Performing at a benefit for the US civil rights movement in Paris’s Palais des Sports, 1966
Belafonte funded the Freedom Riders and SNCC, activists fighting unlawful segregation in the American south, and worked on voter registration drives. He later focused on a series of African initiatives. He organised the all-star charity record We Are the World, raising more than $63m for famine relief, and his 1988 album, Paradise in Gazankulu, protested against apartheid in South Africa
Photograph: Spartaco Bodini/AP
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Buffalo herdsmen convert milk into sundried cheese that is stored, cooked and sold as a speciality, explainsMJ Aslam
Maeshi’ Kraaji, the famous milk bread, and Nadur make a great preparation. Photo: Shahnawaz Taing
Unlike Kashmir plains, the hills of the valley have always been buffalo-abundant. Between Baramulla and Jammu, the pasturage-rich temperature on both sides of the mountains is higher than the plains and suits the production of milk, ghee and butter.
Buffalos comprise the main wealth of Gujar, who live in hill log houses over the mountains from Poonch to Udhampur. Buffalos love to be in moist climates and they need to be immersed in water daily.
Given the fact that the buffalos were the main livelihoods of a huge hill population, the Dogra despots had imposed a tax on milch buffaloes and cows. Named Shakh Shoomaree, the tax was collected at Re 1 and 8 annas per buffalo and 12 annas per cow. However, if a buffalo gave birth to a calf, it was exempt like that of a barren buffalo, Phundir.
Traditional Herdsmen
The owners took their buffalo herds to mountain pastures for grazing in the summers. They lived by making and selling ghee, butter and cheese from the milk. Though buffalo are not indigenous to Kashmir, a number of Gujjars do possess and rare the animal. Unlike Gujjar, the Bakarwals prefer rearing goats. Given the fact that the Gujjars in Kashmir lived far away from the markets, they could not quickly take their produce for sale, they have been producing a rare milk product, the Maeshi Kraj (Mounsheh Kreaj). It is sort of a cheese produced from buffalo milk.
Technically, it is a cake made of dried buffalo milk. Dogras call it Kalari. Normally, the Gujjars living uphill bring this “bread” to the market across Jammu and Kashmir.
In Gujjar ecosystem, buffalo are basic. They are basically cattle graziers and not cultivators. However, they do grow maize around their hill kothas and the grain goes into the use of cattle as well as the people. They used to follow the Arab farmer’s custom of contributing Friday’s milk production to charity. It may not be around now but certain families make charities-in-kind on Friday. Cattle are so vital to this socio-economic ecosystem that the death of an animal triggers routine mourning.
Milk Bread
In Kashmir, buffalos are less visible even in hilly areas. However, the markets like Shopian, Kupwara, and Baramulla do get some supply of Maeshi Kraji almost on a daily basis. Usually, it is barely a fraction of the demand that the supply meets. Foreigners call it milk bread.
Based on buffalo milk, it is made by churning it with sour milk or curd. The fat cheese appears at the surface which is separated from the leftovers and then pressed into a cloth. The paste is made into cakes or balls of cheese. Before sale and use, these cakes are allowed to dry up in sunlight.
Maeshi Kreji are very tasty with a pungent smell and sour taste. It is harder, however than cow cheese. Even though it has gone missing from most of the Kashmir markets, Maeshi Krej remains available throughout the year in Jammu at Samroli, Udhampur and Pahalwan Di Hati.
In South Kashmir, people cook sun-dried Maeshi Kraji with Nadru (lotus stems) during summer. The sun-dried Maeshi Kraji with Nadru is ground with onion in a stone mortar (Vokhul] with a pestle (Kajve or Choteh). The spices are added to the paste, which is cooked with milk or water to avoid stanching the cheese. It is allowed to boil for some time, till it thickens and then it is eaten either at lunch or dinner with cooked rice or roti.
Not In Kashmir Alone
In Italy, Buffalo milk cheese is mozzarella; in India, Khoya cheese is mostly buffalo milk. Afghan nomads and peasants used to make ghee, butter, curd and also a kind of cheese of cow and buffalo milk called Quroot which is still a living culinary tradition of the Taliban territory.
The milk was boiled with the dried fruit of a solanaceous plant. The cheese was freed from water by pressing in a cloth just as the Maeshi Karji are prepared. After adding salt to it, handfuls are made into small balls, dried hard as stone in the sun and kept for any length of time for consumption. It is reduced into a paste in a wooden bowl called Quroot Mal. It was fried in a quantity of ghee and eaten with bread, meat and vegetables. In the past, it was the national dish of Afghans. However, more refined Persians disliked this food and ridiculed Afghans, parodying the Arabic anathema into the words, La houla wa la illah Quroota Khuri. (God protect us from Quroot-eating-Afghans).
With the passage of time, however, Quroot is still prepared and consumed within and outside Afghanistan. Quroot-like dairy products were also known to some Bedouin tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. They made it into lumps and cakes with their hands and dried it in the sunshine before use.
Retrovolt Arcade in Calimesa. Through Bohbot’s lens, arcades open to the viewer like a tightly woven shortfilm, noire-esque even. There is a feeling of criminality within the photos, as if you’ve found your way into a speakeasy, where acts are taking place – hidden, fringe, and celebrated by those lucky few able to produce the password for the doorman. And in themidst of this are the machines themselves: grouped together in collections by those obsessed with them, tantalizing to touch, to play
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Varanasi: The Vishva Hindu Parishad on Saturday said the “haste” with which the Supreme Court is disposing of the petitions for legal recognition to same-sex marriages is not appropriate and it should have sought the opinion of religious leaders and experts from diverse fields.
VHP Joint General Secretary Surendra Jain expressed apprehension the top court’s actions could lead to “new disputes”.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud is hearing a batch of pleas seeking legal sanction for same-sex marriage. It began hearing the matter on Tuesday and the arguments remained inconclusive on the third consecutive day on Thursday. The arguments will resume on April 24.
On Thursday, the top court said it may be redefining the “evolving notion of marriage” as the next step after decriminalising consensual homosexual relationship, which implicitly recognised that same-sex people could live in a stable marriage-like relationship.
“The haste with which the honourable Supreme Court is disposing off the petitions for recognition of same-sex marriage is not appropriate in any way. This will give rise to new disputes and will also prove to be dangerous for the culture of India,” Jain said.
“Hence, before proceeding ahead on this subject, the honourable Supreme Court should have taken the opinion of the religious leaders, people from the field of medicine, social scientists and academicians by forming a committee,” he told reporters here.
Jain said the subject of marriage is governed by different civil codes.
“None of the civil codes prevailing in India gives permission for this (same-sex marriage). Does the Supreme Court want to make a change in these?” he said.
Ram Narayan Dwivedi of Kashi Vidvat Parishad, Govind Sharma of Ganga Mahasabha and Mahant Balak Das of Dharma Parishad also spoke at the press conference.
During Thursday’s hearing, the Supreme Court did not agree to the contention that unlike heterosexuals, same-sex couples cannot take proper care of their children.
Referring to its 2018 judgment that decriminalised consensual gay sex, the court said it led to a situation where two consenting homosexual adults can live in a marriage-like relationship and the next step could be to validate their relationship as marriage.
“Therefore, by decriminalising homosexuality we have not just recognised the relationship between consenting adults of the same gender, we have also recognised implicitly the fact that the people who are of same sex could be in a stable relationship,” it said.
The results could also serve as a renewed warning to Republican presidential hopefuls like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis: General election voters are less interested in crusades against critical race theory and transgender students than they are in funding schools and ensuring they are safe.
“Where culture war issues were being waged by some school board candidates, those issues fell flat with voters,” said Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association labor union. “The takeaway for us is that parents and community members and voters want candidates who are focused on strengthening our public schools, not abandoning them.”
The results from the Milwaukee and Chicago areas are hardly the last word on the matter. Thousands more local school elections are set for later this year in some two dozen states. They are often low turnout, low profile, and officially nonpartisan affairs, and conservatives say they are competing aggressively.
“We lost more than we won” earlier this month, said Ryan Girdusky, founder of the conservative 1776 Project political action committee, which has ties to GOP megadonor and billionaire Richard Uihlein and endorsed an array of school board candidates this spring and during the 2022 midterms.
“But we didn’t lose everything. We didn’t get obliterated,” Girdusky told POLITICO of his group’s performance. “We still pulled our weight through, and we just have to keep on pushing forward on this.”
Labor groups and Democratic operatives are nevertheless flexing over the defeat of candidates they opposed during races that took place near Chicago, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from state Democrats and the attention of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, and in Wisconsin. Conservative board hopefuls also saw mixed results in Missouri and Oklahoma.
Democrats hope the spring school election season validates their playbook: Coordinate with local party officials, educator unions and allied community members to identify and support candidates who wield an affirming pro-public education message — and depict competitors as hard-right extremists.
Yet despite victories in one reliably blue state and one notorious battleground, liberals are still confronting Republican momentum this year that could resemble November’s stalemated midterm results for schools and keep the state of education divided along partisan lines.
Conservative states are already carrying out sharp restrictions on classroom lessons, LGBTQ students, and library books. And they are beginning to refine their message to appeal to moderates.
Trump, DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and other Republican presidential hopefuls are leaning on school-based wedge issues to court primary voters in a crowded White House campaign.
That rhetoric, combined with Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s ability to harness voter frustration with education as part of his upset victory in 2021, has inspired a wave of conservative challengers to run for school board seats.
Once the domain for everyday academic concerns, mild-mannered bureaucracy, and the occasional controversy, school boards became a lightning rod for the right during pandemic lockdowns plus a national reckoning with gender identity and race.
Critical race theory was an obscure academic legal framework used to examine racism in American institutions. But it has been reframed by conservative activists to encompass broad complaints about issues related to diversity.
Conservatives have also seized on transgender students to rejuvenate a social agenda that includes a push to restrict transgender athletes in sports, gender-affirming medical care and access to LGBTQ-affirming library materials.
“What I was most surprised by was just the sheer prevalence of these Republican candidates,” said Ben Hardin, executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois, after his party made an unprecedented decision to endorse dozens of local school and library board candidates and funnel nearly $300,000 into those elections.
“Obviously this is not a new phenomenon,” Hardin said in an interview. “But to see it so widespread here in Illinois, across the state in regions that are across the partisanship spectrum, was what was most interesting to me.”
In Oswego, Ill., a small community in Chicago’s far southwestern suburbs, the 1776 Project supported four candidates running as part of a “We The Parents” slate on a platform aligned with the conservative parental rights movement. Each of those candidates lost, including to one candidate endorsed by a local Illinois Federation of Teachers affiliate.
The race, like many others across the region, featured core concerns that are often splitting school communities today.
The Chicago Tribune reported Oswego’s We The Parents slate received support from the local Stamp Act political action committee, which proclaims it will “fight to preserve our cultural and religious heritage” and “resist attempts by the Left to transform and reshape American society.”
The conservative Awake Illinois group, which has opposed critical race theory and gender-affirming medical care for children, weighed in too.
A group of conservative candidates in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Barrington who were backed by the 1776 PAC, Moms For America Action and Awake Illinois also lost their school board bids.
“Fortunately, the voters saw through the hidden extremists who were running for school board — across the [Chicago] suburbs especially,” Pritzker told reporters after last week’s election. “I’m glad that those folks were shown up and, frankly, tossed out.”
Overall, the 1776 Project PAC endorsed 14 candidates but won six races in Illinois. Other conservatives also notched wins in Illinois, including two candidates who claimed seats in a suburban high school district in Lockport Township, Ill. over two union-endorsed aspirants.
The Democratic Party of Illinois said 84 of 117 candidates the party recommended won their April 4 races. The Illinois Education Association, the state affiliate of the National Education Association, said it won nearly 90 percent of the races where it endorsed candidates.
“Part of the reason we did so well is because of how we are organized,” said Kathi Griffin, president of the Illinois Education Association. “The state organization does not tell the local affiliates who to support. It is the local affiliates that do the interviewing of candidates, have relationships with the community and with the parents. They are the ones that make the decision, then they reach out to us” to ask for support.
Teacher unions are also celebrating a school board victory in a bellwether community in suburban Milwaukee.
Brian Schimming, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, described the Wauwatosa School Board election last month as “an important race for the whole state.”
Schimming promoted candidates known as the “Three Tosa Dads” who emphasized a platform centered on school safety and academic performance after the Republican National Committee last year encouraged candidates to broaden their message beyond culture wars and court independent voters with a more nuanced message focused on parental involvement and student educational development.
Wauwatosa’s GOP-backed aspirants still lost by wide margins to teacher union-supported candidates. The 1776 Project won slightly less than half of the nearly 50 Wisconsin races it endorsed candidates in.
Other efforts led by Wisconsin Republicans were more successful.
In Waukesha County, where voters heavily favored Trump in the 2020 election, the local party successfully endorsed dozens of area school board candidates as part of a “WisRed Initiative” to dominate local government races.
But Moms For Liberty, a newly prominent conservative group that helps train and endorse school board candidates, said just eight of its candidates won races in Wisconsin last week. The group had endorsed candidates in another 20 elections, its founders said.
“We are hopeful that as more people learn about Moms For Liberty and contribute to our PAC, we will be able to win more races,” organization co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich said in a statement. “The majority of those [endorsements] were first time candidates who did not win, and that just gives us a great bench of folks to have trained and ready to run again to fight for parental rights in future elections.”
The results offer lessons to both parties as they eye even more board elections this year.
Education was central to Youngkin’s win, though his political advisers have stressed the campaign’s success was based on building custom messaging models targeted at different groups of voters instead of relying on a single message.
Conservative school campaigns should heed similar advice, Girdusky argued.
“Don’t assume that a blanket message on critical race theory or transgender issues is going to claim every district — it’s very personalized,” he said. “If it’s happening in that district, speak to it in volumes. But don’t tell parents something is happening if it’s not happening, because then it doesn’t look like you’re running a serious operation.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Till orthopaedics graduated as a key biological science, Kashmir, like many other societies, would get its bone corrections from the bone setters. Nidah Mehraj meets a second-generation bone setter who remains busy for most of the days
Ali Mohammad, Kashmir bone setter at work KL Image: Nidah Mehraj
In the early morning, a group of people gathered in the yard of Ali Mohammad, a vaatan gour, a traditional Kashmiri bone setter, in Aali Kadal. Popular among his clientele as Papa, he has set aside two rooms in his house for his patients. As patients wait, a few are coming out after getting ‘treated’ for their minor fractures and bone displacements.
Ali’s yard and his two rooms are huge spaces for people to know each other. As they wait for their turn, they start understanding each other and sometimes these conversations become life-long friendships.
Papa is revered by his patients and the residents of his locality. They believe they really have recovered after being treated by him. Ali Mohammad does not charge much. He asks for the bandages and herbal medicines, which do not cost more than Rs 200. Families with low incomes and those believing in the tradition are usually the most of the crowd at Papa’s home cum clinic.
“My knee got injured badly two months ago. I wasn’t able to walk, sit or stand properly, nor could I do any household chores. I went to a doctor who prescribed various medical check-ups and medication but I didn’t recover from them quickly,” said Shaista Bhat, 35, from HMT area of Srinagar. “Then I went to Papa and in two weeks, I could see a lot of difference. I’m sure I will recover properly this week.”
In the people waiting in the yard and the rooms, there were interestingly different cases including fractures, dislocations and herniated discs. Sharing problems with each other, some of them were very tense.
A lady was sitting in the room corner with her 5-year-old son in her lap. ” I am very scared for my son. He was playing and suddenly fell from his bicycle. His back is hurting and he has been in a lot of pain,” said Zubaida Aslam, 38, a Budgam resident. Papa revealed that kid’s scapula bone is broken. “Do not worry, he would be fine very soon.”
For most of the day, Papa remained busy with patients. To some, he was putting on bandages and to a few, he gave cryo-therapy and herbal medicine mostly for massaging.
30 Years
Ali Mohammad is in practice for 30 years now. He has gained a loyal following that is across Kashmir. People come to him for bone setting, herniated disc and herpes zoster.
“I met an accident in 2011 and survived injured. I got treated by a doctor quite nicely,” Shahid Akbar, 35, a resident of Shopian said. “However, my left arm hasn’t recovered properly. I could not raise my arm up, and if I do some work with it, it hurts. In winter, my arm gets completely numb and I can’t work with it. After visiting Papa, it recovered in just a few weeks and today is my last week of keeping bandages on it.
Ali worked constantly till 2:30 pm with only a short break for Zuhar prayers. In between watching patients, he would go from one room to another to check how his new patients are behaving during his treatment. He does ask people from far-away places to get in first so that they can reach home early. While examining the injuries of people or bandaging them, Papa cracks jokes.
A female paramedic technician busy in a X-ray of a patent.
Minutes before Papa could call a day, a couple rushed in. It was Nisar Ahmed, 55, and his wife, who had come from Ali Jan Road, near Eidgah. An ironsmith, an iron tool fell on Nisar’s hand and injured his left thumb. He has not been able to work for a month now. Papa bandaged his thumb and wrapped it in gauze, warning him to not work for a week till he is fine.
Papa was about to close the door when at around 3 pm, a 27-year-old man almost crashed in. “I was doing exercise at the gym and suddenly my Scaphoid bone got dislocated,” he said. Asking him to continue his exercise, the bonesetter told him he will manage his issue.
A Skill Inherited
Ali Mohammad Guri, 67, lives in Aali Kadal, downtown Srinagar, and has been setting bones since 1984. He was 22 when he learned the skill from his father, who was a cloth merchant and a part-time bone setter. Besides, he became a disciple of Pir Gayasuddin, a faith healer in Magam. Ali sees him as his teacher.
After the death of his father, Ali Mohammad took over. He continued working at his ancestral clothes shop as well.
“I set bones as a service to people. I just take the money for the unani medicines and bandages that I also have to buy,” Ali Mohammad said. Ali said he mostly treats fractures, bone dislocations, urinal infections, herniated discs, Herpes zoster (Mal-der), and some minor injuries. “I have worked for decades as a bone setter and now I’m experienced enough to tell by touching the injured part of another person, what is the matter with him and how I should treat him.”
Even after years of experience, he tries to stay careful while treating the injuries of patients. “Whenever a patient comes to me, I clearly examine his fracture and if I feel, I cannot cure him and he needs to go to the doctor. I tell them straight away, I cannot treat this, you have to visit the hospital for this. As I believe I can never challenge the medical field with what I do,” he said.
Ali doesn’t give any pharmaceutical medicines to his patients, but Unani medicines that he either buys or makes himself. As he has also learnt this process from his father. “I usually give my patients cryotherapy and herbal medicines to massage their tendons, ligaments and the areas where they are injured. And like any other bone setter, I bandage and gauze their injured part,” he said.
His Regrets
Ali believes if the traditional bone setting is not learned by young people, the skill may vanish completely in the coming years. “I tried to teach this skill to many young girls and boys without charging anything for it. But they didn’t want to learn it,” Ali said. “The ones who learned left the skill after two to three years because they didn’t want to practice hard enough. Now, I have been teaching this skill to my son, Bilal Ahmad, 33, for the past three years, who learns it while working at our clothes, shop as well.”
Papa is so engrossed with the art that he sometimes skips lunch or even breakfast. There have been instances when people with problems visit him at inappropriate times like late at night. ” I do scold them but I cannot let them leave without treatment,” he said.
“There are times when I feel sick and am not able to do any work. People from different areas still come to visit me and I cannot let them leave without treatment. But as I have devoted my life to this work and in the service of people, I cannot hesitate to do so,” he added.
New Delhi: The Delhi University is paving the way to give professors and senior professors an extension of five years following retirement to promote research culture and re-employ research oriented academicians, a senior varsity official said on Tuesday.
At present, the retirement age of the faculty is 65 years and no extension was given to teachers.
The university has prepared a set of guidelines for the re-employment of “research-oriented academicians”.
The official, however, stated that the guidelines will only apply to professors teaching at the varsity departments, centres, schools, and institutions, and are not applicable to colleges of the university.
The re-employed professors will hold the positions on a contract basis, he said.
The 14-point guidelines, prepared by a committee, will be presented during the upcoming meeting of the Executive Council (the highest decision-making body of the university) on April 10 for approval.
“The retirement age of academicians at the university is 65 years. However, the university wishes to bring provisions to give an extension of five years for professors. We are hopeful that the guidelines will be approved in the next meeting. This step will help in promoting a research culture and for the re-employment of research-oriented academicians,” the official said.
According to the guidelines, the application for the same should be submitted before the date of superannuation of the teacher. The application will be then placed before the screening committee for further processes.
The screening committee will have a chairperson nominated by the vice chancellor. Besides the chairperson, the panel will also have chairperson of the research council; Dean of Research; Dean of the faculty concerned; Dean of Academic Affairs; Head of the Department concerned, and Joint Registrar, as members.
The re-employed professor will not hold any administrative position and the financial power will be limited to him, the guidelines stated.
“The re-employment of a professor/senior professor shall be subject to the University’s clearance with respect to her/his conduct as a teacher, her/his disciplinary record as well as financial prudence,” the guidelines read.
“No teacher shall continue to remain in such re-employment after attaining the age of 70 years. The re-employed professor/senior professor shall be given an office in the department and if required shall share the laboratory with another faculty,” they added.
The re-employment will also be subject to the university’s clearance concerning his conduct as a teacher, his disciplinary record as well as financial prudence, mentioned the guidelines.
Meanwhile, a section of teachers has opposed these guidelines, saying it would give rise to favouritism culture.
“Moreover, they (the university) are trying to build a hierarchy system within the university guideline that would not be applicable for college teachers,” Rajesh Jha, a former Delhi University Executive Council member, said.
A by-product in traditional butter making, buttermilk has been the most consumed drink in Kashmir for centuries. With machines taking over the skimming and the marketing chains renamed and rebranding the product, Gurus (Lassi) may not be as abundant as it once was, writes MJ Aslam
Milk, Butter Milk (Gurus), Lassi, Chatch). A glass of milk (left) and a glass of buttermilk (right). Buttermilk is thicker and covers the glass after taking a sip
Long before the making of Gurus(buttermilk) and Th’ain (butter) was found in created cultured cream or milk, there were traditional methods of preparing the same from unrefrigerated fermented milk. All societies in the East and West have used the traditional ways of making these delicacies for centuries.
Gurus was so vital to the Kashmir food that a lot of saying mentioned the buttermilk. One such saying suggests that Gurus (also called Lassi) should be given to a friend in autumn, while to an enemy in spring. The folklore believes that autumn Gurus is healthy unlike that of spring. Its nutritious value is linked to the quality of grass grazed by cows and goats in spring and autumn.
However, the fact is the Gurus was prepared in hot summers too when the milk, in absence of modern refrigerators, fermented automatically in earthen and copper pots. It was called Ban e Doud.
Then, Kashmir was rich in milk and milk products. The cowherds possessed a large stock of cows and goats. The Gujars in higher altitudes possessed buffalo too. They prepared Gurus. In the city, guoir families associated with dairy items of milk, curd, cheese and butter, too prepared Gurus for sale to the common people. Some village families who skimmed milk and made Gurus at their homes would often come to sell Gurus in the city.
The Process
Traditionally, Gurus means the milk that was left over after churning butter from unrefrigerated sour and fermented milk. Once the milk is ready for the process, it would take 30 minutes to 60 minutes till butter was churned from the milk in a big vessel like tchod.
Ordinarily, Gurus is buttermilk. Gurus is sour in taste. It is still popular and sold with added spices, mint, salt and sugar across most of the subcontinent as a refreshing fermented dairy drink. Its equivalent in the households of the Indian subcontinent is Chaash, which is prepared by beating curd with a churner or leftover of butter (Gurus) and taken with spices, a pinch of salt and mint. In Arabian countries, buttermilk with added ingredients of spices and salt is a favourite drink during the Muslim month of fasting, the Ramzan at Iftiari and Sehri times.
However, like many age-old valued traditions, the churning of butter from milk has disappeared from Kashmiri. Well, Gurus Mandun was an age-old tradition among Kashmiris and it was an elaborate process. The tools that were used for the process included an earthen vessel like tchod in which milk was poured. The milk was churned to Gurus and Th’ain in the vessel. It is a long wooden churner, De’on that is fundamental to the process. Gurus eDe’on is a fine paddle chiselled out of a wooden log that has blunt wooden blades or wicker rings attached at one end – the one that stays in the milk vessel. Its other end is tied to a wall or a thum, a pillar in the kitchen, and in between is the Lam e Raz or Mandan Raz, a pull-push rope that the Gurus maker pulls for making the blade move. The grass or jute rope has attached two handles tied of wood or Pach-i-Adiji (bones of sheep or goat legs) for the right and left hand that is either made of grass or jute.
The vessel was fastened to thum with another rope for preventing it from slipping away during the process. De’on was held tightly with grip of hands by the churner, the Gurus-Gour. With back-and-forth movements of the Lam e Raz butter was churned from the milk with buttermilk left in the vessel. Churning was done at a steady and measured pace by the Gurus-Gour holding two ends of the Lam e Raz in his hands till layers of butter appeared, gathered and thickened at the surface.
The finest quality of milk gave a yellowish tinge to the butter with the pungent taste of the buttermilk. Then, the churner would remove the paddle and scoop out all butter leaving behind Gurus in the vessel. The handmade butter, Th’ain, was what Kashmiris knew in the past.
A Routine
Unlike Srinagar where the Gurus was skimmed by the professional Gurus-Gour families, in the periphery, almost every household had the equipment and enough milk to make Gurus. Apart from spinning wheel, almost every woman in Kashmir periphery would pick the art from the elders.
A traditional drink, Gurus is seen as a traditional coolant. Families making Gurus used to gift part of it to the neighbours. Till recently, even Kashmiri Hakims would advise Gurus intake to the patients. In certain cases, it was customary to dip some silver ornament in the Gurus before drinking it. The tradition goes that Gurus being sour in taste is helping digestion.
With Gurus consumed, the focus would remain on homemade butter. It was gathered in a separate bowl and compounded into soft Th’ain balls (manun) with a spoon. Th’ain was sold in the market in weighed quantities to the buyers. Besides local mustard oil, the Kashmiri womenfolk in the past used the traditional Th’ain for anointing their hair to strengthen and shine the hair strands. Folklore suggests using butter to keep the women’s head cool.
The Gurus may be out of fashion but its making has not ceased in Kashmir. Herders who take their sheep and cows to upland meadows are unable to take the milk down. They convert it into butter as they consume Gurus while grazing their herds.
He heard from the DeSantis team shortly thereafter.
“Not from him personally,” Rufo told me, but from staff. “They said,” he said, “‘We’re putting together this policy, we’d love to have you advise, we’d love to have you come out and help announce it, we’d love to have essentially your support in pushing this concept through.’” Rufo obviously obliged. “I said, ‘That sounds great. I’m very excited.’” And if Fox News had given Rufo a platform, DeSantis put him on the physical, literal stage.
“So first,” said DeSantis in unveiling his so-called Stop WOKE Act at a ceremony in The Villages in December of 2021, “I’m going to bring up from the Manhattan Institute someone who really has done more than anybody else in our country on exposing CRT in education and in corporate America …”
“Governor Ron DeSantis is laying a marker,” Rufo said to the gathered crowd. “And he’s not only protecting all of the employees and students in the state of Florida. He’s providing a model for every state in the United States of America.”
He was back last April for the signing ceremony in Hialeah Gardens. And whereas Rufo in The Villages had been near the rear of the stage, snapping pictures, looking boyish, looking somewhat fannish, looking pleased to be present, now he was directly to the left of the governor.
“And so I give you,” said Ron DeSantis, “Chris Rufo.”
‘Working in a bureaucracy is very unappealing’
Rufo burst out of the building at New College.
“No violence!” he barked at the crowd of mostly critics that had gathered outside in the blue-sky, west-central-Florida warmth and sun this past January 25.
Rufo, wearing a trim navy suit and holding an iced Americano from Starbucks, referenced a death threat he said had been made against another of the new trustees — the trustee about to join him for meet-and-greets and question-and-answer periods with faculty and staff in the morning and then students in the afternoon.
“No bullshit!”
Not quite three weeks prior — January 6 — Rufo had been the first name listed (and the longest bio) on the announcement about New College from DeSantis’ office. The news elicited a smattering of comments from the governor’s aides in Tallahassee — it was the hope of the DeSantis administration, his chief of staff told the Daily Caller, that New College would become “a Hillsdale of the South” — but Rufo effectively and swiftly had become the most front-and-center spokesman, wasting no time putting into motion the mission. The very first day, for instance, he pointed on Twitter to a speech he had given at Hillsdale. “Laying Siege to the Institutions,” it was called. “We are now over the walls,” he said. The plan was to “reconquer public institutions,” he told the Times. “And so,” he wrote for City Journal on January 23, “we will plunge into a period of inevitable conflict and controversy.” And now it was two days later. The first actual meeting of the board with the new trustees wasn’t even for another week. But here Rufo already was.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“We are not going to back down to the woke mob, and we will expose the scams they are trying to push onto students across the country,” said DeSantis, who held a roundtable this month on what he called divisive concepts. “Florida students will receive an education, not a political indoctrination.”
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also stepped into this fight, issuing a directive last month instructing public universities across the state to stop considering DEI statements in their hiring practices. GOP-controlled statehouses in Iowa, Missouri and elsewhere are also scrutinizing higher education diversity initiatives, and legislation has been introduced in at least a dozen states aimed at cutting DEI spending and rewriting hiring guidelines at colleges and universities.
DEI programs have existed for decades across school and government with the goal of both increasing the share of people on campus or in the office from communities historically discriminated against, such as women and religious minorities, and making them feel accepted once they arrive.
“In American higher education, we have been working to make campuses diverse and inclusive for well over 100 years,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents the nation’s colleges and universities. “This is not about teaching white students to be ashamed or teaching Black students to hate white students. This is about making campuses inclusive communities where everybody can prosper.”
But after corporate and educational efforts to supercharge diversity, equity and inclusion programs following the public outrage over George Floyd’s police killing in 2020, many Republicans believe the initiatives promote exclusion and division based on race, a critique that has resonated with conservative voters. It’s a flurry of legislative and executive activity that is advancing as the U.S. Supreme Court also seems poised to ban the use of affirmative action in college admissions later this year.
“It’s good for universities to aspire to be welcoming places to people from many backgrounds, many different experiences, many different perspectives,” said Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy. “But that very good thing has mutated into something not good. … Simply because we like the word diversity and we like the word inclusion … doesn’t mean that DEI initiatives are good.”
According to Greene, GOP lawmakers are looking to dismantle DEI in at least three different ways: striking down the use of diversity statements used for hiring or promotions, ending required social curriculum, and eliminating what they call the “DEI bureaucracy” — practitioners on campus in charge of facilitating diversity efforts. But it does not mean conservatives are against diversity, he said.
Colleges and practitioners, however, argue that these measures could stifle academic freedom and halt diversity efforts needed to ensure a welcoming environment for students, especially those from marginalized backgrounds.
“I don’t use the acronym D-E-I any longer because it’s been conflated with something that has been weaponized against the breadth and the depth of the work that’s being done on campus communities,” said Paulette Granberry Russell, president of National Association Diversity Officers and Higher Education. “I don’t believe that there is a deep understanding of what this might mean to campuses.”
Granberry Russell, whose group is composed of diversity practitioners, scholars and researchers at universities, said her members are concerned about how the rollback of these initiatives will affect their jobs. They question what programming and professional development they could have, and what message these practices will send to prospective students and job applicants.
Abbott, who barred universities state agencies from using DEI statements, said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers: “Diversity is something that we support.”
But in a February letter first reported by the Texas Tribune, Abbott’s chief of staff Gardner Pate wrote that using the statements during the hiring process violates federal and state employment laws. Public colleges in the state were quick to abide by it.
Texas A&M University announced this month that it would no longer have diversity statements when hiring. University of Houston Chancellor Renu Khator soon followed, saying her institution “will not support or use DEI statements or factors in hiring or promotion anywhere in the University of Houston System” to stay in compliance with state law.
The University of Texas Board of Regents also paused any new policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion and are seeking a report on current policies across their campuses. While UT still strives for diversity on campus, Board Chair Kevin Eltife said “certain DEI efforts have strayed from the original intent to now imposing requirements and actions that, rightfully so, has raised the concerns of our policymakers around those efforts on campuses across our entire state.”
Greene, of the Heritage Foundation, said using diversity statements in hiring, promotions or assessing faculty tenure “seems to bear a lot of resemblance to loyalty oaths that were required during the McCarthy era where people had to declare that they weren’t communists.”
In Georgia, Republicans lawmakers are also looking to ban DEI in education hiring practices through a bill dubbed the “End Political Litmus Tests In Education Act,” SB 261. The Missouri legislature is considering a similar measure to ban public colleges from requiring applicants to submit DEI statements.
This month, South Carolina lawmakers sparred over eliminating funding for DEI efforts from the state’s public colleges during its broader budget negotiations. In Iowa, the Board of Regents announced that it is taking on a comprehensive review of all DEI programs and efforts and pausing any new ones at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.
Meanwhile in Florida, lawmakers advanced the wide-ranging measure sought by DeSantis that would bar universities and colleges from spending on programs linked to diversity, equity and inclusion or critical race theory.
The legislation also calls on the state university system’s Board of Governors to direct schools to remove any major or minor of study that is “based on or otherwise utilizes pedagogical methodology” tied to critical race theory. This includes Critical Race Theory, Critical Race Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Radical Feminist Theory, Radical Gender Theory, Queer Theory, Critical Social Justice, or Intersectionality.
Critical race theory is an analytical framework for examining how racism has been systemic to American society and institutions after centuries of slavery and Jim Crow. Many conservatives use critical race theory as shorthand for a broader critique of how race and social issues are being taught in the K-12 education system.
The bill would also weaken or eliminate the roles created at institutions to support students. Recognizing the needs of students based on how they identify, and providing academic and social support is a key role diversity practitioners have long taken on in higher education, Granberry Russell said.
“If we go back to a time when those needs were ignored, not specifically addressed, not tailored to what those students’ needs are,” she said, “what does that represent? You’re not welcome here.”
Andrew Atterbury contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
