Sita Banbas or Sita ban bas (Sita's Exile) is an Urdu play by Agha Hashar Kashmiri. It is based on the Hindu Ramayana. Kashmiri originally sold the play to a local Raja in Allahabad and it was eventually published in 1928, [1] and it was later published in Hindustani. [2]
Azad Jammu and Kashmir, abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir, is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entity and constitutes the western portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947. The territory shares a border to the north with Gilgit-Baltistan, together with which it is referred to by the United Nations and other international organizations as "Pakistani-administered Kashmir". Azad Kashmir also shares borders with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the south and west, respectively. On its eastern side, Azad Kashmir is separated from the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir by the Line of Control (LoC), which serves as the de facto border between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. Geographically, the administrative territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir covers a total area of 13,297 km2 (5,134 sq mi) and has a total population of 4,045,366 as per the 2017 national census.
Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompasses a larger area that includes the Indian-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.
Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the official national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language whose status, function, and cultural heritage is recognized by the Constitution of India; it has some form of official status in several Indian states. In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect. Urdu has been described as a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language. Urdu and Hindi share a common Indo-Aryan vocabulary base and very similar phonology and syntax, making them mutually intelligible in colloquial speech.
Kashmiri or Koshur is a language from the Dardic subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages, spoken by around 7 million Kashmiris, primarily in the Indian administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kashmiris, also known as Koshurs, are first-language speakers of the Kashmiri language living mostly, but not exclusively, in the Kashmir Valley in the portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India.
The Nawab of Dhaka was the title of the head of largest Muslim zamindar in British Bengal and Assam, based in Dhaka. The title of nawab, similar to the British peerage, was conferred upon the head of the family by the British Raj as a recognition of their loyalty and contribution to the social welfare activities.
Zinda Kaul (1884–1965) was a well-known Indian poet, writer and teacher. He composed in Persian, Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri. Kaul also translated works of Kashmiri into English, Persian and Hindi.
Anand Narain Mulla was an Urdu poet of India.
The culture of Kashmir is a diverse blend and highly influenced by Indian, Persian as well as Central Asian cultures. Kashmiri culture is heavily influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism and later by Islam. Dominated by Hindu-Buddhist culture in the past, Kashmir was heavily influenced by Islam after Muslim influx in the Valley.
Agha Hashar Kashmiri was an Urdu poet, playwright and dramatist. A number of his plays were Indian Shakespearean adaptations.
Sir Muhammad Iqbal was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, and politician, whose poetry in the Urdu language is thought by many to be among the greatest of the twentieth century, and whose vision of a cultural and political ideal for the Muslims of British-ruled India was to animate the impulse for Pakistan. He is commonly referred to by the honorific Allama
Professor Ghulam Nabi Firaq was a Kashmiri poet, writer and an educationist. From the last fifty years he had been writing poetry and prose. In doing so he used, besides traditional ones, several poetic forms including blank verse, free verse, sonnets, quatrains, metric poems and lyrics. He also translated dozens of English poems of outstanding English poets into Kashmiri. As a result of all this, he enriched the expression of the language and made it more suitable for communicating his sensibility which in nature is modern. Besides, he had been writing essays and articles in Kashmiri language, which was his mother tongue, and which he had made the vehicle of expression from early fifties. As a literary critic and historian he had been trying to evaluate the Kashmiri poetry of the last five hundred years and rehabilitate it by bringing to prominence among other things its intrinsic merit and power of expression. He also holds the Sahitya Akademi Award for his works in Kashmiri literature. He is regarded as one of the very few people of Kashmir who has been trying to preserve the rich Kashmiri culture, heritage and language.
Asir-e-Hirs is an Urdu play by Agha Hashar Kashmiri. It was published in 1900.
Said-e-Hawas is an Urdu play by Agha Hashar Kashmiri, based on Shakespeare's King John. It was published in 1908. It was adapted into the Indian film, Said-e-Havas, by Sohrab Modi in 1936.
Yahudi Ki Ladki is a historical Urdu play by Agha Hashar Kashmiri, on the theme of persecution of Jews by the Romans. It was first published in 1913. The play became his best known work, and a classic in Parsi-Urdu theatre.
Turki Hur is an Urdu play by Agha Hashar Kashmiri. It was published in 1922. It was adapted into an Indian silent film, Turki Hoor, in 1928 by J. J. Madan.
Aankh ka Nasha or Ankh ka Nasha is an Urdu play by Agha Hashar Kashmiri. It was first published in 1924.
Rustom O Sohrab or Rustam-Sohrab is an Urdu play by Agha Hashar Kashmiri. It was first published in 1929.
The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, also sometimes known as the Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, refers to the series of anti-Hindu pogroms and attacks that took place shortly after the inception of the Muslim-dominated insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989, which eventually forced Kashmiri Hindu Pandits out of the Kashmir Valley. The peak phase of the exodus was in the early 1990s, when Kashmiri Hindus, as a result of being targeted by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front and other pro-Pakistan Islamist insurgents, fled from the Kashmir Valley to seek refuge elsewhere in India. As of 2016, only 2,000–3,000 Kashmiri Hindus remain in the Kashmir Valley compared to approximately 300,000–600,000 in 1990. Consequently, 19 January 1990 is widely known by Kashmiri Hindus as "Exodus Day", in memory of the Kashmiri Hindus who were either killed or forced out of Kashmir.
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.