https://www.scmp.com/rss/326401/feed Fahad Shah is a journalist and editor currently reporting from Kashmir and New Delhi. He is the editor of the Anthology Of Occupation and Resistance: Writings from Kashmir and the magazine, The Kashmir Walla. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Fifty-three-year-old Nyima Tenzin was wearing a combat uniform, wrapped in a sleeping bag, when his body was brought to the Chushul Primary Health Centre on August 30, 2020. Once inside and unwrapped, it could be seen that the soldier was without his right foot, with bones, neurovascular structures and muscles exposed amid the flesh. Hailing from the Tibetan community in Ladakh, an Indian-administered territory at the far north of the subcontinent, Nyima Tenzin served in the Indian Army’s... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3153164/china-india-border-dispute-how-one-doctor-coped?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3153164/china-india-border-dispute-how-one-doctor-coped?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Oct 2021 02:15:14 +0000 A year after China-India border clashes erupted in Ladakh in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism-reliant Indian territory is reopening to visitors even as uncertainty lingers and the region remains heavily fortified. Chinese and Indian troops fought last year in May near the Pangong Lake in Ladakh’s east, while another skirmish a month later at the Galwan Valley in northeast Ladakh left 20 soldiers dead. Phuntsog Tsering, a doctor of Tibetan medicine who works at a Covid-19 health... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3141465/year-after-india-china-border-clash-ladakh-hopes-tourists-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3141465/year-after-india-china-border-clash-ladakh-hopes-tourists-will?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 Jul 2021 07:00:09 +0000 As the world celebrates a new year, Indian-administered Kashmir is still struggling to make sense of the traumas of the last one. Some 368 people were killed in Kashmir in 2019, according to an annual review by the human rights watchdog Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. Of these, 80 were civilians, 159 were militants and 129 were government forces’ personnel. The watchdog’s report raises shocking allegations of torture by government troops that include detainees being beaten, stripped... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3044942/beaten-stripped-lips-sewn-bleak-year-human-rights-kashmir?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3044942/beaten-stripped-lips-sewn-bleak-year-human-rights-kashmir?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Jan 2020 03:36:28 +0000 Jammu and Kashmir on November 12 marked 100 days since India revoked the autonomy of the Muslim-majority region. Since then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has moved to bring the region under direct rule, cut telecommunications, and detained thousands of people, including pro-India politicians, to quell any unrest. Shops and businesses have remained shut to protest against the controversial decision, children have not been going to school, and streets are... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3037949/100-days-after-modis-kashmir-clampdown-locals-see-bleak-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3037949/100-days-after-modis-kashmir-clampdown-locals-see-bleak-future?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Nov 2019 09:00:10 +0000 I have witnessed multiple clampdowns in my 10 years as a journalist in Kashmir, but this year has been the worst. Life was turned upside down, for everyone. The silence of a caged and disempowered people is a silence of simmering rage. It started in early August, with rumours – of war, the revocation of Kashmir’s special status or an attack – yet nobody could confirm what was coming. People had fears, given India’s long-standing dispute with Pakistan over the Himalayan territory, stretching back... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3033708/reporting-silence-siege-kashmir?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3033708/reporting-silence-siege-kashmir?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Oct 2019 08:00:09 +0000 Perched on the foothills of the Zabarwan mountains, overlooking the scenic Dal Lake, the lavish Centaur Lake View Hotel seems an unlikely place to find political prisoners. Until recently, the four-star establishment offered luxurious rooms with panoramic views, including executive, deluxe and presidential suites costing up to US$357 a night. The hotel, spread across 13 acres of land in the Kashmir Valley, also boasted round-the-clock protection with “three tiers” of security, including the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3029853/how-four-star-hotel-indian-held-kashmir-became-political-prison?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3029853/how-four-star-hotel-indian-held-kashmir-became-political-prison?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Sep 2019 07:55:37 +0000 Mohammad Altaf Dar was asleep in his home in Srinagar when the roof went up in flames at about 1.30am. The auto rickshaw driver hurried his wife, son and mother out of the house through a window and stayed behind to remove gas cylinders from the kitchen, to prevent a big explosion. “By then, the fire had spread to the first floor and I had to break windows to escape, which injured my feet,” Dar said, surveying the black ash and debris left of the two-storey home. Since August 5, when Indian... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3024224/injured-pregnant-kashmiris-cut-emergency-aid-phone-lines-go?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3024224/injured-pregnant-kashmiris-cut-emergency-aid-phone-lines-go?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Aug 2019 08:01:14 +0000 “You need to stay inside, don’t come out!” The warnings are being bellowed at homes from large speakers mounted on jeeps in the streets of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, as the territory remains on lockdown. Residents of the besieged city say they feel lost and robbed of their rights after India’s decision to revoke the local government’s seven-decade-long autonomy. Amid fears of unrest over the move, authorities have imposed a telecoms and media blackout along with... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3021843/ground-kashmir-feelings-loss-betrayal-and-helplessness-indian?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3021843/ground-kashmir-feelings-loss-betrayal-and-helplessness-indian?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 07 Aug 2019 11:38:23 +0000 The recent escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan has taken a further toll on the residents of Kashmir, already scarred by an upsurge in violence between militants and Indian troops. Kashmir has been a major flashpoint since the end of British rule in the subcontinent in 1947. A ceasefire line divides it between India and Pakistan, but both claim the Himalayan region in its entirety. Kashmir has endured hostilities during three India-Pakistan wars, as well as a limited conflict in... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2188297/kashmir-there-hysteria-panic-and-confusion-pakistan-and-india?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2188297/kashmir-there-hysteria-panic-and-confusion-pakistan-and-india?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Mar 2019 09:00:28 +0000 India’s insurgency-ridden Jammu and Kashmir province is tipped to enter one of its most violent phases as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pulled his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of a local coalition government to prepare the ground for a crackdown ahead of the next general election in 2019. Doklam dispute keeps Sino-Indian relations ‘challenging’, ambassador tells Hong Kong BJP cites rising terrorism, Islamist radicalisation and growing threats to life and free speech as... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2152084/modi-cuts-it-loose-kashmir-about-get-lot-worse-yes-thats-possible?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2152084/modi-cuts-it-loose-kashmir-about-get-lot-worse-yes-thats-possible?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Jun 2018 11:30:59 +0000 The alliance between India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the local People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the restive Jammu and Kashmir province is being severely tested over recent civilian killings by the army amid a mounting civilian rebellion. Government forces are at loggerheads with one another as police have filed murder charges against the army. While the BJP is vehemently supporting the army, the PDP wants an investigation to be “taken its logical end”. The... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2131785/political-crisis-brews-police-file-murder-charges-against-army?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2131785/political-crisis-brews-police-file-murder-charges-against-army?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Feb 2018 11:09:10 +0000