Teyshi (00:01)
Hello everyone and welcome to Kashmir Exists podcast. My name's Teyshi and I have with me the wonderful Maria again. Hey Maria.

Maria (00:11)
I'm my beloved Teyshi, how you doing today?

Teyshi (00:13)
not too bad. Hey Maria, I've got some news for you

Maria (00:18)
hear it.

Teyshi (00:21)
This episode is the last episode in this series of podcasts. So this is the final episode in series one. What do you think about that?

Maria (00:30)
Wow,

we've been in season one, flies when you're learning so much.

Teyshi (00:35)
Absolutely. Well, know, Ramadan is upon us and we've got a good few weeks to go till the end of the month. And so now seemed like a good time to pause. And I thought we could reflect on some of the podcasts that we've done. Would you join me?

Maria (00:51)
of course on Ramadan Kareem.

Teyshi (00:55)
and Ramadan

Kareem to you and our listeners So I wanted to start with, and I'm gonna tell you something really funny, Maria. I put Kashmir exists into chat GPT, right? And I said, give me a summary of some of the five most recent episodes and...

Maria (01:06)
Wow.

Teyshi (01:16)
You know what? I didn't think it would even know what I was talking about, but it did, right? So it came for some episodes and obviously some of them you've hosted them with me. So I thought we could reflect on them. One of them. Now I'm going to choose my favorite one and, and I'll let you say which one is, which one you liked. I know there's some we've done together, but I'll give my reason for one of my favorites. And that was "Trump threatens to displace Garzans".

Maria (01:21)
No way.

Teyshi (01:45)
So I recorded that on February 15th with Ray. Ray is, someone that we have on here a lot. Ray, yeah. And of course Ray is Palestinian and Syrian. So this is really interesting because this is when Trump was barely into his first, I don't know, when did he do it, Maria? Was it like the very first day or the second day after he was inaugurated?

Maria (01:52)
Yeah, great man

Teyshi (02:11)
When exactly did he talk about Gazans It was definitely within the first days. I mean, you literally came in like blazing with all these things. Everyone's head was spinning. But yeah, I remember it because on the Sunday, the day before the inauguration, TikTok went down and came up again for our American friends, right?

Maria (02:11)
Amen.

I think it was the first week.

Yeah, I think he couldn't wait. Couldn't wait to say.

Yes, I remember.

Teyshi (02:42)
And people spent hours on TikTok saying their farewells and crying and making emotional statements only for it to be reversed within that same day. But you know what? That's all forgotten. And then of course the next day he was inaugurated. That was a spectacle in itself. you had everything going on. You even had Elon Musk up there with a very strange salute a couple of times.

Maria (03:03)
The Roman salute.

Teyshi (03:06)
Yeah, the very Roman salute. no, no, no. But that

Maria (03:09)
I'm not gonna call the real name too because I know you.

Teyshi (03:14)
that was the inauguration. And I literally feel like quick. You know, was very, very quick. Because he met with Netanyahu straight away, right? And Netanyahu was just beaming from ear to ear. That's what I remember.

And he was just so happy and I thought something's going on. He's just too happy right now. Anyway, then Trump starts talking about how, trying to get, was it Egypt and Jordan, I think, to take the Gazans in They can't possibly go back to ruins.

Maria (03:43)
Yeah, and people say, no, where are you taking these people? No. So yeah. It was in February 4, actually, that he said that he will own Gaza. That he will take over as Gaza. because he took office and January 20 was the inauguration. So within two, not even two weeks, he said crazy things.

Teyshi (03:49)
Yeah.

I breathe the fourth.

Mm-hmm.

I

actually thought it was like two days. That's how quick it felt to me. Ray came on that podcast. It was great because, you know, we were talking about what is Trump saying about Gaza? Should we take him seriously? What does this mean for the Gazans? Is there something in it? Is it, know, you know how sometimes people just say stuff, but then nothing happens. And then we were talking about, you know, what does this mean for the Gazans?

Maria (04:05)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Teyshi (04:25)
They're obviously not going to go willingly, so what will happen, right? And he was talking about putting troops in Gaza, et cetera. And so we had a long conversation about that. was a really great in-depth conversation. And what was so great about it is we got, know, Ray being both Palestinian and Syrian, we got his insight from his experience of things that he'd been through.

And it was brilliant actually. And then we use that information to then look at, well, obviously this is a Kashmir exists podcast of what could be happening to Kashmiris in the future. So for example, Modi will be watching this collaboration, with Netanyahu and Trump and rubbing his hands with glee thinking, this is a gift, right? Another scenario.

that I can learn from Israel and their antics. And this could potentially very well be another playbook for Kashmir. Because if you think about it, one of the talking points really with a lot of Zionists is, well, know, at the end of the day, they're Arabs. They've got so many other Arab lands. They should just go there. They should go to the other Muslim lands because they're Muslim. They're Arabs. They should go and live with the Arabs.

And so basically, if you look at Kashmir in the same lens, well, Kashmir is occupied by India. India is majority Hindu, but Kashmir is Muslim. So you can see as more Indian Hindus are moved into Kashmir, the valley, you can see as there will be conflict because the locals, especially the young, will resist.

Maria (05:44)
Yeah.

Teyshi (06:10)
this, when the occupation starts to become a little bit more, you know, taking up pace where people are flooding into the land more and more, especially within 10 years, and maybe locals will be forced off their land and there'll be all kinds of confrontations. Maybe as the conflict starts, you can start to see, well, I don't know if Modi will still be around in 10 years time, but whoever is around, right, you can start to see them saying, well,

maybe Kashmiris should go to Pakistan because they are, Muslims, they're all Muslims at the end of the day. The Hindus that are Kashmiri can stay behind, but Pakistan should take the Kashmiris in. And obviously this is about displacing people. This is about ethnic cleansing, but it's also about occupiers trying to legitimize their behavior. So that was to give you a sort of overview of the episode. It was a really good episode, but...

after everything that I've just explained there, what do you think about, that whole topic?

Maria (07:13)
Well, it was very and to learn especially how everything is linked, how everything is basically a copy paste. The way that they are taken over is very similar that what they're doing in the Middle East. See what I'm doing in Kashmir.

Teyshi (07:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think the fact

that you can also watch these countries, these leaders do this without really being challenged and get away with it. So then obviously people think, well, right, OK, so this is where we are now. We can do this stuff.

Maria (07:43)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah, because there is no consequence. What would they stop? Is there is no consequence. And for example, situation with Kashmir, like, we know that thanks to you, you are the one that opens our eyes to the suppression list for me. No, they hide it. They don't know it. And for the people of Palestine, without October 7, 95 % of the world was blind.

Teyshi (07:56)
So that was, yeah, go on, sorry.

Yeah.

Maria (08:18)
they were doing this in a hidden door, they were getting away because no one was looking. Even now the people are looking, they're barely, barely like a little span in the hands, a couple of speeches, but no real consequence, no real actual arrest or prosecution countries have removed business with

Teyshi (08:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Maria (08:42)
Israel but not all of them. Like it should be like an outrage but the reaction is so slow.

Teyshi (08:44)
Yeah.

Yeah and

I think that's a great point as well because yes you're right October 7th, listen that the Palestine movement has been going on for the longest time since the beginning really and before but you're right in the in the eyes of what is seen and unseen this certainly did not that's undeniable it certainly did open up to the rest of the world in a way never before seen and it laid it bare exactly what's going on and of course the brilliant comparison there

is for Kashmir because famously, India, which is led by Modi, absolutely hide and put a cloak over the travesties that go on in Kashmir so that people generally just think everything's okay there and that, you know, everything's all right and nothing bad happening there. so, the fact that they are displacing people, knocking people's homes over.

essentially brutalizing civilians and their plan is to really ramp that up in the next 10 years until they've outnumber the Kashmiris, right? So, create that imbalance in the natural indigenous Kashmiris to make them a minority in their own homeland. You can only really do this

Maria (09:50)
Yes.

Teyshi (10:00)
when you're hiding your activities, right? Because here's a question. Would everything that Israel has to date in the last 76 plus years, nearly 100 years, would they have got away with all of that if the world had greater awareness? Probably not.

Maria (10:18)
Yeah, if we could've taken action way sooner, this would have been put to a stop for sure. Because right now, I will see the generation change it. My hope is in the future generations because they're watching this. And for them, this is outrageous. these kids are not gonna be kids forever. They're grow and they're gonna take office, those political spaces.

They are right now taken by corrupt people. So yes, the new generation is different, is stronger, and they are my hope in humanity.

Teyshi (10:50)
Yeah, and hopefully some of this, some of what has been revealed that went on in Gaza, hopefully that makes people more aware to really the world that we live in, not the world that we want to live in, right? The actual harsh reality. who knows? Some of this could even stop some of what India was planning to do or is planning to do. In some ways, it could mean better things for Kashmiris, even if it's small things that's yet to be seen.

But certainly, India is very skillful in hiding their activities. And again. yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Maria (11:22)
But not anymore, thanks to this. But not for too long, because

it's me that you work, and I work with my friends and my family, so it grows. The truth always comes out. They cannot hide forever. So the project that you are doing, Kashmir Exit podcast, Instagram, those are the tools, the knowledge that we need to change what's going on right now.

Teyshi (11:35)
Absolutely.

Maria (11:47)
because that has been hidden for too long but not forever Teyshi, so I do see a free Kashmir soon

Teyshi (11:47)
Absolutely.

Insha'Allah sister, that's a wonderful sentiment. And it kind of reminded me of the other podcast we did. And we did that on the 1st of February, actually. So not long after Trump was inaugurated.

one of the plans that we'd had for a while was to do a podcast with

an Irish brother or sister and we had the wonderful Irish warrior on. He was talking about the Irish struggle. He was talking about why Ireland has always had a lot of support for Palestine, you know, and they always stand by persecuted and occupied people, including Kashmiris.

And he was actually telling me something I didn't know. And I have to be honest, I feel ashamed that I didn't know it because the history of the IRA and the history of Sinn Fein, which is the political wing of the IRA, everyone knows that the troubles and all the things that went on were, quite a lot for Irish people to bear. But one of the things that he did tell me and that I learned and I was a bit blown away was that they

were being occupied for 900 years and they were resisting that whole time. That's literally how long it took the foot of occupation on their necks. We know that Northern Ireland still belongs to the UK. However, Ireland now has a more united feel. So that

Maria (13:00)
around.

Teyshi (13:15)
border doesn't really exist in the way that it used to between North and South Ireland. But he was talking me through that. And yeah, and he was saying some really amazing facts. I

Listening to that episode he was saying things about what Irish history and what they've gone through how for example the English would Persecute them. imprisoned them if they ate too much food So they're allowed a certain amount of food a day they would get punished in some way

Maria (13:47)
Wow, it's exactly what happened in Gaza, the control. Crazy.

Teyshi (13:48)
and they literally starve them. Yeah.

Exactly. which is wild, isn't it? Like some of these things don't even occur to you. Because when you think of war and warfare, you think of battles, people being killed. You think of collateral damage. But then there these other things like you said, starvation, controlling of calories.

Maria (13:56)
It's this.

Teyshi (14:09)
and there's also somebody else's auto pointed out to me another thing that is done in warfare which basically occupation is warfare. When you're occupying somebody you are putting warfare on them and so they have a right to defend themselves but one of the other elements of warfare is that certain plants, certain trees, certain things are taken

or destroyed, or new things are introduced that really depletes the land. That's another one. So there was a sister that was telling me about this and she was telling me how in Palestine, you see a lot of the settlers burning the olive trees, And destroying the olive trees. Another thing they did was they planted the eucalyptus tree, is not native, it's not indigenous to Palestine, came from Australia actually.

Maria (14:52)
Yes.

Teyshi (15:04)
what that tree does, it's very thirsty so it would drink all the water. But they did that strategically, they did that not even when Israel was formed well before. I think they did it like in the late 1800s. It's mad to think that Zionists did this in the late 1800s, right? So just as the 19th century was coming to an end, they were planting these

trees, they were planting other things. And that was taking up all the water from the land. So they were running out of water. And they did that on purpose to starve the people of water. It's crazy.

Maria (15:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, and like again, when I was listening, I was thinking like, they using this medieval technique that they used to use in Ireland and right now we're seeing it with our own eyes because the same happened in Gaza. They're controlling the water, they're not letting water in. It's exactly the same.

Teyshi (15:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, you don't realize that

the control of the resources is such a recurring theme that because it doesn't occur to us, when you see that it's recurring, it kind of blows your mind because you're like, wow, this is they always do the same thing. So, yeah, in Ireland, they grew potatoes there, they wouldn't they weren't allowed to eat the potatoes that were grown there. That's why it's called a potato famine. But there was so many of these things.

Maria (16:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Teyshi (16:27)
And listening to what the Irish have been through, it was clear because they would have had generational stories over those 900 years, right? Imagine 900 years of these stories. And so, the hatred for the British is really strong in that respect.

Maria (16:40)
Yeah, I woke up to this 17

months ago. I woke up to this 17 months ago and I mean, it's the struggle understand, like, consider my brain with these humans are being gone through, like 76 years for Palestinian, 900 years for Ireland, all the people in the Congo.

Teyshi (16:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Maria (17:00)
like

we live and it's like living in two different universes because what we have we take it so for granted and these people actually fighting for it like

Teyshi (17:06)
Yeah.

Absolutely,

and I think the feeling is that because we're okay that generally everything's okay, but the truth is no. You know, we might be okay, but that doesn't mean that everybody has the same privileges as we do. And so there was a lot of enlightenment in that episode because it was a lot of information from Irish Warrior of why there's such strong support for,

Maria (17:18)
No.

Yes.

Teyshi (17:36)
Palestine and how we absolutely, this is what he was saying, must talk more about Kashmir because it's the silence that enables the occupation and the destruction of Kashmir and people and its culture. So that was that episode and it was about solidarity, which of course it's always going to be. It's one of the reasons you're on here with me.

Maria (18:01)
Thanks.

Teyshi (18:02)
jointly, me as a Kashmiri and you as a non-Kashmiri, we have solidarity for all oppressed people.

Maria (18:07)
Yeah, because your pain is my pain and also people need to understand just because it hasn't happened to you yet Doesn't mean that it couldn't happen that could like in a total destiny this could be us You know, so people need to understand is these powers are getting away Right now with what they did doing with the Kashmir Valley people to the Palestinian people You need to fight back because it can't be you next

Teyshi (18:20)
Yeah.

Mm.

100 % But you know, we did also look at some things that were lighter in the sense that part of saving Kashmir is really bringing awareness to who Kashmiris are and what the Kashmiri culture is. So that's part of it. And of course, it's always lovely to talk about people's culture. And I, of course, enjoy talking about Kashmiri culture. So we did some episodes on Kashmiri food and or Kaesher food, I should say. And we took a look at Kaesher folk tales.

Maria (18:36)
We'll see.

Teyshi (19:05)
But know, the Kaesher food was actually with another Kashmiri. So that was the first Kashmiri and the only other Kashmiri that we've had. So that was a really good one. So if you look out for it, it's called traditional Kaesher food with Anna. And yeah, it was great having another Kaesher as well because she was even teaching me stuff. She was saying some Kashmiri words and I was like, say that again. You know, I haven't heard that one. So there was something, well, so for people who don't know, there's...

There are few people on this planet who eat rice daily, right? So East Asians, some East Asians, well, I think Chinese people definitely do. I'm not sure about Japanese, but I know a lot of East Asians eat rice a lot, but Chinese people and Kashmiri people, and there will be other people too, but I mean, China and Kashmiri are quite... Well, there you go. Eat rice every single meal, every single day. That literally, we just live on this stuff,

Maria (19:50)
Yeah, my people. We put rice to everything.

Teyshi (19:59)
So we were talking about that, we were talking about how you know other people in South Asia, be they Pakistani, be they Indian, they more will eat roti or chapati as it's called, which is you know the bread A lot of the people I've talked to prefer to eat that bread, rice isn't really their thing, but you couldn't say that to a Kashmiri because

we don't feel right unless we're eating rice okay and so the word for rice is baate but the word baate also means dinner so the fact that the word rice and dinner are the same word it shows you how much it just shows you like where the kushmeris minds are because to them rice and dinner is the same thing it's not they're not separate and so i grew up in my house and my dad would say

Maria (20:32)
That's it a lot.

Teyshi (20:47)
which means put the rice out, get the rice ready to eat. And, but the means rice or you could say to someone, which means have you eaten, you know, have you eaten your dinner? You're not asking them if they've eaten rice, you're asking them have they had their dinner. But she was also telling me that something I didn't know is that because they have all these new fancy foods being introduced

so people will go out, they might have pizza, you know, they finished school, they might have had, I don't know, a burger and something they feel like is a bit different. But when they get home, they don't feel they've eaten.

they've not had rice okay and so the expression for that is called baate boche; baate boche means rice hunger as in I'm hungry for rice I mean I've eaten but I haven't had rice and so therefore I've got baate boche. Now I'd never really heard of that I love it but I think it's also a little bit of a newer thing because you know going back to my parents era

Maria (21:26)
you

Teyshi (21:46)
they would have just eaten rice every day. They wouldn't really necessarily have done anything different until maybe they went abroad.

So that was a really nice episode. I learned some stuff there. We had a bit of a laugh. There were some technical difficulties on that episode. Hopefully we got through it okay. But I don't know what you, what do you think you've learned about Kashmiri food, if anything, Maria?

Maria (22:11)
my god, but I love that you guys had the rice because we had the rice and it's like we had a connection. By the way, rice is very healthy.

Teyshi (22:22)
absolutely. it was nice to talk about something a bit more lighthearted. It was brilliant to have another Kashmiri, another Kaesher person on. It was great to have that exchange and And I learned from her, we were exchanging ideas and she was great. She's got her own platform. With her permission, I will.

Maria (22:24)
Yeah.

Teyshi (22:41)
at some point in the future, give her platform attention. She has a lot of traction on Instagram. She has, yeah, so absolutely. So we'll have to give her a better shout out in the future, but I want to do it with her permission. She does some great content. She does content about the shawl industry. So for example, there's been a lot of copycat pashmina shawls that are fakes.

Maria (22:46)
to Anna. Thank you for your time.

Teyshi (23:05)
and the lower quality. This is also harming the shawl industry in Kashmir. So she has some really great posts and inshallah one day we'll talk about a bit more. But just on a side note then, we also had Sister Hafsa on talking about Five Folk Tales. So I don't know if you heard, did you get to hear this one?

Maria (23:24)
I did and I love them because again, I found some similar to my culture. yeah, like you do that. had the legend of the Pasikdar We had something similar. Yes. And also there is, yeah, to compare, right? And we had also there was the love story. That was my favorite. The tragic love story of Zohra Khotan

Teyshi (23:31)
Really? What did you find?

Yes, that's crazy. We need to do that one day. We need to do that one day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was great.

Yeah.

Maria (23:53)
That was my favorite. We know how nothing similar, but I that was my favorite one. But yes.

Teyshi (23:54)
Yeah.

It was,

it was very romantic. I was having all these like artistic visions in my head. I was imagining all these different things. Yeah, I haven't heard of that one myself, you I

Maria (24:08)
No, I didn't know that you didn't know. Because after I hear it.

Teyshi (24:11)
I didn't know that one. No, I didn't.

I left the valley when I was about five, that was the point where my peers would have heard all these things and I didn't. That's just one of those things. I never heard it.

so I was completely out of it I did go back but I wasn't there day to day but yeah I didn't know that one and that yeah it was was it's very like a tragic it's like a Romeo and Juliet isn't it

Maria (24:35)
Yes and actually I look for a book because I wanted to read it to my daughter because now that I'm learning all those things I want to make sure that she actually also know what I know so pass the information through generation right because these things that's what that's what the the occupation want can read all these beautiful cultural stories so it's our responsibility now that we know

Teyshi (24:49)
Yeah.

Maria (25:01)
keep saying it not to our friends, to our children so they know that there is a Kashmir that have the culture, they have these stories. So yes, I love that story so much that I found a book and actually there is like a video on YouTube that you can watch that's very beautiful. So I recommend everybody to Google the tragic love of Zora Khatun.

Teyshi (25:10)
Hmm.

Thank

food. Wow.

Yeah, that was a great one, obviously, Pasikdar which you've also mentioned And then we talked about The crow and the girl. A lot of these are to do with nature as well. So the crow and the girl really was about nature. It was about, a crow looking after a girl that had been, orphaned and she lived in the tree with him.

But then one day when he flies out to get food, she gets tricked by a stranger to go up to the moon. The moon has opened up, she walks in, it closes, never to be seen again. this was a lot about nature. That's quite interesting, because, visuality of growing up in Kashmir is, of course, mountains, huge mountains, lakes, trees.

And then of course the moon, the night sky. This is visually very representative of the valley. And then we had Shinebrer, which is the one that my dad told me. And I don't know too many people. Again, I think this is one of those stories that is an older generation. So this will have been a story that my would have told my dad. So this is one that a lot of the newer generation don't seem to know about.

Maria (26:07)
in the

Teyshi (26:33)
So Shinnebrer is the snow cat. Shine means snow. Sheen is snow. Shinne means of the snow. So Shinnebrer, snow cat, cat of the snow, right? that was just a bit like a Grimm's fairy tale where...

If you think about, you know, Red Riding Hood or some of those tales where there's an element of danger in it and it essentially telling you to behave and do as your parents tell you or you, basically get into trouble. so those are the five stories. So that was, it was nice to have that cultural break as well.

Maria (27:05)
No, and it's very important also because we need it.

Teyshi (27:07)
Yes, it does.

We do. we pay homage to people by recognizing them and their culture. A lot of the reasons, for example, in our activism for Palestine, we remember a lot of culture, traditions, the fact that they have certain clothes that they wear with certain patterns.

this is important because what, yes.

Maria (27:30)
Because this is a way of resistance. Because resistance is not

only fighting and protesting. Our existence is resistance. So if we keep this alive, that is the way that we resist.

Teyshi (27:43)
Yeah, because a lot of the occupation is about gaslighting and denial and erasure and erasure of Palestinians. So to keep, the Palestinian heritage alive, which a lot of it, derived from Canaan from, so many thousands of years ago. And then the same way here, and this is why Irish people love their culture so much too.

Maria (27:51)
Mm-hmm.

Teyshi (28:08)
It's a way of saying we're not all the same, we're different, right? In the same way that not all Arabs are the same, and that's why you can't call Palestinian just Arabs. In the same way that you can't look at Kashmiris and say, that they're Pakistanis or they're just Muslims or they're Indian. We're different. we have our own culture, we have our own language. And that means we were on our own in that land that we're not India because

India doesn't speak our language. We might speak Urdu, we don't speak, traditional Hindi, which is very different by the way to modern Hindi, a lot of religious words in traditional Hindi. We don't speak that. We wouldn't be able to understand it because we're different people. Different sets of people do not speak each other's languages as if it's their own and they don't have the same culture. They have separate traditions because they're

history is separate and that's important. Again, like you said in resistance, it basically is proof, historical and living proof of the identity of the indigenous people that are being occupied. the biggest way that you can assert your independence.

Maria (29:21)
Exactly. And we're going to keep doing it.

Teyshi (29:24)
Absolutely and you know then circling back after all those four we have as well one of the ones this is what chat gpt brought up by the way guys i didn't choose these so the other one that chat gpt brought up was debunking hindutva and of course we did that

Maria (29:41)
Yeah, I don't want to sound biased, but the one that we do.

Teyshi (29:43)
It wasn't, listen, it was a pretty kick-ass episode, if I do say so myself. You know, so

what was really, it's always great debunking. And you know, for those people that spend a lot of time on debate platforms, or if you are just in the comments, replying to some eejit, debunking is fun, isn't it?

Maria (30:04)
It is, and it is fun, but also it blows my mind the kind of things that these people say. for example, India said the Kashmiris and the area support these actions. And like, who would support this? Are you insane? You know?

Teyshi (30:20)
Yeah, exactly. Well, we live in the era of propaganda and populism.

So there is a saying that says by the time the truth has got his shoes on or pulled his trousers on or whatever the hell, the lie has been around the world twice or something like that. And lies spread faster than truth, which is weird, isn't it? And, you know, that is weird.

Maria (30:39)
Exactly, yeah.

Teyshi (30:46)
So the debunking this was important because this was the very well trodden path from Hindutva, BJP. So just to remind people Hindutva are the religious right-wing Hindus. So there's like the mainstream Hindus and everyone knows you have like evangelical type extremists in every religion. And so Hindutva are more like the right-wing extremists who really believe

that India is for Hindus and it's an actual greater India and actually violence as well. Let's just be clear and honest about that. Hindutva really are a lot about violence. There's numerous times that they have, you know, attacked Muslims in India, not to mention Kashmir. They've literally lynched

Maria (31:27)
Thank

Teyshi (31:33)
Muslims, they have stormed mosques, This is what they do.

And of course, the political wing of Hindutva is BJP. I'll try and say the name correctly. It's Bharat Janata Party. I might be saying it wrong. So if I'm saying it wrong, I'll be honest, I don't really care. But BJP for short. And that is the political wing. they're very much about, making India great again, that sort of nonsense. And part of that is trying to force Kashmiris.

against their will to somehow synchronize and be part of India which you how do you force people to do that that episode was looking at Hindutva it was looking at some of the common myths that they perpetuate and it and it's Hindutva via the BJP

Maria (32:21)
Hindu is the religion that is teach love, to love yourself, it's spiritualist and it's a beautiful religion. And these people hijack these religions and turn it into a supremacy ideology. And people needs to be aware. We are not going against the religion. We're going against people that use the religion to oppress

Teyshi (32:36)
Yeah, 100%.

Maria (32:47)
others because we are all equals. You believe it must be respected but immediately that you think that you are better because of it, that is a relapse.

Teyshi (32:50)
100%. Yeah, I mean.

Yeah, and a lot of the things that they advocate for, you know, in terms of the caste system are actually illegal in India now, but, you know, it's just, again, this we're talking about extremists. So, yeah, in that episode, we looked at lot of these debunking points, around Article 370, and the militarization of the region.

how we needed awareness. that was really a great episode. I think a debunking episode, should always be done once in a while. Cause we'll always find more disinformation.

Maria (33:28)
Definitely. Yeah.

Teyshi (33:30)
Well, that was it guys. That is our final episode. You know, it's actually, we've actually been talking for a long time, Maria. I don't know if you know that. same, same Maria. So, I mean, now this is our last episode. Of course we will be back. We're looking to be back in April. We're giving ourselves a few weeks to rest, to look at.

Maria (33:37)
I love talking to you, I can talk to you for hours.

Teyshi (33:56)
how we can improve stuff. But Maria, you have something to tell the listeners

Maria (34:02)
Yes, like Teyshi says, this is the month of Ramadan. So we're going to focus on spirituality and get new material as well. But I also want to invite you guys because we're going to hear from you. We're going to hear new voices. If you have insight or conflict in Kashmir Valley, Palestine, anything that you feel like should be shared and we haven't shared it, please reach out to us. We have a Kashmiri website. And then you're going to

find a section that says "Contact us" please reach out to us we want to hear from you and also we want to hear your feedback did you like what we're doing do you have any suggestion because we're doing this for you we love to see your emails your response and if you want to participate even better please give us your contact information and we can invite you for us privacy is priority so your information is gonna be always secure

and not share with anybody. So that's what I want say.

Teyshi (35:01)
100 % 100

% Absolutely and I totally second that. So with that we'll take our leave. Thank you so much for listening to all our episodes. They're there, you can revisit them. Please do follow the podcast, save the podcast, share it, give it a thumbs up, everything. Do all the things as I always say, do all the things. And with that we'll leave you and we'll see you in series two in April, Inshallah. Goodbye everyone.

Maria (35:26)
Goodbye.