she fears could be an impending genocidal massacre. Not only has she written about it, she’s been speaking with media, too. She rests the giant stacks of paper on the table as she checks yet another email – this one, from the Globe and Mail.
As each request comes in, she takes it – no matter the fatigue or what errand she’s trying to juggle.
“There are influential Bollywood and political leaders in India who have been calling this ‘the Final Solution’ for Kashmiris for some time now…that comes out of Hitler’s manifesto,” she said, adding that world leaders need to take action.
“What Kashmiris want is the right of self-determination to be implemented, we do not want to be annihilated by a colonial ruling power – which is essentially trying to erase us from our land,” she said, her voice returning to its determined resolve.
Talking about the conflict from this angle – the academic, researched perspective – is much easier than speaking to the personal side.
“I travel between different wave lengths of grief and trauma and managing the triggers, to ensure I’m being analytical and critical,” she explained. “It’s a lot of regulation you have to do, just to keep going.”
A mountain-side community in Kashmir.
Organizing protests
Also helping her to keep going is Ahmed’s involvement with Toronto’s Kashmiri community. She’s been helping to organize protests to call attention to the crisis – the first on Aug. 10, attended by more than 300 people, and a second protest on Aug. 18, with that number growing to about 2,000 people.
“We know we have no choice but to speak up,” she said. “If we don’t, our families could be dead.”
“The Canadian government can take a very clear position and be a leader… we don’t want another Holocaust or Rwanda to happen. We already said ‘never again’,” she said.
As of the day of publication, Ahmed had managed to reach one relative when a few landlines were temporarily restored – but that person was “too afraid to talk.” Most Kashmiris no longer have landlines, she said, and the few lines that were reconnected on Aug. 18 have since been working on and off again.
It’s now been 20 days – and she doesn’t know what’s happened to dozens of family members.
“It’s a nightmare,” she said. “We are terrified.”
Media coverage with Binish Ahmed:
- ‘We are extremely worried’: Lockdown concerns Kashmiri-Canadians in Toronto (CBC News) (external link)
- ‘A total blackout’: Kashmiri-Canadians unable to contact relatives since India cut internet (Global News) (external link)
- ‘Take a position’: Kashmiri-Canadians urge Canada to lend stronger voice amid lockdown (Global News) (external link)
