Languages of Belongings

Languages of Belonging

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 Kashmir’s class formation. It looks at the responses of Kashmir’s society to social and economic restructuring. It studies the uses made of Kashmir’s political elites by the state. It analyses the effect of Islamic discourse on Kashmir’s 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.