Author Description

Despite its centrality to the political life of india and pakistan, kashmir has met with rather perfunctory treatment from historians of south asia the few works of history and politics that have appeared on this region, moreover, insist on defining kashmiri culture, history and identity in terms of the a historical concept of kashmiriyat, or a uniquely kashmiri cultural identity this book, in contrast, questions the notion of any transcendent cultural uniqueness and kashmiriyat by returning kashmir to the mainstream of south asian historiography it examines the hundred-year impact of indirect colonial rule on kashmirs class formation it looks at the responses of kashmirs society to social and economic restructuring it studies the uses made of kashmirs political elites by the state it analyses the effect of islamic discourse on kashmirs political culture it shows that while all these historical changes had a profound impact on the political culture of the kashmir valley, there is nothing either very inevitable or quite definite about the political regionalism and islamic particularism of this area to read this book is to see the changing relationship between, on the one hand, the actual needs and demands of kashmiris, and, on the other, their religious affiliations and regional identities the emergence of a political discourse among the regions muslims by which they now define and locate a coherent kashmiri muslim community within the larger framework of islam, kashmir, india and pakistan has never been made clearer using local language sources and every important archive, this is a major history of the formation of kashmir as we know it today it shows us precisely how the kashmir valley was transformed over a hundred years and assumed the position it has come to occupy in contemporary south asia