Point (00:17)
Hello everyone and welcome to Kashmir Exist Podcast. I am very excited today because this is my first time being on a Kashmir Exist Podcast. My name is Point and I am here today with our host Teyshi. Teyshi, how are you doing?

Teyshi (00:33)
High point. Yeah, I'm as well as can be a little bit under the weather, but nothing, nothing that won't, you know, stop me from joining this podcast. How are you?

Point (00:45)
I'm doing well and I am very, I'm actually very excited. I'm actually, I find this podcast episode to have a very good topic. We're going to have a book review and you probably know what book it is, Tashi. It's Hostile Homelands. It's called Hostile Homelands, The New Alliance.

Teyshi (00:59)
a bit.

Point (01:06)
between India and Israel. The book is basically about how exactly the Indian government takes up the inspiration from Israel of how exactly their ethno-nationalist movement is and how exactly that moves forward towards the implications on

on occupation, for example in this case the West Bank. And it goes towards from the historic view and of course also the political, the military and the ideological ways of how how atrocious they can be, how fascistic they can be. what do you think about that by the way, Teishi?

Teyshi (01:49)
I think it's a great book. think for a lot of, well, I'm going to say a lot of us, but maybe not enough. Certainly for Kashmiris, certainly for people that I've spoken to that are Palestinian. I have mentioned this before. Some people may know a Palestinian activist. He's a young activist. His name's Hamza or his screen name is Absorber Whitey, I think. He's only a young person and I brought up Kashmir to him and he knew all about it.

So the reason I'm happy about this is that for those who already know that there are really startling parallels of what is happening both to Palestine and Kashmir by Israel and India. So this is a great book to review. This is going to help people that have an active interest in the ongoing conflict to learn more because there is always something hidden that we don't.

necessarily know there's certainly things that I learnt reading this book. So yeah, I'm really happy about it.

Point (02:48)
Yeah, yeah. No, I agree with you. There is definitely something that is hidden that we do not know much about and it's very difficult to find information sometimes. And this book is of course written by Azad Essa. And he is an award-winning journalist. I actually never knew much about Azad Essa until I sort of looked

looked up more about Hinduism or in this case India. I don't know about you, Teyshi. Have you heard about Azadeh before, let's say before you even heard about the book, before you heard about more going into how exactly India does their things when it comes to their governmental work, their political work and all that?

Teyshi (03:20)
So,

Yeah, I didn't know about him specifically, certainly not by name. I wonder if we would have definitely come across his work for Al Jazeera English or maybe some other journalistic bodies that we might know him by his work rather than his name. So this is the first time that I really came across him in the context of having so much knowledge and being an author and indeed the name journalist. But I love the fact his name is Azad as well, by the way.

which of course pertains to freedom. So that is a great name as well. Yeah. First time for me.

Point (04:09)
That's actually a... I did not think much about that before. mean, Azad, yeah, definitely that does stand for freedom. is... Yeah, and when it comes to... I mean, we read so many articles and we forget about the journalists who have written them. And this...

Teyshi (04:27)
Because it will also come to a personal cost to him, you know. This is not just a work, know, a body of work that he's doing. Potentially, he's doing this for the, you know, for altruistic reasons, if you like, because what is the traction of this work? We know that there's not much knowledge. So then that would lead us to think that the traction is not very high. So if you're talking about it being...

you know, remunerative, then it's not really because if he'd written a book about Palestine solely or some of the well-known, you know, issue, geopolitical issue in the world, it could have been seen to have been a bit more mercenary in that sense. So I feel like this is something he's done that is, you know, for the right reasons, really. And it does come at a personal cost.

especially with being journalists and covering these sensitive issues, you do become a target. So it's quite impressive to be honest that he's put himself out there.

Point (05:30)
Definitely, I do agree with you there and He of course is based between Johannesburg and New York City working working there and Like you mentioned he has worked with Al Jazeera before the Washington Post as well Foreign policy the Guardian and the Middle East Eye I believe he still works for the Middle East Eye But I'm not really sure if he still does that

Teyshi (05:44)
Mm-hmm.

Point (05:53)
But it's quite interesting that he has worked for all these big time media hubs or media centers, basically these...

Teyshi (06:04)
Yeah, so he has a very, very impressive, you know, career rap sheet really. I think, you know, his kind of CV or resume speaks for itself.

Point (06:15)
Yeah, and I'm actually very happy that this book exists because otherwise it would have been very difficult to find stuff. However, we can go towards what exactly the book brings up, which is very important because I would say the book briefly brings up about the pre slash post.

Teyshi (06:29)
Yes

Point (06:38)
1947, right after the Indian partition as well, the thought process around what exactly India thought of Palestine and how exactly Israel did their things regarding Palestine, because of course, as we know, 1947, that was the time when Nahba happened and after that the...

Teyshi (06:58)
Okay.

Point (07:00)
Israel was founded and established. What do you think about that by the way? As far as now, of course in this case they recognized the state of Israel in 1950. What do you think?

Teyshi (07:15)
India. yeah, well my thoughts on that are that it's interesting that, you know, partition specifically happened in 1947. I think the British, you know, formally had a hand in, you know, assigning a state of Israel and formalizing that a year later. And then in 1950, India recognizes

the state of Israel. So I think for me this is an odd question because they were both involved Britain and for India it fought hard for its freedom and you know it got it albeit there was a partition and we know that for those of us that know about partition we know that that in itself contained

a great deal of, you know, let's just say, you know, troubling aspects that followed with the loss of life and massacres that ensued. essentially what I think about them recognizing the state of Israel is I think that with India, they kind of found themselves in a spot where they were led by Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, I have to be careful how I pronounce that. You know, he is actually, was actually a Kashmiri pundit himself.

which I don't know how many people know that. And he certainly was from the Congress party, which is kind of like, you know, modern day, a more kind of, I don't know, center left approach possibly. And it kind of believes in people being emancipated, lands having their

freedom and so while it did recognize a state of Israel I feel like it probably did that along with others I think I think it was probably a strange position for it to be in because really what we're talking about here is India had just got its independence and So if you recognize a state of Israel, what is that saying about Palestinian independence? So it's a bit of a funny one. I think I think for me how I feel about it really is it shows

that India probably was trying to be in the middle really and not particularly show any sides. That's how it comes across to me anyway.

Point (09:28)
Yeah, believe even Mahatma Gandhi or Nehru in this case had lined feelings or thoughts when it came to Mahatma Gandhi and both of them I would say they had ties to the Indian National Congress. And of course, however, and I agree with you, I mean, in this case you cannot...

do what exactly the Brits did in their case, right? so aligning your views with exactly how Israel is doing right now and of course how they started would be crazy. It would be out of their mind, mean out of anyone's mind in that case. And that's not the example they should give.

Teyshi (10:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Point (10:15)
And so I definitely agree with you on that part. And or when in this case, Azad Assa also mentions how exactly the stronger relationship between India and Israel starts. how do you think that sort of like started, like,

Teyshi (10:28)
Mm-hmm.

Point (10:32)
Would you say that it started slow or would you say it was quite fast after the recognition of Israel?

Teyshi (10:40)
Well, there's the public version and there's the private version. So I think that, you know, certainly publicly India were for Palestinians, you know, having, you know, having self-determination, right? But we also know in 1947, immediately after, you know, partition, at least quite, you know, soon after that,

they went to Israel to purchase arms. And what with the condition that we don't want it to have Made in Israel written on it and they declined, they said we can't do that. And so behind the scenes they were purchasing arms from Israel while publicly supporting Palestine as well. And they also denied that they purchased arms.

So I feel like there was what was happening publicly, what was happening privately. I think for me, certainly publicly, it's been a very slow burner. I would say that from, at least you take it from 1947, it wasn't until the 90s that we really started to see the public turnaround. So on that basis, I would say it was slow, a slow burner.

Point (11:53)
Yeah, you're definitely right about that. And I feel like the way of how slow it was, and that's the feeling I got when I was reading Hostile Homelands, that it was as if they wanted to make it faster because the fascist ideology was still there, the way of how exactly the government wanted to push stuff. But then...

it was as if if we do this fast then people will know our views people will know how we are you know and and that's the of course the inhumane way of acting on it however being very indirect if that makes sense and when you mentioned the military and weaponry we can can also think about the

the cooperation of military, also how exactly the arms dealing was, not just arms, also technology, the stuff that India gets from Israel, which is quite important to touch on, because of course, as you know, Israel is known about their technological...

advances when it comes to military and of course to surveil people, to surveil in order to stop in this case, quote-unquote, terrorism. What do you think about that, by the way? What do you think about the part when it comes to the technology and of course the quote-unquote terrorism? I feel like, because in this case I feel like terrorism, the part of exactly how we use the word terrorism,

Teyshi (13:09)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Anyway.

Good.

Point (13:31)
is sort of a cover of basically nothing in order for the people who call it a terrorism, I mean call it terrorism, to hide stuff, to do the bad stuff. And that's when the people who call it terrorism become the actual terrorists.

Teyshi (13:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that actually in this sense, Israel and India have a very symbiotic relationship because on the face of it, they both have common goals, which is to, you know, the sort of aspirations and ambitions for their respective countries. And that really gets carried out.

under the sort of guise that they are protecting themselves against a common enemy. And yes, it is entirely correct to say that this is a construct. You the idea of the Muslim enemy is a fabrication. And this is why you see respective countries of Israel and India using propaganda tools, not just social media, but Hollywood and Bollywood even.

to propagate this idea of a bogeyman or a bogeyman or whatever you want to call him. But I also think, you know, talking about the fact that they employ these digital kind of things, we know that, you he talks about in the book how India, as well as buying weapons off Israel, bought Pegasus, that software that allows people to basically hack into phones and...

know, spy on people and do all, and basically just lift information off the phone. But I think what I find kind of interesting about all of that is that where it started off that India was buying the weapons and the software of Israel, I think what's interesting to me is that India themselves have a very good cl- you know, South Asia in general, let's just be, let's just be clear, it's not just India. But obviously it's India that's doing this, but-

generally South Asia has a real good, and for a lot of years now, a real good crop of, you know, technically sort of proficient people, whether it's IT specialists, whether it's even hackers. India is actually, India, along with the surrounding countries, actually very good at that. So I think it's quite interesting that, you know, that they bought warfare.

off Israel, be it actual weapons or be it, you know, spying software, surveillance software and other kind of learning, other tactics of, you know, surveillance equipment and spying on their own people and other people. Because actually India is very good at it itself. So it's interesting that it imported that from Israel. But let's be honest, India creates that probably better than anyone really in terms of spying on people.

and really utilising the digital age for its own propaganda. India's actually really good at probably better at that than anybody.

Point (16:32)
Yeah, I mean, I almost forgot about Pegasus and that's a very good thing to bring up here. Especially when it comes to the technology of how India takes, I guess in this case, the god Pegasus from Israel. yeah, I would definitely say that India might be able to make something like Pegasus or even better.

Who knows? I'm not really sure exactly how well India is with such technology. I would say they're good with having a mass development of having control of technology. And this is also something that, for example, this case Israel can utilize because in this case they also need a larger workforce.

Teyshi (17:05)
Mm.

Mm hmm.

Point (17:18)
That's where the incentives part and of course the exchange of workforce economics and of course the entire plan of a better understanding and of course a better alliance comes in.

Teyshi (17:32)
This is the interesting point as well, because it started off that India was buying the weapons from Israel, it's bought the software from Israel. And I think there was this idea, and I don't know if at one point they were working with America, because I can't remember who the country was, but let's just say it was America and they were providing the capital. Israel was providing the brains and India was, no, was the UAE, sorry, it was the UAE. So the UAE is providing the capital.

Israel was providing the brains and India was providing the workforce, you know, for their sort of joint plans. So the reason I mention that, and I know we're just talking about India and Israel, is that there's this assumption, right? Because these are both peoples that believe in hierarchy, that some people's lives are worth more than others, that they're superior to others. And I think that's quite interesting because Israel was designated as the brains and India was designated as the brawn.

right? Which is kind of interesting because the truth is that actually you could probably argue that people in South Asia are, you know, well we know that they're intelligent, they do really well. So why is it in that relationship was that Israel was designated the brain and India was designated the brawn? Now we've come full circle and recently within the, you know, the sort of conflict in the region of occupied Palestine.

you with the Israeli occupier, we've seen India not only, as you mentioned, shipping the workforce, whether it's actual laborers or construction workers, but also people that went over from India to take part in the ITF. So cannon fodder, essentially. You know, not only have we seen that, we've seen that India selling arms.

Israel now the other way around which is quite interesting and in fact they were trying to again as usual Doing it in secret and so they went instead of I believe Suez Canal They went around Africa and it wasn't until they got to Spain that that's that the Spanish authorities Intercepted it and stopped it so they were covertly trying to ship to Israel A lot of weapons I believe it was quite a lot because I don't remember the exact tonnage

but there was a whole freight and it was intercepted and they were trying to do it in secret which is why they went the long way around. So that's interesting that it started that they were buying weapons off Israel and now they're actually exporting it to Israel as well. That's quite interesting.

Point (19:58)
Yeah, I mean, sorry, I just got a short giggle when you mentioned ITF because that's how we mention, of course, IDF or IOF. The Israeli Defense Force is basically the Israeli terrorist forces, which is the IDF. And I just love it when people say that bluntly, just like that, because

Teyshi (20:03)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Yeah, they will always be the ITF to me. And I think that's important. And I think that's important because a lot of what we've just spoken about is how certain people are designated, you know, the title of terrorists, whether it's Kashmiris that are Muslim, whether it's Pakistanis, you know, the Pakistan versus India, whether it's the, you know, the Palestinian resistance forces, or there's just the general civilian Palestinian population, Lebanese, Iran.

Point (20:20)
Yeah, we call it for who they are.

Teyshi (20:46)
you know, Iraq, there's this specter, ghoul that's been created of the terrorist. I mean, that's why I call them the ITF, because I guess what I'm always saying when I'm reinforcing that is, who is the real terrorist here?

Point (21:00)
Yeah, I agree with you. And I would call the oppressors for who they are. And they are also, the words they have used against those they have oppressed. So I definitely love when people are direct that way, I would say. I mean, ITF, they are ITF. But yeah, I I would say, in this case,

Teyshi (21:06)
Yeah.

Point (21:21)
I would say that India, India has also sort of like, became, they became the slave of Israel in this case. Maybe not slave is the right word, but I would definitely say it's as if they are a lapdog in this case because, I mean in this case because they had to change their views in the public's eye.

Teyshi (21:34)
Yeah.

Point (21:41)
in order to be more aligned with Israel. Just thinking about Palestine in this case. I don't know if your thoughts resonate with me in this case, but what do you think?

Teyshi (21:46)
Yeah.

They were certainly from Jinnah, who is Nehru, onwards, especially those people that followed him, that were supporters, that were part of the Congress party, very outwardly pro-Palestine. It's quite, when you're dealing with countries like India and the sort of South Asian culture, and I'm speaking about this as South Asian, so...

Maybe this is shared by other cultures, I don't know, but there's a definite duality that exists within the cultural aspect, which is that it's perfectly acceptable to have one rhetoric publicly and do something completely different privately, because a public facade must be maintained. This is almost like their version of civilization, right? So I think, you know, for me, the way that they

felt that they had to support Palestine, I think for me it comes from the fact that India hadn't long fought its own occupier. And so by that extension, and by that sort of almost awakening post-1947 globally, because the British Empire came to an end, so it's a sort of awakening, a little bit like the awakening after World War II, as in, ooh, Nazism is a bit bad, you know? And so we have this awakening post-1947 that...

we don't do colonization anymore, that that was a brutal act of the oppressor. We're freeing ourselves. And so it's not surprising that they were pro-Palestine. However, they had, you know, the dichotomy there is that they had a bit of a sort of a problem because as well as, as well as sort of, you know, making their feelings clear about occupation and Palestine or any nation's right to

self-determine because that's how they were born post 1947 they had their own problems which is that they were trying to establish their own heavyweight status on the on world politics and of course you know that doesn't come without some form of diplomacy some form of greasy palms going on and what by that what I mean is you're having in some way to

say things well you don't have to but this is what they did say things outwardly but do things privately so yeah outwardly they were supporting Palestine privately they were buying arms off Israel learning off Israel seeing how Israel had a very important you know hold in American politics and how they wanted to get in league with that so there were two separate things going on there was the virtue signaling public

And in private, there was the, how do we sustain ourselves? What's, you know, it was the self versus everybody. So yeah, there's always, even on an individual level, there may always some extent be a struggle within a human of what's good for me personally versus what is the right thing? What's good for everyone overall, the greater good. And so I think it's right to say that they...

Point (24:31)
Yeah.

Teyshi (24:56)
were publicly virtue signaling and I think the extent of which I've only realized from reading this book because I don't think and I think that's another thing this is something that whether you're Indian, Pakistani, Kashmiri, know Chinese, Tibetan, whoever you're not going to realize the extent to which your own countries or whoever are doing these things and I think it was a shock to me to read I didn't know that they were pro-Palestinian vocally I didn't know that

But simultaneously, I didn't know that they were, since 1947, doing, you know, arms deals with Israel. That was new to me as well. I think what this book has uncovered for me, the extent to the duplicity. The duplicity itself is not shocking to me. Like I say, I would say it's just considered regular practice in South Asia. You know, bit like corruption. These are all just normal things that are good business practice historically, right? So...

You know, obviously in modern lens, it looks very different. And I think it's the extent to which their public and their private behaviour was so, you know, 180 degrees separate. Yeah.

Point (26:06)
Yeah, you got a point there because I would also think that this was they had to sort of shift away towards their religious, ethno-nationalist ideology to sort of think and align themselves with what exactly they found Hinduism to be. And of course there is a term there

like in this case like Hindu Rashtra I would think I think that the word Hindutva and you can probably explain this better than  what do you what is Hindutva?

Teyshi (26:31)
Mm.

Okay, well, Hindutva is quite an interesting thing because to me it's always meant the very extreme, ultra-nationalist right wing of religious Hindus. But I guess if you were looking for a more formal kind of definition, know, Hindutva is a political and ideological movement, you know, that advocates for the establishment of India as a Hindu nation, emphasizing the primacy of Hindu culture, religion and values.

And what's interesting to me about that is in all my times of going through India to get to Kashmir or even spending time in India, which I have done separately, this isn't something that you will see, right? This isn't something that you will be very aware of, this kind of militancy, this kind of, you know, right wing crazed fanatics. You don't really see it.

So I almost feel like these are definitely the fringes, which they usually are. However, the actual ideology of Hindutva has been used to rally the masses. That's my take on Hindutva. That's how I see it, both as a definition and in practice of how, you know, as being there in real time, you know, it appears to me.

Point (27:37)
you

Yeah, I agree with you. and this is the way of like Hindutva. it's almost a twin identity of the Zionism ideology. In this case, of course, Zionism would be the ideology of believing that there should be a Jewish state. But in this case, in most laymen I'm saying that it would be to colonize a state or a...

Teyshi (28:05)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Point (28:19)
place outside of the West, outside of Europe. And it also has the fascist tendencies, like thinking about the component of this having the revisionist Zionism. When we think about, for example, Jabbotinsky, Vladimir Jabbotinsky, one of the founders of Zionism, and what he said was that

there would be no compromising with the Palestinians. Of course, he used the word Arabs, not Palestinians, but we know better, so we say Palestinians. And so this is also something that is an issue, but this is something that strengthened Zionism, and that's where political Zionism comes in with the mixture of Herzl's top process in this.

Teyshi (29:01)
Okay.

Point (29:07)
a very fascistic way, the same thing with Hindutva because this has impacted the minorities a lot. You could probably comment on that because in this case, Yerar Kashmiri.

Teyshi (29:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think that, I think when you look at, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think if you look at both ideologies, in a sense, you could be proud of your heritage and assert yourself while coexisting with the other, right? That is entirely possible. I can certainly say that in Kashmir and in my travels in India, the coexistence has always been there. That's the normal, that's the normalcy of it.

The intolerance isn't really a thing. It's been constructed and made to be a thing. And I think that's been done by exactly what you described there, which is that we don't just assert ourselves and coexist. No, we will dominate the space and people will have to accede to us or they will have to leave also for the consequences, right? So it's this now very

being on the offense, not coexisting or, you know, asserting your own values. This is about conquering and it moves from that very passive state of just existing to being very proactive. So for an example of that recently would be in India where there have been discussions this year in parliament put forth by, you know,

BJP about talks about making being Muslim illegal which led to riots in Delhi and this happened this year. So they are moving towards that you know if you're talking about the purest form of Hindutva and certainly RSS ideology which is that you know Hindustan is for the Hindus, Bahrat whatever they want to call it. There are other words as well which I can't remember but every it must be Hindus.

and people must either, you know, agree to convert or they say go to Pakistan, but we know they also, what we also know the unsaid thing is suffer the consequences, right? I think what you also see in occupied Palestine is what you will see is that the very Zionist view, not just of the fringe people, we know that there are people like Daniela Wise who say,

some wild stuff, but guess what? There are people in that very government, the Likud party, that are exactly in line with her. So I think the danger that we fall into is to see this as fringe lunatics. These are the people that are in power. These aren't fringe lunatics. Well, they are lunatics, but they're not on the fringe, right? So we know that the, not just, you know, the purest form of Zionism and the revisionist Zionism that you talked about, but certainly the way that the government in Israel and in India is going towards is you must accept

that this is, you know, the state of Israel and as a Palestinian you must accede to our terms and then yes, similarly this is India, this is Barth and you are living in our nation so you must accede to us and that's what it's moving to that more aggressive state of almost saying to people either you

Well, certainly in India, you convert to Hinduism and accept it or you leave or again suffer the consequences.

Point (32:37)
Yeah, definitely. mean, like the Indian way, their way, the government, the political groups and the politicians, they've taken a lot from Israel and they've taken a lot from Zionism. It's especially after the fact of the foundations of Israel and the establishment of Israel that basically

they can build a state on blood, on the Palestinian people's blood. this has also impacted, of course, Kashmir, as you know, and other but minorities. And yeah, it is an enforcement to only be Hindu. And there is, of course, this idea of making the Hindu state just like

Teyshi (33:01)
and

Point (33:18)
making the Jewish state and the Hindu state being Akhand, Akhand Barat basically being Indus river and beyond. The same thought process just like saying greater Israel and that is what I find to be crazy because it's just occupation after occupation.

Teyshi (33:25)
Mm hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean it does make you it does make you think of hit Hitler's Liebensraum

Point (33:43)
and

Yeah, I mean...

Teyshi (33:49)
if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Point (33:51)
I don't even know how to pronounce that by the way.

Teyshi (33:54)
But yeah, living room, you know, we need more space, we need more space. And it's this, and it's the idea of the expansionist ambitions. Yeah, and there is greater Israel, but there's also greater India. And that extends to Pakistan, which they believe was wrongfully taken from them, right? It also then wants to go into areas of China as well. And this is the problem that India currently has is it will have two sets of people on its hands, the Pakistanis and the Chinese.

And then this is one of the, it should really not be underestimated. What was the reason that so quickly after formation in 1947, India sought to purchase weapons? You know, this really explains what was going on in India's mind at that point. You know, and when I say India's mind, I do really mean obviously the ruling, the ruling class, the government, because it was

it was preparing for what it needed to do. And this is between whether you consider Pakistan or China, because since that day there's been scuffles with both sides, more than scuffles, but yeah.

Point (35:02)
Yeah, it was definitely not the depiction of peace that Hindu or Hinduism sort of depicts or in this case also just like Mahatma Gandhi did not believe in weaponry. However, it just goes straight against that. And of course, everything comes to the point where they would sort of blame everything on on certain things, in this case, self victimization.

Teyshi (35:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly and like you mentioned the victim, the self victimization of the present kind of, well it's been for a long time, position of Israel which is that it simultaneously is in fear of its life and it needs to protect itself therefore and so it's got a blank checkbook to do whatever it likes and if you compare that with India it's constantly at the mercy

of the Muslims, whether it's the Muslims within India, know, defiling the Hindu way, such as, for example, practices of cow slaughter, but then also the neighboring Pakistan. And so both sets of people have that fear of Muslims built in, that they are constantly under threat. This is what threatens them, right? This is the existential threat.

The very existence of Muslims threatens both India and Israel if you were to look at them separately. But at the same time as that, they paradoxically want to portray themselves as superheroes. So essentially when you're looking at a lot of the rhetoric from the Zionist side, will see very, you know, usually you'll see that powerful lion symbol with the Israeli flag, as if they're fearless warriors, they're gonna...

take, you know, they're the underdog making good. I think what I personally found really hilarious on my own personal level is especially on social media, if we look at ex, formerly Twitter, the rise of the Indian, you know, well, not even Indian, the Hindu powerful symbol and, you know, symbology, I should say. So.

We've got the depiction of certain Hindu gods like Hanuman, there's the monkey god and he was always quite a passive figure. If people want to look that up, he's just sitting there cross-legged, know, there's the elephant god, there's the monkey god, they're just sitting there quite passively, they've got a hand up, you know, it's a very peaceful kind of thing. There's other...

kind of gods as well like Ram and all that. They've got obviously a lot of gods and the traditional depiction of this, you know, in Hindu sort of history, you'll have always seen them as very passive, smiling, peaceful, enigmatic kind of depictions. Now what you'll see that they're shifting to, when they're, you know, especially when it's BJP supporters, RSS and all that, is that these

Point (37:36)
Yeah.

Teyshi (37:59)
These icons are transformed into again superheroes, so you will see The monkey god but this time he's a man. He's literally a man with a monkey head, but he's muscle-bound right? He's like a superhero and this again. It's this it's the paradox of being both the victimized person but also the alpha and the aggressor and the powerful and we're mighty and they

This is not an accident that both do that. But it's interesting that there isn't really much question around, well, which are you? Are you the victim or are you the aggressor? Do you see yourself as the superhero? We're great, we're intelligent, we're powerful, we're mighty, but we're also frightened for our lives. So what exactly are you?

Point (38:48)
I had never thought about that before, but definitely that is something that I would say sort of, it's like as if they're looking in the mirror and what the mirror is is what they represent their god's as

Teyshi (39:04)
So I would almost say that they use the machismo aspect, both Israel and India, to rally the masses. But then they want to historically depict themselves almost as the battered housewife, frightened for their lives. And there is this kind of dichotomy. It's like it's a crisis of personality. They've got a personality. What's the thing when you've got a split personality? Yeah.

It's like they function on both simultaneously.

Point (39:36)
Yeah. You mentioned BJP. That is about a Janta party, right? That would be the people, the Indian People's Party.

Teyshi (39:42)
Yes.

led by Modi, led by Narendra Modi,

Point (39:49)
Yeah, That is also, Modi has, sorry, Modi has of course also been, they want to sort of like strengthen their views on what exactly Israel does. The walking hand in hand with, for example, Netanyahu and his beliefs. And there is a lot of...

a lot of problematic alignment there, I would say. I don't know, what do you think about that?

Teyshi (40:15)
Mm-hmm.

Well, what's interesting is, is the Congress party for the longest time were in power and they were again publicly virtue signaling about the right for, you know, for, Kashmir to have its autonomy. They still to this day say that about Kashmir. However, we know that the Congress party have always broadly agreed with the Hindutva philosophy that, you know, primarily

Hindustan is for Hindus, right? We know that. But they believe in a more peaceful, like you were saying, Gandhi-esque, Mahatma Gandhi-esque approach, which is just basically a tissue of lies because they deep down, they want to say that publicly, but they don't believe it. I think the interesting thing for me is to bear in mind with the alignment of India and Israel is that you have to understand one thing. Like I mentioned, there was secretly visits even by Shimon Peres in the 90s.

to India, the people didn't, India didn't or Israel didn't publicly declare that. And I think Israel had always had an understanding that India wanted to keep these things hush-hush and it played along, which has always been fascinating to me of why Israel played along with that, because I think Israel understood the long game and they were prepared. Otherwise, you know, it's quite bewildering that India saying, okay, but don't tell anyone. And Israel like, okay. And it's like, what's going on there? But either way, it worked for both the parties.

Point (41:14)
Yeah.

Teyshi (41:41)
And yeah, in fact it was Shimon Peres visiting India, seeking out the then BJP leader who was the shadow minister. They were obviously not in power at that point. And saying to them about the Kashmir question, well you should basically do to it what we did with the Palestinians. Flood the region with Indian Hindus and essentially turn them into the minority, if not displace them altogether.

That is your solution. And then the leader of the BJP at the time went to the prime minister, the leader who I have honestly forgotten. may have been, who was it? It may have been Rajiv Gandhi. It have been someone totally different, but it was the Congress party that were ruling and they were mocked in parliament in India for even daring to suggest such a thing. And this is what's interesting is that, you know,

Ultimately, the Congress party in all its behavior is outwardly acting in rage. But in reality, the sad truth is that it was the then BJP leader that was actually at least not being two-faced, right? But Shimon Peres certainly was making these secret trips at the best, secret at the best of India and putting and positioning these ideas of saying you can literally do a copy and paste of what we've done.

And BJ feels very excited about this, obviously, because this was going towards realizing its ambitions. I think that was the beginning for me of when you see the seeds taking sort of root and Indians realizing this could happen, this could finally happen, they're onto something. That's how I see how India

And Israel got on, I think with the Congress party, they even, like I said, to this day, they maintain that they don't want to be this sort of, you know, this kind of a dictator like occupier. Which is interesting because they don't really serve the purposes of people like Kashmiris, people like the Sikh population.

other people that are in India that don't fit the Hindu kind of mold, they're not really helping them either. So it is actually confusing why the Congress party were doing business with the Israelis and keeping it quiet while outwardly saying something else for whose benefit. That is very confusing. In some ways, it's not surprising that the Indian population got sick of their BS and they're too faced and they're trying to please everyone and outwardly

be people pleaser for some unknown reason. Again, I think it's cultural, if I'm being honest, but people literally got sick of it. And I think one of the reasons that the BJP, led by Modi, has been so successful is it is cutting that BS that the Congress party really tried to deliver so long. Even like I said, to this day, we've got people in the Congress opposition still.

you know, being in opposition to the BJP saying that we want, know, Kashmir should have its own, well, the semi autonomy that it had before. And I'm not sure for whose benefit they're saying that. It's really strange. Yeah, I do find the Congress party really, really strange, to be honest, because they're not friends of Indian people, Kashmiris or anyone else. If you look at Indira Gandhi herself,

You know, when she was found to be corrupt, she called a national state emergency, which Azad Issa also talks about in the book, and she turned into an autocrat overnight. And she subjugated the Sikh population so much that she, I believe, must have been quite surprised on that day when her Sikh bodyguards turned on her and assassinated her. But this is what you get. You get this ruling class. And by the way, they're a dynasty themselves.

Point (45:33)
Yeah.

Teyshi (45:50)
you know, Andeira Gandhi, her father before her that was prime minister who was Nehru, then you had Rajiv Gandhi. You know, it's kind of like this, it's just a straight, it's like the ruling class, the family that have always been in power, that feel that they can carry on and behave in these ways and it's angering people. It's making the general public angry.

Point (45:58)
Yeah.

Teyshi (46:15)
and that's what actually happened. I think they could have done with being more honest. I think they were frightened of being sanctioned internationally maybe, that's what they were scared of.

Point (46:20)
I mean...

you're onto something there because it's just like taking over a throne and then being the hidden, I would say, dictator to some levels. However, where democracy does not exist, even though it's a democratic place, quote unquote democratic place, a democratic nation. And I feel like exactly the entire way of like

Teyshi (46:44)
huh.

Point (46:49)
hiding behind that comes back to the self-victimization where for example we can think about the antisemitism spin of how exactly antisemitism is utilized till now. Like nowadays we don't really know what anti-Semitism really really is. I mean of course we know it's coined towards the oppression and of course the discrimination against the Jews and the hate there. But

Teyshi (46:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Point (47:14)
overall we know that it is a word that should have been in regards to all Semites or all people of the Semitic language. And in this case, of course, the Jewish people got that word coined for them and that was utilized for self-victimization. And of course, they both have the same common enemy being the Muslims,

Teyshi (47:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Point (47:41)
Islam is threat basically, is what they think.

Teyshi (47:45)
So I think we've moved from, yes, you're right, anti-Semitism was coined specifically for the Jewish subsects how they felt that they were treated. And it was coined for them. And although it's got the word, know, Semite, a root word in there, which means people that speak Semitic languages.

it was pertaining to them, which is bizarre because they in no way are the total owners of that. There are other Semites that exist outside the Jewish identity. But that aside, I think you could broadly think, in theory on paper, anyone could agree that any sort of bigotry or any kind of intolerance or racism to a people because of their assigned...

attribute is wrong. Nobody would have an issue with that. I think where we've moved to now and what India is kind of aping and understood where, you know, the fervent Zionists around the world have struck gold with is that they've taken that root kind of concept that broadly everyone can agree with into some ridiculous extremes and they're taking it into some silly realms, which is that

If I feel agreed by any slight thing, I'm going to call that anti-Semitism. I'm going to weaponize it. And there's nothing you can do about it, right? So we've got to the stage, if we look at modern day now, if I feel, you know, threatened by you, it's game over. That could be because you've posted a watermelon emoji, a red triangle, right? It could be because you...

criticize the Israeli government, it could be because you are anti-Zionist and therefore I'm going to say that's anti-Semitic because if Zionism is about a state for Jewish people and you're not for that then you're against us which means you're anti-Semitic. So it gets into this big tangle of being kind of, you put through several different revolutions to confuse people.

because ultimately it's the job of the person on the other end to debunk why this is not an offence. And of course you're in a difficult position to tell someone who's feeling offended that they're not offended or that they're wrong because that person can also turn around and say, well, you can't speak for me. You don't know what I'm going through. This is my lived experience. But if we look at India on that basis, we've got over the past few decades, this sort of buildup of this idea

of since post 9-11 and the attacks on the World Trade Centers, we've got this idea that the specter of the Muslim terrorists looming over the world threatening people. And of course, India's very effectively through exports to the West, especially America, of its own kind of

you know, export of when people think of what India and Hinduism is, they think of yoga, they think of Deepak Chopra, they think of probably meditation, they probably think of free love because it all started in the 60s, right? The obsession with India and all of that. What they don't see is actually the caste system, the very brutal caste system. You know, it's interesting that Modi himself is a Dalit, an untouchable.

Point (51:07)
Yeah.

Teyshi (51:19)
It's weird because on one sense he tried to use that as saying even a Dalit can become prime minister. That's what we're doing. That's what the BJP are doing. But actually it reinforces the caste system more than ever before. But you know, this is the reality of India and I think that what they're trying to do is say that they are threatened by the Muslim world. They will obviously assign everyone in Kashmir as terrorists, which

I know that from my own experience of being there, having our belongings surged, of having people bursting into our homes. You are treated as a terrorist simply for being Kashmiri. That's before we even get to militants. That's even before we get to the insurgents from Pakistan and the rebels, which were usually young men in the region. Journalists, everyone then, you are...

anti-India because you're pro-Kashmir and so you're a terrorist. Now you're a threat to us. So that's their version of victimise themselves of anti-Semitism. If there was a word that India could have anti-hindutva I guess the word is anti-India. not sure anti-Bharat whatever the terminology would be and then on that basis you're criminalised and designated a terrorist.

Point (52:36)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're right about that. I actually, my thought process resonates with that. A very big topic though, in hostile homelands, and of course in this case, Azadesa, dedicates an entire chapter to Kashmir. Everything that happens in Kashmir, how exactly the politicians and political groups think about Kashmir.

and their involvement with exactly various things and aspects around what they should do in Kashmir. And of course, in this case, we are lucky here today because we have you, Teishi. You are a Kashmiri from Kashmir, of course, in the Kashmiri diaspora. What do you think about that?

Teyshi (53:24)
about the politicians and the way that they speak about it.

Point (53:29)
Yeah, or in this case, how was Kashmir sort of depicted? How was that sort of mentioned in Hostile Homelands? And exactly how was the motives behind India's ways with Kashmir? Yeah.

Teyshi (53:46)
Yeah. So I think as far as Azad is concerned, he has done well by Kashmir because you can see that his point of view is that the Kashmiris are long suffering people, which isn't exactly correct. think, but then when he talks about the politicians, whether they be centrists, leftists, right wing, they all seem to think that...

Kashmiris integral to the Hindu identity, Hindustan identity, right? They think that, as opposed to probably Kashmiris who think that, know, we generally think, well, you're nothing to do with us, we're nothing to do with you, right? We have nothing to do with India. I mean, that's historically accurate as well, by the way, in the sense that they've never, you know, the concept of an India is only really a modern day concept anyway.

But they never ruled over us, they've never been part of them. This is again another fabrication and a construct that they've effectively managed to gaslight the electorate with. essentially, talk, you know, Kashmir is a hot topic in politics. We've seen recently in the Jammu and Kashmir parliamentary sort of buildings, a whole ruckus emerged where

Point (54:50)
Yeah.

Teyshi (54:59)
Omar Abdullah said that they would like to get into talks with the BJP about, you know, reinstating Kashmir's semi-autonomous status and the BJP members of parliament there were getting into fights with other politicians, breaking, I think they threw chairs and tables, they broke a few chairs and tables. This was because the mere mention that they, that,

You know the National Conference Party that Omar Abdullah is the leader of for the JK area That they even just wanted to have talks essentially because this is a very moving idea and this is because they've successfully again and a very inaccurately exported this idea that there was that this was a Hindu region and that there was a Hindu massacre and then a subsequent

fleeing the great migration out of the region. And so this has become, this has made this very central to the idea, not just for Hindutva, but actually a lot of people who consider themselves centrist or leftists even, because this hits home to them very strongly of how they feel threatened. And this is why they have to get control over Kashmir.

because Kashmir is the gateway to Pakistan and the enemy, which is Islam. So yeah, the way that they talk about Kashmir, it's symbolic almost because they feel that it was originally Hindu and that they're taking it back. They're taking it back, they're reclaiming it. was the great, you know, we know that there was a film called The Kashmir Files.

Point (56:29)
video.

Teyshi (56:39)
a great work of fiction, right? And an injustice to the Kashmiri people. On record, the Indian government itself only has 219 Kashmiri pundits being killed between 1984 and some day in the 90s, right? So let's talk about somewhere between 10 to 15 years, it only had 219 deaths from the Hindu pundit. So how they created this film of the Kashmir,

Point (56:40)
Yeah.

Teyshi (57:07)
files and exported this idea that the Hindus were massacred by the Muslims. Absolute nonsense. were, you know, so a lot of the pundits did leave. A lot of the pundits were asked to leave as well. They were advised to leave while there was growing tensions in the region, promised that they could come back. Now this mass exodus was used very much to the advantage in the propaganda to say, look, they're driving us out. They're going to do this to the rest of us.

Point (57:30)
Yeah.

Teyshi (57:36)
This is what they want. They're coming more from the East and they're going, it's that great replacement theory. It's the threat. It's tapping into all these really well known old chestnuts that are just used to kind of brainwash people. But yeah, we know that the exodus that happened was voluntary. And actually a lot of Muslims, like if you look at me, I live in the West for a reason. There's a lot of Kashmiri Muslims in the diaspora and that's not an accident.

And in fact, when you look at the number of Kashmir Muslim that's been killed, it's well over. It goes into the hundreds of thousands. And you have to remember as well, because there's so much secrecy in that region and there's so much cover up by India and a blackout on communications and journalism in general. We don't know to this date the exact number of people that have been killed because there's an absolute suppression and there's no record keeping and things happen in a black hole in the silence.

Point (58:03)
video.

Yeah.

Teyshi (58:29)
So, you know, if a tree falls in the water, no one's around, did it really fall? And this is the problem that we face with reporting on what's going on in Kashmir. So we only know the last reported figures, which are about five years old. And I think if we go back to that, and even that can't be completely accurate. It's like when we hear about stories in Gaza, where it was 50,000. Listen, this is only what we know about, right? It doesn't cover actual figures. And so...

Point (58:54)
Yeah.

Teyshi (58:55)
And so we know that there were a few hundred thousand Kashmiri Muslims killed from the start. If we're looking at the late 80s to the middle to the beginning of the 90s onwards, certainly been hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims killed compared to 219. And yet they wanted to make a film about how it was the Kashmiri pundits that were genocided.

Point (59:19)
I mean, you're on to something there when it comes to the reporting and of course, documenting. There is a big suppression of journalism in Kashmir. The same way I would say when October 7th happened in Israel and of course, occupied Palestine when Operation Alexa Flood happened. After that,

Teyshi (59:39)
Mm-hmm.

Point (59:41)
Israel actually denied third party investigation by the UN and they propagandized a lot against Hamas, against the resistance. And this is something that they also do, for example, straight off in Gaza, where they do not want reporting, they don't want journalism. They also deny certain journalists, for example, BBC.

and other media hubs, media centers, media groups to come in and to do their journalistic work. And the same thing is in Kashmir. Am I right about that, Tehshi?

Teyshi (1:00:17)
You are 100 % right about that. I think that, you know, there is a suppression of the truth. Journalism, especially from Kashmiris within the Valley, are actually criminalised, demonised and ascribed terrorists. You have to understand that this is so well known. TikTok's not allowed in India. We know that.

Kashmiris cannot get onto the internet, their internet connections aren't strong enough to do anything meaningful, So this really suppresses voices. that's why I was saying you have to understand that there are Indian troops in Kashmir Valley that absolutely understand that there are going to be places where if they did whatever they felt like doing, any kind of egregious act, it would simply disappear without a sink.

and they can literally get away with it. So we're talking about things like killings, gang rapes, mass rapes of villages of people, forced disappearances. There are just ways that they have this power of understanding that they can, you just have to try and imagine it. sometimes they have films on it, for 24 hours you can,

commit any sin you want, what would you do? People talk about that and there are films made on that kind of concept of imagine you could just do whatever you In Kashmir Valley that's a reality for those Indian soldiers. Okay and that is because they know that they have the power to do that because you know from BJP, the party itself, it criminalizes anyone who speaks out.

about the truth of what's happening in Kashmir. People are frightened and they use these journalists when they criminalize them and incarcerate them. There's been so many of them by the way and some of them are thousands of miles away from Kashmir. know, whether it's, I don't know, somewhere in Delhi or wherever that they incarcerate them. That this serves as a warning of if you speak out, this is what will happen to you. And we could come for your family too.

And, you know, we have, we've got someone called Irfan Miraj, who only in 2023 was jailed on terror charges. So he's a journalist, but for doing his journalistic activity, he was jailed for terrorism. And then you've got the very famous Asif Sultan, who has been known to be in a revolving door of arrests. So what's been happening to him is they'll arrest him on one spurious thing. And these are, these are journalists.

Point (1:02:56)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:03:01)
And I will say about Arsif Sussan, he's an activist. That's not a criminal activity, by the way, to be an activist, but he is a journalist. He is reporting the truth that they want to suppress. And so they'll arrest him on a spurious reason. Then a judge will look at it go, this is a lot of rubbish. Release him. Within, in one instance, within five hours of being released, he was re-arrested on another spurious charge. So he spent a lot of time in jail. He spent a lot of time coming out.

Point (1:03:26)
That's insane. Yeah.

Teyshi (1:03:28)
and then being re-arrested and going back in because he is simply a journalist reporting on the atrocities of India, especially when India is trying to project itself as the land, you know, as the land of peace, love, yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, and God knows what else. There's a very murky reality that lies behind the icing on the cake.

Point (1:03:47)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:03:56)
and not very many, especially in the West, were very undereducated about the dark side of Hinduism, I would say. I could say India, but in this case I'll say Hinduism, because if you want to push forward this idea of Hindutva, then you have to take the responsibility. The caste system is, also I just didn't mention it there, but that is a, actually everyone knows about the caste system, but it's funny how they underplay it, because they,

because, that's all, we don't do that. India absolutely still, you know, pervades the caste system. So yeah, this is something that does need to be exposed. And there are people like journalists doing it, but they are being incarcerated to suppress them and for it to frighten anyone else from speaking out.

Point (1:04:43)
one thing is of course the suppression of the journalism, but there is of course also the impact on education and how that has the Indian ways or the ways of how India suppressed education for themselves and of course also people in Kashmir. That is also a big issue.

Of there is a term, saffronization. I believe you can probably explain that way more better than I can. What is saffronization?

Teyshi (1:05:14)
So I mean, you know, the broad sort of, first of all, let's talk about saffron. It's produced in Kashmir. It's incredibly expensive. It's more expensive gram for gram than gold, by the way. But saffronization then, you know, it's kind of like a right-wing policy approach in India and it seeks to implement a Hindu nationalist agenda, for example, onto schools and textbooks. So it's talking about meddling with the curriculum and rewriting history.

indoctrination of the propaganda via textbooks and curriculum. I think we see that happening in Israel. We know that happened in Israel. Whether it's, you know, children being indoctrinated from a young age about Zionism and the enemy that is, you know, the Palestinian, etc. This is a form of control. It's a form of thought control.

And they understand that if you get them early enough, right, then you will have very loyal subjects. So this is what's going on. This is what they're trying at least in the Valley to do. That's when they're not, you know, disrupting their actual education because in 2019 when article 370 and 35A were revoked, India was put on a lockdown and that lasted six months approximately. And during that time, nobody could go to any form.

of education, be it school, higher education, there were people outside the valley that were also stuck because their studies were disrupted, there were disruptions to the tuition fees. They also faced anti-Kushmiri, stroke Muslim hatred because that was also being ramped up at the time. Those students outside of the valley were also being singled out and they faced...

Point (1:06:45)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:07:03)
a lot of, if you like, bigotry that led to violence in some situations. But yeah, they do try and infiltrate the curriculum. We see this both being done, you know, by the kind of Israeli methodology that they use via thought control for young children, you know, through textbooks, through storytelling, through cartoons.

And so it's a broader educational impact because when children watching TV, that is also propaganda, that's also a form of education. You're educating them with what you want them to learn in a way that is easily, you know, taken up by them. Similarly in Cushair Valley, yes, you're going to get that infiltration into the curriculum. You're going to get the infiltration into social media, but also

Point (1:07:37)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:07:54)
you're going to see it on TV. I don't know about the average Kashmiri, but certainly back in the day they were watching Bollywood films. And this was also a subtle form of mind control, if you want to call it that. And like I said, that's when they're not disrupting their education. We've seen in Gaza particularly with the onslaught and the genocide there.

that the younger students' education has been completely halted, they're missing out. And this is also a feature as well that's replicated in both occupied Palestine when they're being attacked by Israel and in Kashmir when the Indian government is... And they have curfews that go on to this day. So there will always be times where there's no school and things like that because as a direct result,

of what the government is putting the civilians through, whether it's curfews, whether it's complete lockdown, you know, it just depends. They're at the mercy of those people.

Point (1:08:58)
is insane. interestingly mentioned Article 370 and 35A, that is of course something that is very big, a big part of what is happening now and of course starting from 2019, the revocation of Article 370 35A. And it sort of opened the doors for new settlers to come into Kashmir and of course also

Teyshi (1:09:22)
Mm-hmm.

Point (1:09:24)
having the open industrial settlements to be welcomed into Kashmir Valley. You might have certain type of experiences or maybe you've heard something about the differences and the feelings of the Kashmiri people after that. And one of them is something that you already mentioned when it came to the education and perhaps there are more. But yeah, what...

Teyshi (1:09:29)
Thank

Point (1:09:49)
But you think the, the amplifications that came after 370 35A what exactly happened, Teishi?

Teyshi (1:10:05)
Let me just tell you from my point of view, it was just splashed across all the news outlets, you know, that India had successfully revoked articles 370 and 35A. And this came as a massive blow. I would say it's not an exaggeration to say it was seismic, the shock, even that I felt.

I felt a sort of depression that I can't even explain. It's actually really difficult for me to put into words, but I felt a kind of sadness that I can't even put into words. I remember saying at the time, I felt as if somebody had stabbed me in the stomach. That's how I felt in my core about it. When you think that Kashmir Valley had been waiting since 1970,

sorry, 1947, to be able to have a referendum to vote on its own future. And they fooled us all that time, never giving us that referendum. And then we come full circle to 2019 where they're just emboldened, bare faced, stripping us off our semi autonomy. And don't forget Article 35A specifically.

Point (1:11:06)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:11:25)
relates to the kind of domicile act which is that people outside of the valley can come in and buy a land uncapped, by the way, uncapped. And so how it felt at the time was it was a sort of a shock. I was in shock for a long time and then you sort of reeling from that shock, then you're coming to terms and then you are like now to the present last year, if I've been talking about this more publicly.

I've been talking about this is what will happen in the next decade because we're literally sitting here with the sword of Damocles hanging over us, understanding that we're on borrowed time. It's a very, very surreal kind of place to be in because one of the things that India's done effectively is it's done this, the ethnic cleansing by stealth. We're in the middle of it, right? We're in the beginnings of it even.

And so it's very surreal to calmly talk about it when we are talking about something that is very, very, you know, it's a threat to the indigenous Kashmiri in a way that anyone outside of the region just cannot understand. We know that they are build, they build settlements. We've seen a whole settlement for the army and their families. It's a bass.

We know the amount of land, I believe they've seized the equivalent of the size of, was it, I can't remember whether it was the size of New Zealand or Hong Kong or whatever it was supposed to be, but it was a huge amount of land they've already seized, right, for their own purposes. Not forgetting that even in the late 80s when I went there, we saw whole buildings being taken over from the army. They were whole hotels that were really prestigious hotels that got taken over for the army.

Point (1:13:02)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:13:16)
then more in recent times, if they decide they need your house, they will forcibly buy it off you and evict you if they need it for their own national security, for their own operations or whatever. And so every Kashmiri will always live under the threat of that because it only takes the army to decide they need your house, that they can confiscate it without, you know...

negotiation without getting local government permission they just have that absolute you know authority to do that and so this is what article 370 if it strikes fear into the heart of the Kashmiri it's because that small protection that those two articles provided us was that we are

You know, let's be honest, we're only recently reaching nine million, right? So from the 1947 till now, we know that we're a very small bunch of people. We're not a huge population. And so to the left, we've got Pakistan, which is a lot more people. Below us, we've got India, which is above a billion people. We are very much fragile.

Point (1:14:33)
That's right.

Teyshi (1:14:38)
that sense and the only protection we had has now been removed. This is a kind of huge shock. It reverberates. Like I can't, I hope I'm describing it well because as someone in the diaspora I felt it. I felt it with my whole being and it was just, it was just mind-scrambling. It just threw, it must have thrown everyone to hell. And then of course they did the thing of putting the region into a lockdown for six months.

We couldn't, my family, you know, my parents, my family were out there, my parents were actually out there at the time. We couldn't hear from them for months. And then what happened was eventually we all got each given on social media. said, if your parents are in this area, you know, your family's in whatever area, this is the number you've got to ring because they cut down the phone lines. They obviously cut the internet. They basically disbanded a lot of things in the valley to stop.

the public from not only uprising, but from the outside world of understanding what the hell it was doing. So eventually after about three or four months, we got hold of a number for the area that my parents were in that we rang that number. took us to a police station and it was a Kashmiri guy that answered it. And so we gave the name and he said, he checked the names. said, yeah, they're fine.

That's the first time we knew after months and months that our particular immediate family wasn't at any risk because you know if you are in that blackout situation you have no idea what's going on and you don't know what they're capable of. So and then slowly they restored it.

you know, but it's never quite been the same. I think people understand that they have to behave themselves and that they're at the behest, you know, and at the mercy of central government. People really understand that. They're trying to speak out. You and I both know that we've had trouble getting people to appear in these podcasts that are from...

know, Kashmiri origin in the diaspora. We look for people in the diaspora because we understand for people in the valley it is absolutely dangerous for to speak out. They get their passports taken away from them. Every Kashmiri has this understanding. But I think it's even more interesting that people in the diaspora are absolutely too scared to speak out. They're frightened for themselves. They're frightened from their family. If they are linked to any anti-India sentiment, then they can be banned.

from entering and that means you'll never be going to your homeland again, you'll never be seeing your family in your homeland, that's huge. That is massive and that's why India again is very skillful in getting people to be quiet about what they're doing as well. And that's how it felt. That's my visceral kind of replay.

of everything that was in my heart and my mind. And that's what it feels like for the revocation of those articles in practice.

Point (1:17:37)
video.

Yeah, we're soon coming to the end of podcast, but there is something that is very important here, because here you've shared some of your feelings after a revocation of Article 370 and 35A. One of the most important things here, of course, also thinking of the book by Azadeh, Hostile Homelands.

How exactly did you feel when you were reading the book? how was it after reading the book? How exactly was the thought process? Because in this case, I believe that we, in this case, I am not Kashmiri and we who are not, we should of course try to listen, hear the Kashmiri side. Their feelings matter and...

their ways of thinking about such stuff and I can only think this is something that is very emotional too to go through all of this and of course reading about your oppressors. Yeah, so what exactly were you feeling whilst reading the book and of course after?

Teyshi (1:18:53)
think I was struck with the new things that I'd learned about, like I mentioned previously, India's behaviour, the extent of the duplicity. I think I was also, you know, I was angry. I was angry, basically, at how...

secretive and sneaky India has been for the longest time. I think I was getting angry when I was hearing how, you know, the ideology of Hindutva is very successfully taken in by the public and even in the Indian diaspora. So we have things like Muslims

in India being attacked and killed by Hindu religious fanatics, which was one of my own relatives, I think I've told this story before, where he was praying in a mosque in Mumbai and as he was, know, prostrating to pray with the head, it's called sajda, on the prayer mat, he was knifed in the back and this was a rampage of...

Hindutva kind of zealots that stormed this mosque and basically killed Muslim men that were praying. We've also seen, we also know of Muslims that are taunted for being Muslim, then it moves to violence. We've seen Muslims being set alight. know mosques have been torn down. There was even like, you know, where

certain Muslims were accused of slaughtering cows, they were just accused of it and then they would be lynched and killed. Reading all of this and then the way that they tried to humiliate Muslims made me really angry, of course, it's always made me angry because a lot of these crimes were put on social media by the perpetrators, by the way, a bit like when you see the Israeli, you know, ITF soldiers bragging about what they're doing in Gaza, there's this kind of

salaciousness and I felt really angry reading it but powerless at the same time almost because some of this stuff had happened, is happening now, you know, no one's going to do anything about it. When we look, you know, if you look at the example of Gaza, the whole world is seeing and yet, that's, there's no better example than Gaza to show what the world will tolerate. They will say, isn't that terrible? And then carry on with their day.

But I think that kind of aspect of it made me really angry. know, some of the stuff that I learned about what India had done. I think when you, I think also because they lulled a lot of Kashmiris into a false sense of security, you know, the National Congress Party, because they made Kashmiris feel like they were on their side. They weren't. I think you only have to see the fact that they never gave us the plebiscite that they promised us to show that they were always kidding us on, as we like to say in the UK.

that they were just fooling us, right? They were treating us like children and lying to us, secretly doing deals with Israel. Then there's this ramp up of Muslim and Kashmiri hate simultaneously then leading to the successful election of BJP over the long, they've been in power for, I don't know, it feels like longer than a decade.

Point (1:21:57)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:22:21)
And that's what's made me angry. The fact that, you know, so readily this has been accepted and taken up by Indian people, that the collaborators within the Kashmir Valley, the collaborators on all levels, it's made me really angry. I can't even say sad, because that is not my overriding feeling. I just felt angry because when I'm reading it, the impetus is I have to do something about it. But then the reality is, what can I do?

Right? So yeah, it made me feel angry and powerless. And these aren't great feelings, if I'm being honest with you. I think, you know, for me, one thing people must know about me is I was born in Srinagar. I lived there till I was five. Kashmiri and Urdu were my first two languages. I went to school there and then I moved to the UK. But I went back and forth and I still stayed in school right up until I was a teenager.

And so, you know, this is, while I am in the diaspora, this is difficult for me because I have seen some of the things that this book talks about. And one of the things that angers me the most is that I know that the people are brow-beaten. They, for the longest time they have been, because even before India has done this, we had several rulers, whether it's the Dogra rulers, whether it's, you know, the rulers before them, we've always been occupied.

you know, by one kind of autocrat or another that has, you know, whether they've extensively taxed us, making, you know, my sort of forefathers lives miserable, et cetera. The British came in and while the British were more focused on India, they obviously sold it on. And I think this present state, why

India's kind of got away with what it has is because the people in the valley, yes we are a resident, we're great, but at the same time we just want to be left alone. And what I'm seeing it more in my parents' generation is that they're not really getting, I think some people aren't really understanding what's in store. Kashmir Plan 2035 is to successfully change the demographic from Kashmiri Muslim really to Hindu, whether it's...

Indian or Kashmiri. And that is plan 2035. So I feel like people are a bit disconnected from that. There were all these kind of foreboding feelings as well. And that's why I mainly felt angry with India because it betrayed us. It has lulled a lot of people into false sense of security. A lot of people are brow beaten and tired. They just want to be left alone. And if

Point (1:25:00)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:25:08)
if siding with India meant that they could get some kind of peace, they would almost do it because they just want to live their lives. And then in in closing, you have the opposition of the youth who are now both in the valley and in the diaspora, you know, really sort of coming together and forming coalitions, if you like, to use that word.

as an awareness, you know, a wider coalition of awareness and movement against them. So maybe in some small ways hope, but overwhelmingly it's anger that I feel.

Point (1:25:34)
Yeah, yeah.

I cannot even imagine. But however, I understand the pain. And I felt lot of anger as well whilst I was reading the book. it is, course, insane how we can hide behind a wall and still do something. In this case, the shield of the vest and being okay.

Teyshi (1:26:05)
Yeah.

Point (1:26:07)
letting India and of course in this case also Israel do all of these things.

Teyshi (1:26:14)
I feel like it's our duty from our privileged position in the West. There was a long time growing up where I felt really sad that I'd left and I didn't understand why I had to leave. And I think in some ways as a grown up, I fully understand why that had to be. I think each of us have some kind of purpose in our life, which I strongly believe in. It would be silly to think that we have a life without a purpose.

that end we do have a purpose and what was the need for me to be uprooted from somewhere that I loved so much with you know family that I was really close to and I was very happy is that I feel my role is in speaking up and never more so because like I say it's so difficult to get people to talk about this right so I feel like it's almost incumbent on me to do that I wouldn't call it a sacrifice exactly but I can't live in

Point (1:26:58)
do.

Teyshi (1:27:06)
my homeland but I can stand up for my homeland and as long as I can do that I will speak the truth for both Kashmir and all other places that find themselves under occupation not just of land but of mind so as much as they want to peddle their untruths that's where we come in to lend our voices

to challenge those lies with the truth. And that has to be our duty. And that's, think, what we're effectively doing with these podcasts. And these podcasts, the thing is, they will remain and they can be picked up at any time. And they must exist in the annals as a record of truth.

Just like we have the Safran Kingdom film coming out to challenge the false narrative of the Kashmir trials, so must our voices exist to challenge the disinformation so effectively perpetuated by the state of India.

Point (1:28:20)
Yeah, I understand that and I actually cannot wait for that movie to come out so we can have a movie review too. But I definitely... That would be awesome, yeah. But I definitely validate your feelings there. I can understand how you feel when it comes to that. But what do you think about the information and the knowledge given from the book?

Teyshi (1:28:28)
That would be so cool.

think it's immense. think for anybody that wants to listen, I'm not the best when it comes to things like dates and actual numbers. I have to sort of write things down and try and remember things in the best way that I can. I think where it is effective is that for any accuser, anybody accusing Azad Issa of, you know, propaganda would have a hard time because he's simply

stating facts. Yes, he's stringing the facts together with his own kind of, you know, summation, but you know, the facts do speak for themselves. And I think what it's useful is as a resource for anybody that does want to challenge this very harmful, you know, narrative that whether you're a Zionist, whether you're, you know, a Hindu,

Point (1:29:19)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:29:36)
ultra-nationalist, right, for both of those kind of movements. A book like this is invaluable because it shines the light of truth on their lies and that's really what the book does and that's what I would say if anybody wanted to read that book it's both useful for South Asians. Whether it's Kashmiris themselves, because sure you can be Kashmiris, you know everything about the conflict, for South Asians in general I would say be a massive eye-opener.

We know that there aren't too many South Asians outside of Kashmir talking about this effectively or even have knowledge of it. To that end, not even a lot of people know that there's a Kashmiri language, right? So if you imagine you start with people don't even know there's a Kashmiri language, what do they know about the Kashmiri conflict? Even less. For people who consider themselves as activists who want to learn more, people who generally are interested

Point (1:30:18)
Yeah.

true

Teyshi (1:30:32)
in the idea of Zionism and how it's come about. People who are anti-Zionist, you know, let's not say anti-Zionist, let's just say anti-occupation, anti-settler colonialist, right? It's a very good book because it does talk about Israel, it does talk about India, it talks about their little dance together. They were, they were, you know, doing a very kind of covert dance for decades. Now they're openly...

Point (1:30:44)
Yeah.

Teyshi (1:31:00)
you know, out there doing a tango together. You know, both the rise, it talks about both the rise of Netanyahu and Modi and how they have really kind of taken the partnership to a new level and they've almost, you know, they're very sort of sycophantic over each other. So this is a very interesting book for people that have a geopolitical interest in such matters.

People of all levels, beginner level, intermediary, people like I say from the region. I would particularly say that South Asians who like to read and especially interested in history, this is a great book for anybody really.

Point (1:31:49)
Yeah, no, definitely, I agree with you. This is a book for everyone and of course, I would definitely say I would recommend this book to anyone who reads. I mean, in this case, it's very well written and it's very easy to read. of course, yeah.

Teyshi (1:32:08)
It's very accessible. Yeah, it's very accessible. And by the way, I read it through audio.

Point (1:32:15)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Teyshi (1:32:19)
But I did find myself reading it at the same time too. So what helped me was that I was able to change the speeds because I like to listen to things quickly as well and you can vary the speed. But whether you like to read it, whether you like to listen to it, it doesn't really matter. I think what I would recommend people do is definitely get it in text form, whether it's the book itself or whatever you have.

I would say get out your pencil or your highlighter and for each chapter, you know, make a summary of the points that are interesting, especially the ones that challenge the accepted, you know, version of events from both Israel and India. I think these will be, you know, so useful and invaluable really in countering.

and debunking a lot of myths and lies.

Point (1:33:16)
That's a very good advice. Yeah, I think that's a good approach to it. I mean, a good method. I believe these reading apps for ebooks and all that, they have certain note taking functionalities as well. And of course, to highlight stuff. And I think that people forget about them sometimes. So that is a very good suggestion. Yeah, definitely.

Teyshi (1:33:29)
Yeah, they do.

I I definitely, for myself, I took certain screenshots because there were certain parts in there that I knew I wanted to keep and tell people. There's a section in there that talks about how Indira Gandhi and the government of that time turned on the Sikhs. We have a lot of very, we have a recent rise in right wing of Sikhs, at least in the UK, some sections.

We have even some Sikhs that are pro-India. But I think this is because there's lost information about India's really bad treatment of Sikhs. Let's be clear, India doesn't just treat Muslims badly, it treats anyone that's not Hindu badly. And so this can be really useful to re-educate perhaps the younger generation.

Point (1:34:28)
Yeah, I mean this book is course also recommended, basically I would say recommended and also praised by people like Noam Chomsky, Perry Anderson, many people and this is very important because these are well-known people.

Teyshi (1:34:45)
These are heavyweights. These are absolute heavyweights. when I saw Noam Chomsky's name on that, I was like, wow, that's so impressive. But yeah, absolutely.

Point (1:34:48)
Yeah.

definitely. I would say that anyone who is interested should go and get Hostile Holdings, the new alliance between India and Israel by Azar Ese. Yeah, that was it for this podcast.

It was nice to have a podcast with you, Taishi.

Teyshi (1:35:13)
Yeah, it's been, it's been great actually. As usual, we do talk a lot. I'm going to take the blame for that, but that's okay. we, we are looking to do another podcast, maybe more about, you know, the weather and natural disasters in Kashmir. So definitely stay tuned to that one.

Point (1:35:19)
you

Definitely sounds good. All right, they should take care and let's meet on next podcast someday

Teyshi (1:35:38)
Take care, thank you, bye bye.

Point (1:35:41)
Take care, bye bye.