Basharat Peer


Basharat Peer is an Indian journalist, script writer, author, and political commentator, hailing from Kashmir and currently based in New York City. He is currently an Opinion editor at The New York Times.
Peer was a fellow of the Open Society Institute in New York, a George Soros initiative. He regards himself a Kashmiri, with his nationality being a "matter of dispute".

Early and personal life

Peer was born in Seer, Anantnag in Jammu and Kashmir. He attended school in the valley of Kashmir and continued his education after matriculation in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh away from his strife-ridden birthplace. He studied political science at Aligarh Muslim University, law at Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, and journalism at Columbia University.
Peer's father is a retired officer of the Kashmir Administrative Services.
Peer is married to Ananya Vajpeyi, an academician.

Career

Peer started his career as a reporter at Rediff and Tehelka. In his early career he was based in Delhi. He has worked as an Assistant Editor at Foreign Affairs and was a Fellow at Open Society Institute, New York. He was a Roving Editor at The Hindu. He has written extensively on South Asian politics for Granta, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, FT Magazine, The New Yorker, The National and The Caravan.
He is the author of Curfewed Night, an eyewitness account of the Kashmir conflict, which won the Crossword Prize for Non-Fiction and was chosen among the Books of the Year by The Economist and The New Yorker.
Peer ran the "India Ink" blog on the digital edition of The New York Times.

Notable work

Peer was the script writer along with Vishal Bhardwaj for the Bollywood film Haider. He also had a special appearance in the film.

Publications

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