By Nyla Ali Khan
Although Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah viewed the accession of J&K to India as a strategic and pragmatic necessity and sought to justify it by deploying the rhetoric of socialism and secularism, he harboured hopes for the creation of a sovereign Kashmir. In October 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India reinforced the stipulation that [...]

Over the years, tremendous political and social turmoil has been generated in the state by the forces of religious fundamentalism and by an exclusionary nationalism that seeks to erode the cultural syncretism that is part of the ethos of Kashmir. These forces are responsible for the shutting down of dissenters who voice cultural critique, repression [...]

Nyla Ali Khan
About the book
(Extract from the author’s preface)
I belong to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (J & K), a highly volatile South Asian region with rich reservoirs of cultural, social and human wealth. I was raised in the splendid Kashmir Valley located in the foothills of the Himalayas. The charm, splendour and heterogeneity of [...]