Languages of Belonging Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir

by Zutshi, Chitralekha

• ISBN13: 9780195219395
• ISBN10: 0195219392
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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 ahistorical 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 studies the uses (and abuses) made of Kashmirs political elites by the state. It looks at the responses of Kashmirs society to social and economic restructuring. It shows that while all these historical changes had a profound impact on the political culture of the Kashmir Valley, there is nothing very inevitable or quite definite about the 'political regionalism' and 'Islamic particularism' of this area. Using local language sources and every important archive, this major history of the formation of Kashmir shows precisely how the Kashmir Valley assumed the position it has come to occupy in postcolonial South Asia.

Author Biography

Chitralekha C. Zutshi is Assistant Professor of History at the College of William and Mary.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	x
Glossary	xiv
Introduction	1	(15)
Kashmir: Land and Geography
Sources and Contents
Mulk-i-Kashmir: History, Memory, and Representation	16	(41)
The Immortalized Mystics of Kashmir: Lal Ded and Nund Rishi
A Threat to Kashmiriyat? The Mughals in Kashmir
Bagh-i-Sulei-man: The Articulation of Kashmiri Regional Belonging during Afghan and Sikh Rule
The Period of Transition: Religious and Regional Identities during Early Dogra Rule
Political Economy and Class Formation in Kashmir	57	(61)
Peasants and Bureaucrats: The Rice Economy of the Kashmir Valley, 1846--1887
City on a Shawl: The Srinagar Shawl Trade, 1846--1883
The Impact of Colonial Intervention I: The Land Settlement, 1885--1914
The Impact of Colonial Intervention II: Trade and Commerce, 1885--1914
Transformation and Conflict in Srinagar City, 1880--1930
Contested Identities in the Kashmir Valley	118	(51)
Disputes over Sacred Space in Late-Nineteenth-Century Srinagar
Homeland and Community in Kashmiri Discourse at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
State, Community, and the Law: Politicization of Kashmiri Muslim Identities in the Early Twentieth Century
Poetic Renditions of Kashmiri Muslim Identities
Urban Politics and the Emergence of a New Muslim Leadership
Education, Class, Language, and Identity	169	(41)
Education and the Dogra State, 1846--1889
Education, the Dogra State, and Kashmiri Muslims, 1889--1915
Education, Kashmiri Muslim Demands, and the Dogra State, 1916--1930
The Politics of Identity: Religious Community, Region, and Nation in Kashmiri Discourse	210	(49)
1931: Events, Meanings, and Outcomes
1932--1933: Rise of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and the Muslim Conference
1934--1939: A Community, Regional, or National Ideology?
Kashmiri Visions of Nationalism and Regionalism	259	(64)
Revivalism vs. Nationalism? Kashmir in the Early 1940s
The Critique of ``Nationalism'' and ``Communalism'' in Kashmiri Political Discourse
The National Conference under Siege: Naya Kashmir and the Kashmiris, 1944--1946
India, Pakistan, or Independence? Kashmir in 1947
``Truth about Kashmir'': Kashmiri Politics in Postcolonial India, 1947--1953
Conclusion	323	(11)
Bibliography	334	(19)
Index	353