Basharat Ali is a research scholar at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. His anti-India article was published in Pakistan-based ‘Dawn’ newspaper. (Image source: facebook/Basharat Ali)

An anti-India article on Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani by Basharat Ali, a research scholar at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi has been published by Pakistan-based Dawn newspaper.

Published in Dawn on October 29, the article was also carried out earlier by Kashmir Reader, which has been banned by Jammu and Kashmir government in the wake of the ongoing unrest in the Valley, Ali shared this information on Facebook.

Headline of the article in the Dawn is: “I’ll never forget the day Burhan Wani was killed”. In the article, Ali recalls the day he received the news of the death of Wani. Ali told his relatives: “Burhan gove shaheed (Burhan has been martyred)”.

Ali writes about what people in the Valley anticipated about the coming days. “People know how the state functions. The Indian state’s oppression is as routinised in war-time as it is in peace-time,” he writes

Ali says that protests against India that started after Wani’s death “were a sign of the Indian state losing all ground. The divisions that they had constructed — Shia-Sunni, Muslim-non-Muslim, Kashmiri-Ladakhi, Tableeghi-Salafi, majority-minority — to obfuscate the truth went up in smoke as the air was now incensed with songs of freedom.”

Apparently certifying that there is no Pakistan-hand in the unrest in the Valley, Ali writes: “But in the newsrooms in India, it was the perennial threat that was being accused of fomenting the trouble. Pakistan, they said, was responsible for causing unrest in Kashmir.”

Calling the Indian media “jingoistic”, Ali writes: “Who will they (media) blame for their own failure and guilt, their own deception and debauchery?”

Ali further writes about the “anger” and the “sense of revenge” among Kashmiri youth against India. He says the Indian “experts” (journalists) have dedicated their energy to “maintain control over Kashmir narrative that comes on TV screens and newspapers”.

The article attacks famed Indian journalists, or in his word “experts”. He writes: “These ‘experts’ have time and again warned the people of Kashmir about the capabilities of the Indian State: you will be killed if you come out on the streets.”

In the conclusion, Ali says, “No matter how much violence the Indian state resorts to and no matter how much the country’s media manipulates the narrative surrounding what’s going on in Kashmir, the people of Kashmir will keep coming out on the streets to demand for their rights.”‘

Sharing the article on Facebook, the Zamia scholar said the article was earlier published in Kashmir Reader under the headline ‘The crumbling statist narrative’.