P.K. Joseph Dhar | |
---|---|
Born | Predhuman Kumar Joseph Dhar Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir |
Died | Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir | 12 June 2014
Nationality | Indian |
Other names | Joseph Dhar |
Occupation(s) | Social worker, writer |
Predhuman K. Joseph Dhar [1] [2] popularly known as PK Joseph Dhar, was an author, social worker and a writer. [3] [4] [5]
Dhar was born in Srinagar, Kashmir but forced to leave Kashmir and migrate to Jammu in year 1990. [6]
He translated the Bible into the Kashmiri language, which was released by the Apostolic Nuncio to India. [7] [8] [9] The Kashmiri version includes the Books of the Apocrypha as well; [10] this work is published by the Bible Society of India.
Dhar belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family but embraced Christianity in 1984. [11] He served as a Chief spokesperson for All Jammu and Kashmir Catholic Sabha and took initiatives for the welfare of minorities in the state. [12] [13]
Dhar was also the convener of the Catholic Christian Forum of Jammu and Kashmir and also principal of Coventry Scholars school in Chinore, Jammu for few years. The DD Kashir has telecast a 28-minute documentary titled Shehil Kul (Shady Tree) about Dhar.
Dhar died on 12 June 2014. [14]
Jammu and Kashmir was a region formerly administered by India as a state from 1952 to 2019, constituting the southern and southeastern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India, Pakistan and China since the mid-20th century. The underlying region of this state were parts of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, whose western districts, now known as Azad Kashmir, and northern territories, now known as Gilgit-Baltistan, are administered by Pakistan. The Aksai Chin region in the east, bordering Tibet, has been under Chinese control since 1962.
The Kashmiri Pandits are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region located within the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri Pandits are Hindu Kashmiris native to the Kashmir Valley, and the only remaining Hindu Kashmiris after the large-scale of conversion of the Valley's population to Islam during the medieval times. Prompted by the growth of Islamic militancy in the valley, large numbers left in the exodus of the 1990s. Even so, small numbers remain.
Music of Jammu and Kashmir reflects a rich musical heritage and cultural legacy of the Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Two different regions of Jammu and Kashmir, consists upper Jammu Division and Kashmir Valley. Music of Kashmir Valley is closer to Central Asian music while music from Jammu region is similar to that of other regions of North India.
Kashmiris are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group speaking the Kashmiri language, living mostly, but not exclusively, in the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Dhar or Dar is a Kashmiri surname. It is native to the Kashmir Valley in India, and common today among Kashmiri Hindus and Kashmiri Muslims of Hindu lineage. Outside Kashmir, it is used by members of the Kashmiri diaspora, in places like Punjab, Bengal, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, and more commonly in recent times by the global Kashmiri Pandit diaspora following the Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus in 1989–1990.
Hari Parbat, also called Koh-i-Maran, is a hill overlooking Srinagar, the largest city and the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is the site of a fort, built by the Durrani Empire, and of a Hindu temple, mosques, and gurdwara.
Kashmiri kinship and descent is one of the major concepts of Kashmiri cultural anthropology. Hindu and Muslim Kashmiri people living in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India and other parts of the world are from the same ethnicity.
Amitabh Mattoo is one of India's leading thinkers and writers on Modern and Contemporary History, Political science, International relations. He was awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2009. He is a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and honorary professor of international relations at the University of Melbourne. Mattoo is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies and was recently elected unanimously as its Deputy Chair. He was the founding CEO of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne and served as chairman of the governing board of Miranda House, University of Delhi, the highest-ranked women's college in India, and served as Chair of Kirori Mal College earlier He has also been a member of the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing. In 2002, he was the youngest person to be appointed as vice chancellor of a public university in independent India. Mattoo's advice on policy matters has been sought across political parties and across governments, including by Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh. Until 19 June 2018, he served as Advisor to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, with the status of a Cabinet Minister. Following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, he has offered a political roadmap for securing the future of Jammu and Kashmir. He has been a persistent advocate of multiculturalism and of reconciliation between Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims.
Sharada Peeth is a ruined Hindu temple and ancient centre of learning located in the Neelum Valley of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Between the 6th and 12th centuries CE, it was among the most prominent temple universities in the Indian subcontinent. Known in particular for its library, stories recount scholars travelling long distances to access its texts. It played a key role in the development and popularisation of the Sharada script in North India, causing the script to be named after it, and Kashmir to acquire the moniker "Sharada Desh", meaning "country of Sharada".
Jammu and Kashmir is home to several valleys such as the Kashmir Valley, Chenab Valley, Sindh Valley and Lidder Valley. Some major tourist attractions in Jammu and Kashmir are Srinagar, with its renowned Dal Lake and Mughal Gardens, Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Patnitop and Jammu. Every year, thousands of Hindu pilgrims visit holy shrines of Vaishno Devi and Amarnath which has had a significant impact on the state's economy.
Kashmiri Muslims are ethnic Kashmiris who practice Islam and are native to the Kashmir Valley in Indian-administered Kashmir. The majority of Kashmiri Muslims are Sunni. They refer to themselves as "Koshur" in their mother language.
The Kashmiri diaspora refers to Kashmiris who have migrated out of the Kashmir into other areas and countries, and their descendants.
Human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir range from mass killings, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual abuse to political repression and suppression of freedom of speech. The Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Personnel (BSF) have been accused for committing severe human rights abuses against Kashmiri civilians. According to Seema Kazi, militant groups have also been held responsible for similar crimes, but the vast majority of abuses have been perpetrated by the armed forces of the Indian government.
Kashmiri Hindus are ethnic Kashmiris who practice Hinduism and are native to the Kashmir Valley of India. With respect to their contributions to Indian philosophy, Kashmiri Hindus developed the tradition of Kashmiri Shaivism. After their exodus from the Kashmir Valley in the wake of the Kashmir insurgency in the 1990s, most Kashmiri Hindus are now settled in the Jammu division of Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country. The largest group of Kashmiri Hindus are the Kashmiri Pandits.
The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, or Pandits, is their early-1990 forced migration, or flight, from the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in Indian-administered Kashmir following rising violence in an insurgency. Of a total Pandit population of 120,000–140,000 some 90,000–100,000 left the valley or felt compelled to leave, and about 30 were killed. During the period of substantial migration, the insurgency was being led by a group calling for a secular and independent Kashmir, but there were also growing Islamist factions envisioning an Islamic state. Although their numbers of dead and injured were low, the Pandits, who believed that Kashmir's culture was tied to India's, experienced fear and panic set off by targeted killings of some high-profile officials among their ranks and public calls for independence among the insurgents. The accompanying rumours and uncertainty together with the absence of guarantees for their safety by India's federal government might have been the latent causes of the exodus. The descriptions of the violence as "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" in some Hindu nationalist publications or among suspicions voiced by some exiled Pandits are widely considered inaccurate, aggressive, or propaganda by scholars.
Kashmiri cinema is the Kashmiri language-based film industry in the Kashmir Valley of India. The first Kashmiri feature film, Mainz Raat, was released in 1964.
Media in Jammu and Kashmir (JK) consists of media houses such as Kashmir Times, Greater Kashmir, Rising Kashmir and Daily Excelsior and digital news outlets like Free Press Kashmir, The Chenab Times, The Kashmir Walla and radio stations such as AIR Srinagar, AIR Jammu, Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, Red FM 93.5 and Radio Sharda. DD Kashir is state television broadcaster. Major private channels are News18 Urdu and Gulistan News. Various books have been written about the region, a large number being related to the Literature of Kashmir, Culture of Kashmir, Lal Ded and Nund Rishi. Koshur, Dogri, Punjabi, Pahari, Gojri, Hindi-Urdu and English are the main languages used.
Bhalessa is a geographical area within Doda district in the Jammu region of India-administered Kashmir. It consists of the Bunjwah and Bhalessa Valleys, and comprises the three Tehsils of Kahara, Chilly Pingal and Gandoh.
Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir are the ethnic Kashmiri people who reside in Azad Kashmir, a territory which constitutes part of Pakistani-administered Kashmir since the end of the First Kashmir War. Their demographic includes up to 40,000 registered Kashmiri refugees who have fled the Kashmir Valley, located in Indian-administered Kashmir, to Pakistan since the late 1980s due to conflict in the region. As of 2010, only around 60 percent of Kashmiri refugees had acquired Pakistani citizenship.