Peace: What Does It Mean?

Let’s understand the history and facts better to make it happen

By: Kashoo Tawseef

There have been many deliberations about the word peace and so called peace processes in various parts of the world including Jammu Kashmir. What it means to the world and what it means to Kashmir remains to be seen. But Dalai Lama has something interesting to say where ignorance is our master; there is no possibility of real peace. If one puts the words of Dalai Lama in context of Jammu Kashmir; it seems very clear that its ignorance of the facts and history that is a big hindrance in the peace at large. 

The struggle for peace is going on in most of the war and conflict ridden areas of the world; for some the state of Jammu Kashmir is part of this on going struggle. Sagar Parsi in his novel Discovery of Peace says the peace is that state in which one feels free to survive. Here a question arises that is this peace persisting in Jammu Kashmir, if yes, how much?

Celebration or Observation?

Human Rights!

By: Kashoo Tawseef
Hostility seems never ending in today’s day and age. Bombing, shooting and countless other acts, will the violence ever end? Will peace and stability ever come? The answer is perhaps more complicated than the conflict in itself. What is that which turns these common citizens into killing machines and there is no regard of their basic, fundamental, inalienable and inherent rights called the human rights. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “to deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” The subject of human rights is one of the most fundamental human issue and also one of the most sensitive and controversial one in contemporary world. During the recent decades, this problem was more political than either ethical or legal. Although the influence of political motives, rivalries, and other considerations have made difficult, the correct formulation of this problem , but this should not prevent thinkers of the world and genuine humanists from probing into this problem and ultimately obtaining a good solution. As Noam Chomsky once said, “the most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.”