Zafar Choudhary

Zafar Choudhary is a well-known name in the India-Pakistan Track II process with focus on peacebuilding in Kashmir.[6] He has worked with Conciliation Resources (London) since 2008 on a comprehensive India-Pakistan Track II process focused on peacebuilding in the Jammu and Kashmir region.[7] He has worked closely with government officials, political and civil society actors across the political divides in both sides of the Line of Control to create unique and exemplary institutes like a Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a Consortium of Vice Chancellors, drawing members from both sides of India-Pakistan divide in Kashmir.[8][9] Choudhary has engaged in Track II and deliberations on Jammu and Kashmir issue with institutes like Royal United Services Institute , United Kingdom Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs USIP (Washington DC), Berghof Foundation (Berlin), IPCS (Siem Reap, Cambodia), United Services Institute, New Delhi, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies , New Delhi the WISCOMP, New Delhi and a number of other Thank Tanks and Universities in India and abroad.[10][11][12][13]

Being an expert on Jammu and Kashmir affairs, Zafar Choudhary has been widely interviewed by the international and national press on Jammu and Kashmir affairs, India-Pakistan relations, national security and geo-politics. His interviews or reference to his work have appeared in influential international and national newspapers, magazines and television channels such as The Guardian, UK ; Aljazeera , Arab News, BBC London, ThePrint , The Wire, Scroll.in, The Citizen , Kashmir Observer TRT World , Anti War among others.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]

He is the founding editor of Epilogue, a Jammu -based English news magazine published in India.[25] Presently, he is Editor in Chief of The Dispatch (Jammu and Kashmir) an Indian online digital news service supplemented by channels on YouTube and Facebook to disseminate and distribute rich news content.[26] He also writes for The Hindu, Rising Kashmir and other news paper regularly.

The resent study conducted by Zafar Choudhary later published in a book titled ‘Kashmir Conflict and Muslims of Jammu’ addresses a historical gap in scholarship on Jammu and Kashmir. The story of the Muslims of Jammu, their political views and pro-India outlook, was not known before this book was published in 2015. In an interview to ‘Daily O’ of the India Today group, Zafar Choudhary said, the Muslim of Jammu is lost in oblivion.[27] Jammu and Kashmir’s leading English daily newspaper ‘Daily Excelsior’ termed the book as ‘Masterly narrative of Kashmir conflict and identity profile of Jammu Muslims.[28] The Friday Times of Lahore said ‘Zafar’s book in itself is the first of its kind, as successive historians only made passing references to the Jammu massacre. Its launch kick-started a fresh debate around the subject’.[29] In an article titled Of the ‘Other’ and ‘Outsider’, India’s leading English daily The Hindu said, “Choudhary’s is an important work which will, I hope, help in addressing the impressions of Muslims of Jammu division that they are taken for granted, that the government of India, and the world, seeking to bring to final resolution the conflicts that have plagued the state of J&K over the last century, seek primarily to determine simply the views of different sections of the community residents in Kashmir.” [30]

Zafar Choudhary won the State Award from Government of Jammu and Kashmir in 2017 for his contribution in the field of journalism.[31]

Graduate from London School of Economics.

• Shahid Iqbal Choudhary
• Shujaat Bukhari
• Muzamil Jaleel

• The Dispatch website