Who Won the U.S. Presidential Debate?

As Kashmir votes in its first regional elections in a decade, Waheed-ur-Rehman Para battles his own demons, contesting to win and reaffirm his faith in Indian democracy.

Pulwama, Indian-administered Kashmir — For a month in 2020, 33-year-old Waheed-ur-Rehman Para was imprisoned in a dark, underground cell in the Indian capital, where he was beaten with rods, stripped naked, and hung upside down after the country’s premier investigation agency accused him of aiding anti-India rebels.

In the dim light, he would touch the names of other Kashmiris — scratched on the walls — who had been held in the New Delhi cell before him. At his lowest points, Para would close his eyes and recall the summer of 2018 when he stood in front of 3,000 people, next to Rajnath Singh, then India’s home minister, who hailed him as a youth icon of Indian democracy.

“I became suicidal and everything,” Para recalled, walking on a dusty road in Pulwama, his hometown.

• Read More