Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Comparative Feminist Studies Series

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Series Editor

Published by Palgrave Macmillan:

Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and
the Hindu Public in Colonial India
by Charu Gupta
Twenty-First-Century Feminist Classrooms: Pedagogies of Identity and
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Reading across Borders: Storytelling and Knowledges of Resistance
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Made in India: Decolonizations, Queer Sexualities,
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by Suparna Bhaskaran
Dialogue and Difference: Feminisms Challenge Globalization
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edited by Saskia E. Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood, and Abha Bhaiya
Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics
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Gender, Identity, and Imperialism: Women Development Workers in
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by Nancy Cook
Transnational Feminism in Film and Media
edited by Katarzyna Marciniak, Anikó Imre, and Áine O’Healy
Gendered Citizenships: Transnational Perspectives on Knowledge
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edited by Kia Lilly Caldwell, Kathleen Coll, Tracy Fisher,
Renya K. Ramirez, and Lok Siu
Visions of Struggle in Women’s Filmmaking in the Mediterranean
edited by Flavia Laviosa; Foreword by Laura Mulvey
Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan
by Nyla Ali Khan
Islam, Women, and Violence
in Kashmir
Between India and Pakistan

Nyla Ali Khan

ISLAM, WOMEN, AND VIOLENCE IN KASHMIR
Copyright © Nyla Ali Khan, 2010.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by Tulika Books, New Delhi, India.
First published in the United States in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®—
a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-29075-8 ISBN 978-0-230-11352-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-11352-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Khan, Nyla Ali, 1972–
Islam, women, and violence in Kashmir : between India and Pakistan /
Nyla Ali Khan.
p. cm.—(Comparative feminist studies)
1. Sex discrimination against women—India—Jammu and Kashmir.
2. Muslim women—India—Jammu and Kashmir. 3. Women in Islam—
India—Jammu and Kashmir. 4. Political violence—India—Jammu and
Kashmir. I. Title.
HQ1744.J35K43 2010
305.48ⴕ6970954609045—dc22 2010013885
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: October 2010
This book is dedicated to one of the most visionary leaders the
Indian subcontinent has ever produced, Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah, and also to the intrepid Begum Akbar Jehan who,
even in the worst of times, lived their convictions with dignity.
 Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Series Editor’s Foreword xi
Preface xv
Permissions xix
Abbreviations xxi

Introduction 1
One Conflicting Political Discourses, Partition,
Plebiscite, Autonomy, Integration 17
Two Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 45
Three Political Debacles 63
Four Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 93
Five Negotiating the Boundaries of Gender, Community,
and Nationhood 113
Conclusion 145

Negotiating Necrophilia: An Afterword by Ashis Nandy 169

Appendices 175
Glossary 181
Bibliography 189
Index 201
 Illustrations

1 Kashmiri traders with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah,

Bombay, 1936 22
2 The new government headed by Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah and Mirza Afzal Beg passes the landmark
“land to the tiller” legislation, 1950 38
3 The Shah Hamadan mosque (Khanqah-i-mualla)
on the banks of the Jhelum, Srinagar 47
4 The Ziarat Sheikh-ul Alam, Chirar-i-Sharif, Srinagar,
tomb of Noor-ud-Din Wali, was burned down
during militancy in 1995 54
5 Cultural Academy, Srinagar 62
6 Jawaharlal Nehru, with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
by his side, pledges to hold a UN-supervised plebiscite in
J & K, Srinagar, 1948 64
7 Façade of the Hazratbal mosque, Srinagar 78
8 Subsequent to his talks with Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
traveled to Pakistan with his loyalists Maulana Masoodi
and Mirza Afzal Beg to hold talks with Pakistan’s
General Ayub Khan 80
9 Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah addresses a mammoth
gathering at the historic Lal Chowk in Srinagar, 1975 91
10 Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah and Lady Edwina
Mountbatten, wife of the last viceroy of British India,
with a Kashmiri peasant woman, 1947 132
11 Kashmiri women protesting against the atrocities
inflicted by police and paramilitary troops, Srinagar,
Kashmir 141
 Series Editor’s Foreword

Less than a year ago, The New York Times (23 August 2009) declared
“the oppression of women worldwide” to be the “human rights cause
of our time,” claiming that women’s liberation would “solve many of
the world’s problems!” Some years ago, then U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Anan had announced that the status of women was the key indi-
cator of the “development” of a nation. These pronouncements sup-
posedly recognize the global crises in women’s lives, but they also
reflect a history of women’s struggles and feminist movements around
the globe. The Comparative Feminist Studies (CFS) series is designed
to foreground writing, organizing, and reflection on feminist trajecto-
ries across the historical and cultural borders of nation-states. It takes
up fundamental analytic and political issues involved in the cross cul-
tural production of knowledge about women and feminism, examin-
ing the politics of scholarship and knowledge in relation to feminist
organizing and social justice movements. Drawing on feminist think-
ing in a number of fields, the CFS series targets innovative, compara-
tive feminist scholarship, pedagogical and curricular strategies, and
community organizing and political education. It explores a compar-
ative feminist praxis that addresses some of the most urgent questions
facing progressive critical thinkers and activists today. Nyla Ali Khan’s
Islam, Women, and the Violence in Kashmir: Between India and
Pakistan takes on some of these very questions, crafting a history of
gendered violence and women’s agency in a region of the world that
like Palestine, embodies one of the most poignant and violent post-
colonial conflicts of the twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.
Over the past many decades, feminists across the globe have been
variously successful at addressing fundamental issues of oppression
and liberation. In our search for gender justice in the early twenty first
century however, we inherit a number of the challenges our mothers
and grandmothers faced. But there are also new challenges to face as
we attempt to make sense of a world indelibly marked by the failure
of postcolonial (and advanced) capitalist and communist nation-states
to provide for the social, economic, spiritual, and psychic needs of the
majority of the world’s population. In the year 2010, globalization
has come to represent the interests of corporations and the free mar-
ket rather than self-determination and freedom from political,
xii Series Editor’s Foreword

cultural, and economic domination for all the world’s peoples. The
project of U.S. Empire building, alongside the dominance of corpo-
rate capitalism kills, disenfranchises, and impoverishes women every-
where. Militarization, environmental degradation, heterosexist State
practices, religious fundamentalisms, sustained migrations of peoples
across the borders of nations and geo-political regions, environmental
crises, and the exploitation of women’s labor by capital all pose pro-
found challenges for feminists at this time. Recovering and remem-
bering insurgent histories, and seeking new understandings of political
subjectivities and citizenship has never been so important, at a time
marked by social amnesia, global consumer culture, and the world-
wide mobilization of fascist notions of “national security.”
These are some of the very challenges the CFS series is designed to
address. The series takes as its fundamental premise the need for fem-
inist engagement with global as well as local ideological, historical,
economic, and political processes, and the urgency of transnational
dialogue in building an ethical culture capable of withstanding and
transforming the commodified and exploitative practices of global
governance structures, culture and economics. Individual volumes in
the CFS series provide systemic and challenging interventions into the
(still) largely Euro-Western feminist studies knowledge base, while
simultaneously highlighting the work that can and needs to be done
to envision and enact cross-cultural, multiracial feminist solidarity.
Nyla Ali Khan’s eloquent, passionate history of the 60 plus year
struggle for independence in Kashmir draws on her own genealogy
and political legacy as part of one of the “first families” in Kashmir,
textual and empirical analysis of the military and political conflicts
over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, oral histories of key women
nationalist leaders, feminist scholarship on women’s agency in war-
torn, militarized conflict zones, and a deep and unwavering commit-
ment to a land, history, and culture that inspired visionary and
progressive syncretic cultures, and poetic and spiritual texts of excep-
tional beauty and humanity. Khan engages with the deep trauma and
reality of gendered violence in occupied, militarized territories where
women constitute the ground for masculinist, patriarchal nation-
projects.
Drawing on oral histories of feminist militants in nationalist strug-
gles and against religious fundamentalisms, Khan crafts a provisional
notion of women’s agency that runs counter to narratives of sexual-
ized violence and victimhood that populate scholarly and popular
histories of the Kashmir conflict. Caught between the economic,
political, and psychological effects of “dislocation, dispossession, and
 Series Editor’s Foreword xiii

disenfranchisement,” Khan argues, Kashmiri women “are positioned

in relation to their own class and cultural realities; their own histo-
ries; their sensitivity to the diversity of cultural traditions and to the
questions and conflicts within them; the legacies of Sufi Islam; their
own struggles not just with the devastating effects of Indian occupa-
tion and Pakistani infiltration, but also with the discourses of cultural
nationalism and religious fundamentalism; their own relations to the
West; their interpretations of religious law; their beliefs in different
schools of Islamic and Hindu thought; (and) their concepts of the role
of women in contemporary societies.” (p. 179)
Islam, Women and the Violence in Kashmir showcases the kind of
scholarship that can create the ground for cross-racial /cross-national
dialogue among and between scholars and activists in regional as well
as global contexts, especially, for instance, in the current context of
feminist struggles in Palestine. As Ashis Nandy states in his Afterword,
“Nyla Ali Khan’s passionate, affectionate portrait of Kashmir looks
to the future with hope because her reading of Lalla-Ded and the
Kashmiri women’s struggle for survival is the story of the possibilities
that may not have been crushed by the combined efforts of fanatic
militants and the Indian army. Kashmir can still be, under an imagi-
native visionary arrangement, a culture mediating between South
Asia and Central Asia, between India and Pakistan, and perhaps even
between Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.” (p. 200) The book will be
of interest to a wide range of feminist scholars, activists, and cultural
critics. It embodies the comparative praxis and vision of transnational
knowledge production that is a hallmark of the CFS series.

Chandra Talpade Mohanty

Series Editor, Ithaca, New York
 Preface

I belong to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (J & K), a highly

volatile South Asian region that is endowed with reservoirs of cul-
tural, social, and human wealth. I was raised in the radiant Kashmir
Valley located in the foothills of the Himalayas. The charm, splendor,
and heterogeneity of the Kashmir Valley have enticed many a writer,
historian, anthropologist, sociologist, benevolent ruler, and malevo-
lent politician. J & K of the 1970s basked in the glory of a hard-won
democratic setup, in which consideration of the well-being of the pop-
ulace was supreme, marred by some political faux pas. The inhabit-
ants of the state were neither intimidated nor hindered by the
aggressively centrist policies of the government of India or the fanati-
cal belligerence of the government of Pakistan.
Caught between rival siblings India and Pakistan, the people of the
state, particularly of the Kashmir Valley, had constructed a composite
national identity. Kashmiris were heavily invested in the notion of ter-
ritorial integrity and cultural pride, which, through the perseverance
of the populist leadership and the unflinching loyalty of the people,
had sprouted on a barren landscape of abusive political and military
authority. I recall that period with nostalgia and mourn the loss of a
deep-rooted and heartfelt nationalism. My maternal grandfather,
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, popularly known as the Lion of
Kashmir, reigned as prime minister of J & K from 1948 to 1953.
When the pledge to hold a referendum was not kept by the Indian
government, Abdullah’s advocacy of Kashmir independence led to his
imprisonment. He was shuttled from one jail to another until 1972
and remained out of power until 1975. During the period of Abdullah’s
incarceration, Congress Party-led governments in New Delhi made
covert arrangements with puppet regimes they had installed. Prior to
the 1975 accord between the Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah-led
National Conference and the Indira Gandhi-led Congress, Abdullah
demanded the revocation of all central laws extended to the state that
delegitimized the popular demand for plebiscite. The then prime min-
ister, Indira Gandhi, forged an accord with Abdullah in 1975 by
promising to partially restore the autonomy of the state by revoking
certain central laws that had arbitrarily been imposed on J & K.
The same year, Abdullah returned as chief minister of the state.
xvi Preface

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his National Conference won an

overwhelming victory in the election of 1977, and he remained in
office until his death in 1982.
Although my maternal grandfather has always been a large pres-
ence in my life, perhaps more in death than in life, I have been careful
about not sanctifying the past. Memory is always filtered and pro-
vides an interpretive version of the past, but the conceptual frame-
work that I have deployed in my book has been useful in enabling me
to begin the process of relieving myself from the burden of history.
The refusal to wallow in grief and a desire to deconstruct the
Camelot-like atmosphere of that period impelled me to undertake this
colossal cross-disciplinary project regarding the political history,
composite culture, and literature of the state; and the attempted rele-
gation of Kashmiri women to the archives of memory and their per-
sistent endeavors to rise from the ashes of immolated identities. I was
further motivated to complete this project within the period stipu-
lated by my publisher because of the plethora of mauled versions of
history cunningly making their way into mainstream Indian,
Pakistani, and international political discourses. This book has no
pretensions about being an exhaustive discussion of the intricate poli-
tics of J & K. It is my humble attempt at speaking truth to power by
employing not just traditional scholarship but oral historiography as
well. Despite my emotional investment in the issue, I have tried to veer
away from the seductive trap of either romanticizing or demonizing
certain political actors and initiatives.
All going well, this is just the first in a series of books challenging
dominant, and not necessarily accurate, discourses on J & K. Finally,
Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan
is a tribute to the resilient spirit of the inhabitants of J & K, which has
made them persevere through catastrophes, upheavals, unfulfilled
pledges, treacherous politics, and vile manipulations. They have
emerged scathed but with an irrepressible desire to live and define
their own reality. I hope to some day live that reality.
Several institutions and individuals have supported my project. I
would like to express heartfelt gratitude to the College of Fine Arts
and Humanities at the University of Nebraska–Kearney for its invet-
erate support, as well as to the office of Graduate Studies and Research
for awarding me two Research Services Council Grants, enabling me
to conduct archival and field research. I am especially appreciative of
Don Ray’s technical expertise. Michael Springer, my graduate assis-
tant, worked diligently. Jenara Turman, my proofreader, was an abso-
lute asset. I am greatly appreciative of the visiting professorship
 Preface xvii

offered to me at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, which gave me

the flexibility I required to revise my manuscript. I also learned a lot
from conversations and e-mail exchanges with Krishna Misri, Neeja
Mattoo, Hameeda Naeem, Parveena Ahangar, Shamim Firdous,
Pathani Begum, Begum Sajjida Zameer, P.N. Duda, A. Wahid, Amar
Nath Dhar, Mohammad Ishaq Khan, and R.L. Hangloo, and
Mohammad Yousuf Taing. The Gujjar women I met with in the vil-
lages of Mahiyan and Ferozpora were such a delight. I appreciate the
critical care with which Professor Ashis Nandy at the Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, read my manuscript and
wrote the Afterword to this book.
I am thankful to all my interviewees in Kashmir for their time and
willingness to talk with me about their years in the strife-torn state.
My thanks to Ved Bhasin, editor of Kashmir Times, Fayaz Kaloo and
Aijaz ul Haq, editors of Greater Kashmir, and Syed Ali Safvi, former
associate editor of Daily Etalaat, for having provided me with public
forums. Shuaib Masoodi of Rising Kashmir provided me with some
extraordinary illustrations. My debt to my parents, Suraiya and
Mohammad Ali Matto, is enormous. They have always believed in
me and my dreams with unwavering faith. My daughter, Iman, has
enlivened my days with her unquenchable vitality and irrepressible
energy. My maternal uncle, Sheikh Nazir Ahmad, uncharacteristi-
cally gave me access to his archived collection of photographs and
books. My husband, Mohammad Faisal Khan, gave encouraging
comments on my work. Last but not least, I owe my inspiration to the
undying loveliness and mystical beauty of Kashmir, which enlivens
the soul and calls the wanderer to return.

Nyla Ali Khan

 Permissions

Translations of Lalla-Ded’s vaakh (poem) by Sir Richard Carmac

Temple in The Word of Lalla the Prophetess, reprinted by permission
of Gulshan Books.
Translations of Lalla-Ded’s vaakhs (poems and aphorisms) by Neerja
Mattoo in a scholarly paper she presented at a conference, reproduced
by kind permission of the author.
Translation of Mahjoor’s poem in An Anthology of Modern Kashmiri
Verse, translated and edited by Trilokinath Raina, reprinted by kind
permission of Raina.
Excerpts from Neerja Mattoo’s e-mail to author, quoted by kind per-
mission of Mattoo.
Excerpts from Mohammad Yousuf Taing’s e-mail to author, quoted
by kind permission of Taing.
Excerpts from Krishna Misri’s e-mail to author, quoted by kind per-
mission of Misri.
Excerpts from P.N. Duda’s correspondence with the author, quoted
by kind permission of Duda.
Excerpts from Sajjida Zameer’s e-mail to author, quoted by kind per-
mission of Zameer.
Excerpts from the document on human rights violations in Indian-
administered J & K formulated by G.M. Shah’s Awami National
Conference, reproduced by kind permission of Shah.
Excerpts from Amar Nath Dhar’s e-mail to author, quoted by kind
permission of Dhar.
Excerpts from A. Wahid’s e-mail to author, quoted by kind permis-
sion of Wahid.
Excerpts from Mohammad Ishaq Khan’s e-mail to author, quoted by
kind permission of Khan.
Excerpts from R.L. Hangloo’s e-mail to author, quoted by kind per-
mission of Hangloo.
Excerpts from Suraiya Ali Matto’s correspondence with author,
quoted by kind permission of Matto.
 Abbreviations

AISPC All India States People’s Conference

APDP Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons
APHC All Parties Hurriyat Conference
BJP Bharatiya Janata Party
BSF Border Security Force
CDR Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation
CRPF Central Reserve Police Force
DM Dukhtara-e-Milat (“Daughters of the Nation”)
HM Hizb-ul-Mujahideen
ISI Inter-Services Intelligence
J&K Jammu and Kashmir
JKLF Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front
KANA Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas
LOC Line of Control
MC Muslim Conference
MUF Muslim United Front
NA Northern Areas
NC National Conference
NSG National Security Guard
PDP People’s Democratic Party
PF Plebiscite Front
RR Rashtriya Rifles
SOG Special Operations Group
STF Special Task Force
UN United Nations
UNCIP United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan
UNO United Nations Organization
WSDC Women’s Self Defense Corps
 Introduction

As I sit under the bespeckled sky gazing on the enthralling beauty

of Gulmarg in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley, lush with
lupines, daisies, narcissus, and red roses, nurtured by snow-covered
peaks and glaciers, I watch the mutable aspects of Kashmir, sometimes
joyous and sometimes despondent. I am enveloped by nostalgia for
the era of lost innocence and misplaced hope that at one point in time
had ensconced the Kashmiris in the heart of paradise. Smoke from the
chimneys of chalets with shingled roofs creates a languid atmosphere,
making the observer oblivious to the anguishes of life. The mist rises
stealthily from the mountains and gives tantalizing glimpses of the
ethereal vision behind the veil. The tranquil Dal lake, in which gentle
ripples are created by the oar of a homebound boatman rowing his
gondola on a moonlit night, calms the angst of existence. From a
distance I hear sonorous voices singing folksongs lamenting the loss
of a beloved or remembering the imminence of death. These songs are
sung by tribal people with weather-beaten faces and jaded souls. The
pain in their voices and the emotion in the lyrics echo the centuries of
political, cultural, and religious persecution that these proud people
have borne but have not resigned themselves to. Their isolation, caused
by the rugged terrain they inhabit, has not extinguished the spark of
hopeful romance and faith in the resilience of humanity. The beauty
of quiet meditation and faith in providence is evoked by the rushing
pristine streams in Dachigam, a wildlife sanctuary, redolent of trout.
The enchanting wilderness, the mystique of which is enhanced by the
soporific sound of crickets and the coverlet of purple hibiscus, pro-
vides a haven for the seeker of spiritual comfort. How can a prodigal
daughter or son not return to this land of enchantment?
Indian- and Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir (J & K)
is a space in which conflicting discourses have been written and
read. Prior to 1947 the history of Kashmir comprised four phases:
Hindu and Buddhist rule, Muslim rule, Sikh conquest, and Dogra
rule. In about AD 1200 the poet–historian Kalhana wrote a volu-
minous account of Kashmir’s historical trajectory from 1182 BC,
Rajatarangini (River of Kings). In this epic Kalhana writes about the
tribal inhabitants of Kashmir, the Nagas, who created an agrarian
society and were an idolatrous people. The history of the Kashmir
2 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Valley through AD 1486 was recounted by Pandit Jonaraja. This task

was later taken on by Srivara and Prajyabhatta, who recorded the
history of Kashmir through the conquest of the Valley by the Mughal
emperor Akbar in 1586 (Sufi 1979: 1).
In the earliest phase, Hinduism pervaded the fabric of Kashmiri
culture and society. But the Mauryan emperor Ashoka embraced
Buddhism, and during his rule, Hinduism, with its trappings of a
rigid caste hierarchy, ornate rituals, and pantheon of deities, was
replaced by the austerity of Buddhism in the Valley. The monaster-
ies constructed in Kashmir during Ashoka’s reign became centers of
scholarly learning, and the Valley became a religious and cultural
hub. The hegemonic influence of Buddhism in Kashmir declined in
AD 711 with the foray of Islamic military rule, political dominance,
and religious teachings.
Hindu and Buddhist rule in Kashmir was obliterated by the Muslim
conquest in 1339. Prior to that, Kashmir had feared conquest by a
Tartar chief. In order to nullify that threat made to the stability of the
Valley during the feckless rule of Raja Sahadev, the commander-in-chief
of Kashmir requested assistance from Shah Mir of Swat (now a part
of Pakistan) and Rainchau Shah of Tibet. Rainchau Shah was quick
to offer aid that alleviated the danger posed by the Tartar ruler.
Subsequently, he employed Machiavellian strategies to assassinate the
commander-in-chief, married his daughter Kuta Rani, and ascended
the throne of Kashmir. Shah converted to Islam and took on the name
Sadruddin (Lawrence 2005: 179–200). The dominance of Islam in
the Valley was consolidated in the fourteenth century by the Sufi
Naqashbandi order of Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, popularly known
as Shah Hamadan. Hamadani first visited Kashmir during the reign
of the first sultan of Kashmir, Shah Mir, who assumed the reins of
power after the demise of Sadruddin.
The first sultan to implement Muslim law in the Valley was
Sikander. He inherited the throne in 1394. The architectural wonders
built during his reign have retained their unique ethos and are still
venerated as landmarks. He founded the town of Sikandarpur (now
called Nowhatta, in Srinagar), built the splendid Jama Masjid (cen-
tral mosque) in Srinagar, and constructed the architecturally elegant
Khanqah-i-mualla (monastery) on the banks of the river Jhelum. Mir
Sayyid Ali Hamadani propagated the Islamic faith within the ornate
portals of the Khanqah-i-mualla. Sikander was succeeded by Zainul
Abedin (1420–1470), who was a patron of the arts. Zainul Abedin,
popularly known as Budshah, proclaimed religious tolerance and
invalidated discriminatory laws; today, his reign is still acclaimed for
 Introduction 3

the peace, amity, and intellectual growth that it personified. Despite

his remarkable contribution to the cultural, religious, and intellec-
tual ethos of Kashmir, Budshah was unable to groom his son and
successor, Haider Shah, to intrepidly position himself at the helm of
affairs. With the defeat of Haider Shah by the Chak tribals in 1561,
the first Muslim dynasty of Kashmir was terminated (see Lawrence
2005: 179–200; Rahman 1996; Rai 2004: 27).
Subsequently, in 1589, Mughal emperor Akbar’s formidable army
laid siege to and conquered Kashmir. Akbar’s grandson, Shah Jahan,
conquered Ladakh, Baltistan, and Kishtawar, and validated the
annexation of those territories in 1634. The rule of the Afghan mili-
tary commander Ahmad Shah Durrani, with its brutality and heinous
militarism, replaced Mughal rule in Kashmir in 1753. This period is
remembered in the annals of notoriety for its relentless oppression,
cultural erosion, religious intemperance, metaphoric and literal burial
of the arts, and dehumanization.

The brutal intemperance of Afghan rule, which lasted until 1819,

drove Kashmiris to urgently implore outside help. The Kashmiri Pandit
community led by Birbal Dhar encouraged the Sikhs to invade Kashmir,
and Birbal Dhar offered to bear the expenses of the invasion. Ranjit
Singh invaded Kashmir with an army of 30,000 Sikh soldiers and cap-
tured the Valley on 15 June 1819. After five centuries of Muslim rule,
during which nine-tenths of the population embraced Islam, Kashmir
was once again in the hands of non-Muslims. (Rahman 1996: 12)

The demolition of Afghan rule proved to be a pyrrhic victory

for the people of Kashmir. However, Sikh rule in the Valley, which
lasted twenty-seven years, surpassed that of the unruly Afghans in
its barbarism and cruelty. Discriminatory policies ruled the roost
and the Sikh rulers made short shrift of the Kashmiri Muslim major-
ity (see Malik 2002; Younghusband 1970). In the 1820s, the neigh-
boring plains of the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, were ruled by Raja
Gulab Singh, feudatory of the Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
Gulab Singh was crowned monarch of Jammu by Ranjit Singh in
1822. Under the potent overlordship of Ranjit Singh, Gulab Singh
efficaciously extended his territory in the name of the Sikh kingdom,
and went so far as to capture Ladakh, a region bordering China, in
1834 and Baltistan in 1840. After Ranjit Singh’s demise, the hitherto
genial relationship between the Sikhs and the British declined. The
British had been gradually spreading their territorial control in India
through the East India Company, a commercial trading company that
acquired auxiliary military and governmental functions in India and
4 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

other British colonies, since the middle of the eighteenth century. The
subsequent upheaval at the Sikh court caused anxiety within the East
India Company, which feared a Russian invasion in the face of the
tottering frontier of northwestern India. The resulting interference
of the British in the Sikh kingdom led to the first Anglo–Sikh war
in 1845. Gulab Singh’s neutrality during this war tipped the scales
in favor of the British. His military strength, political acumen, and
entrepreneurship did not go unnoticed (Lawrence 2005: 200–03; Rai
2004: 20–27; Khan 1978). The territories of Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit,
and Chenab were bestowed upon the Dogra ruler Gulab Singh for the
paltry sum of seventy-five lakhs, in acknowledgment of his services to
the British crown. Gulab Singh was required to reimburse the British
for the costs incurred by them while taking possession of Kashmir.
It was stipulated that one crore of rupees would go toward indem-
nity. Later the British were allowed to retain the area of Kulu and
Mandi, territories across the river Beas, bringing about the waiver of
twenty-five lakhs from the sum that Gulab Singh owed as indemnity
(Schofield 2002: 56). Prior to the sudden occurrence of war in 1845,
political relations between the British and the Sikhs had deteriorated.
During this systemic erosion of Anglo–Sikh relations, Gulab Singh
played a significant role, which has generated tremendous contro-
versy. Did he indulge in surreptitious dealings with the British while
claiming to owe allegiance to the Sikhs? Did he enable negotiations
between the British and the Sikhs, which averted an otherwise ugly
situation? Why did the British sell Kashmir for a measly amount to
Gulab Singh after having acquired it from the Sikhs?
The Dogras are a predominantly Hindu people who were installed
as rulers of Kashmir under the Treaty of Amritsar signed in 1846.
This treaty declared that “the British Government transfers and
makes over, for ever, in independent possession, to Maharajah Gulab
Singh and the heirs male of his body, the Kashmir Valley as well as the
area of Gilgit to the north” (in Aitchinson 1931: 21–22). The princely
state of J & K comprised territories that at one point in time had
been independent principalities: Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Mirpur,
Poonch, Baltistan, Gilgit, Hunza, Muzaffarabad, Nagar, and some
other nondescript kingdoms. Article IX of the treaty further empha-
sized that the British government would provide aid and succor to
the monarch of Kashmir in protecting his territories from disruptive
forces. Article X underscored the monarch’s allegiance to the British
government. As a manifestation of his acknowledgment of the pri-
macy of the British government, the monarch was required to present
annually one horse, twelve shawl goats, and three pairs of impeccably
 Introduction 5

woven Kashmiri shawls (ibid.). Thus British suzerainty indubitably

asserted itself through the obeisance paid to it by the Dogra monar-
chy. Gulab Singh was succeeded by his son Ranbir Singh in 1847, who
in turn was succeeded by his son Pratap Singh in 1885. Pratap Singh
had no male heirs and tried to orchestrate the accession of a distant
male relative. His maneuver, however, was quashed by the British,
who facilitated the accession of Pratap Singh’s nephew, Hari Singh,
to the throne. The last Dogra monarch, Hari Singh, succeeded to the
throne in 1925. He exercised power just as arbitrarily and unjustly
as his predecessors had. A decade before the expulsion of British rule
from India, Hari Singh ratified a legal settlement in British Indian
courts that added Poonch, which hitherto had been bestowed by the
Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh upon Gulab Singh’s brother Dhyan Singh, to
his territorial possessions. This significant acquisition completed the
pre-partition J & K conglomeration. The Muslims in Poonch, how-
ever, have always remained ambivalent about their merger with the
princely state. The reinforcing of Dogra rule by the British was “in
light of [the East India Company’s] concerns for stability on its north-
western frontier. Towards this end, the British sought to vacate power
held in pockets in Kashmir and transfer it to the new maharajah,
in whom alone a personalized sovereignty was now to vest” (Rai
2004: 27). The unquestionable and eternal authority promised to the
Dogra elite in the Treaty of Amritsar was cut short exactly a century
later, at the time of India’s independence and partition in 1947. J & K
remained an independent principality until 1947.
Although the princely state of J & K was predominantly Muslim,
members of that community were prevented from becoming officers
in the state’s military and did not find adequate representation in the
civil services. Kashmiri Muslims were disallowed from expressing
their political opinions and did not have access to a free press or any
other such forum. The lack of protest against autocratic and brutal
rule until the end of the 1920s was attributed to the passive character
of the peasantry in the Kashmir Valley (Lamb 1991: 28). The author-
ity of the maharaja in the internal affairs of the state was paramount.
Although his oppressive and exploitative methods were not thwarted,
they were carefully watched by the British representative at his court.
His stature was further exalted by the pompous title of His Highness.
The maharaja was given the privileged position of major-general in
the British Indian army and was entitled to a twenty-one gun salute—
one among five “twenty-one gun” princes. The maharaja’s decadence
was proverbial and he indulged himself by participating in expen-
sive sports, luxurious parties, and other extravagant hobbies. He
6 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

unapologetically persecuted and exploited Kashmiri Muslims (Korbel

2002: 14).
During the autocratic rule of the Dogra maharajas there was an
unrelenting regional and religious bias against Kashmiri Muslims.
Kashmiri Muslims were politically, economically, and socially sup-
pressed. Navnita Chadha Behera points to the plight of Kashmiri
Muslims during Dogra rule in her complex study of Kashmir: “The
lot of Muslims was even worse: they were excluded from state services,
the Muslim peasantry and industrial workers were heavily taxed,
and trade, business, and banking were monopolized by Punjabis and
Dogras. Without access to modern education, Muslims sank into a
deep distrust of rule under the Dogra Hindus” (Behera 2006: 14).
The miserable plight of Kashmiri Muslims was reported by Prem
Nath Bazaz, a prominent Kashmiri Pandit political and social activ-
ist, in 1941. According to him, the Muslim peasants lived and worked
in despicable conditions; the Muslim masses were traumatized and
victimized by official corruption (Bazaz 2002: 252–53). The subse-
quent awakening of a national consciousness in the state, which I
delineate in chapters one and three, challenged the despotic abuse of
authority.
The role played by the nation-states of India and Pakistan in the
former princely state of J & K echoes the animosity created during
the partition. The political and social upheaval that followed upon
the creation of the two nation-states in 1947 has left legacies that
continue to haunt the two countries. The partition enabled forces of
violence and displacement to tear asunder the preexisting cultural and
social fabric so systematically that the process of repair has not even
begun. I would argue that although the “third world” intelligentsia
unceasingly complains about the manipulations and shortsightedness
of British imperial cartographers and administrators, the onus of the
calamity engendered on 14 and 15 August 1947 does not lie entirely
on the colonial power. The failed negotiations between Indian and
Pakistani nationalists who belonged to the Congress and the Muslim
League, the blustering of those nationalists and the national jingoism
it stimulated, and the unquenchable hatred on both sides contributed
to the brutal events of 1947. In the words of historian Uma Kaura
(1977: 170), “the mistakes made by the Congress leadership, the
frustration and bitterness of the League leadership, and the defensive
diplomacy of a British Viceroy cumulatively resulted in the demand
for Partition.” Ever since the inception, in 1885, of proindependence
political activity in pre-partition India, the Muslim leadership insisted
on the necessity for a distinct Muslim identity (ibid.: 164). Kaura also
 Introduction 7

underlines the inability of the nationalist leadership to accommodate

Muslim aspirations because its primary concern was to ingratiate itself
with the militant Hindu faction, which would have created ruptures
within the Congress. Gutted homes, rivulets of blood, ravaged lands,
and meaningless loss of lives were the costs of this nation building.
The upsurge of ethnic and religious fundamentalism that led to the
creation of Pakistan has been characterized by political psychologist
Ashis Nandy as a nationalism that takes an enormous toll on a poly-
glot society such as India’s:

First it comes bundled with official concepts of state, ethnicity, territo-

riality, security and citizenship. Once such a package captures public
imagination, it is bound to trigger in the long run, in a society as
diverse as ours, various forms of “subnationalism” . . . the idea of the
nation in the “official” theory of nationhood can be made available in
a purer form to culturally more homogeneous communities such as the
Sikhs, the Kashmiri Muslims, the Gorkhas and the Tamils. As a result,
once the ideology of nationalism is internalized, no psychological bar-
rier is left standing against the concepts of new nation-states, that
would be theoretically even purer, homogeneous national units—in
terms of religion, language, and culture. (Nandy 1983: 5)

The borders that were brutally carved by the authorities at the time
of partition have led to further brutality in the form of those riots,
organized historical distortions, and cultural depletions with which
the histories of independent India and Pakistan are replete.
For India, Kashmir lends credibility to its secular nationalist
image. For Pakistan, Kashmir represents the infeasibility of secu-
lar nationalism and underscores the need for an Islamic theocracy
on the subcontinent. Once the Kashmir issue took an ideological
turn, Mahatma Gandhi remarked, “Muslims all over the world are
watching the experiment in Kashmir. . . . Kashmir is the real test of
secularism in India.” In January 1948, India referred the Kashmir
dispute to the United Nations (Hagerty 2005: 19). Subsequent to
the declaration of the cease-fire between India and Pakistan on
1 January 1949, the state of J & K was divided into two portions. The
part of the state comprising the Punjabi-speaking areas of Poonch,
Mirpur, and Muzaffarabad, along with Gilgit and Baltistan, was
incorporated into Pakistan, whereas the portion of the state com-
prising the Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and the large Jammu region
was politically assimilated into India. Currently, a large part of
J & K is administered by India and a portion by Pakistan. China
annexed a section of the land in 1962, through which it has built a
8 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

road that links Tibet to Xiajiang (see Rahman 1996: 5–6; Schofield
2002: 25). The strategic location of Indian-administered J & K
underscores its importance for both India and Pakistan. The state
of J & K borders on China and Afghanistan. Out of a total land area
of 222,236 square kilometers, 78,114 are under Pakistani admin-
istration, 5,180 square kilometers were handed over to China by
Pakistan, 37,555 square kilometers are under Chinese administra-
tion in the Leh district, and the remaining area is under Indian
administration (Census of India, 1981: 156).
In order to make their borders impregnable, it was essential for
both India and Pakistan to control the state politically and militarily.
Even as separatist movements have surfaced and resurfaced in
J & K and parts of Pakistani-administered Kashmir since the acces-
sion of the state to India in 1947, the attempt to create a unitary
cultural identity bolstered by nationalist politics has been subverted
by regional political forces and the comprador class, backed by the
governments of India and Pakistan. The culturally, linguistically, and
religiously diverse population of Indian- and Pakistani-administered
J & K has been unable to reach a consensus on the future of the land
and the heterogeneous peoples of the state. The revolutionary act of
demanding the right of self-determination and autonomy for J & K
has not been able to nurture unity amongst all socioeconomic classes
(Rahman 1996: 148–49; Ganguly 1997: 78–79). Cultural notions of
the people of Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir in image
and word have been reconstructed to emphasize the bias that rein-
forces the propagandist agenda of the hegemonic powers involved in
the Kashmir dispute: India and Pakistan. In establishment Indian and
Pakistani thought, Kashmiris are defined as different from the nation-
als of the two countries. The various communities in J & K—Kashmiri
Muslims, Kashmiri Pandits, Dogras, and Ladakhis—have tried time
and again to form a collective consciousness in order to name their
cultural alterity through the nation. But due to the regional senti-
ments that are so entrenched in the psyche of the people, this attempt
is still in a volatile stage. The symbols of nationhood in J & K—flag,
anthem, and constitution—have thus far been unable to forge the pro-
cess of nationalist self-imagining.
Although Pakistan distinctly expresses its recognition of the sta-
tus of J & K as disputed territory, it dithers from doing so in areas
of the state under Pakistani control. Pakistan arbitrarily maintains
its de facto government in “Azad” (Purportedly Free) Kashmir. Old
fiefdoms in the kingdoms of Hunza and Nagar were abolished and
the entire area was reconstituted into five administrative districts
 Introduction 9

in 1975 by the government of Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar

Ali Bhutto. To date, the Northern Areas (NA), comprising Gilgit,
Baltistan, Hunza-Nagar, Koh-e-Ghizer, Ghanche, Diamir, and
Skardu, remain the disenfranchised fifth zone; administered by exec-
utive edict from Islamabad through the federal ministry for Kashmir
Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA), a politically constituted, non-
elected ministry, they do not have a place in Pakistan’s constitution.
The Northern Areas legislative council, the region’s elected legisla-
ture, is a disempowered body lacking the authority to represent its
constituents. South Asia affairs analyst Victoria Schofield (2001)
astutely observes: “There is no question . . . of Pakistan ever agreeing
to relinquish control of the area, either to form part of an indepen-
dent state of Jammu and Kashmir or as an independent state in its
own right.” The germination of disgruntlement in the NA caused by
the political, economic, and social impoverishment of the region has
now burst into a blazing rebellion mirroring the separatist move-
ment in J & K. There is a segment of the population that advocates
the independence of the former princely state of J & K in its entirety,
whereas another segment of the population is a fierce proponent of
deploying politically militant and constitutional means to carve out
Gilgit, Hunza-Nagar, Koh-e-Ghizer, Ghanche, Diamir, Baltistan,
and Skardu, collectively known as Balawaristan, as an independent
state with constitutional legitimacy. The formation of indigenous
political organizations in the area, like the Balawaristan National
Front, Muttehada Quami Party, and the Gilgit–Baltistan United
Action Forum, is indicative of the rising demand for selfhood, liber-
ties, enfranchisement, and constitutional status. The government of
Pakistan has not engineered the de jure integration of the NA with
Pakistan because it prognosticates that such an action would insidi-
ously impair the credibility of Pakistan’s demand for the Kashmir
issue to be adjudged under the terms of the UN resolutions. Gilgit
and Hunza are strategically important to Pakistan because of the
access they provide to China through the Khunjerab pass. Therefore,
advocating self-determination for the entire former princely state
of J & K would irreparably damage Pakistan’s political and mili-
tary interests (Johnson 2003: 697–743; Rushbrook-Williams 1957:
26–35). Although now integrated into Pakistan under the rechris-
tened name of Gilgit-Baltistan after the general elections held there
in 2009, the former NA continues to remain a peripheralized (now)
fifth province of Pakistan.
The once paradisiacal region coveted by kings and mystics alike,
albeit for different reasons, where snow-covered peaks majestically
10 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

tower over flowing rivers and streams are bordered by lilies gently
swaying to the cadences of the gentle breeze, by a quirk of fate, has
become a valley of guns and unmarked graves. The paean of the
Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1620 to the enthralling and spiritually
healing beauty of Kashmir bespeaks the passionate longing it
engendered:

If one were to praise Kashmir, whole books would have to be written.

Kashmir is a garden of eternal spring, or an iron fort to a palace of
kings—a delightful flower-bed, and a heart-expanding heritage for
dervishes. Its pleasant meads and enchanting cascades are beyond all
description. There are running streams and fountains beyond count.
Wherever the eye reaches, there is verdure and running water. The red
rose, the violet and the narcissus grow of themselves; in the fields,
there are all kinds of flowers and all sorts of sweet-scented herbs, more
than can be calculated. In the soul-enchanting spring the hills and
plains are filled with blossoms; the gates, the walls, the courts, the
roofs, are lighted up by the torches of the banquet-adoring tulips. What
shall we say of these things or the wide meadows and the fragrant
trefoil? (Rogers 1914: 114)

The breezes of Kashmir, which once had the power to heal every
trauma, now cause searing wounds. The throes of pain, palpable in
every withering flower and trembling leaf, can lacerate the most hard-
ened person. The ripe pomegranate trees that once bespoke a cornu-
copia now seem laden with an unbearable burden. The liturgies in
mosques, temples, and churches that once provided spiritual ecstasy
are now jarring cacophonies. The comforting solitude that one could
thrive on in various spots of the Valley now seems like a psychosis-
inducing solitariness. What happened to the Valley that provided
inspiration to poets, saints, and writers? Where is the beauteous land
in which even a dull-witted writer could find her or his muse? Where
are the majestic chinars, the fragrant pine trees, and the luxuriant
weeping willows that provided harbor to those buffeted by the fates?
The mesmerizing Mughal gardens in the Valley with their refresh-
ing springs and breathtaking waterfalls bemoan the state of the riven
land, the polluted streams, and the devastated people.
The seductive beauty of the Valley of Kashmir that evoked a desire
to live to the hilt, untarnished by sordid passions and murky politics,
is now blemished with army camps and militant hideouts. The plight
of the repressed Kashmiri is similar to that of Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden after their willful defiance of Jehovah. The palpable
contrast between the enchanting beauty of Kashmir and the glazed
 Introduction 11

eyes of its people is cruel. The redness of roses that once awakened
sensuality now evokes the violent bloodshed and loss of innocent lives
that mangle the landscape. The land in which dervishes meditated to
willingly renounce the self is now a chessboard for wily politicians.
The strains of mystical music are now drowned out by the cacopho-
nous sounds of hate and virulence. The lush meadows carpeted with
daisies and lupines now reek of death and destruction. The sooth-
ing fragrance of pine-covered hills has now been overwhelmed by the
odor of false promises and false hope.
The tranquility of the region has been shattered by the heavy hand
of political and military totalitarianism. The region resembles a vast
concentration camp, swarming with soldiers. Police or military barri-
ers abound in both urban and rural areas, and intimidation is a rather
common occurrence at these checkpoints. The Valley seethes with a
repressed anger generated by the humiliating brutality inflicted by
Indian troops. The history of Kashmir is replete with egregious errors.
As one scholar, Vincent H. Smith (1928: 176), wrote, “Few regions
in the world can have had worse luck than Kashmir in the matter of
government.” The saga of Kashmir has been one of oppression, politi-
cal persecution, and undemocratic policies. Since the pervasion of an
exclusive cultural nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and ram-
pant political corruption, it has become a challenge to lead a dignified
existence in J & K.
The armed conflict has changed political combinations and per-
mutations without either disrupting political, social, and gender
hierarchies or benefiting marginalized groups. The social, economic,
political, and psychological brunt of the armed conflict has been borne
by the populace of Kashmir. The uncertainty created by fifteen years
of armed insurgency and counterinsurgency has pervaded the social
fabric in insidious ways, creating a whole generation of disaffected
and disillusioned youth. Lack of faith in the Indian polity has caused
Kashmiris to cultivate an apathy to the electoral process because it is
a given that persons best suited to carry out New Delhi’s agenda will
be installed in positions of political import, regardless of public opin-
ion. The earlier enthusiasm that accompanied democratization seems
totally futile in the current leadership vacuum in the state. Lack of
accountability among the J & K polity and bureaucracy has caused a
large number of people to toe the line by living with the fundamental
structural inequities and violence, instead of risking the ire of groups
and individuals in positions of authority.
Political organizations in the Valley have eroded mass bases and
are in a moribund state. There seems to be an unbridgeable gulf
12 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

between figures of authority and the electorate, who have been

deployed as pawns in the devious political game being played by
Indian and Pakistani state-sponsored agencies. The glaring lack of a
well-equipped infrastructure in the Valley makes unemployment rife
and underscores the redundancy of the educated segment of the popu-
lation. The counterinsurgency operations undertaken in J & K by the
Indian military and paramilitary forces were ferocious and cruel, and
have alienated the disillusioned populace.
I start from the premise that the syncretic ethos of Kashmir has
been violated by the outburst of religious nationalism, secular nation-
alism, and ethnonationalism that have facilitated political and social
structural violence. The well-crafted theoretical fiction of a syncretic
culture by the advocates of a Kashmiri polity empowered them in a
circumscribed fashion to choose an idiom within which they could
arbitrarily remove the distinction between religion and politics. I
consider the shape of women’s empowerment or lack thereof in the
syncretic ethos of Kashmir, and the new languages of resistance, nego-
tiation, and empowerment it adopts in the cacophonous social and
political situation created by various nationalist discourses. I draw
from the cultural and ideological spaces I was raised in; the cherished
verses of the Sufi poetess Lalla-Ded, in whose immortal poetry the
legendary beauty of Kashmir endures pain and strife but lives on;
conversations with my maternal grandmother that are etched in my
memory; informative and enlightening discussions with my parents,
who have continued to live in the strife-torn Valley through years of
unbearable hostility and the psychological trauma of armed conflict
with an unparalleled stoicism; informal conversations with friends
and acquaintances who are victims of the politics of dispossession;
and the extensive reading that I have done over the years on the con-
flictual history and politics of J & K. I also draw from field work
conducted during my annual trips to Kashmir in July 2005, 2006,
and 2007 among predominantly agricultural communities in areas
bordering the Line of Control between India and Pakistan. Against
the backdrop of the politically tumultuous situation in J & K, which
has led to an increase in gender-based violence, I attempt to show
that the muted voices of marginalized laypeople, particularly women,
have not been raised loud enough against the atrocities to which
they are subjected by Indian paramilitary forces, Pakistan-sponsored
insurgents, counterinsurgency forces, and religious fundamentalists.
I also emphasize the necessity of foregrounding women’s perspec-
tives in issues of nationalist ideologies, religious freedom, democratic
participation, militarization, intellectual freedom, and judicial and
 Introduction 13

legal structures in a milieu that does not co-opt them into mainstream
political and cultural discourses or first-world feminist agendas.
Using self-reflexive and historicized forms, drawing on my heri-
tage and kinship in Kashmir, I explore the construction and employ-
ment of the Kashmiri political and cultural landscape, and gender,
in secular nationalist, religious nationalist, and ethnonationalist dis-
courses in J & K. I question the exclusivity of cultural nationalism,
the erosion of cultural syncretism, the ever-increasing dominance of
religious fundamentalism, and the irrational resistance to cultural
and linguistic differences. I also question the victimization and sub-
jugation of women selectively enshrined in the prevalent regressive
social discourse and the uncritically rendered folklore of traditional
Kashmiri Islamic and Hindu cultures, such as limited educational
and professional opportunities; the right of a husband to prevent his
wife from making strides in the material world; the kudos given to
a hapless wife who agrees to live in a polygamous relationship; the
bounden duty of the woman to bear heirs; the unquestioned right of
a husband to divorce his barren wife; confinement of the woman to
her home where she is subjected to material and emotional brutal-
ity; the hallowed status of a woman who conforms to such cultural
dogmas; the social ostracization of a woman who defies them; and
the status of woman as a fiefdom facilitating political and feudal
alliances.
The upsurge of gender-based violence has circumscribed the mobil-
ity of women who are caught between the devil and the deep blue
sea. I, for one, would not have been able to conduct my field research
without the armed bodyguard my parents provided. As a woman,
it would have been difficult and dangerous for me to venture into
secluded rural areas that are cordoned by paramilitary troops. The
ethnographic field research that I undertook was a method of seeking
reconnection sans condescension by simultaneously belonging to, and
resisting, the discursive community of traditional Muslim Kashmiri
and Gujjar rural women. I was further motivated by the desire to
critically observe the sociopolitical discourse in Kashmir through an
oblique focus from the margins instead of from an elitist center. My
goal was to engage in reflective action as an educator working with
diverse cultural and social groups. I was challenged to examine my
own locations of privilege and seek emotional empowerment in order
to understand the systems that have generated the culture of silence.
This culture generates problematic stereotypes, alliances, and biases
within and outside the community. I seek in the collision of moder-
nity and communal memory a horizontal relationship producing
14 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

intersectionalities between different cultural spaces, times, and ways

of knowing the self in relation to the family, society, and the larger
cultural landscape. Acknowledging our complicity in oppression,
reconceptualizing paradigmatic structures, and mobilizing cultural
and political coalitions is riddled with conflict, but it is the need of
the day for us to engage in these processes.
In chapter one, “Conflicting Political Discourses,” I delineate the
origins of the Kashmir conflict and the perspectives on it. I look at
the discourse of “Kashmiriyat” as a significant attempt to form a
national consciousness in order to name its cultural alterity through
the nation. In chapter two, “Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir,” I ana-
lyze the recorded poems and paradigmatic sayings of Lalla-Ded, a Sufi
mystic. I retrieve the rich details of her life that have been relegated
to the background in the documented version of history. I incorpo-
rate hitherto unpublished opinions of scholars of Kashmiri and Urdu
literature, as well as of scholars of mysticism in the Kashmir Valley,
on the impact of Lalla-Ded on the Kashmiri Muslim and Kashmiri
Pandit communities. I also foreground the revival of indigenous cul-
tural institutions in J & K. In chapter three, “Political Debacles,”
I underline the repercussions of India’s antidemocratic strategies in
the state, which instigated oppositional and dissident responses. In
chapter four, “Militarization of J & K,” I delineate the fundamental
structural inequities in the J & K polity, exacerbated by political and
military intrusions of the Pakistani administration and the engender-
ing of political resistance. In chapter five, “Negotiating the Boundaries
of Gender, Community, and Nationhood,” I analyze the effects of
nationalist, militant, and religious discourses and praxes on a gender-
based hierarchy. I write about the radical political and socioeconomic
changes in the role of Kashmiri women between 1947 and 1989. I
report the reminiscences of two of the three surviving members of the
women’s militia that was formed at the height of the struggle against
political and military tyranny. I address the traditional freedoms and
prerogatives of Kashmiri women in the land of a spiritual luminary
like Lalla-Ded.
Entrenched gender inequities are intensified in situations of
armed conflict, in which the agency assumed by women in the pub-
lic sphere is given legitimacy by male authoritative figures and is
subsumed within masculinist discourse. In my book, I explore the
concept of agency in the context of revival of nationalism, fight for
self-determination, armed insurgency, counterinsurgency, imposi-
tion of quasi-democratic processes, and experiences of women within
these discourses. The concept of agency is a problematic one that has
 Introduction 15

been defined as “a temporally embedded process of social engage-

ment, informed by the past (in its habitual aspect), but also oriented
toward the future (as a capacity to imagine alternative possibilities)
and toward the present (as a capacity to contextualize past habits and
future projects within the contingencies of the moment)” (Emirbayer
and Mische 1998: 964); or another definition (Professor of Sociology
in the Department of Sociology and Philosophy at the University of
Exeter, England, Pickering): “The dance of agency, seen asymmetri-
cally from the human end, thus takes the form of a dialectic of resis-
tance and accommodation, where resistance denotes the failure to
achieve an intended capture of agency and practice, and accommoda-
tion an active human strategy of response to resistance, which can
include revisions to goals and intentions as well as to the material
form of the machine in question and to the human frame of gestures
and social relations that surround it” (Fuchs 2001: 30). How did
Kashmiri women express their political agency during the resuscita-
tion of cultural pride and nationalist awakening in the 1930s; during
the “Quit Kashmir” movement in the 1940s; at the onset of the mili-
tant movement in the late 1980s; and during the era of gross human
rights violations by the Indian army, paramilitary forces, Pakistani-
trained militants, mercenaries, and state-sponsored organizations in
the 1990s and 2000s? How did these women navigate the undulating,
often impenetrable terrain of formal spaces of political power?
I have chosen to deploy oral evidence in my book, which has
allowed me to approach events, notions, and literatures about which
there was meager evidence from other sources. The use of oral his-
tory has empowered my interviewees and correspondents, people of
J & K, in significant ways, bringing acknowledgment of hitherto dis-
regarded opinions and experiences. In some instances, I have taken
the liberty of reproducing e-mail responses, which I received from
my interviewees, verbatim. I was keen on providing personal reminis-
cences from participants about landmark events without mediating
between oral evidence or historiography and more elitist versions of
history. My primary goal is to ensure that future generations of the
former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir do not forget, because if
we stop remembering, we stop being.
 Chapter One

Conflicting Political Discourses,

Partition, Plebiscite, Autonomy,
Integration

Despotism during the Dogra Regime and

the Awakening of Nationalism
Maharaja Hari Singh ruled the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir
(J & K) with an iron fist and employed forceful means to extinguish
the flames of an antifeudal nationalism. Dogra rule in the Kashmir
Valley was particularly tyrannical and created stifling socioeconomic
conditions for the populace. Although Muslims constituted a large
percentage of the population of the state, out of thirteen battalions in
Kashmir, just one was Muslim. Muslims were disallowed from own-
ing and carrying firearms and sharp instruments. Kashmiri Muslims
lived in such circumscribed conditions and under such strict surveil-
lance that they were required to seek a license to slaughter a chicken
for an ordinary meal. There was a strict ban on cow slaughter in the
state. The sheep or goats that Muslims sacrificed on religious occa-
sions were heavily taxed, transforming the existence of these people
into the proverbial albatross. Most edible items, salable artifacts, and
ceremonial services were taxed. Kashmiri farmers worked as mere
serfs on the lands that were bestowed by the Dogra monarch on his
clansmen (Khan 1958: 5–7). Because of their military and political
supremacy, Dogras were endowed with high-ranking and lucrative
positions in the military as well as in the civil services, in addition
to their enormous landholdings. Muslims were denied the right to
acquire an education; excluded from the civil services; and disenfran-
chised and prevented from participating in political activities without
governmental permission. Such unapologetically discriminatory prac-
tices created an endemic ignorance and conscripted existence for the
Muslim inhabitants of the princely state.
In an endeavor to enable the formation of representative govern-
ments in Indian states, the All India States People’s Conference (AISPC)
18 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

adopted a constitution in 1939 that underlined deploying legitimate

means to help the people of the state form a responsible and representa-
tive government under the aegis of the monarch. Once the AISPC drafted
and proclaimed its objectives, a number of organizations were formed
in order to achieve concretization of these objectives. Intellectually
and politically drawn to the nationalist reform movements of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Kashmiri Pandits, for
example, formed a Hindu revivalist party; in Jammu, political orga-
nizations, whose hallmark was their exclusionary regionalism, were
formed solely for Dogras, of which the Dogra Sabha, established in
1903, and the Yawak Sabha, established in 1915, were the primary
ones. These organizations did not seek involvement just with political
issues but focused on social reform as well, particularly on improving
the conditions of Hindu women. Following the institutionalization of
Hindu organizations, Kashmiri Muslims, led by their religious leader,
the mirwaiz, formed the Anjuman-i-Nusrat-ul-Islam. Besides the dis-
semination of Islamic teachings, the Anjuman aimed at social reform
and educational improvement for the Muslims of the Valley.
While the political mobilization of Kashmiri Muslims was still in
an embryonic stage, it was pulverized by a governmental edict ban-
ning all Muslim organizations. The grievances of the Muslims were
exacerbated by the labor crisis in the silk mill in Srinagar, Kashmir,
which was owned by the monarch. Most of the underpaid, over-
worked, and shabbily treated laborers in the mill were Muslim (for
details, see Ganju 1945). These widespread exploitative practices and
the resentment engendered by them impelled eminent members of the
Muslim community to voice their protest in a memorandum. The
memorandum was presented to the governor-general of India, Lord
Reading: “In addition to specifying grievances, the memorandum
called for an increase in Muslim employment, improved education,
land reforms, protection of Muslim religious establishments from
encroachment, the abolition of forced labor, equitable distribution of
resources, a state constitution, and a legislative assembly that would
give Muslims proper representation” (for an informative discussion,
see Rahman 1996). The increasing atrocities inflicted on Kashmiri
Muslims by Maharaja Hari Singh’s regime in terms of religious irrev-
erence, violating their right to worship, desecrating their places of
worship, and razing entire villages to the ground instigated a volcanic
antimonarchical eruption (Sibtain 1992: 117–50).
When the first few Kashmiri Muslims to have obtained degrees at
institutions of higher education, such as the Aligarh Muslim University
in British India, returned to the state in the 1920s, they were imbued
 Conflicting Political Discourses 19

with “newfangled” ideas of nationalism, liberty, and democracy.

Things were now moving very fast in the Indian subcontinent. In

December 1929, the Indian National Congress adopted, in Lahore, the
resolution of complete independence as its goal; a mass civil disobedi-
ence movement followed which electrified the subcontinent from Gilgit
to Cape Comorin. Kashmir too felt its repercussions; people began to
be deeply excited with what was taking place in the rest of the country.
It seems astounding today, but is, nevertheless, a fact that the Dogras,
ostrich-like, refused to see the writing on the wall or to be moved by
these soul stirring developments. And when a number of Muslim young
men—among them Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah—educated at differ-
ent universities in India and deeply moved by the Congress struggle for
freedom returned home, a spark was applied to the explosive matter
which had accumulated in the Valley. (Bazaz [1967] 2005: 29)

A group of these young graduates, who were well educated but denied
opportunities that would have enabled them to climb the socioeco-
nomic ladder, started convening regular meetings at a house in Fateh
Kadal, Srinagar, and from these seemingly innocuous gatherings
evolved the “Fateh Kadal Reading Room Party.” Members of the
Reading Room Party wrote articles for various publications in which
their subversive voices expressed resentment against the arbitrary and
discriminatory practices of the Dogra regime.
The torch of cultural pride and political awakening in the princely
state of J & K was lit by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, a prominent
member of the Fateh Kadal Reading Room Party, in 1931: “Sheikh
Abdullah was an imposing figure. His six feet four inches of height
towered over his countrymen, and his intellect attracted the attention
and respect of those who were associated with him in his revolu-
tionary efforts” (Korbel 2002: 17). For the first time in decades, the
Kashmiri people, particularly the Muslim population, acknowledged
the leadership of a man who overtly challenged the hitherto impreg-
nable authority of the maharaja. They responded to his revolutionary
politics with a zeal that was previously unknown. Abdullah’s inspi-
rational speeches, concern for the well-being of the masses, commit-
ment to the cause of freedom, as well as his charisma, motivated the
Kashmiri people to throw off the yoke of oppression and docility.
Despite persecution, he continued to vociferously fight for the politi-
cal, economic, and religious rights of the Kashmiri people.
Ahmad Ullah Shah, the senior mirwaiz, had been unequivo-
cally accepted by the Srinagar Muslims as their religious leader, and
his authority had been ratified by the Dogra regime. When his son
20 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Muhammad Yusuf Shah assumed the leadership of the Jama Masjid

worshippers in 1931, he had expected to don his father’s mantle
and exercise the same unquestioned authority. But, to his surprise,
his stature was undermined by a young politician of obscure origins
and revolutionary political opinions, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah.
Abdullah, a political greenhorn at that point, challenged the hege-
mony of the mirwaiz. As a strategy to eliminate the threat posed to
his hegemonic position by Abdullah’s rising popularity and clout,
Yusuf Shah contemptuously labeled him a heretic. Abdullah vocifer-
ously retaliated by aligning himself with Mirwaiz Hamadani. That
political move widened the gap between the two mirwaizeen (reli-
gious leaders). A couple of months after Abdullah and Hamadani
formed the Muslim Conference (MC), Yusuf Shah founded the Azad
Conference, and in April 1933 Abdullah’s Sher (lion) followers and
Yusuf Shah’s goatee-wearing Bakra (goat) followers fought a violent
battle during the Id-uz-Zuha (religious festival) prayers. But Shah’s
servile attitude toward the Dogra monarchy and his inclination to
toe the official line made him an unappealing figure to the repressed
Muslim masses. He sank further into the morass of servility and
unpopularity by accepting a fiefdom worth Rs. 600 from the Dogra
regime. In the twilight of his political life, Shah reverted to the secu-
rity of his priestly edifice (Copeland 1991: 248).

Formation of the All Jammu and Kashmir

Muslim Conference and Its Subsequent
Secularization into the National Conference
Regardless of the ongoing political maneuverings, Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah created a legitimate forum for himself and the state’s
Muslim population by founding the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim
Conference (MC) in 1932. In order to redress the grievances aired
by Kashmiri Muslims, the British government sent the Glancy
Commission to Srinagar, the summer capital of J & K. The investiga-
tions made by the commission led it to ask the maharaja to give the
populace the right to elect a legislative assembly in order to redress the
alienation of the Muslim population. The maharaja’s devious poli-
cies and unwillingness to deploy quasi-democratic measures caused
the uprising of 1933, which was put down with unwarranted vio-
lence. Subsequently, a civil disobedience movement was organized by
Abdullah and his ally, Chaudhri Ghulam Abbas, but the maharaja
 Conflicting Political Discourses 21

was adamant in his refusal to relent. The flames of revolution, how-

ever, could not be doused, and the first democratic election in the
state was held in 1934.
The era of political and social upheaval in the state between 1930
and 1960 invoked an assertion of a revolutionary self invigorated with
unfaltering cultural pride, rejecting the bondage that was deterring it
from soaring high.

Come, gardener! Create the glory of spring!

Make Guls [flowers] bloom and bulbuls [a type of bird] sing—
create such haunts!
The dew weeps and your garden lies desolate;
Tearing their robes, your flowers are distracted;
Breathe life once again into the lifeless gul and the bulbul!
Rank nettles hamper the growth of your roses;
Weed them out, for look thousands
Of laughing hyacinths are crowding at the gate!
Who will set you free, captive bird, Crying in your cage?
Forge with your own hands
The instruments of your deliverance!
Wealth and pride and comfort, luxury and authority,
Kingship and governance—all these are yours;
Wake up, sleeper, and know these as yours,
Bid good-bye to your dulcet strains; to rouse
This habitat of flowers, create a storm,
Let thunder rumble—let there be an earthquake!
(Mahjoor 1972: 68–69)

The articulation of the religious and economic rights of Muslim sub-

jects by Abdullah in the 1930s revived regional sentiment with an
unparalleled ferocity (Rai 2004: 278). As Sumantra Bose succinctly
points out, in the years prior to 1947, the rallying banner and political
ideology of the MC mobilized a collective sense of pride in regional
identity. The charismatic leader of the party, Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah, had the political will and astuteness to create an efficiently
organized network of young men who were committed to the party’s
ideology. Abdullah’s emphasis on a shared Muslim identity, which
brought Kashmiri nationalism out of the dark chambers of tyranny
and promised social and political enfranchisement, was a light at the
end of the tunnel for an abject, debased, and politically disenfran-
chised people (Bose 2003: 25).
22 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

The formation of secular local political organizations that

espoused a nationalist and socialist ideology in the 1930s and 1940s,
such as the Kashmiri Youth League, Peasants Association, Students
Federation, Silk Labour Union, Telegraph Employees Union, and so
on, enabled popular political leaders, especially Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah, to focus on the structural inequities legitimized by the state
rather than on just religious and sectarian conflict. Although the MC
won fourteen out of twenty-one seats allotted to Muslim voters in
the State Assembly, the assembly had only consultative powers. Two
years later, however, fresh elections were held, because the elected
members of the legislature fiercely protested their restricted powers.
Abdullah’s disillusionment with the insularity of the Muslim popula-
tion and the supersession of nationalist aspirations by sectarian ones
inspired him to forge a secular movement in the state. In order to dis-
seminate his progressive ideas, Abdullah and a Kashmiri Hindu secu-
larist and democratic socialist, Prem Nath Bazaz, founded an Urdu

Kashmiri traders with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Bombay, 1936.

(Courtesty: The Archives of the National Conference, with the permission of
the general secretary of the National Conference, Sheikh Nazir Ahmad)
 Conflicting Political Discourses 23

weekly, Hamdard, in 1935. Consequently, the MC was replaced by

the secular All Jammu and Kashmir National Congress (NC), pre-
sided over by Abdullah, in June 1939.
In order to align itself with the purportedly secular and national-
ist Indian National Congress, the younger generation of MC leaders,
including Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad,
and Maulana Sayeed Masoodi, strove to transform a communally
oriented political movement into a secular movement for political,
economic, and social reforms. The nature of this transformation was
articulated by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in his address to the
MC’s annual session in March 1938:

We desire that we should be free to set our house in order and no for-
eign or internal autocratic power should interfere in our national and
human birthrights. This very demand is known as Responsible
Government. . . . The first condition to achieve Responsible Government
is the participation of all those people . . . they are not the Muslims
alone nor the Hindus and the Sikhs alone, nor the untouchables or
Buddhists alone, but all those who live in this state. . . . We do not
demand Responsible Government for 80 lakh Muslims but all the
100% state subjects. . . . Secondly, we must build a common national
front by universal suffrage on the basis of joint electorate. (Quoted in
Hassnain 1988: 88)

A unitary national identity was forged by the young leadership of

the MC in order to expound the political expediency of a constituent
assembly, adult suffrage, and protective measures for minorities. As
I mentioned earlier, the MC was converted into the All India Jammu
and Kashmir NC in 1939. In 1944, the NC sought reconstitution of
the political, economic, and social systems of J & K. The NC came to
be identified with socially leftist republicanism and the personality of
Abdullah (Bose 2003: 21).
Veteran journalist and Abdullah’s contemporary and cofreedom
fighter Prem Nath Bazaz observed about the formation of the NC
that the communal politics in the state were fraying the traditional
religious tolerance. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and some of his
colleagues had the political foresight to recognize the malignant
effects of communalism and lent vigorous support to the seculariza-
tion of politics. This timely political move won the approbation and
full-fledged support of emancipated Hindus and Muslims (Bazaz
[1967] 2005: 34). Josef Korbel, the Czech chairman of the United
Nations Commission for India and Pakistan, noted the prestige
accorded to Sheikh Abdullah’s NC in terms of the support it enjoyed
24 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

at the organizational and grassroots level (Korbel 2002: 246). At the

national level, the NC made a concerted effort to reach out to various
socioeconomic classes and to align itself with other political move-
ments that had socialist leanings.
Sheikh Abdullah and his political organization fought tooth
and nail against Dogra autocracy and demanded that the Treaty of
Amritsar be revoked and monarchical rule ousted. He described the
Dogra monarchy as a microcosm of colonial brutality and the NC’s
“Quit Kashmir” movement as a ramification of the larger Indian
struggle for independence. At the annual session of the NC in 1945,
the unity and integrity of India were recognized and the demand for
India’s independence and the right of self-determination for the vari-
ous ethnic/cultural groups in the country was put forth. Abdullah’s
political ideology was well delineated in the London Times:

The Sheikh has made it clear that he is as much opposed to the domina-
tion of India as to subjugation by Pakistan. He claims sovereign author-
ity for the Kashmir Constituent Assembly, without limitation by the
Constitution of India, and this stand has a strong appeal to Kashmiris
on both sides of the Ceasefire line and if this movement of purely
Kashmiri nationalism was to gain ground, it might well oblige India,
Pakistan, and the United Nations to modify their view about what
ought to be done next. (The Times, 8 May 1952, quoted in Taseer
1986: 148; see Appendix A, 175–178)

Abdullah’s patriotic fervor and his unquenchable zeal to improve

the socioeconomic position of Kashmiris, debilitated by feudalism,
remained an integral part of his political persona till the day he died
(see Appendix C, 180).
The first president of the NC was Abdullah’s Communist ally, G.M.
Sadiq. Despite the establishment of an executive council, council of
ministers, and a juridical and legislative branch of public administra-
tion, the maharaja retained his supreme authority. Abdullah explicitly
declared the antimonarchical stance of his organization to the British
Cabinet Mission, which was to chart the course of India’s destiny,
including that of the princely states:

The fate of the Kashmiri nation is in the balance and in that hour of
decision we demand our basic democratic right to send our elected
representatives to the constitution-making bodies that will construct
the framework of Free India. We emphatically repudiate the right of
the Princely Order to represent the people of the Indian States or
their right to nominate personal representatives as our spokesmen.
 Conflicting Political Discourses 25

(Opening Address by Honorable Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah,

Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly, Srinagar, 1951; see
Appendix C, 180)

This well-articulated demand for the introduction of democratic mea-

sures was brazenly ignored by the administration as well as by the
British Cabinet Mission.

The “Quit Kashmir” Movement

Abdullah launched the “Quit Kashmir” movement to oust the Dogra
monarchy. But the movement did not garner the support he had
hoped for. On the contrary, he was accused of having vested interests
and of having started the agitation for the purpose of regaining the
immense popularity he had enjoyed, which had diminished due to
his political and personal alliance with the first prime minister of
independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru (Korbel 2002: 22). The “Quit
Kashmir” movement did not bolster Abdullah’s position among the
Muslims of Kashmir, and it antagonized the Hindus and Sikhs of the
state who venerated the maharaja because they owed him their politi-
cal, economic, and religious privileges in the predominantly Muslim
Kashmir Valley (Bazaz 1950: 4–5).
In May 1946 Abdullah was sentenced to nine years in prison for
having led the seditious “Quit Kashmir” movement against the maha-
raja’s regime. Abdullah’s defense against the charges leveled at him
during the infamous “Quit Kashmir” trial reinvigorated the national
identity of the people of J & K, an attempt to underline a strategic
syncretism enabling legitimate opposition to despotic rule:

Where law is not based on the will of the people, it can lead to the sup-
pression of their aspirations. Such law has no moral validity even
though it may be enforced for a while. There is law higher than that,
the law that represents the people’s will and secures their well being;
and there is the tribute of the human conscience, which judges the ruler
and the ruled alike by standards that do not change by the arbitrary
will of the most powerful. To this law I gladly submit and that tribunal
I shall face with confidence and without fear, leaving it to history and
posterity to pronounce their verdict on the claims that I and my col-
leagues have made not merely on behalf of the four million people of
Jammu and Kashmir but also of the ninety-three million people of all
the States of India [under princely rule]. This claim has not been con-
fined to a particular race or religion or color. It applies to all, for I hold
26 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

that humanity as a whole is indivisible by such barriers and human

rights must always prevail. The fundamental rights of all men and
women to live and act as free beings, to make laws and fashion their
political, economic and social fabric, so that they may advance the
cause of human freedom and progress, are inherent and cannot be
denied though they may be suppressed for a while. I hold that sover-
eignty resides in the people, all relationships political, social and eco-
nomic, derive authority from the collective will of the people. (Quoted
in Bhattacharjea 2008: 237–38)

On 29 September 1947, the maharaja ordered Abdullah’s release

while the state was going through a period of chaos. Soon after his
release, Abdullah categorically stated his position at a public rally in
Hazuribagh, Kashmir:

Our first demand is complete transfer of power to the people in

Kashmir. Representatives of the people in a democratic Kashmir will
then decide whether the State should join India or Pakistan. If the forty
lakhs of people living in Jammu and Kashmir are by-passed and the
State declares its accession to India or Pakistan, I shall raise the banner
of revolt and we face a struggle. Of course, we will naturally opt to go
to the Dominion where our own demand for freedom receives recogni-
tion and support. We cannot desire to join those who say that the peo-
ple must have no voice in the matter. We shall be cut to pieces before
we allow alliance between this State and people of this type. In this
time of national crisis Kashmir must hold the beacon light. All around
us we see the tragedy of brother killing brother. At this time Kashmir
must come forward and raise the banner of Hindu–Muslim unity. In
Kashmir we want a people’s government. We want a government which
will give equal rights and equal opportunities to all men—irrespective
of caste and creed. The Kashmir Government will not be the government
of any one community. It will be a joint government of the Hindus, the
Sikhs, and the Muslims. That is what I am fighting for. (People’s Age,
quoted in Krishen 1951: 38)

Abdullah’s first public speech after being released from jail was
attended by a mammoth crowd, an estimated 30,000 people (figure
averaged from the Resident’s reports, which were submitted fort-
nightly). All through his political life, Abdullah remained consistent
in his antipathy toward the autocratic Dogra monarchy, feudal-
ism, Punjabi hegemony, and communalism. The populist measures
employed by Abdullah’s NC enabled it to win the support of the
majority of the Muslim populace in the Valley (sourced from inter-
views with political activists and academics in Kashmir, in 2006).
 Conflicting Political Discourses 27

Despite the support that the “Quit Kashmir” movement launched

by Abdullah’s cadre received from various regional councils and state
Congress committees, the movement was crushed tactically and mili-
tarily. On 20 May 1946, speaking at a public rally at the Shahi Masjid
(mosque), Srinagar, Abdullah thunderously condemned the 1846
Treaty of Amritsar, which had legitimized the Dogra possession of
Kashmir (Copeland 1991: 251). In addition to the brutal opposition
that the NC encountered from the Dogra regime, it faced vocifer-
ous resistance from a section of the MC leadership who vehemently
opposed any attempt to create a syncretism that would bridge the
divide between Hindus and Muslims.
As the NC made its support of secular principles and its affiliation
with the All India National Congress more forceful, the gulf between
the upholders of secularism and the guardians of an essential Muslim
identity became wider. The communally oriented group characterized
itself as the Muslim segment of society attempting to undermine the
political dominance of the Dogra maharaja and create an Islamic the-
ocracy governed according to Islamic laws and scriptures. Despite its
tenacious hold on secular principles, the NC found itself gasping for
breath in the quagmire created by the maharaja’s duplicitous policies.
For example, the maharaja’s government had passed a special ordi-
nance introducing two scripts, Devanagari and Persian, in Kashmir’s
government schools, and, under the Jammu and Kashmir Arms Act
of 1940, had prohibited all communities except Dogra Rajputs from
owning arms and ammunition. Such communally oriented policies
created a rift between the Muslim leadership of the NC and their
Hindu colleagues.
The rift within the organization was further widened by
Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s insistence that Abdullah extend his support
to the Muslim League and thereby disavow every principle he had
fought for. Abdullah’s refusal to do so sharpened the awareness of
the Muslim League that it would be unable to consolidate its political
position without his support. Initially, the Congress supported the
“Quit Kashmir” movement and reinforced the position of the NC
on plebiscite. The Congress advised the maharaja, right up to 1947,
to gauge the public mood and accordingly accede to either India or
Pakistan. Nehru’s argument that Kashmir was required to validate the
secular credentials of India was a later development. Jinnah refuted
the notion that Pakistan required Kashmir to vindicate its theocratic
status and did not make an argument for the inclusion of Kashmir in
the new nation-state of Pakistan right up to the eve of partition. As
Behera (2006) writes, “If Kashmir was integral to the very idea of
28 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Pakistan, it is difficult to see why the Muslim League and the Muslim
Conference did not ask the Maharaja to accede to Pakistan until as
late as 25 July 1947.” The Congress’s support to and furtherance of
partition, however, eroded the notion of a united India.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, on the contrary, was ambivalent
about the partition because he did not agree with the rationale of
the two-nation theory. He was equally ambivalent about acceding to
India, because he felt that if that choice was made, Pakistan would
always create juggernauts in the political and economic progress of
Kashmir. As for the idea of declaring Kashmir an independent state,
he recognized that “to keep a small state independent while it was
surrounded by big powers was impossible” (Abdullah 1993: 60). Was
Abdullah willing to concede the necessity of political compromise
and accommodation? Did Abdullah draw attention to the political,
cultural, and territorial compromises that the autonomy model might
entail? He did categorically declare that “Neither the friendship of
Pandit Nehru or of Congress nor their support of our freedom move-
ment would have any influence upon our decision if we felt that the
interests of four million Kashmiris lay in our accession to Pakistan”
(quoted in Brecher 1953: 35). The decision to accede to either India
or Pakistan placed Maharaja Hari Singh in a dilemma. On the one
hand, if the state acceded to India, the maharaja would be forced to
hand over the reins of political power to an organization that had
vociferously opposed his regime, the Congress, and the NC. On the
other hand, if the state acceded to Pakistan, the maharaja’s Dogra
Hindu community would find itself in a position of subservience.
Consequently, the maharaja disregarded the advice of the Congress
and the British about the infeasibility of independence and opted
for that choice because it would allow him to maintain his political
paramountcy. He was unable to recognize how independence would
enhance the political and military vulnerability of the state. Hari
Singh’s decision to maintain his political paramountcy was supported
by Pakistan, but not by India.

Standstill Agreement
On 15 August 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh’s regime ratified a stand-
still agreement with the government of Pakistan (see Appendix A,
175–178). This agreement stipulated that the Pakistan government
assume charge of the state’s post and telegraph system and supply
the state with essential commodities. Given the political and personal
 Conflicting Political Discourses 29

affiliations of the Congress with the NC and its antipathy toward

monarchical rule, the maharaja and his cohort considered it worth-
while to negotiate with Pakistan’s Muslim League in order to maintain
his princely status. But this already tenuous relationship was further
weakened after the infiltration of armed groups from Pakistan into J
& K. After Pakistani armed raiders and militia attempted to force-
fully annex Kashmir on 22 October 1947, the maharaja did a politi-
cal volte-face by releasing NC leaders from prison, seeking Indian
military help to keep the Pakistani forces at bay, and acceding to
India in order to protect his own security and interests. Subsequent
to his release after sixteen months of incarceration, Sheikh Abdullah
delivered a speech at a public rally at the Hazratbal shrine where he
declared the establishment of a popular government to be the prior-
ity and primary concern of the people of Kashmir, and relegated the
accession issue to the background.

Invasion by Pakistani Tribal Militia and

Military Leaders
The validity of the division of India into the nation-states of India
and Pakistan along religious lines was unequivocally challenged
by Sheikh Abdullah: “My organization and I never believed in the
formula that Muslims and Hindus form separate nations. We did
not believe in the two-nation theory, or in communalism. . . . We
believed that religion had no place in politics” (Abdullah 1993:
86; see Appendix B, 179). Abdullah’s noncommunal politics were
vindicated by the ruthlessness of the Pakistani tribal raiders’ mis-
calculated attack, which drove various political forces in the state
to willy-nilly align themselves with India. Although the raiders, or
Qabailis, were unruly mercenaries, they were led by well-trained and
well-equipped military leaders who were familiar with the arduous
terrain, and the raiders launched what would have been a dexterous
attack if they had not been tempted to pillage and plunder on the
way to the capital city, Srinagar (Dasgupta 1968: 95). En route to
Srinagar, the tribal raiders committed heinous atrocities: they raped
and killed several Catholic nuns at a missionary school, and tortured
and impaled an NC worker, Maqbool Sherwani (Copeland 1991:
245). The brutal methods of the raiders received strong disapproba-
tion from the people of the Valley who had disavowed a quintessen-
tially Muslim identity and replaced it with the notion of a Kashmiri
identity. This political and cultural ideology underscored the lack
30 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

of religious homogeneity in the population of Kashmir. The raid-

ers antagonized their coreligionists by perpetrating atrocities against
the local populace, including women and children. The undiplomatic
strategies of the tribal raiders and Pakistani militia expedited the
attempts of the All India National Congress to incorporate Kashmir
into the Indian Union (for a clearer picture of the ramifications of the
tribal invasion, see Appendix B, 179).

Validity of the Provisional Accession to India and

Role of the United Nations
On 26 October 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh signed the “Instrument
of Accession” to India, officially ceding to the government of India
jurisdiction over defense, foreign affairs, and communications (see
Lamb 1991 for discussions on the legitimacy of the “Instrument of
Accession”; see Appendix A for a delineation of the circumstances in
which Hari Singh signed the “Instrument of Accession,” 175–178).
The accession of J & K to India was accepted by Lord Mountbatten
with the proviso that once political stability was established in
the region, a referendum would be held in which the people of
the state would either validate or veto the accession. After signing
the Instrument of Accession, the maharaja appointed his political
adversary, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, as the head of an interim
government. The political monopoly of the NC was bolstered by
the organization of a “National Militia,” which was established
by Abdullah’s trusted lieutenants, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and
G.M. Sadiq. In keeping with Abdullah’s socialist politics, this orga-
nization had a women’s wing as well, which I discuss at length in
chapter five. I provide oral testimonies from two of three surviving
members of the women’s militia, in chapter five, about the political
and cultural initiatives taken by them during the Pakistani tribal
invasion.
Bose (2003: 36) observes that on 27 October, Abdullah told a
correspondent of The Times of India that the tribal invasion was
a pressurizing attempt to terrorize the people of the state and,
therefore, needed to be strongly rebuffed (see Appendix B, 179
for Abdullah’s excoriation of the belligerence and treachery of the
tribal invaders). Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan,
termed the accession of J & K to India “fraudulent” and declared
that the very existence of Pakistan was a sore spot for India (quoted
in Dasgupta 1968: 36). On 2 November 1947, Pandit Jawaharlal
 Conflicting Political Discourses 31

Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, reiterated his

government’s pledge to not only the people of Kashmir, but also to
the international community, to hold a referendum in Indian- and
Pakistani-administered J & K under the auspices of a world body
like the United Nations, in order to determine whether the populace
preferred to be affiliated with India or Pakistan. Nehru emphasized
this commitment several times at public forums over the next few
years.
In January 1948 India referred the Kashmir dispute to the United
Nations (Rahman 1996: 15–19). Prime Minister Nehru took the dis-
pute with Pakistan over Kashmir beyond local and national bound-
aries by bringing it before the UN Security Council and seeking a
ratification of India’s “legal” claims over Kashmir. The UN rein-
forced Nehru’s pledge of holding a plebiscite in Kashmir, and in 1948
the Security Council established the United Nations Commission
for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to play the role of mediator in the
Kashmir issue. The UNCIP adopted a resolution urging the govern-
ment of Pakistan to cease the infiltration of tribal mercenaries and
raiders into J & K. It also urged the government of India to demili-
tarize the state by “withdrawing their own forces from J & K and
reducing them progressively to the minimum strength required for the
support of civil power in the maintenance of law and order.” The res-
olution proclaimed that once these conditions were fulfilled, the gov-
ernment of India would be obligated to hold a plebiscite in the state in
order to either ratify or veto the accession of J & K to India (Hagerty
2005: 19). Sir Zafarulla Khan, Pakistan’s minister of foreign affairs,
while discussing the volatile Kashmir issue at the UN on 16 January
1948, said that the maharaja’s government had attempted to brutally
quell the spirit of revolution in Kashmir: “They were mowed down by
the bullets of the State Dogra troops in their uprising but refused to
turn back and received those bullets on their bared breasts” (United
Nations Security Council: 65).
This political stalemate led to the resumption of bitter acrimony in
1948. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s NC voiced its disillusionment
with the wishy-washy role of the UN Security Council. It expressly
declared on 22 April 1948 that the Security Council resolution was
“yet another feature of power politics on which the Security Council
has embarked ever since its inception.” Abdullah condemned the
machinations of imperialist powers like the United States and the
United Kingdom, which “saw Kashmir only as the neighbour of
Russia and therefore an essential base in the encirclement of Russia
for future aggression” (Krishen 1951: 19–20). A provisional cessation
32 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

of hostilities, however, occurred in January 1949, with the establish-

ment of a political and military truce.

The ceasefire line left the Indians with the bulk of Jammu and Kashmir’s
territory (139,000 of 223,000 square kilometres, approximately 63
per cent) and population. The Indians had gained the prize piece of
real estate, the Kashmir Valley, and they also controlled most of the
Jammu and Ladakh regions. These areas became Indian Jammu and
Kashmir (IJK). The Pakistanis were left with a long strip of land run-
ning on a north–south axis in western J & K, mostly Jammu districts
bordering Pakistani Punjab and the NWFP . . . a slice of Ladakh
(Skardu), and the remote mountain zones of Gilgit and Baltistan (the
Northern Areas or NA). (Bose 2003: 41)

The de facto border carved in 1949 worked to India’s territorial and

political advantage.
The president of the UN Security Council, General A.G.L.
McNaughton of Canada, endeavored to outline proposals to resolve
the dispute. He proposed a program of gradual demilitarization and
withdrawal of regular Indian and Pakistani forces, which were not
required for the purposes of maintaining law and order from the
Indian side of the cease-fire line. He also proposed disbandment of the
militia of J & K, as well as of forces in Pakistani-administered “Azad”
Kashmir. McNaughton recommended continuing the administration
of the Northern Areas (NA) by the local authorities, subject to UN
supervision. He recommended the appointment of a UN representa-
tive by the secretary general of the UN, who would supervise the pro-
cess of demilitarization and procure conditions necessary to holding a
fair and free plebiscite (Das 1950). Although McNaughton’s proposals
were lauded by most members of the Security Council, India stipulated
that Pakistani forces must unconditionally withdraw from the state,
and that disbandment of Pakistani-administered Kashmir troops must
be accomplished before an impartial plebiscite could be held (Rahman
1996: 90–91). In the interests of expediency, the UNCIP appointed a
single mediator, Sir Owen Dixon, the United Nations representative
for India and Pakistan, Australian jurist and wartime ambassador to
the United States, to efficiently resolve the conflict.
A meeting of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s National Conference
was convened on 18 April 1950, in order to pass a resolution expressly
warning the United Nations to take cognizance of Pakistan’s role as
the aggressor (Korbel 2002: 170). The Communist writer Rajbans
Krishen wrote an entire book to establish that the UN, its Commission,
and its representative, Sir Owen Dixon, were instruments of the
 Conflicting Political Discourses 33

United States and the United Kingdom to annihilate the progressive

movement pioneered by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in order to
create in Kashmir, with the aid of Indian and Pakistani capitalists,
a military base for an attack on the Soviet Union (ibid.: 257). The
Communist leader in Kashmir, G.M. Sadiq, underscored the skepti-
cism prevalent in Kashmir at the time:

. . . the time has come for India to withdraw the Kashmir question from
the Security Council . . . [as] the Kashmiris realized that the talk of fair
plebiscite was a mere smokescreen behind which the Anglo-American
powers were planning to enslave the Kashmiris. Nothing will suit them
better than the façade of trusteeship in Kashmir behind which they
can build war bases against our neighbours [sic]. (Delhi Express,
1 January 1952)

Even as Abdullah was aware of the infeasibility of withdrawing the

Kashmir issue from the UN, the NC reiterated its commitment to
securing the right of self-determination for the people of Kashmir.
It was suspicious of the UN, which was subservient to the hegemony
of the United States and the United Kingdom and flinched when it
came to holding a plebiscite in Kashmir (Korbel 2002: 259). Abdullah
declared that if a plebiscite was held in Kashmir and the people of
Kashmir did not validate the accession to India that would not imply
that, “as a matter of course Kashmir becomes part of Pakistan. . . . It
would regain the status which it enjoyed immediately preceding the
accession [i.e., independence]” (The Hindu, 26 March 1952). In 1949
Abdullah candidly told Michael Davidson, correspondent of the
London Observer, that, “Accession to either side cannot bring peace.
We want to live in friendship with both the Dominions” (quoted in
Saxena 1975: 33).
The insistence on rejecting the trajectory charted out for them by
the power structures of India, Pakistan, and the West, and the urge
to proclaim themselves a nation that is capable of exercising the right
of self-determination has haunted the psyche of the Kashmiri people
for decades. The distrust that pervaded the Kashmir political scene
was outlined by the Communist paper People’s Age, which assessed
the report of the United Nations Commission to the Security Council
as an instrument of the political intrigues and machinations of impe-
rialist powers against the engendering of democracy in J & K. It was
critical of the complicity of Pakistan with these powers to destroy
the beginnings of a democratic mass movement. It evaluated the
attempt of the United States and the United Kingdom to preside over
34 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

a purportedly “free and fair” plebiscite that would be held “under the
direction of the military and political agents of American imperial-
ism, masked as the UNO Commission officers,” as a strategy on their
part to create and secure war bases on the subcontinent against the
Soviet Union and China (Krishen 1951: 38).
As a placatory measure, in 1949 the UNCIP declared that “the
Secretary-General of the United Nations will, in agreement with the
Commission, nominate a Plebiscite Administrator who shall be a
person of high international standing” (Dasgupta 1968: 402–03).
Needless to say, the plebiscite was never held. The inability of the
Indian government to hold a plebiscite is regarded by the Pakistani
government and by proindependence elements in Kashmir as an act
of political sabotage. The Indian government has been rationalizing
its decision by placing the blame squarely on Pakistan for not demili-
tarizing the areas of J & K under its control, which was the primary
condition specified by the United Nations for holding the plebiscite.
Josef Korbel, the Czech UN representative in Kashmir, observes that
ten weeks after the Security Council had passed an injunction call-
ing on both India and Pakistan to demilitarize the Kashmir region
within five months, Sir Owen Dixon found that not an iota of work
had been done in that regard. Although both parties had agreed to
hold a plebiscite in the state, they had failed to take any of the pre-
liminary measures required for a free and fair referendum. Sir Owen
Dixon, therefore, decided to take matters into his own hands and
asked for the unconditional withdrawal of Pakistani troops. This
was followed by a request to both countries to enable the demilitar-
ization of Kashmir. The then prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali
Khan, agreed to initiate the process by calling for the withdrawal
of his troops. But this request, which would have enabled the main-
tenance of law and order, was denied by India (Korbel 2002: 171).
The rationale that India provided for its denial was the necessity
to defend Kashmir and maintain a semblance of order. India vehe-
mently opposed any proposal that would place Pakistan on the same
platform as India, and that would not take into account the incursion
of Kashmir territory by Pakistani militia and tribesmen. In order to
neutralize the situation, Sir Owen Dixon suggested that while the
plebiscite was being organized and held, the entire state should be
governed by a coalition government, or by a neutral administra-
tion comprising nonpartisan groups, or by an executive formed of
United Nations representatives. But his proposal did not meet with
the approval he expected. He noted, in 1950, that the Kashmir issue
was so tumultuous because Kashmir was not a holistic geographic,
 Conflicting Political Discourses 35

economic, or demographic entity, but, on the contrary, an aggre-

gate of diverse territories brought under the rule of one maharaja
(Schofield 2002: 4–10). In a further attempt to resolve the conflict,
Sir Owen Dixon propounded the trifurcation of the state along com-
munal or regional lines, or facilitating the secession of parts of the
Jhelum Valley to Pakistan (Ganguly 1997: 3–4, 43–57; Rahman
1996: 4).
Despite the bombastic statements and blustering of the govern-
ments of both India and Pakistan, however, the Indian government
has all along perceived the inclusion of Pakistani-administered J & K
and the NA into India as unfeasible. Likewise, the government of
Pakistan has all along either implicitly or explicitly acknowledged the
impracticality of including the predominantly Buddhist Ladakh and
predominantly Hindu Jammu as part of Pakistan. The coveted area
that continues to generate irreconcilable differences between the two
governments is the Valley of Kashmir. Dixon lamented:

None of these suggestions commended themselves to the Prime Minister

of India. In the end, I became convinced that India’s agreement would
never be obtained to demilitarization in any such form, or to provi-
sions governing the period of the plebiscite of any such character, as
would in my opinion permit the plebiscite being conducted in condi-
tions sufficiently guarding against intimidation and other forms of
influence and abuse by which the freedom and fairness of the plebiscite
might be imperiled. (The Statesman, 15 September 1950)

Sir Owen Dixon nonetheless remained determined to formulate a

viable solution to the Kashmir issue and suggested that a plebiscite
be held only in the Kashmir Valley subsequent to its demilitariza-
tion, which would be conducted by an administrative body of UN
officials. This proposal was rejected by Pakistan, which, however,
reluctantly agreed to Sir Dixon’s further suggestion that the prime
ministers of the two countries meet with him to discuss the viability
of various solutions to the Kashmir dispute. But India decried this
suggestion. A defeated man, Sir Dixon finally left the Indian subcon-
tinent on 23 August 1950 (Korbel 2002: 174). There seemed to be an
inexplicable reluctance on both sides, India and Pakistan, to solve the
Kashmir dispute diplomatically and amicably. Sir Dixon’s concluding
recommendation was a bilateral resolution of the dispute with India
and Pakistan as the responsible parties, without taking into account
the ability of the Kashmiri people to determine their own political
future.
36 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

After Dixon’s inability to implement conflict mitigation propos-

als, Frank Graham was appointed as mediator in 1951. Graham pro-
posed the following: a reaffirmation of the cease-fire line; a mutual
agreement that India and Pakistan would avoid making incendiary
statements and that would reassert that Kashmir’s future would be
decided by a plebiscite; and steady attempts at demilitarization. But
he was unable to dispel the doubts raised by the governments of
India and Pakistan on securing the approval of both governments
on a strategy for withdrawal of forces from the state, and agreement
of both governments on a plebiscite administrator (ibid.: 239–40).
Given the unviability of its proposals, the UN soon bowed out of the
political quagmire, leaving an unhealed wound on the body politic
of the Indian subcontinent: the Security Council resolutions affirm-
ing that the future of the state should be decided by its denizens
(for the reasoning behind the notion that the UN could have played
a constructive role in the resolution of the Kashmir conflict, see
Appendix A, 175–178).

Jawaharlal Nehru’s Stance vis-à-vis Plebiscite in

Jammu and Kashmir
In August 1952, Nehru declared in the Indian parliament: “We do
not wish to win people against their will with the help of armed force;
and if the people of Kashmir wish to part company with us, they may
go their way and we shall go ours. We want no forced marriages, no
forced unions” (Bhattacharjea 2008: xiv; Lamb 1991: 46–47; Noorani
1964: 61). But, once again, he equivocated and sought to capitalize on
the formation of the de facto border by declaring in 1955 that he had
asked his Pakistani counterparts to consider resolving the Kashmir
issue by converting the de facto border into a permanent international
one between the two nation-states. Nehru’s endeavor to renege on his
oft-repeated promise of holding a plebiscite created a hostile obsti-
nacy in Pakistan. After the troubling failure of Sir Dixon’s various
proposals, the London Times (6 September 1950) observed:

Like most great men, Nehru has his blind spot. In his case it is Kashmir,
the land of his forebears which he loves “like a woman.” Because he is
not amenable to reason on this subject, but allows emotion to get the
better of common sense, Kashmir remains a stumbling block in the
path of Indo–Pakistan friendship. So long as it is so India’s moral
 Conflicting Political Discourses 37

standing is impaired, her will to peace is in doubt, and her right to

speak for Asia is questioned by her next-door neighbor [sic]. Critics
may well ask, if self-determination under United Nations auspices is
valid for Korea [as India advocates], why is it not valid for Kashmir?

Nehru’s sentimentalism and vacillation regarding Kashmir, perhaps,

played a large role in keeping this issue of international dimensions in
limbo. The Kashmir dispute has thus remained troublingly infantile
in its irresolvability. The remushrooming of the separatist movement
in Kashmir in 1989 and the subsequent creation of a political vacuum
has allowed the insidious infiltration of distrust and suspicion into
the relationship between Kashmir and the two nuclear powers in the
Indian subcontinent, India and Pakistan.

Naya (New) Kashmir Manifesto

The NC’s collaboration with the Congress was a cause of celebration
for the Indians but was absolute anathema for the Pakistanis. New
Delhi looked upon the affirmation of Kashmir as a legitimate part of
the Indian Union as a validation of India’s secular status. Nevertheless,
in the years leading up to 1947 the NC established itself as an agent
of political mobilization. In September 1944, representatives of the
organization formulated and adopted a manifesto entitled “Naya
Kashmir” (for details, see Mir 2003). This manifesto propounded
a program of democratization and progressive social change under
the new regime. The Naya Kashmir manifesto explicitly delineated
the conception of a representative government that would enable the
devolution of administrative responsibilities to districts and villages.
The monarch would be a mere titular head. It declared Urdu the lin-
gua franca that would bridge the gulf between Kashmiri- and Dogri-
speaking parts of the state. It advocated a socialist system in which
the state would control the means of production so as to ensure the
fairest distribution of goods, power, and services to its members. The
good of society would be considered a responsibility of the state, but
the state would serve as an administrator and a distributor, not as a
disseminator of ideology or doctrine. The manifesto underlined the
necessity of abolishing exploitative landlordism without compensa-
tion, enfranchising tillers by granting them the lands they worked on,
and establishing cooperatives. It also addressed issues of gender, and
instituting educational and social schemes for marginalized sections
of society.
38 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

The new government headed by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Mirza

Afzal Beg passes the landmark “land to the tiller” legislation, 1950.
(Courtesy: The Archives of the National Conference, with the permission of
the general secretary of the National Conference, Sheikh Nazir Ahmad)

The Naya Kashmir manifesto sought to create a more democratic

and responsible form of government. On 13 July 1950, the new gov-
ernment headed by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah made a landmark
decision.

Between 1950 and 1952, 700,000 landless peasants, mostly Muslims

in the Valley but including 250,000 lower-caste Hindus in the Jammu
region, became peasant-proprietors as over a million acres were directly
transferred to them, while another sizeable chunk of land passed to
government-run collective farms. By the early 1960s, 2.8 million acres
of farmland (rice being the principal crop in the Valley) and fruit
orchards were under cultivation, worked by 2.8 million smallholding
peasant-proprietor households. (Bose 2003: 27–28)

This metamorphosis of the agrarian economy had groundbreak-

ing political consequences. The NC, which had orchestrated this
 Conflicting Political Discourses 39

transformation, won the unstinting support of thousands of erst-

while disenfranchised peasants. But displaced landlords and officials
in the erstwhile Dogra regime made no bones about their hatred of
the political supremacy of the new class of Kashmiri Muslims. This
hatred unleashed a reign of terror and brutality against the Valley’s
new political class. The atrocities inflicted by the Indian state led to
mass arrests and political repression, culminating into a midnight
coup against Abdullah and his regime.
In August 1952, Abdullah reiterated the commitment of his orga-
nization to the principles of secularism and democracy that would
enable the forging of ties with the Indian nation-state: “The supreme
guarantee of our relationship with India is the identity of secular and
democratic aspirations, which have guided the people of India as well
as those of Jammu and Kashmir in their struggle for emancipation, and
before which all constitutional safeguards will take a secondary posi-
tion” (quoted in Soz 1995: 121–39). For the layperson, Sheikh Abdullah
embodied the “new Kashmir” in which the hitherto peripheralized
Muslim population of the Valley and marginalized women would rein-
sert themselves into the language of belonging. “The National Conference
initially envisaged a limited role for women but later had a radical pack-
age for women in the historical document ‘Naya Kashmir.’ . . . This was
when no other political formation in the subcontinent had projected
women’s issues in this perspective” (Misri 2002: 4). After having read
the provision for women’s rights in the document, I would underscore
Misri’s opinion about the radical nature of the package for women:

Women citizens shall be accorded equal rights with men in all fields of
national life: economic, cultural, political and in the state services.
These rights shall be realized by affording women the right to work in
every employment upon equal terms and for equal wages with men.
Women shall be ensured rest, social insurance and education equally
with men. The law shall give special protection to the interests of
mother and child. (Quoted in Bhattacharjea 2008: 74.)

Abdullah, with his socialist politics, sought to challenge the safely

guarded domain of privilege and power that had disenfranchised the
Muslim majority, reinforced the seclusion of Kashmiri women, and
made their support irrelevant for the Dogra sovereigns and later for
the regimes installed by New Delhi. Interestingly, it was the Kashmiri
Muslims led by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who rallied around the
notion of regional nationalism (for Abdullah’s vociferous espousal of
the need to redress the grievances of impoverished and down-trodden
Kashmiri masses, see Appendix C, 180).
40 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

“Kashmiriyat”
As I mentioned in the introduction, the various communities in
the state of J & K—Kashmiri Muslims, Kashmiri Pandits, Dogras,
and Ladakhis—have tried time and again to form a national con-
sciousness in order to name a cultural alterity through the nation.
The construction of “Kashmiriyat,” or a syncretic cultural ethos,
by Sheikh Abdullah’s NC involved culling selected cultural frag-
ments from an imagined past that would enfold both the Pandits
and the Muslims. As Mridu Rai (2004: 284–85) points out, “This
espousal of a ‘secular’ ideology, read through a secularly written
history, was intended also as a way to keep at bay a centre in Delhi
that had begun to encroach upon Kashmiri ‘autonomy’ increasingly
in the early 1950s.” But due to the regional sentiments that are so
well entrenched in the psyche of the people, this attempt is still in a
volatile stage.
The notion of “Kashmiriyat,” forged by my maternal grandfather
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, was not handed down to me as an
unachievable and abstract construct; on the contrary, it was crystal-
lized for me as the eradication of a feudal structure and its insidi-
ous ramifications; the right of the tiller to the land he worked on;
the unacceptability of any political solution that did not take the
aspirations and demands of the Kashmiri people into consideration;
the right of Kashmiris to high offices in education, the bureaucracy,
and government; the availability of medical and educational facili-
ties in Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh; the preservation of literatures,
shrines, and historical artifacts that defined an important aspect of
“Kashmiriyat”; formation of the Constituent Assembly of J & K to
institutionalize the constitution of the state in 1951, which was an
enormous leap toward the process of democratization; the fundamen-
tal right of both women and men to free education up to the university
level; equal opportunities afforded to both sexes in the workplace; the
nurturing of a contact zone in social, political, and intellectual ideolo-
gies and institutions; and pride in a cultural identity that was gener-
ated in a space created by multiple perspectives.
“Kashmiriyat” was the secular credo of Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah’s All Jammu and Kashmir NC, popularized in the 1940s
and 1950s to defeat the centralizing strategies of the successive
regimes of independent India (see Rai 2004 for a theorization of
“Kashmiriyat” that is similar to mine). This significant concept does
not attempt to simplify the ambiguity and complexity of religious,
social, and cultural identities. It neither attempts to assert a fixed
 Conflicting Political Discourses 41

identity nor reinforce the idea of purity of culture. I would veer

away from adopting an image of this secular credo that is created by
the unitary discourses it deplores. On the contrary, “Kashmiriyat”
brings about a metamorphosis in the determinate concept of the
Indian state and creates a situation in which the nation-states of
India and Pakistan are forced to confront an alternative epistemol-
ogy. At a time of political and social upheaval in the state, this
notion engendered a consciousness of place that offered a critical
perspective from which to formulate alternatives. Without negating
the historicity of the notion, this theoretical fiction was deployed
by Sheikh Abdullah’s NC in order to forge a strategic essentialism
that would enable the creation of a sovereign Kashmiri identity. It
certainly was not a lawless notion, as Mridu Rai (ibid.: 296) is quick
to point out: “. . . this notion of cultural harmony was predicated on
the requisite condition of protecting Kashmiri Pandit privileges and
a consequent subsumption of the majority of Muslims.” Professor
R.L. Hangloo, eminent historian of Kashmiri Pandit descent at the
University of Hyderabad, provided a complex and concise definition
of “Kashmiriyat”:

Kashmiriyat is a far wider concept than the harmonious relationship

cutting across religious and sectarian divisions. Kashmiriyat is the
externally endowed and internally evolved phenomenon of co-existence
at the social, religious, political, spatial, cultural and other institu-
tional levels among Kashmiris of all shades that inhabited Kashmir.
Kashmiriyat has evolved as a result of special circumstances that are
rooted in Kashmir’s topographical centrality that entitled Kashmir to
imbibing, interacting and assimilating a variety of world cultures in
consonance with Kashmiri sensibilities that reflect a nuanced and
sophisticated approach that did not disturb the patterns of production
and cultural manners reflecting the Kashmiri genius. This specificity
has stemmed from the historical processes that the region of Kashmir
has embraced both in peace and turmoil for centuries. Kashmir has
always been surrounded by some of the world’s greatest civilizations
such as China, Persia/Iran, Central Asia and India. Kashmir and
Kashmiris were always at the center of this world and not on the
periphery which is reflected in the assimilation of their residual prac-
tices of religions. Note that while Kashmir may be on a fairly marginal
point on the map of the state of India, Kashmir as a region was his-
torically at the epicenter of a much larger world space and world civi-
lization. This centrality endowed the region with a superiority and self
identity that has assimilated the social and religious-cultural traditions
of this greater region and traits of greater cultures throughout history
to evolve and strengthen what came to constitute Kashmiriyat. This
42 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

sense of superior self identity has grown over centuries as Kashmiriyat

among Kashmiris both within and out side Kashmir.
Living together, untroubled by diversities of religion, racial, cul-
tural, material, and political and other identities, the notion of
Kashmiriyat became the bedrock of identity which consolidated itself
increasingly when Islam entered into the Valley. Before the thirteenth
century, even though there were plural religious sects, they neither saw
eye to eye with each other nor were they external to Kashmir in tality.
Shaivites facilitated the decline of Buddhists in Kashmir; the Vaishnavas
had to keep their identity concealed to escape the wrath of the Shaivites.
The pre-Islamic history is replete with religious, ethnic, racial and
other conflicts. The battles of Dammaras, Ekangas, Tantrins, Khasas
and others were perpetual features of pre-Islamic Kashmiri society.
There was a long drawn conflict and contestation within Islamic soci-
ety before rapprochement took place between the orthodox Muslims
and heterodox sects. The entrance of Islam in Kashmir coincided with
the end of this struggle. It was this rapprochement that disallowed
Kashmiris from seeing any contradiction between the preaching of
Islam and the practice of upholding the Heretical tradition (that is,
acknowledging the divine power of the local, the Rishi) in Kashmir.
Therefore the kind of Islam that entered Kashmir was devoid of any
orthodoxy. It was only after the arrival of Islam that Lalleshwari and
Sheikh Noor-ud-din (Nund Reshi) interacted to produce the atmo-
sphere and philosophy of co-existence and tolerance at popular level.
This interaction entailed massive changes in the world view of
Kashmiris that reflected a truly remarkable and world encompassing
shift in every aspect of their sensibility as well.

Is J & K a Postcolonial State?

Uncertainty about the status of the former princely state has loomed
large since 1947. In an atmosphere of unpredictability, in the frighten-
ing darkness of political intrigue, in the paranoia of political decep-
tion, the fungi of undemocratic policies and methods continue to grow
unabated. The unresolved Kashmir dispute poses a danger of mon-
strous proportions to the stability of the Indian subcontinent. Is the
former princely state of J & K a postcolonial state? Postcolonialism
refers to a phase undergone after the decline and dismantling of the
European empires by the mid-twentieth century, when the peoples of
many Asian, African, and Caribbean countries were left to create new
governments and forge national identities. The ideology that has been
propounded by the governments of India and Pakistan reflects and
produces the interests of state-sponsored agencies and institutions
 Conflicting Political Discourses 43

on both sides of the Line of Control (LOC). These institutions have

couched the debased discourse of exploitation in the language of
culture and religion, a strategy that has led to the relegation of the
subjectivity, historical understanding, and traditions of the Kashmiri
populace. As the eminent Palestinian–American scholar Edward Said
(1991: 29) noted, “All human activity depends on controlling a radi-
cally unstable reality to which words approximate only by will or
convention.” Representatives of the privileged center of power silence
the voices that are on the margins of mainstream society and politics.
These privileged centers have always constrained reality by imposing
their ideological schema, which underpins their powerful positional-
ity, on it. Their ability to conjure images and restretch boundaries
that serve their set of beliefs has rendered them a force to reckon with.
These ideas expounded by the powers-that-be portray Kashmiris as a
stereotypical and predictable entity.
This delineation of the Kashmiri subject was foregrounded by an
imperial agent of the British Raj, Sir Walter Lawrence, Settlement
Commissioner of J & K, in his The Valley of Kashmir ([1895] 2005).
This politically and culturally misleading portrayal of the Kashmiri
subject has been underscored by the policies of the governments of
India and Pakistan vis-à-vis Jammu and Kashmir, which is why the
authority of democratically elected representatives in that region has
always been curbed. The policies of the two governments follow the
much-trodden path of totalitarianism and spell a pattern of doom
for Kashmir. The unnecessary and unjustified postponement of the
resolution of the Kashmir conflict has insidiously gnawed at the ten-
uous relations between India and Pakistan. The issue has also, for
better or worse, been thrust onto the stage of global politics, and
its volatility has contributed to the destabilization of the Indian sub-
continent. Josef Korbel (2002: 304) wrote with foresight that “what-
ever the future may have in store, the free world shares with India
and Pakistan common responsibility for the fate of democracy and it
awaits with trepidation the solution of the Kashmir problem. Its own
security may depend on such a settlement.”
 Chapter Two

Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir

Shiv chuy thali thali rozaan

Mav Zaan Hyound ta Mussalman
Trukhay chukh ta panunuy paan parzaan
Ada Chay Saahibas Zaani Zaan
(Lalla-Ded, quoted in Mattoo 2007)

Shiva abides in all that is everywhere

Then do not discriminate between a Hindu and a Muslim
If you are wise seek the Absolute within yourself
That is true knowledge of the Lord
(from “Lalla-Ded’s Vaakhs”)

Kashmiris have taken pride in inhabiting a cultural space between

Vedic Hinduism and Sufi Islam. The traditional communal har-
mony in Kashmir enabled the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and
Hindus, highlighted by mutual respect for their places of worship
and an ability to synthesize not just cultural but religious practices
as well (for conceptualizations of “Kashmiriyat,” see Kaw 2004;
Razdan 1999; Rushdie 2005; Whitehead 2004: 335–40). Deep rever-
ence for each other’s shrines and the relics housed in those shrines is
a well-entrenched aspect of the culture. Salman Rushdie (2005: 57)
describes this sentiment of “Kashmiriyat” succinctly in his fic-
tionalized account of the history of J & K, Shalimar the Clown:
“The words Hindu and Muslim had no place in their story. . . . In
the Valley these words were merely descriptions, not divisions. The
frontiers between the words, their hard edges, had grown smudged
and blurred.”
A fitting symbol of this syncretic ethos of Kashmir is Lalla-Ded,
a figure revered by both the Pandits and Muslims of Kashmir. Lalla-
Ded was born in 1334 into a Kashmiri Brahman home in Simpur vil-
lage, about four miles from Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir.
She was brutalized in a marriage that was arranged for her by the
elders once she reached puberty. Unwilling to acquiesce to the con-
straints placed on the “traditional” woman and questioning the
46 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

self-abnegation of women that disallowed them from reconciling their

private selves with their roles as public contributors to the commu-
nity, Lalla-Ded disavowed the psychosocial narratives inscribed on
the female body in defiance of the continued conscription of women
(Bhatnagar, Dube, and Dube 2004: 30).

Challenging a Patriarchal and

Hierarchical Society
I would argue that by committing the sacrilegious act of crossing the
threshold of her husband’s house in order to choose a life of asceti-
cism, Lalla-Ded subverted the traditional reliance on male authority.
She was a yogini, a professed woman ascetic, who disseminated the
yogic doctrines with an unquenchable zeal. Her passionate pursuit
of self-knowledge led her down the tortuous path of a yogic life,
but the flame of her devotion blazed bright. Lalla-Ded is a water-
shed in the cultural and spiritual development of Kashmir. Her role
counters Prem Nath Bazaz's assessment of the “splendid” role that
Kashmiri women of ancient times played in the social and cultural
life of Kashmir. Bazaz’s assessment is glorious but romanticized, and
discounts the disparagements that intellectually inclined women had
to combat in order to emerge as public figures.

Broadly speaking, from early times to the thirteenth century they

enjoyed remarkable freedom, wielded ample power and exercised
responsibility, which gave them a high position in society. . . . At times
Kashmiri women have risen to pinnacles of glory and distinguished
themselves as rulers (Yashomati, Sughandha, Didda and Kota) in their
own right, as regents of minor princes, as powerful queens-consort
(Ishandevi, Vakpushta, Ananglekha, Srilekha, Suryamati and
Jayamati), as diplomats in peace and war (Radda Devi, Kalhanika), as
commanders of armies (Silla, Chudda), as thrifty landladies, as build-
ers and reformers and as preceptors of religious lore. (Bazaz [1967]
2005: 12)

But unconditional freedom from sexualized hierarchies does not

exist in any social matrix. Bazaz’s assessment of Kashmiri women in
ancient times is sanguine but mythical in that it ignores the “internal
dynamics of patriarchal and hierarchical societies, essentially biased
against women. Rigid, reprehensive customs and conventions placed
women inferior to men in status, rights, power and freedom in these
The Shah Hamadan mosque (Khanqah-i-mualla) on the banks of the Jhelum,
Srinagar. (Courtesy: Amin Studio, Srinagar)
48 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

societies. Discrimination and inequality were accepted as a natural

scheme of things” (Misri 2002: 7). The women whose positions on
the political and artistic zenith Bazaz chooses to foreground were
affiliated with the royalty in a monarchical regime basking in the
freedom from economic constraints and societal limitations that
women of other classes were tormented by. But Lalla-Ded sought, in
the social arrangement to which she had access, concepts and tools
for a new society that would be liberated from gendered forms of
oppression. She intervened in patriarchal national history by speak-
ing from her location about the political realities that had woven the
web of prevalent social relations. Lalla-Ded’s cognizance of how a
woman’s aspirations for personal emancipation are mediated by her
responsibility toward her community, and the ways in which this
sense of responsibility inflects her own emancipatory thought, under-
scores her importance for me. She rejected a sexualized persona in
order to break the power nexus that underlined the objectification of
“the damsel in distress.”

Religious Humanism in the Teachings of

Lalla-Ded
Although a Sufi mystic, childless Lalla-Ded eroded the construct
of woman as goddess or mother that binds her to a form of sub-
ordination that is the ultimate paradigm of social relationships in
traditional societies. Most historians are of the opinion that Sheikh
Noor-ud-Din Wali, the founding father of the predominant Sufi sect
in the Kashmir Valley, Rishiism, acknowledged Lalla-Ded as his
spiritual mentor. There is a legend that the infant Noor-ud-Din ada-
mantly refused to be suckled by his mother, Sudra. When the infant
was brought to Lalla-Ded, she reprimanded him for his rejection
of nourishment. Subsequently, the boy allowed his mother to nurse
him. Later, Lalla-Ded facilitated Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali’s immer-
sion into the intellectual radicalism generated by her philosophy of
religious humanism (Bazaz [1959] 2005: 138). The recorded poems
and paradigmatic sayings of Lalla-Ded and of Sheikh Noor-ud-Din
Wali enrich Kashmiri literature and add layer upon layer to the cul-
ture. (For renditions of syncretic Kashmiri literature with a rich
spiritual content, see Kaul 1999; Murphy 1999; Parimoo 1978;
Sufi 1979.)
After extensive research on poetry and literature in the Kashmiri
language, Sir George Grierson (1911) drew the inference that
 Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 49

Lalla-Ded is the oldest Kashmiri author. Her verses continue to retain

their relevance in various parts of the Valley even centuries after the
decline of mysticism: “Lal Vakyas [wise sayings], rich in philosophi-
cal theme and content, rolled down to generations through word of
mouth in Kashmiri, language of the masses” (Misri 2002: 9). A pro-
lific scholar of Lalla-Ded’s religious philosophy, Professor Amar Nath
Dhar, sent me an eloquent e-mail (18 April 2008) about Lalla-Ded’s
composite spiritualism and its cohesive impact on Kashmiri society,
which dissipated because of the relegation of the syncretism that was
lived by Lalla-Ded and Noor-ud-Din Wali to circumscribing political,
literary, and cultural realms:

Nund Rishi alias Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali was greatly influenced by

Lalla-Ded. Holding her in very special regard, he was not averse to the
Hindu belief in the avtarhood of Lalla-Ded. The Rishi order founded
by him evolved in the Valley itself after the advent of Islam. It was
Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali’s unqualified veneration for the saint-poetess
Lalla that had a great impact on devout Kashmiri Muslims, his follow-
ers. That explains why for centuries the Muslims in the Valley have
continued to own her, delighting in memorizing her sayings and quot-
ing them on festive occasions such as marriage ceremonies and cultural
functions, as the Kashmiri Pandits do as well. The Sufis in Kashmir,
especially those who were not alien to the Valley but rooted in the
humanistic Rishi tradition nurtured by Noor-ud-Din Wali (Nund
Rishi) and his followers, contributed a lot to the preservation of the
composite Kashmiri ethos.

Although she was born into a Hindu family, Lalla-Ded “was greatly
influenced by Islamic Sufiistic thought and may, in truth, be said to
be above all religious conventionalities” (Sufi 1979: 167). The most
significant contribution of Lalla-Ded to the Kashmiri language and
literature is that she translated the sophisticated, esoteric concepts
of Saiva philosophy and her mystic experiences into the vernacular
and made them accessible to the masses. She employed metaphors,
idioms, and images from experiences with which ordinary people
could relate in her translations of abstruse concepts. Her deploy-
ment of the easily recitable verse form of the vaakh in Kashmiri, the
language of the masses, has enabled the incorporation of her utter-
ances into the common mode of speech. She sought to forge a rela-
tionship with her Creator that did not require the intercession of a
religious male figure, a Brahman priest or a mullah. The significance
of Lalla’s vaakhs was made much clearer for me by the candid and
50 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

forthright e-mail exchange that I had with a knowledgeable historian

of Kashmiri Pandit descent at the University of Hyderabad, Professor
R.L. Hangloo, about the immediate application in and beyond our
everyday lives of Lalla’s teachings:

Lalleshwari, popularly known as Lalla Arifa and Lalla-Ded was born

in A. D. 1335. Like Indian Bhakti and Sufi saints she mediated her
understanding of religion to the popular masses in the local language,
i.e. Kashmiri. She was revered by all Kashmiris equally. Her sayings
remained popular in Kashmir in every age because of the overtones of
humanism, Bhakti, and Tassawuf in them. Her poetry traveled from
one generation to the next orally. It was Sir George Grierson and
Dr. L. Barnett who first edited these vaakh verses under the title Lalla
Vaakini for the Royal Asiatic Society in the early part of the twentieth
century. It was around the same time that a Kashmiri writer,
Muhammad-ud-Din Fauq, brought to the notice of the reading public
the personality of Laleshwari when he wrote a book entitled
Khawatin-i-Kashmir in Urdu, published from Lahore around 1902.
After him G. M. D. Sofi made references to Lalla’s poetry in one of the
two volumes of his book Kashir, published in 1949, very briefly. After
Sofi, it was Gopinath Raina who published some of her work in 1956.
The other works are by Jialal Kaul and the most recent one is by Nil
Kanth Kotru, published in 1989. After the advent of the armed insur-
gency in J & K and the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989, it was B.
N. Sopori who brought out an English rendering of Lalla’s vaakhs
in 1999.
The impact of Lalla’s vaakhs has to be studied in the changing his-
torical scenario of Kashmir. Although her vaakhs represent the credo
of secularism and spirituality, they have been misinterpreted for sec-
tarian interests. Her profound saying that, “Sare Samhan Akse Raze
Lamhan Ada Kyazi Ravehe Khan Gav” (all Kashmiris should be united
in their attitude), was used by some groups that demanded a separate
homeland in Kashmir without understanding her spirit, attitude, and
nuances of her age. Lalla-Ded is the common heritage of all Kashmiris,
Hindus and Muslims alike, like other Sufi and Bhakti saints. My
understanding is that whenever Kashmir has faced a crisis of commu-
nal, sectarian, or of any other nefarious nature, Lalla has been
visited and revisited by Kashmiris of all shades. (E-mail to author
4 January 2010)

While further researching Lalla-Ded as a mystic and a poet, I

found Sir Richard Carnac Temple’s heartwarming translations of
her verses. I was particularly inspired by the one in which the self
is foregrounded as the cure of all spiritual, physical, mental, and
 Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 51

material afflictions:

Lady, rise and offer to the Name,

Bearing in thy hand the flesh and wine.
Such shall never bring thee loss and shame,
Be it of no custom that is thine.
This they know for Knowledge that have found—
Be the loud Cry from His Place but heard—
Unity Betwixt the Lord and Sound,
Just as Sound hath unison with Word.
Feed thy fatted rams, thou worldly one,
Take them grain and dainties, and then slay.
Give thy thoughts that reek with “said and done”
Last-fruits of Knowledge, and cast away.
Then shalt see with Spirit-eyes the Place
Where the dwelling of the Lord shall be:
Then shall pass thy terrors of disgrace:
Then shall Custom lose her hold on thee.
“Think not on the things that are without,
Fix upon thy inner self thy Thought:
So shalt thou be freed from let or doubt”:—
Precepts these that my Preceptor taught.
Dance then, Lalla, clothed but by air:
Sing, then, Lalla, clad but in the sky.
Air and sky: what garment is more fair?
“Cloth,” saith Custom—Doth that Sanctify?
(“ ‘Cloth,’ saith Custom—Doth that Sanctify?”
in Temple [1924] 2005: 172–73)

Lalla-Ded was a visionary whose promethean verses broke the intrac-

table frameworks of conventional thought and behavior, which pin-
ioned the self.

Self-Awareness Erodes Constrictive

Conventions
Lalla-Ded preempted the modern-day psychoanalytic promulgation
of the concept of self-awareness:

Lalla has yet another hard saying. The sense of it adopted in the English
wording is that she utters a cry of despair. Like Christian in The
52 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Pilgrim’s Progress, she has been bearing on her back a burden of

worldly illusions and pleasures, compared to a load of sugar-candy,
and the knot of the porter’s string that supports it has become loose
and galls her. She has found that such a burden produces toil and pain.
Her wasted life in this workaday world has become a weariness, and
she is in despair. She has recourse to her Guru, her spiritual Teacher.
His words cause her intolerable pain, such as that experienced by the
loss of a beloved object—the worldly illusion that she must abandon.
She learns that the whole of the flock of factors that make up her sen-
tient existence have lost their proper ruler, the mind; for it is steeped in
ignorance of Self. (Ibid.: 227)

Recognizing one’s strengths and weaknesses enables one to pave the

tortuous path toward self-advancement— a much sought after goal
that would allow people of different intellectual dispositions to rel-
egate life’s peripherals to the background and face the vicissitudes of
fate with courage and faith in themselves.
It is a Herculean task not just to recognize the self, but to chan-
nelize the confidence that the said recognition fosters. Self-awareness
enabled Lalla-Ded, unobstructed by a false consciousness, to practice
religious, cultural, and social iconoclasm in an idolatrous and cult-
worshipping society. Again anticipating the psychoanalytic emphasis
on maintaining serenity and verbalizing destructive emotions in order
to defang them, Lalla-Ded exhorts the believer to

Keep thy mind calm as the Peaceful Sea,

Slaking and quenching the fires of Wrath,
Lest from thy bondage thou set them free
And the words of rage, as flames, break forth:
Words that shall sear, as with fire, thy mind
Burnt in anger to be healed in truth.
What are they? Nothing. Nothing but wind,
When thou hast weighed them in scales of Truth.
(Ibid.: 181)

In an age in which the culture was pervaded by conservative sensi-

bilities, well-defined gender roles, and the confinement of women to
home and hearth, Lalla-Ded’s blatant mockery of confining conven-
tions was condemned by the upholders of the hegemonic order.
Her honed self-knowledge and sublimation of needs highlighted
by society taught Lalla to maintain an unscarred mind in the face
of thoughtless condemnation and adversity. Critical intelligence,
particularly when expressed by a woman to break down societal,
 Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 53

religious, and cultural edifices, has always been intimidating and

has invited virulent criticism, as it did in Lalla’s case. The ravages
of time and the putative liberation of women in the twenty-first
century have not diminished the potency of Lalla-Ded’s radical-
ism or the tangible beauty of her poetry and its pertinence in this
day and age. Professor Neerja Mattoo (2007), emeritus professor of
English at Maulana Azad Women’s College, Srinagar, Kashmir, and
author of several publications on Kashmiri literature, astutely draws
a comparison between Lalla-Ded and medieval Christian women
mystics:

For them [medieval Christian women mystics], too, the only way to
validate their words and to get out of the all-pervasive, constricting
presence of male authority was this claim of a personal relationship
with God. After all, it was from God Himself that all the authority of
the Church, all of whose top functionaries were male, was drawn.
These women were thus able to establish some authority of their own.
We can say that in this “confession” they did not require a “Confessor,”
but they could be alone.

I had an enlightening conversation with Mohammad Yousuf

Taing (e-mail to author July 2007), former secretary of the Cultural
Academy and director general of culture, J & K government, in
which he pointed out that it is also believed that Lalla-Ded was
greatly influenced by discourses on mysticism and on the differ-
ent schools of Sufi thought given by Mir Syed Ali Hamadani, Shah
Hamadan, a regal Central Asian Islamic scholar and mystic who
disseminated and perpetuated Islamic teachings in predominantly
Brahmanical fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Kashmir. In fact,
educated Kashmiri Muslims are of the firm opinion that the verses
that Lalla-Ded composed after having forged a spiritual alliance
with Shah Hamadan and other Muslim scholars reverberate with
Islamic thought.

Lalla fills her teaching with many things that are common to all reli-
gious philosophy. There are in it many touches of Vaishnavism, the
great rival of Shaivism, much that is reminiscent of the doctrines and
methods of the Muhammadan Sufis, who were in India and Kashmir
well before her day, and teaching that might be Christian with Biblical
analogies, though the Indians’ knowledge of Christianity, if any, must
have been very remote and indirect at her date. (Temple [1924] 2005:
165)
54 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

The Ziarat Sheikh-ul Alam, Chirar-i-Sharif, Srinagar, tomb of Noor-ud-Din

Wali, was burned down during militancy in 1995. (Courtesy: Amin Studio,
Srinagar)

Lalla-Ded’s secular and anachronistic teachings were a death knell

for orthodox religion. Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali placed Lalla-Ded
in the role of the mother who honed his knowledge of the ethos of
Kashmir (for a delineation of Lalla-Ded’s religious philosophy, see
Bamzai 1994; Murphy 1999).
 Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 55

Impact of Lalla-Ded’s Teachings on Pandit and

Muslim Communities
Lalla-Ded’s poignant verses, pulsating with the pain and damnation
of peripheralized social and economic groups, were not written down
but were ensconced in the language and cultural discourse of the hoi
polloi, and continue to reverberate in the day and age of political
paranoia and religious fundamentalisms. She chose to break the mold
of patriarchy in a stiflingly traditional society by not allowing her
intellectual and spiritual freedoms to be curbed.
In an illuminating e-mail (dated 4 April 2008) about the impact of
Lalla-Ded’s teachings on Kashmiri Pandit women, Professor Neerja
Mattoo wrote:

Although Kashmiri Pandit women in the past have revered Lalla-Ded,

taken pride in acknowledging her as their great ancestress, quoted her
vaakhs as proverbs to suit all occasions when a stoical response is
required, the deeper Saivite philosophy and the questions she raises
regarding Reality and Self-Realization and to which she supplies
answers seem to have stayed out of their domain. These demand an
intellectual rigour and a highly evolved sensibility, which most women,
kept in subjugation in a patriarchal system, did not possess.
Brahmanism, which Lalla had defied all through by preferring to use
the language of commoners, Kashmiri, to communicate with them,
however, appropriated the significant and esoteric part of her work.
The only legacy left for women was her proverbial patience in suffering
the cruelty of the mother-in-law, who acted as the tool of an oppressive
system by even denying her enough food. It is ironic that while her real
message was for everyone, irrespective of class, caste, gender, or reli-
gion, radical for those times, the only lesson women generally learned
from it was that of submission. But, of course, women who had broken
free from social confines on a spiritual quest after renouncing the
material world were certainly influenced by her. Among these is the
seventeenth-century mystic poet Roph Bhavani, the content of whose
vaakhs is also the theory and practice of Saivism. Although there is a
brooding intellectuality in Roph Bhavani’s vaakhs, written in a highly
Sanskritized form of Kashmiri and, therefore, quite different from the
common idiom that Lalla-Ded used, her message is the same: free
yourself from prejudice, cleanse yourself from the sense of Duality,
meditate on the Absolute, and realize your own spiritual potential. The
following vaakh from Roph Bhavani’s work, Rahasyopadeasha, shows
her acknowledging Lalla-Ded as her guru:
Om gwar antar that nirmalan
Shuddham atyant vidyadharan
56 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Lal naam Lal parmagwaram

Shiv Madhav naham parman Brahma Soham
(With Om I begin, and instal in a cleansed mind my Guru,
Who is most pure and greatly learned
Lal is your name, my ultimate Guru!
Neither Siva nor Madhav am I, but Brahma Himself,
the Supreme Self)
Unfortunately, the present generation of Kashmiri women seems to
have lost touch with this great mystical tradition. Since it no longer
forms part of their daily discourse—most of them are aware of Lalla-
Ded, at best, as a name alone. The meaning and import of her vaakhs
remains an unfamiliar territory. A pity, indeed!

Through her poetry, Lalla-Ded questioned restrictive cultural

mores, religious, social, economic, and gender hierarchies, and
the relevance of esoteric knowledge. She deconstructed traditional
dichotomous categories and anticipated the postmodern notion of the
implosion of the Supreme and Nature, the individual Self with the
Universal Self. The true devotee, from the nondualist point of view,
“is one who recognizes that He is all in all and that all creation and
all experiences are but modes of Him” (Temple [1924] 2005: 169).
Lalla renders her teachings with sensuous imagery, making them eas-
ier to visualize. For instance, she illustrates her teaching of the unity
of the Self with the Supreme using the analogy of the melding of ice,
snow, and water. She explains that the three are different, but the sun
enables the blending of all three. Similarly, true knowledge enables
the soul to recognize not only its oneness with the Supreme, but also
with the entire universe (ibid.: 179).

Erosion of Monolithic Religious and

Political Structures
Lalla-Ded’s oracular sayings, replete with double entendres, have
made her verses an intricate part of Kashmiri culture. The analo-
gies that she employed in order to make her philosophy and religious
teachings comprehensible render her verses eclectic and esoteric. By
challenging oppressive attitudes, which had been internalized by the
masses, Lalla-Ded interrogated official historiography and exhumed
the corpses of subaltern historiography. Her ability to challenge the
oppressiveness created by the nexus between the institutions of patri-
archy and feudalism enabled her to acknowledge the marginalized
 Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 57

classes of society. For instance, Lalla-Ded foregrounds the work of

artisans and peasants, which hitherto had been relegated to the back-
ground, in the following verse:
Lal ba drayas kapas poshi satsuy
Katsi tu dooni karnam yatsay lath
Tuy yeli khaernas zaeviji tuye
Vovuri vaana gayam alaeney lath,
Dwobi yeli chhaevnas dwobi Kani pethay
Saz ta saaban mathsnam yatsuy
Sutsi yeli phirnam hani hani kaetsuy
Ada Lali me praevum paran gath
I, Lal, set out, hoping to bloom like a cotton flower,
But was beaten and trampled by ginner and carder,
Shredded and spun into so fine a yarn,
And hung and hit by a weaver on his loom,
Thrashed and kneaded on the washerman’s stone,
Pasted and plastered with soap and clayey earth,
Till the tailor’s skilful scissors worked on my limbs,
And I found my place in the highest Abode! (In Mattoo 2007)

Lalla-Ded does not allow her vision of reality to be clouded by idyl-

lic mysticism. On the contrary, her visceral poetry and the fluidity
of her language create ripples in the stagnant pools of tradition and
fumigate the sewers of power.
Here is another example of Lalla-Ded’s erosion of monolithic
religious and political structures:

Deev vatta divar vatta

Petha bon chhuy ikavaath
Pooz Kas karakh hutta Batta
Kar manas tu pavans sangaath
Your idol is stone, the temple a stone too—
All a stone bound together from top to toe!
What is it you worship, you dense Brahmin?
True worship must bind the vital air of the heart to the mind. (Ibid.)

In this vaakh, Lalla-Ded shatters the complacency of the priest who

exploits the ignorant, poor, and superstitious masses. She mocks reli-
giosity and conformity to insipid traditions that diminish the spiri-
tual aspect of faith in the Unseen. Her unequivocal condemnation
of the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the Hindu priest surpasses
58 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

the language and leitmotifs in the world of conventional women. Her

syncretic faith transcended barriers of religion, caste hierarchies, and
race. Although Lalla-Ded’s gender and social position did not endow
her with authority, she did not hesitate to challenge social, gender,
and religious constructs that underscored the privilege of the few and
reinforced the subservience of the many.
Lalla-Ded’s complete disapproval of kitsch magical practices,
designed to be formidable and give uncritical believers a false sense of
security, is further underlined in the following vaakh:

Zal thamavun hutavan turnaavun,

Urdagaman parivarzith chareth
Kaathdeni dwad shramanaavun,
Antih sakalay kapat chareth
Stilling the waters or quenching a fire,
The cursed practice of seeming to fly,
Or to make a wooden cow yield milk,
In the end it is deceit and fraud (Ibid.)

Lalla-Ded categorically declared that the renunciation of such prac-

tices and aspiration to unify one’s being with the Supreme con-
sciousness should be the ultimate goal of the true believer. Her
articulation of her mystic experiences and her pooh-poohing of the
shallowness of men falsely claiming to have knowledge of the super-
natural facilitated her repudiation of gender and social constructs
in an age in which female submissiveness was deeply embedded in
the culture.
In an e-mail to me (dated 25 December 2009), renowned Kashmiri
historian and author of Biographical Dictionary of Sufism in South
Asia (2009), Mohammad Ishaq Khan, wrote

Lalla-Ded’s seminal impact on the evolution of Kashmiri Muslim

society is traceable to her eulogisation as an avatara of underprivi-
leged Kashmiris by her junior contemporary, Shaikh Nuruddin Rishi.
Consequently, legendised both as a rebel against the caste-ridden
Brahmanic society and a Muslim woman mystic in the folk conscious-
ness, even the Shari’ah-conscious Sufis and scholars at a later
stage—particularly close disciples of the revered Shaikh Hamza
Makhdum—extolled her to the skies in their hagiographies. Significant
as this development was in spiritual as well as social terms, it did
affect the way women began to be viewed during Kashmir’s transition
to Islam over centuries of acculturation. Women Sufis now began to
 Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 59

wield immense spiritual and social influence along with men. That
Lalla-Ded accorded a place of equal social worth to women can be
gauged from the fact that not long ago there was no dearth of Kashmiri
mothers who by virtue of their knowledge of Lal Vaak played the role
of educators; this despite the fact that they were seemingly denied
influence or empowerment in our traditional and patriarchical
society.

Through her poetry, Lalla-Ded played a significant role in raising

consciousness and in foregrounding the dispensability of cultural and
social practices that benighted the masses. Her voice created percep-
tible cracks in the edifice of iconicized womanhood and the figure
of the “native woman,” which was similar to that of the Victorian
woman as upholder of the culture of silence.
In her path-breaking poetry, Lalla-Ded intelligently voiced the
agonizing plight of the marginalized that lacerated the heart and
seared the mind, brought about by a debilitating culture. She extri-
cated herself from the midst of monstrous structures and the agony
that they caused in order to achieve the ideal of self-realization, which
did not require self-mortification but the proverbial endurance of Sufi
saints and prophets. Even to aspire to self-actualization was a radical
notion, particularly for a woman, in an age of stifling conventions
and traditionalism.

Portrayal of Women in Nationalist Literatures

Most nationalist movements and literatures of independence have
portrayed women as icons of cultural preservation. In the national-
ist and postcolonial phase of nations, gender divisions have been
reinforced by the hallowed figure of the “native woman” (Gandhi
1998: 83). The complexity in the varying positions of women has
been ignored to preserve nationalist portraits of the “native woman”
that do not concede to the female subject the right to foreground
her own “distinct actualities” (Minh-ha 1989: 5). For instance, the
iconicization of Lalla-Ded as goddess–mother in nationalist litera-
tures limits her sphere of influence within Kashmiri folklore and
social practices. I oppose this decapacitating iconicity of “woman”
that traditional Islamic, Hindu, and Victorian concepts of feminin-
ity endorse. Lalla-Ded deemphasized the roles imposed by conjugal-
ity and motherhood in order to widen her identity without totally
dismissing the cultural definition of womanhood. “Her indomitable
60 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

spirit and profound creativity were too expansive to be encased in

outmoded familial and societal structures” (Misri 2002: 9). The
Sufi mystic located agency in possibilities created in the variability
of spaces in which identity is formed. Lalla-Ded’s unsurpassed Sufi
mysticism and the eloquent verse that ensued from it led to her being
owned as much by the Pandits of the Valley, as Lalla Ishwari, as by
the Muslims of the Valley, as Lalla Arifa (Bamzai 1994; Jha 1996;
Khan 1994; Ray 1970).
Mohammad Yousuf Taing, a noted scholar and historian in addi-
tion to his work for the Cultural Academy and J & K government,
elaborated on Lalla’s deconstruction of traditional societal mores
through her verse:

Lalla’s impact on Kashmiri mind and literature would not have been as
pervasive if she had only assumed the role of a preacher of traditional
thought. She is primarily a poet and then a preacher. The ecstasy of her
poetic expression and its inherent Rasa is of such quality that the
preacher assumes the role of a bard. It surmounts the barrier of religion
and has a universal appeal. That is the reason that she has dominated
the poetic space in Kashmir for 700 odd years. Even in the twentieth
century a modern poet like Mirza Arif (1910–2004) could proclaim;
“Nangay naychenav Lalla aik Gura Shahdoni.”
(Lalla was made to dance in nude by just a word from her teacher.)
Lalla’s image as a nude ascetic roaming and dancing around takes her
beyond the realm of the ordinary. She emerges as an eternal bold rebel
who transcends the mores and rules of tradition, and is still accepted as
a person of unblemished spiritual grandeur. It is significant that she
gives up this nude dance when she recognizes a true man of God. It is a
beautiful metaphor that when she saw Mir Syed Ali Hamdani, the great
Muslim saint (717–786 Hijira) she hastened to jump into a baker’s oven.
When she came out, she was in beautiful bridal apparel and
exclaimed,
“I have seen a true man after all, hence this dress.”
Lalla is the forerunner of the Bhagti stalwarts of pre-partition India. It
is yet to be established that her vaakhs had not reached them, but poets
like Bhagat Kabir, Tulsi Das, and Ravi Das came on the scene after the
advent of great Lalla. In an ancient and rich language like Kashmiri she
is still the most unexplored and mysterious mount of poetic excellence.
Even in the 20th century such tall poets as Dina Nath Nadim
(1915–1988) and Rehman Rahi (1925–) are emulating the glory of her
poetic style. She continues to be the inspiration for many generations of
Kashmiri elite and, of course, its common folk especially women who
still take pride in reciting the tribute which the spiritual progenitor of
 Cultural Syncretism in Kashmir 61

Kashmiri ethos, Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali, had paid her some six hun-
dred years ago,
“Ami Padma\n Purchi Lalley, yemi ais Amrit galley chaive”
(Remember the Lalla from Padman Pur who made us drink nectar
by gulps)
Lalla started a procession of female poets in Kashmir, e.g., Haba
Khatoon, Arni Mal, and now living poets like Mahfooza Jan and
Naseem Shafi. (E-mail to author 12 December 2009)

Resurgence of the Literature of

Jammu and Kashmir
Subsequent to 1947, when India gained independence from British
dominion, there was a regeneration of interest in folk literatures,
mythologies, poetry, and so on. Cultural organizations that had been
in dire straits because of the lack of intellectual and financial sup-
port were rejuvenated and reclaimed in the nationalist climate. Some
of these organizations were Prem Sangeet Niketan Bazam-i-Adab,
Himalaya Bhand Theatre, Kala Kendra Club, Kashmir Art Society,
Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti, Kashmir Cultural Society, and
Progressive Artists Association (Bazaz [1967] 2005: 10–12). The
Academy of Arts, Culture and Languages, which was established in
Srinagar on 24 October 1958, provided creative artists with a much
needed forum. This institution enjoyed the patronage of Sadar-i-
Riyasat Karan Singh and Prime Minister Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad.
The Academy gained the status of an autonomous corporate organi-
zation in 1963, and it disseminated the reservoirs of creativity and
artistic talent throughout the state.
In order to encourage local artists, the Academy provided subsidies
for productions and awarded actors, musicians, writers, playwrights,
and poets for their work. Kashmiri, spoken in the Kashmir Valley,
and Dogri, spoken in the Jammu region, were no longer confined
to the domestic realm but were deployed in literary and public dis-
course. The Academy unearthed Kashmiri and Dogri manuscripts
from the crumbling archives of history and collective memory, edited
and published them; among these were Abdul Ahad Azad’s volumi-
nous book on Kashmiri language and poetry, Kashmiri Zaban aur
Shayiri; and selected Kashmiri poetry by Nadim, Haba Khatoon,
Haqqani, Maqbool Kralwari, Parmanand, Rasul Mir, Wahab Parey,
and Lakshman Koul. The Academy also published two spectacular
volumes of the poetry of mystic masters, under the title Sufi Shaeyir.
62 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Cultural Academy, Srinagar. (Courtesy: Amin Studio, Srinagar)

Some of the other notable Kashmiri works of literature and poetry

are Master Zind Koul’s Sumaran (Remembrance), Dina Nath Nadim’s
Kwang Posh (Saffron Flower), Nadim’s opera Heemat Nagirai, and
Rahman Rahi’s Naoroz Saba (New Year’s Breeze). Ghulam Nabi
Khayal translated Omar Khayyam’s poetry and Aristotle’s Poetica into
Kashmiri. Amin Kamil undertook the Herculean task of compiling three
volumes on Kashmiri mystic masters. The ancient Hindu text Bhagwad
Gita was translated into Kashmiri by Sarwanand Koul Premi.
In 1964 the Academy further supported the revival and enhancement
of cultural activities by opening two schools of music and fine arts in
Srinagar and Jammu, where classes were held in painting, classical
music, and drama. Exquisite arts such as papier-mâché, carpet weav-
ing, crewel work, shawl weaving, and walnut wood carving were also
revived in the 1950s and 1960s (ibid.). This revival of cultural activi-
ties in J & K echoed the ramification of nationalist pride that was
making inroads all over the Indian subcontinent.
 Chapter Three

Political Debacles*

Democratic Processes and Radical

Socioeconomic Measures
Subsequent to the awakening of Kashmiri nationalism; pride in the
unique cultural ethos; institution of a populist government headed by
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in Indian-administered J & K; bolster-
ing of an alternative epistemology in the form of “Kashmiriyat”; and
legitimization of progressive socialist measures in Indian-administered
J & K; India agreed to hold a free and impartial plebiscite in the
state. (After tremendous reluctance to accede to either the dominion
of India or Pakistan, it became a hobson’s choice for the maharajah to
sign the “Instrument of Accession” enabling the provisional accession
of J & K to India. See Appendix A, 175–178). Initially, the prime min-
ister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, in tandem with the prime minister
of Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, conceded the inviolable
right of the people of J & K to chart their own political course At
a mass public rally in Srinagar in 1948, Nehru, with the towering
Abdullah by his side, solemnly promised to hold a plebiscite under
United Nations auspices.
But Abdullah’s ascendancy received vituperative opposition
not just from royalist elements, but also from Ladakh’s Tibetan
Buddhists who were apprehensive about the sudden rise of a new
Kashmiri Muslim elite and were particularly fearful of the implica-
tions of its land reform policies for the Buddhist clergy’s enormous
private landholdings in Ladakh. As the elected head of government,
Abdullah pushed through a set of major reforms, the most impor-
tant of which was the “land to the tiller” legislation, which destroyed
the power of the landlords, most of whom were non-Muslims.
They were allowed to keep a maximum of 20 acres, provided they

* The works of Tariq Ali, Prem Nath Bazaz, Sumantra Bose, Jyoti Bhusan Dasgupta,
Balraj Puri, and Victoria Schofield have influenced my conceptualization of the com-
plexity of the Kashmir issue.
64 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Jawaharlal Nehru, with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah by his side, pledges to

hold a UN-supervised plebiscite in J & K, Srinagar, 1948. (Courtesy: The
Archives of the National Conference, with the permission of the general sec-
retary of the National Conference, Sheikh Nazir Ahmad)

worked on the land themselves: 188,775 acres were transferred to

153,399 peasants, while the government organized collective farm-
ing on 90,000 acres. A law was passed prohibiting the sale of land
to non-Kashmiris, thus preserving the basic topography of the region
(Ali 2003: 237).
 Political Debacles 65

The new economic plan of the state, formulated and executed

by Abdullah’s government, underlined cooperative enterprise as
opposed to malignant competition, in keeping with Abdullah’s
socialist politics, which implied the organization and control of
marketing and trade by the state. This revolutionary economic
agenda in a hitherto feudal economy enabled the abolition of
landlordism; allocation of land to the tiller; cooperative guilds of
peasants; people’s control of forests; organized and planned cul-
tivation of land; the development of sericulture, pisciculture, and
fruit orchards; and the utilization of forest and mineral wealth for
the betterment of the populace. Tillers were assured of the right
to work on the land without incurring the wrath of exploitative
creditors, and were guaranteed material, social, and health ben-
efits (Korbel [1954] 2002: 204). These measures signaled the end of
the chapter of peasant exploitation and subservience, and opened a
new chapter of peasant emancipation.
Sheikh Abdullah’s unsurpassed achievement during his years as
the prime minister of J & K from 1948 to 1953 was the abolition of
the exploitative feudal system in the agrarian economy. He was also
responsible for the eradication of monarchical rule. A.M. Diakov, a
Soviet specialist on India, wrote about the progressive and democratic
policies adopted by Abdullah’s National Conference (NC): “After the
Second World War, a national movement in Kashmir developed the
program of doing away with the Maharaja, of turning Kashmir into
a democratic republic, of giving to the people of Kashmir the right
of self-determination” (Diakov 1948). The Dogra monarchy was
formally abolished in 1952, and the last monarch’s heir apparent,
Karan Singh, was declared the titular head of state. Disregarding the
attempts of the Indian government to ratify its authority in J & K,
the UN Security Council passed a resolution in March 1951 remind-
ing the governments and authorities concerned of the premises of
the Security Council resolutions of 21 April 1948, 3 June 1948, and
14 March 1950, and the United Nations Commission for India and
Pakistan (UNCIP) resolutions of 13 August 1948 and 5 January 1949,
according to which a final decision about the status of the state would
be made in accordance with the wishes of its people expressed in a
free and fair referendum held under the impartial auspices of the UN.
This resolution also determined that the convening of a constituent
assembly as recommended by the general council of the All Jammu
and Kashmir National Conference, and any decision that the assem-
bly might take and attempt to execute determining the political affili-
ation of the entire state or any part thereof, would be considered as
66 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

not in accordance with the above principles and would therefore be

disregarded (Dasgupta 1968: 406–07). When Sheikh Abdullah first
voiced his unrelenting opposition to autocratic rule in the state, his
political stance was applauded by some sections of the Indian press,
which, by foregrounding his position, further brought it out of the
catacombs of provincialism:

It is imperialism’s game to disrupt the great democratic movement led

by the NC. . . . There is no doubt that the NC would defeat these disrup-
tive efforts by placing in the forefront the issue of ending the present
autocratic regime and establishing a fully democratic government in
accordance with its program. (Communist, October 1947, quoted in
Krishen 1951: 3–4)

Despite the injunction of the Security Council, Abdullah and his orga-
nization convened a constituent assembly in 1951. The NC regime
was faced with unstinting opposition in the Hindu-dominated south-
ern and southeastern districts of the Jammu region. Disgruntled ele-
ments comprising officials in the former maharaja’s administration
who had been divested of their authority by the installation of a dem-
ocratic regime in the state, and Hindu landlords stripped of their des-
potism by the NC administration’s populist land reforms, founded
an organization called the Praja Parishad in late 1947, which was
at loggerheads with Abdullah’s regime since 1949 (see Bose 1997:
104–64).
Despite all odds, Abdullah sought to maintain Kashmir’s auton-
omous status. Tariq Ali makes an astute observation regarding
Abdullah’s locus standi:

If Abdullah had allied himself with Pakistan, the Indian government

and its troops would have been unpleasantly disarmed. But he consid-
ered the political and social ideologies of the Muslim League extremely
conservative and was afraid that if Kashmir acceded to Pakistan, the
Punjabi feudal lords who were at the helm of the ship of policy making
in the Muslim League would hamper political and social progress. In
order to prevent such an occurrence, Abdullah agreed to support the
Indian military presence in the State provided under United Nations
auspices in J & K. (Ali 2003: 165)

The purportedly autonomous status of J & K under Abdullah’s govern-

ment provoked the ire of the Hindu nationalist parties, which sought
the unequivocal integration of the state into the Indian Union.
 Political Debacles 67

The unitary concept of nationalism that these organizations sub-

scribed to challenged the basic principle that the nation was founded
on, namely, democracy. In such a nationalist project, one of the forms
that the nullification of past and present histories takes is the subjec-
tion of religious minorities to a centralized and authoritarian state
buttressed by nostalgia of a “glorious past.” As Bose (2003: 58) is
quick to point out, the unequivocal aim of the supporters of the inte-
gration of J & K into the Indian Union was to expunge the political
autonomy endowed on the state by India’s constitutional provisions.
According to the unitary discourse of sovereignty disseminated by
the Hindu nationalists, J & K was not entitled to the signifiers of
statehood—a prime minister, flag, and constitution. The concept of
nationalism constructed by Hindu nationalists bred relentless vio-
lence and the delusions of militant nationalisms.
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
continued to harbor hopes for the creation of a sovereign Kashmir.
In October 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India reinforced the
stipulation that New Delhi’s jurisdiction in the state would remain
limited to the categories of defense, foreign affairs, and communica-
tions, as underlined in the Instrument of Accession. This stipulation
was provisional and its final status would be decided upon the resolu-
tion of the Kashmir issue. Subsequent to India acquiring the status
of a republic in 1950, this constitutional provision enabled the incor-
poration of Article 370 into the Indian Constitution, which ratified
the autonomous status of J & K within the Indian Union. Article 370
stipulates that New Delhi can legislate on the subjects of defense, for-
eign affairs, and communications only in just and equitable consulta-
tion with the government of the state of J & K, and can intervene on
other subjects only with the consent of the J & K State Assembly.
At this point in time, Abdullah made some controversial obser-
vations in an interview with the London Observer. He voiced his
concern over the increased vulnerability and instability of J & K
caught between two countries that were hostile toward each other.
He expressed his solicitude over the political and economic hard-
ships that the location of the state would cause its populace. The
only viable option, according to him, was for J & K to have a neu-
tral status vis-à-vis both India and Pakistan. However, because of
the ruptured politics within the state given its diverse political, reli-
gious, and ethnic affiliations, the sovereign and autonomous status
of J & K would need to be acknowledged and guaranteed not just
68 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

by India and Pakistan, but also by the UN and other world pow-
ers. Abdullah’s candid observations created a furor in New Delhi.
His “politically incorrect” views met with particular objection
from India’s right-wing deputy prime minister, Vallabhbhai Patel.
Abdullah withdrew his remarks in an interview with The Hindu
a couple of months later (Dasgupta 1968: 194). In 1952 Abdullah
voiced his relentless hostility toward Hindu majoritarianism in the
stronghold of the Hindu right-wing Praja Parishad. He referred to
the attempts of the Congress Party and the central government to
enforce the complete integration of J & K into the Indian Union
as juvenile, impractical, and ludicrous (ibid.: 196). In March
1952 Abdullah stated that “neither the Indian Parliament nor any
other Parliament outside the state has any jurisdiction over our
state. . . . No country—neither India nor Pakistan—can put spokes
in the wheel of our progress” (Delhi Radio, Indian Information
Service). He further declared that “the existence of Kashmir did not
depend on Indian money, trade, or defense forces, and he did not
expect any strings to be attached to Indian aid. Threats and taunts
would not intimidate him into servile submission” (The Times, 26
April 1952).

Delhi Accord of 1952

The negotiations in June and July 1952 between a delegation of the
J & K government led by Abdullah and a minister of his cabinet,
Mirza Afzal Beg, and a delegation of the Indian government led by
Nehru, resulted in the Delhi Accord, which maintained the status
quo on the autonomous status of J & K. In a public speech made on
11 August, Abdullah earnestly declared:

This briefly is the position which the Constitution of India has accorded
to our State. I would like to make it clear that any suggestions of alter-
ing arbitrarily this basis of our relationship with India would only con-
stitute a breach of the spirit and letter of the Constitution, it may invite
serious consequences for our harmonious association of our State with
India. The formula evolved with agreement of the two Governments
remains as valid today as it was when the Constitution was framed and
reasons advanced to have this changed seem completely devoid of sub-
stance. In arriving at this arrangement, the main consideration before
our Government was to secure a position for the State which would be
consistent with the requirements of maximum autonomy for the local
organs of State Power which are the ultimate source of authority in the
 Political Debacles 69

State while discharging obligations as a unit of the Federation. (quoted

in Soz 1995: 128)

At the talks held between the representatives of the state government

and the Indian government, the Kashmiri delegation relented on just
one issue: it conceded the extension of the Indian Supreme Court’s
arbitrating jurisdiction to the state in case of disputes between the
federal government and the state government, or between J & K
and another state of the Indian Union. But the delegation shrewdly
disallowed an extension of the Indian Supreme Court’s purview to
the state as the ultimate arbitrator in all civil and criminal cases
before J & K courts. It was also careful to prevent the financial
and fiscal integration of the state with the Indian Union. The rep-
resentatives of the J & K government ruled out any modifications
to their land reform program, which had dispossessed the feudal
class without any right to compensation. It was also agreed that
as opposed to the other units in the Union, the residual powers of
legislation would be vested in the State Assembly instead of in the
central government.
But this was an ephemeral victory. It became increasingly clear,
over the years, that the autonomy issue remained unresolved and anti-
autonomy factions in Jammu and Ladakh did not lose their political
clout. Abdullah tried to defuse the complicated situation in 1953 by
proposing a plan for devolution of authority to the provinces within
the state through the Constituent Assembly’s basic principles commit-
tee. According to this plan, the Kashmir Valley and Jammu regions
would be entitled to elected assemblies and separate councils of min-
isters with the authority to debate and legislate on certain affairs of
local and regional importance. This multipronged devolution was
intended to maintain the autonomy of Indian-administered J & K
while mollifying regional and sectarian opposition in the Jammu and
Ladakh regions (Bose 2003: 63). But the sectarian conflict in Jammu
and Ladakh, fueled by right-wing Indian nationalist elements, could
not be appeased with anything short of the overthrow of the Abdullah
regime. From the 1960s, militant Hindu groups in the Jammu prov-
ince have advocated and supported the secession of the Hindu major-
ity province from the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley, which is
a politically unwise demand that negates the social, religious, and
cultural complexities of the Jammu province. If this demand is ful-
filled, the three predominantly Muslim districts—Doda, Rajouri, and
Poonch—of Jammu’s six districts would rather cast their lot with the
Muslims of Kashmir Valley than align themselves with the Hindus
70 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

of Jammu, in keeping with the logic of the partition of India (Bazaz

[1967] 2005: 151).

Rupture within the National Conference and

Installation of the Bakshi Government
In 1953 Abdullah appointed a subcommittee, comprising members
from the Muslim, Pandit, Sikh, and Dogra groups, which propounded
four viable options for Kashmir’s future. All of them involved hold-
ing a referendum and independence for part or whole of the disputed
territory. The subcommittee recommended, on the suggestion of
Maulana Masoodi, general secretary of the NC, that the people of
Kashmir be offered the option of independence besides the option
of acceding to either India or Pakistan. Abdullah decided to publicly
advocate this option as a feasible choice. But in the summer of 1953,
an unbridgeable rift occurred among the top brass of the NC that
pitted Abdullah and Mirza Afzal Beg (Kashmiri Muslims) against
Shyamlal Saraf (a Kashmiri Pandit), Giridharilal Dogra (a Jammu
Hindu), and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad (also a Kashmiri Muslim).
Abdullah’s proindependence stance received a severe blow when the
dissident faction of the NC was joined by the Constituent Assembly
speaker, G.M. Sadiq, and D.P. Dhar, deputy minister of interior. The
former Soviet Union’s stance on the Kashmir issue seemed to have had
an influence on this group. The fallout of the rift was the dismissal
of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as prime minister by the titular head
of state, Karan Singh, and his arrest under the Public Security Act, a
coup authorized by Nehru. Abdullah would be shuttled from one jail
to another for the next twenty-two years, until 1975. A few days later
Abdullah loyalists, including Mirza Afzal Beg, were also arrested
under the same act. Subsequent to Abdullah’s arrest, Bakshi Ghulam
Mohammad was installed as prime minister. Bakshi’s de facto regime
was given a semblance of legitimacy by being formally ratified by
members of the NC general council and Constituent Assembly del-
egates in specially convened sessions. In September 1953, Nehru, who
earlier had underscored Abdullah’s importance to the resolution of
the Kashmir issue, did a political volte-face: he justified Abdullah’s
undemocratic eviction from office before the Indian parliament by
asserting that the latter’s “autocratic” methods had resulted in the loss
of the majority of his cabinet and had caused trauma to the electorate.
The well-planned coup in Kashmir that led to Abdullah’s prolonged
detention, the mass arrests of his loyalists, and the fabricated shows
 Political Debacles 71

of loyalty to the new regime unveiled the strategies deployed by New

Delhi as measures that lacked political and ethical legitimacy. One of
the dissenters who was given a position of political import in the new
regime, Syed Mir Qasim, makes candid observations in his autobiog-
raphy about the overwhelming popular protests against Abdullah’s
removal and the police brutality that was deployed to quell the unrest
(Qasim 1992: 68–70). The blatant suppression of defiance made it
amply clear that any attempt to erode New Delhi’s supreme authority
would be tantamount to political hara-kiri.
I met with the former Sadr-i-Riyasat (governor) and former crown
prince of the princely state of J & K, Karan Singh, at his quasi-regal
home in New Delhi in the summer of 2007. Fortunately, he was will-
ing to answer the questions I had regarding the 1953 coup. Debonair
and composed, Karan Singh has a keen mind and was intent on ratio-
nalizing his political decisions, including the debacles he had presided
over. He was also gracious enough to give me a copy of his autobi-
ography in which he has unapologetically written about his role in
that manifestation of political wiliness and despotism. He has written
about his acceptance of the office of Sadr-i-Riyasat, a constitution-
ally legitimate position, and of the repercussions of his momentous
decision:

I knew that I had irrevocably severed my links with the feudal system
and also that, however cordial our relations would be on the surface,
my father would not easily forgive me for accepting the new office. I
realized that the Sheikh was an inveterate foe of our dynasty and that
by accepting it I was virtually placing myself at his tender mercies. I
also knew that the reaction among my own community, the Dogras of
Jammu, would be hostile, at least to begin with. And yet I was con-
vinced that the old order had passed never to return; that whatever the
future might hold there was no future for me or my people unless
I threw in my lot with Jawaharlal Nehru and the new India that he
has done so much to create and was guiding with such courage and
foresight. (Singh 1994)

When I asked Karan Singh whether his office had entailed work of
political import, he averred that subsequent to the 1953 coup, his was
the only office that enjoyed constitutional legitimacy. While he thought
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was a political stalwart, he saw him as
a “Kashmiri leader of the Kashmiris, not of the entire state of J & K.”
Karan Singh, whose nostalgia for the monarchical era and the reverence
his father, Maharaja Hari Singh, enjoyed in Jammu province remains
unmitigated, spoke rather derisively of his father’s and Abdullah’s
72 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

nemesis: the chimera of the independence of the former princely state

of J & K. Regarding Abdullah’s dalliance with the notion of indepen-
dence, as Karan Singh would have one believe, he writes in his autobi-
ography that, “the Sheikh’s speeches became more and more strident,
and it became increasingly clear that he was seriously working on the
idea of some sort of independent status for Kashmir which, inevitably,
would imply a virtual negation of the Accession to India” (ibid.: 156).
He decries Abdullah’s launching of what he terms “the anti-Dogra
movement” as in essence an antimonarchical socialist movement. He
perceives Abdullah’s unwillingness to appease the Dogra monarchy as
his inability to mollify the Dogra people of Jammu. In his conversation
with me in July 2007, he seemed unwilling or unable to recognize the
multiple political ideologies that exist among the populace of Jammu
despite the hegemony of the monarchy in that province. In an antire-
publican spirit, he characterizes Abdullah’s nationalism as “Kashmiri
chauvinism” (ibid.: 153). (For Abdullah’s vocalization of his populist
and nationalist ideology, see Appendix C, 180).
Karan Singh’s underlying hostility toward Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah seems to be burnished by his bitter memories of Abdullah’s
outrage at the autocratic nature of the Dogra monarchy and the sup-
pression of the underprivileged Muslims of the state. He talked to me
of “the song and dance” that Abdullah had made about Maharaja
Hari Singh’s regime by launching a republican movement, which pre-
cipitated the eradication of the monarchy and removed every possibil-
ity of Karan Singh’s ascension to the throne. Singh’s antipathy toward
the advocates of self-determination comes through clearly in his auto-
biography, in his description of the amenability of Bakshi Ghulam
Mohammad, whose repressive regime was the harbinger of the corro-
sion of the autonomy of Indian-administered J & K and the nation-
alism of the Kashmiri people. He writes that Bakshi and the Sheikh
were poles apart. In a laudatory tone, Singh characterizes Bakshi as
a pragmatic impresario who dispassionately fostered public relations,
especially with the people of Jammu. Unlike the Sheikh and Mirza
Afzal Beg, Bakshi did not assiduously nurture Kashmiri nationalism,
a brazenly anti-Dogra sentiment, and he diminished the sticky politi-
cal problem of plebiscite (Singh 1994: 153).
Contrary to what Karan Singh would have one believe, however,
the dismissal of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s de jure regime and
the installation of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad’s de facto government
plunged the Valley into utter political and ethical turpitude, which
reverberated in later years. According to the current general secretary
of the NC and nephew of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Sheikh Nazir
 Political Debacles 73

Ahmad, the events of 1953 drastically altered the political landscape

of Indian-administered J & K. Abdullah’s dismissal and subsequent
incarceration, which cast Nehru in the mold of a deceiver, engendered
an irreparable distrust between the populace of the state and the gov-
ernment of India (e-mail to author 6 April 2008). Bakshi Ghulam
Mohammad and the Communists leveled a series of allegations against
the UN military observers for their purported encouragement of the
protestors (Korbel [1954] 2002: 264). G.M. Sadiq accused the UN
observers of encouraging subversive clandestine activities between
pro-Pakistan elements in Kashmir and the imperialist powers, and
declared that the government of Kashmir would not approve the
appointment of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, whom they perceived
as the “nominee of an imperialist power,” as plebiscite administrator
(The Hindustan Times, 26 October 1953). Nehru validated the oppo-
sition of the Communists to Fleet Admiral Nimitz: “It will not be fair
to any of the big powers to ask them to supply a representative as a
plebiscite administrator, however admirable he may be, because that
would be embarrassing and needlessly creating suspicion, not in my
mind necessarily, but in some other big power’s mind” (speech made
on 17 September 1953). As Bose (2003: 67) astutely observes, the
vicissitudes of decades of political uncertainty that buffeted Abdullah
were clearly intended to underscore the agonizing predicament of per-
sons who did not endorse the Indian agenda in Kashmir. Only those
willing to disaffirm their political, cultural, and social ideologies in
obeisance to the Indian state could hope to play a significant role in
legitimized political institutions.
Abdullah’s Kashmiri nationalism and patriotism, manifested in
the successfully implemented land reform policies, had endowed
him with an iconic stature that bordered on the messianic, espe-
cially in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley. The dictatorial
regime of Abdullah’s former trusted lieutenant, Bakshi Ghulam
Mohammad, lasted an entire decade, until 1963. During that period
Bakshi was at the helm of an unrepresentative government that
enjoyed the security blanket of New Delhi’s protection. New Delhi
cashed in on Bakshi’s dependent status by insidiously undermining
democratic institutions in Indian-administered J & K and eroding
the state’s autonomy with the complicity of the state government.
The autonomy of the state within the Indian Union, which had
been proclaimed in 1950 by a constitutional order formally issued
in the name of the president of India, was rescinded in 1954 by
the proclamation of another dictum that legalized the right of the
central government to legislate in the state on various issues. The
74 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

state was financially and fiscally integrated into the Indian Union;
the Indian Supreme Court was given the authority to be the undis-
puted arbiter in Indian-administered J & K; the fundamental rights
that the Indian Constitution guaranteed to its citizens were to apply
to the populace of Indian-administered J & K as well, but with a
stipulation that those civil liberties were discretionary and could be
revoked in the interest of national security. In effect, the authorities
had carte blanche for the operation of unaccountable police brutal-
ity in the state.
The Bakshi government required the ratification of New Delhi
for its existence. Bakshi unashamedly declared in the Constituent
Assembly that Kashmir’s accession to India was irrevocable and the
bond that had been forged between the Indian Union and Indian-
administered J & K was unbreakable (Korbel [1954] 2002: 246;
Dasgupta 1968: 212–13). This declaration was backed by Nehru,
who was careful to qualify his validation with the assertion that the
government of India would honor its commitment to hold a plebi-
scite in Kashmir: “let me say clearly that we accept the basic propo-
sition that the future of Kashmir is going to be decided finally by the
good will and pleasure of the people. That is the policy that India
will pursue” (speech in the Indian Parliament, 11 August 1951; see
Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches 1963: 184; also see “Appendix A”
175–178). This was a clever initiation of the erosion of Article 370,
which, for all intents and purposes, had been relegated to the back-
ground by Nehru’s central government in collusion with Bakshi’s
state government.

The J & K Plebiscite Front

Despite brazen and pervasive corruption within the state under
Bakshi’s government, the police and military apparatuses were
unable to quell political opposition. In August 1955, a group com-
prising eight legislators from the Constituent Assembly initiated a
political movement called the J & K Plebiscite Front (PF). The first
president of this organization was Abdullah’s trusted colleague,
Mirza Afzal Beg. Beg spearheaded this movement during his pro-
bationary period. The credo of the PF was “self- determination
through a plebiscite under UN auspices, withdrawal of the armed
forces of both nations from Kashmir, and restoration of civil liber-
ties and free elections” (Dasgupta 1968: 227–28). The “seditious”
goals of this organization unleashed state-sponsored violence
 Political Debacles 75

against its members and supporters, creating a repressive atmo-

sphere that was meant to insidiously gnaw at any semblance of
autonomy that Indian-administrative J & K retained. In 1956 the
Constituent Assembly validated a draft constitution for the state,
built on the premise that the state of Indian-administrated J & K
was and, indubitably, would remain an integral part of the Union
of India (Noorani 1964: 73). This unambiguous premise assigned
the political inclinations of the people of Kashmir to an obscure
position. In fact, Nehru unabashedly declared that the legality
of the accession of Kashmir to India was now a moot issue. The
undemocratic approach of Nehru and the Kashmiri comprador
class did not go unchallenged, and Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
wrote protest letters from prison to his former ally Nehru, and to
his former trusted political comrade G.M. Sadiq, the procommu-
nist speaker of the assembly. Despite his incarceration, Abdullah’s
larger-than-life political status and clout, reified by his die-hard
supporters, kept alive the issues of self-determination and spe-
cial status (Schofield 2002: 97). When the draft constitution was
placed before the house, Mirza Afzal Beg moved a motion of
adjournment for exactly two weeks, in order to enable Abdullah
to be present. The assembly was presided over by Sadiq, who
ruled the motion out of order. Subsequently, Beg and his follow-
ers protested and boycotted the proceedings (Dasgupta 1968: 97).
The large-scale repressive measures deployed by the government
of India paved the way for it to firmly entrench the state’s new
constitution on 26 January 1957. This development was followed
by a resolution of the UN Security Council, which reiterated that
the final status of J & K would be settled in accordance with the
wishes of the people of the state as expressed in a democratic
plebiscite. In effect, the convening of a constituent assembly as
recommended by the general council of the All Jammu & Kashmir
NC would not determine, in any way, shape, or form, the political
future of the state. The course of the political destiny of J & K
would be charted by the voice of its people raised at a democratic
forum under the auspices of the UN (ibid.: 408). The resolution
affirmed that the Kashmir issue was still pending final settlement
and, despite claims to the contrary by Nehru’s Congress gov-
ernment, was under consideration by the Security Council. The
reiteration of earlier UN resolutions regarding the Kashmir issue
made explicit the disputed status of the state. However, the UN
was unable to retard or prevent certain political developments in
Indian and Pakistani-administered J & K.
76 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Legitimization of Undemocratic Processes

Soon after validating the new constitution, the Constituent Assembly
dissolved itself and sought the organization of midterm elections in
order to constitute a new legislative assembly. At the time, the juris-
diction of the Election Commission of India did not extend to J & K.
Although the election that was held in June of 1957 had a semblance
of political equity, Abdullah’s bête noir and a politician whose noto-
riety was by then unsurpassed, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, won
his seat without any contest. Bose (2003: 75) makes some interesting
observations about the mockery of the electoral process in the state
that year, in which Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad’s NC won 66 seats.
Electoral contests of dubious authenticity occurred for only 28 seats.
In brazen disregard of democratic processes, of 43 Kashmir Valley
seats, 35 were won by official NC candidates without even the sem-
blance of a contest; 30 NC candidates, including Bakshi, won over-
whelming victories without an iota of opposition; and another 10
NC candidates were elected after the nomination papers filed by
opposing candidates were invalidated. Not surprisingly, the offi-
cial responsible for vetting the nomination papers was an unscru-
pulous Bakshi adherent, Abdul Khaleq. In the Jammu region, there
was a contest of sorts for 20 of the 30 seats—the NC won 14 seats,
the Praja Parishad bagged 5, and a party representing “low-caste”
Hindus secured 1 seat.
The organization of a well-manipulated electoral process had
enabled New Delhi to ensure the victory of the stooge faction that
it patronized. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, who had been elected as
the leader of the NC legislative party without dispute, was reinstalled
as prime minister. Bakshi and his cohorts were firmly entrenched not
just in the Legislative Assembly, but in the Legislative Council as well.
The monopolization of both houses of the assembly by a political fac-
tion sponsored by New Delhi legitimized a full-scale intervention of
the central government, allowing the incorporation of non-Kashmiri
officials in important administrative positions and the subsequent
marginalization of the well-educated segments of Kashmiri Muslims.
The Pandit population of the Valley, which was a small minority,
enjoyed privileges in the political, civil, and economic structures of
which the Muslim majority was deprived.
During these fateful years in the history of Kashmir, a wide fissure
was created within the ruling clique when Bakshi, in his signature
style, did not incorporate any members of the Communist faction
headed by G.M. Sadiq into the cabinet that he formed subsequent
 Political Debacles 77

to the 1957 elections. Bakshi’s inability or unwillingness to appease

this faction motivated Sadiq to create a separate organization, the
Democratic National Conference, with the rebel Communist group of
fifteen legislators. New Delhi recognized the threat that the rebellious-
ness of this faction could cause not just to the constructed political
stability within the state, but also to India’s relationship with China,
which was already on the decline. The Chinese government had rati-
fied an agreement with the military regime in Pakistan that specified
that after the Kashmir dispute between the governments of Pakistan
and India had been settled, the preeminent authority concerned would
initiate negotiations with the government of the People’s Republic of
China in order to implement a boundary treaty to replace the present
agreement. It reinforced its alliance with Pakistan’s military regime
by underlining that if that supreme and indisputable authority was
Pakistan, then the provisions of the present agreement would be rein-
forced (Dasgupta 1968: 389–91). The prospect of the Pakistan–China
alliance being bolstered spurred New Delhi to bring about a rap-
prochement between Bakshi’s and Sadiq’s warring factions in 1960.
Sadiq and his cohort were reincorporated into the cabinet. A couple
of years after this reconciliation, in 1962, assembly elections were
held in the state, and Bakshi and his cabinet colleagues Sadiq, Mir
Qasim, and Khwaja Shamsuddin won their assembly seats without
even a peep of opposition (Bose 2003: 78). That year elections were
held to 60 seats in the entire state, out of which the Bakshi-led NC
suspiciously won 55 while the Praja Parishad won 3 (telephone con-
versation with Sheikh Nazir Ahmad, general secretary of the NC,
8 January 2009).
Bakshi’s arrogance, and rampant deployment of corrupt and ille-
gal methods and malpractices in political processes, soon caused
him to be an embarrassment for the “democratic” government of the
Republic of India, and his mentors in New Delhi had to ask him to
step down from the position of prime minister of the state. Bakshi
resigned in November 1963. The political bigwigs in New Delhi were
concerned that another unopposed election in the state would tar-
nish India’s reputation as the largest democratic republic. So Nehru’s
unsolicited advice to Bakshi was that he would gain more credibil-
ity and the elections could boast of an air of fairness if he lost a
few seats to “bona fide opponents.” Bakshi’s political indebtedness
to Nehru and his clique prevented him from discounting Nehru’s
advice, and he was replaced as prime minister by a hitherto unknown
political entity, Khwaja Shamsuddin. Although the new government
was headed by Shamsuddin, Bakshi’s political clout buoyed by his
78 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

goondaism remained a formidable presence. Consequently, his politi-

cal rival, who enjoyed the patronage of the same political forces that
had enabled Bakshi’s ascendancy, was not accommodated in the new
government (Puri 1995: 45–49).

Theft of the Sacred Relic at Hazratbal

Mosque and Abdullah’s Resurgence
In December 1963, the simmering fury against New Delhi’s dubious
strategies in J & K finally erupted in volcanic proportions. The anger
of the masses was fueled by the theft of a relic, believed to be a hair
from the beard of the prophet Mohammad, from the Hazratbal shrine
in Srinagar. In the wake of the unleashed chaos, a central action com-
mittee was formed to investigate the theft. The committee was headed
by Maulana Masoodi, former general secretary of Abdullah’s NC

Façade of the Hazratbal mosque, Srinagar (Courtesy: Amin Studio, Srinagar)

 Political Debacles 79

(who was assassinated in December 1990 by pro-Pakistan separat-

ists), and comprised G.M. Karra, Srinagar district chief of the NC in
the 1940s, and Maulvi Farooq (see Dasgupta 1968: 20), a religious
leader with a small band of devotees whose political survival was con-
tingent on the blessings of pipers who called the tune on both sides of
the fence between India and Pakistan. The repercussions of the theft
of the ancient relic were so widespread that they shook the founda-
tions not just of the picturesque Valley, but of Bengal and neighbor-
ing Pakistan as well. Shamsuddin was replaced as prime minister of
Indian-administered J & K by G.M. Sadiq, New Delhi’s blue-eyed
boy, who shrewdly constituted a cabinet that comprised his loyalists.
He also astutely determined that in order to ensure the stability of his
administration and prevent a large-scale revolt, it would be politically
expedient to release Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who had been in
incarceration since 1958. Abdullah and his comrade-in-arms, Mirza
Afzal Beg, were released in April 1964. Abdullah returned to the Valley
with a heightened, iconic status and was greeted by an ecstatic crowd
of 250,000 people. The summer capital of Indian-administered J & K
was festooned with NC flags and in their delirium people seemed to
have stormed the citadels of state power to give Abdullah a welcome
accorded, in the Homeric period, to beings of godlike prowess and
beneficence. Addressing a mammoth gathering of 150,000 people on
20 April, Abdullah stridently said that in 1947 he had challenged
Pakistan’s ability to wield the religion card to annex Kashmir and
now he was challenging India’s authority to declare the Kashmir dis-
pute moot and just hypothetical (ibid.: 323).
Despite the discrediting of Abdullah’s politics by various national
and regional factions along the political spectrum, and despite some
of his own questionable political decisions, it is hard to deny his con-
tributions in carving a substantial niche for the people in Indian-
administered J & K, particularly the Muslims of the Valley. Nor can
it be denied that Abdullah fought a courageous and titanic battle
against the mammoth political forces of India and Pakistan to voice
the sentiments of marginalized Kashmiris.

Irony of Fate
Perhaps it was an irony of fate that, soon after Abdullah’s talks with
Nehru regarding the Kashmir imbroglio, Nehru died—on 27 May
1964. Prior to the change in Nehru’s stance toward Kashmir, the two
stalwarts had shared a commonality of vision: they were tied by an
umbilical cord of antidespotic, socialist political beliefs. Abdullah
80 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Subsequent to his talks with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in

1964, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah traveled to Pakistan with his loyalists
Maulana Masoodi and Mirza Afzal Beg to hold talks with Pakistan’s General
Ayub Khan. (Courtesy: The Archives of the National Conference, with the
permission of the general secretary of the National Conference, Sheikh Nazir
Ahmad)

came from an unpretentious Muslim background and was motivated

to fight the structural inequities and state-sponsored injustices wrought
by the peripheralization of Kashmiri Muslims who were quarantined
in the alleyways of poverty, illiteracy, and despondency, and who could
not touch the corridors of economic and social prestige even with a
bargepole. Nehru came from an elite background, had been groomed
in the privileged hallways of Harrow and Cambridge, and was a proud
personage, often arrogant or condescendingly superior in manner. His
intellectual grooming exacerbated his patronizing tone and manner.
Despite the fact that the two figures, Abdullah and Nehru, occupied dif-
ferent rungs of the social and economic hierarchy, the rapport between
them was of critical importance to the installation of a democratic
 Political Debacles 81

regime in Kashmir when the tide of separatism in 1947 threatened to

drown out the Indian presence in the state (Ali 2003: 229).
Following his talks with the Indian premier, Sheikh Abdullah went
to Pakistan with Maulana Masoodi and Mirza Afzal Beg, in san-
guineness and good cheer, to hold talks with the Pakistani president,
General Ayub Khan. After a series of hopeful conversations with
Ayub Khan, Abdullah felt confident that the talks were making head-
way. He visited Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered
Kashmir, and was exuberantly welcomed by a sea of people (ibid.:
240). During that period, Abdullah did not once waver on his demand
for self-rule, but he required the cooperation of Pakistan in looking
for a viable solution to the conflict that had caused more corrosion
than the two countries were willing to admit. The heartwarming
response to Abdullah and his stance, particularly in the Kashmir
Valley, was not well received either by New Delhi or its ward at the
time, G.M. Sadiq. Interestingly, Abdullah, whose earlier bitter experi-
ence with Bakshi had not taught him the lesson that discretion was
the better part of valor, forged an alliance with his erstwhile Brutus
in order to orchestrate a coup d’état. Sadiq turned to New Delhi for
support, but New Delhi, true to character, decided to cash in on the
internecine battle that had polarized the Muslims of the Valley into
pro-Bakshi, tacitly supported by the Abdullah faction, and pro-Sadiq
groups, thereby disaffirming their cultural, linguistic, and social uni-
ties. Further alienation and marginalization of dissident opinions
was created by New Delhi with the political externment of Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah.
The Sheikh’s daughter, my mother, Suraiya Ali Matto, poignantly
recalls the period of her father’s political externment:

I was asked by my parents to join them in Kodaikanal, a place hitherto

unknown to me, in 1965. My father had been externed to this South
Indian hill station soon after his return from the Haj pilgrimage along
with my mother. Kodaikanal is in Tamil Nadu, and back then it was
known not just for being a tourist resort but also for its good mission-
ary schools to which children from elite families were sent. We were
lodged in an old, well-preserved mansion of an erstwhile nawab, called
Koh-i-Noor. My parents and I were given the uppermost apartment;
the basement and the ground floor were occupied by security officials
and guards. My father was grudgingly allowed mobility within the
small hill station, which had a golf course, a lake, and a shopping mall.
The luxurious touristy hotels were situated around the lake, and every
evening we would go out for long walks either around the lake or on
82 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

the golf course. My father was a strict disciplinarian who stuck to his
regimen—studying Tamil in the mornings; indulging in his favorite
pastime, cooking, in which he was assisted by my mother, Begum
Akbar Jehan, and at times by me. Reading newspapers regularly, lis-
tening to the radio or television news, and reading good books became
his daily routine. A deeply religious man, he said his prayers five times
a day and recited the Quran, which became his routine. His punctual-
ity, discipline, and regularity saved him from either going insane or
being afflicted by depression, except once. All three of us had more or
less adjusted ourselves in our God forsaken prison where anyone who
was cordial towards us was regarded as a suspect by the security per-
sonnel who followed us like shadows wherever we went. None of us
had access to the single telephone installed for the security officials;
letters addressed to us were censored. We were on the verge of giving
up hope of papa ever being released from Kodaikanal. Then suddenly
one morning he complained of severe thirst and weakness. Lately, he
had started eating candies and mangoes. He would be depressed and
fatigued especially when feelings of persecution set in and he expressed
that he was being subjected to slow poisoning. His condition was
reported to the Government of India by the District Collector, T. N.
Seshan, who later became the 10th Chief Election Commissioner of
India. Various tests were conducted on my father by the doctors. The
results absolutely shocked the doctors—his blood sugar had crossed
the danger mark. That is when he was shifted to the All India Institute
of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, where he was kept for nearly three
months. Subsequently, he was moved to 3 Kotla Lane in New Delhi.
Eventually, the Government of India led by Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi initiated diplomatic negotiations with him, supposedly, for a
viable resolution to the Kashmir conflict. The rest is history. My father
remained clear headed about his political ideology during his time in
externment and even until he breathed his last. All that while my
mother stood like a rock beside him. Not once did she buckle under
pressure or try to weaken his resolve. (Conversation with author,
21 November 2009)

The government of India made several strategic moves to break the

spirit of dissident politics and the revolutionary zeal of the people of
J & K, the most systemically damaging of which was to expunge the
composite culture of Kashmir in an attempt to disseminate the uni-
tary discourse of Indian nationalism.
In December 1964, the Union government declared that two highly
federalist statutes of the Indian Constitution would be enacted in
J & K: Articles 356 and 357. These draconian articles enabled the
central government to autocratically dismiss democratically elected
state governments if it perceived a dismantling of the law and order
 Political Debacles 83

machinery. A constitutional order implementing these statutes was

decreed by New Delhi (see Bose 2003 and Puri 1995 for further
details). In 1965, the Union government fortified its autocratic powers
in Indian-administered J & K by getting several corrosive amendments
passed in the State Assembly: the Sadr-i-Riyasat, or titular head of the
state, was replaced by a governor, a political nominee appointed by
the central government; the title of head of government was changed
from prime minister to chief minister, which was the regular title of
heads of government within the Indian Union; and state representa-
tives to the lower house (Lok Sabha) of India’s Parliament would no
longer be nominated by the state legislature but would be elected.
These amendments were highly centrist and were designed to corrode
the autonomy of J & K provided by Article 370.

Legitimacy of Article 370

All doubts about the attenuation of Article 370 were removed when
the ruling faction of the NC, led by Sadiq, heralded the dissolution
of the party and its subsequent integration into the Indian national-
ist Congress Party. This attempt at discounting a historic political
movement that foregrounded a separate Kashmiri identity was an
exclusionary tactic deployed by the Union government. The Congress
Party’s working committee unhesitatingly accepted the integration of
the NC (Sadiq faction or Democratic National Conference) into it.
This substantive development proclaimed the victory of the Hindu
nationalist project in Indian-administered J & K, which had sought
the subsumption of religious minorities into a centralized and authori-
tarian state since the 1940s. The furtherance of the Hindu nationalist
agenda in the state was enabled by the complicity of one of the archi-
tects of democracy and secularism, Jawaharlal Nehru. His adherence
to the unitary discourse of nationalism galvanized the suppression of
demands for the autonomy of the Indian-administered J & K state
(Puri 1995: 89). These integrative and centralist measures were met
with massive opposition, which the Indian government suppressed
with bloody maneuvers. The volcanic nature of the protests in the
Valley gave a veneer of legitimacy to its action of large-scale repres-
sion of leaders of the Plebiscite Front. Abdullah was also arrested,
for the umpteenth time, under the Defense of India Rules, to further
hush the voices of dissent. The uproar in Kashmir was an opportune
moment for Pakistan to jump in the fray; this augmented the unrest
and led to an India–Pakistan war in 1965 (see Dasgupta 1968).
84 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

The flames of discontent in Kashmir were fanned by Pakistan,

which expected cooperation from the Muslims of the Valley. But
it ended up being disappointed because the Kashmiri populace did
not get involved in the war on a massive scale. The mindset of the
Kashmiri people, which the Indian government had culpably ignored,
was articulated by Prem Nath Bazaz ([1967] 2005: 99–100), who
like Nehru, as I have mentioned in earlier chapters, was of Kashmiri
Pandit descent and an eminent advocate of socialist democracy: “An
overwhelming majority of them [Kashmiri Muslims] are not happy
under the present political set-up, and desire to be done with it. But
they are reluctant to bring about change through warfare and blood-
shed.” The nonaggressive and compliant attitude of the Kashmiris
prior to the resurgence of violent secessionist movements in 1989 has
been highlighted by other writers as well. Eminent political and social
activists such as the aforementioned Prem Nath Bazaz, Jayaprakash
Narayan, and others, conceded that India’s image as a secular democ-
racy had been tarnished by its repressively undemocratic tactics in the
state (ibid.; see also, Akbar 1985).
The 1965 Indo–Pak war proved disastrous for both nation-states. In
an attempt to save face, the two sides agreed to a UN-mediated cease-
fire, which took place on 23 September 1965. In Tashkent, Russia,
talks between Russian Premier Alexei Kosygin, Indian Premier Lal
Bahadur Shastri, and Pakistani President Ayub Khan led to the rati-
fication of an agreement, the Tashkent Declaration. Alastair Lamb
(1991: 269) writes about the atmosphere, characterized by tact and
diplomacy, in which the talks took place:

In the era of Khrushchev the Soviet Union had publicly declared itself
a supporter of the Indian stand on Kashmir. In 1962 a Russian veto
had defeated a Security Council resolution on the plebiscite issue. By
1965, and after the fall of the Khrushchev regime, Russian attitudes
were significantly modified. When President Ayub Khan visited
Moscow in early April 1965, Aleksei Kosygin, the Soviet Prime
Minister, showed himself far more flexible in outlook than Khrushchev
had ever been. No doubt he was looking for some means to reduce
Chinese support in Rawalpindi.

The Tashkent Declaration emphasized the resumption of dialogue

between India and Pakistan through peaceful negotiations, and
a rapprochement that would facilitate the development of amity
between the two countries. In other words, the Kashmir conflict
was consigned to a position of reduced political import. The decla-
ration was perceived by the people of both India and Pakistan as a
 Political Debacles 85

despicable act of evasion and was received with hostility by them:

“Despite domestic opposition, both sides did respect the terms
of the Declaration at least as far as practical measures were con-
cerned. Prisoners of war were repatriated. . . . However, respecting
the spirit of the Declaration (resolving disputes peacefully, promot-
ing friendly relations) proved more difficult” (Malik 2002: 124–25).
The disregard of the will of the people and the steady dissolution
of democratic institutions caused colossal damage in the state of
Indian-administered J & K, the effects of which came back to haunt
India in 1989–1990.

Erosion of India’s Democratic Façade, 1967

Despite the publicly voiced protestations by people who had access to
the higher echelons of power, the 1967 elections in Indian-administered
J & K did not bear testimony to India’s democratic façade. Congress
candidates supported by the Sadiq–Qasim faction of the NC won in
33 of the Valley’s 42 constituencies, 27 of Jammu’s 31 constituencies,
and 1 of Ladakh’s 2 constituencies—indubitably a large number. The
draconian nature of the 1967 electoral process in Indian-administered
J & K further entrenched corruption in the soil of the political cul-
ture, which is a yoke from which the people of the state, thus far,
have not been able to free themselves. The official candidate from the
southern Kashmir town of Anantnag was Khwaja Shamsuddin, who
had been the prime minister of Indian-administered J & K for a few
months in 1962–1963. Predictably, he was elected unopposed after
papers filed by five other candidates were summarily invalidated.
Of the 118 candidates whose papers were nullified, 55 were rejected
because the candidates had declared their unwillingness to take the
mandatory oath of allegiance to India. The government efficiently
deployed the machinery and infrastructure available to it in order to
ensure the victory of its political organization, winning 61 of the 75
seats (ibid.: 85; telephone conversation with Sheikh Nazir Ahmad,
General Secretary of the NC, 12 January 2009). Clearly, India had
left no stone unturned to ensure the victory of its cronies and the
defeat of its ideological and political opponents. New Delhi’s master
of subterfuge greased the wheels of rampant deployment of govern-
mental machinery to ease the path of the ruling party to victory and
to delegitimize dissident politics (see Akhtar 2000 for further details
about the corrupt practices that were legitimized during the 1967
assembly elections in Indian-administered J & K). The use of such
86 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

discreditable methods enabled the Congress to create the semblance

of a base for itself in the Valley, which, prior to these elections, had
been nonexistent.
An unforeseen development that election year was the opposition of
Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, prime minister of Indian-administered
J & K from 1953 to 1963, to the Congress parliamentary candidates
Srinagar constituency candidate for the straggling faction of the NC.
In an interesting reversal of political fortunes, Bakshi’s faction of the
NC won 7 seats in the Valley and 1 in Jammu that year. Not one to
be easily slighted, the heretofore autocrat, known for his corrupt poli-
tics and brutal repression of dissent, proclaimed himself a Kashmir
nationalist who was willing to fight tooth and nail against the centrist
and integrative policies of New Delhi. This sudden and unexpected
shift to regionalism and Kashmiri nationalism was Bakshi’s ticket to
the Indian Parliament. He was elected as the parliamentary repre-
sentative from Srinagar (Lamb 1991: 209–10). The status of the rul-
ing faction as a nonentity was reinforced when the brief release of
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah from incarceration in 1968 was greeted
with overwhelming jubilation in the Valley. The “Lion of Kashmir”
was welcomed by the people with such uninhibited exuberance and
joy that the foundations of the Congress in the Valley were palpably
shaken. Soon after his release, Abdullah addressed a mammoth gath-
ering in Anantnag on 26 January 1968, in which he unhesitatingly
voiced his dissident ideology. He made it clear that India’s undemo-
cratic and oppressive tactics would not inhibit the passionate desire of
the Kashmiri people to be free. He also reminded India of its unful-
filled promise to hold a referendum in Kashmir and enable the people
to exercise their right of self-determination. Sheikh Abdullah’s dis-
illusionment with Indian democracy created political and personal
acrimony:

Respect for the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the integ-
rity of the electoral process—are all sought to be guaranteed by the
Indian constitution. It is not surprising that many other countries have
drawn upon this constitution, particularly the chapter on fundamental
rights. Yet it must at all times be remembered that the constitution
provides the framework, and it is for the men who work it to give it life
and meaning. In many ways the provisions of the constitution have
been flagrantly violated [in Kashmir] and the ideals it enshrines com-
pletely forgotten. Forces have arisen which threaten to carry this sad-
dening and destructive process further still. (Speeches and Interviews
of Sher-e-Kashmir 1968: 15–16; quoted in Bose 2003: 46)
 Political Debacles 87

In the wake of armed insurrection, genocide, extortions, exoduses,

and state-sponsored atrocities, Abdullah’s prediction has proved
frighteningly accurate. His sharp delineation of India’s antidemo-
cratic strategies has proved to be the prognosis of a farsighted popu-
list leader.

Attempts to Quell the Plebiscite Front (PF)

Regarding the role of women in the PF, illustrious journalist A.R.
Nair observed in 1968: “The Plebiscite Front has done remarkable
work among the village women who seem to be as enthusiastic as
men in these gatherings.” Highlighting the position of the woman in
charge of the women’s section of the PF, Nair went on to say, “She is
the widow of a tonga-driver who was butchered along with 13 oth-
ers who carried Hindu women and children from Srinagar to Jammu
during the troublous days of 1947. . . .” This woman, widow of the
murdered tonga driver, is now an enthusiastic leader of the women’s
section of the PF, and she confronted me with an impressive array
of challenging questions relating to the omissions and commissions
of the Indian leadership toward Kashmir and the Kashmiri people.
An illiterate woman for all practical purposes, she appeared satu-
rated with the new ideas of self-determination and the popular will to
achieve their ends at any cost. I deploy official and oral historiogra-
phy, in chapter five, to further discuss the aftermath of this national-
istic awakening among the women of Kashmir.
But even the overwhelmingly popular response to Abdullah’s
politics did not discourage the then Congress central government
headed by Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, from
employing strategies that stifled greater autonomy for Indian-
administered J & K. Some interesting political developments occurred
in subsequent years. The PF, which had maintained its oppositional
and dissident stance, proclaimed its intention to contest the par-
liamentary elections scheduled in 1971 and the legislative assem-
bly elections scheduled in 1972. The PF had established itself in
the Valley and made it its stronghold. As Syed Mir Qasim, Sadiq’s
successor as Indian-administered J & K’s Congress chief minister
anxiously predicted:

I thought at this stage when the centre [central government] was to

reopen talks with Sheikh Abdullah, the Plebiscite Front’s participation
in the elections would complicate matters. My reasons: if the elections
88 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

were free and fair, the victory of the Front was a foregone conclusion.
And as a victorious party, the Front would certainly talk from the posi-
tion of strength. (Qasim 1992: 132)

The regionalist and dissident policies of the PF had garnered over-

whelming support, reducing the ruling elite to a caricature.
In January 1971, externment orders were served to the leaders
of the Front, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Mirza Afzal Beg, and
Abdullah’s older son-in-law, Ghulam Mohammad Shah. Beg was on
his way to Kashmir from New Delhi by road, and Abdullah and Shah
were planning to fly to the Valley from the capital. The flight that
Abdullah and Shah should have been on was canceled because of a
bomb hoax, and the same evening they were served with externment
orders, preventing them from reentering J & K. Beg was stopped on
his way to the Valley and told to turn back (author’s conversations
with political activists of the National Conference, 2007). In addition
to the top brass of the PF being confined in New Delhi, a large num-
ber of members of the organization were arrested under the Preventive
Detention Act.
Subsequent to the large-scale arrests of leaders and members of
the Front, elections were held in the state in 1971–1972 in which
the Congress orchestrated a landslide victory for itself, managing
to acquire 5 out of 6 parliamentary seats and 56 out of 73 assem-
bly seats. That year the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gained visibil-
ity in the politically disputed state by garnering support to win 2
seats in Jammu. In an e-mail (dated 12 April 2008) to me, Ghulam
Mohammad Shah, former chief minister of J & K and president of the
Awami National Conference, a breakaway faction of the NC, wrote:

In the winter of 1970, my mother-in-law, Begum Akbar Jehan, my

wife, Khalida, sister-in-law, Suraiya, and daughter, Aaliya, went to
Delhi to spend some time with Sher-i-Kashmir [Lion of Kashmir]. In
January 1971, after Sher-i-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah,
Mirza Afzal Beg, Begum Akbar Jehan, and I were served with extern-
ment orders, workers of the PF came out in overwhelming numbers in
the Valley and protested against the unconstitutional action of the gov-
ernment of India and the stooge government in Indian-administered
J & K. We remained in externment for three and a half years. The
revocation of the externment order in 1974 caused our supporters to
celebrate with an unquenchable zeal, and our return to the Valley was
observed with unfettered enthusiasm and rejoicing, manifesting a pop-
ulist aversion to the despotic abuse of authority.
 Political Debacles 89

In another unforeseen and interesting development, a pro-Pakistan

religious organization, Jamaat-i-Islami—which had insistently dis-
avowed Kashmir’s accession to India, and is currently a vocal oppo-
nent of elections held in Indian-administered J & K within the
framework of the Constitution of India—in a tacit understanding
with the Qasim regime, managed to get 5 representatives accom-
modated in the Legislative Assembly. In the parliamentary election,
Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad again contested from Srinagar. Only
this time he disavowed his Kashmiri nationalism and was patron-
ized by the official regime with its unitary politics of Indian nation-
alism. Bakshi had once again engaged in a political volte-face with
the ease of a carpetbagger. But unlike 1967 he was vanquished by a
charismatic independent candidate tacitly backed by the PF, Shameem
Ahmad Shameem, who won by an enormous margin.

Delhi Accord of 1975

Although the PF managed to gain such victories, Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah felt compelled to sever himself and his organization from
their former credo of self-determination. Mirza Afzal Beg negotiated
with the government of India for Abdullah’s release from incarcera-
tion and for ensuring his position as head of government, and signed
another “Delhi Accord” with the central government, which amounted
to capitulating to the wishes of New Delhi and the Indian premier,
Indira Gandhi. This Accord of 1975 reinforced the integration of
J & K into the Indian Union, which had occurred in 1953. Although
the central government proclaimed that the state would continue to
be governed under Article 370, between 1954 and the mid-1970s New
Delhi issued 28 constitutional orders ratifying the integration of J & K
into the Indian Union, and 262 Union laws were implemented in the
state, reducing its autonomy even further. In effect, the Congress cen-
tral government made every attempt possible to render the state gov-
ernment defunct. Indira Gandhi’s government condescended to allow
Abdullah’s state government to legislate on issues of culture, religion,
and the Muslim personal law (Puri 1981: 151). The Delhi Accord was
designed to divest Abdullah of his convictions, political platform, and
strength. By that stage, Abdullah was decapacitated not just by age
but by twenty-two years of incarceration as well. Also, after the 1971
Indo–Pak war India had become a force to contend with, and the
ability of Pakistan to challenge that power had been greatly reduced.
90 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

The display of India’s superior military strength and strate-

gic dexterity during that war diminished Pakistan’s stature.
The Simla Agreement, ratified in 1972 by then Pakistani Prime
Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indian Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi soon after the 1971 war, underlined the bilateral nature
of the Kashmir issue; entrenched the cease-fire line, thereafter
referred to as the Line of Control (LOC); reinforced the valid-
ity of the UN charter as governing relations between the two
countries; and agreed to reaching a final settlement of the dis-
puted area in the former princely state of J & K (Margolio 1999:
73–74). The common perception in India was that the Simla
Agreement was a tacit acknowledgment of the Indian Union’s
claim over the state. This perception in politically influential
circles seemed to give a much yearned after legitimacy to India’s
centrist policies.
In a strange turn of events, however, the Congress chief minister
of J & K, Mir Qasim, stepped down of his own volition and asked
Abdullah to replace him as head of government. Despite the domi-
nance of the Congress party in the Legislative Assembly, Abdullah
was elected leader of the house. New Delhi, consistent with its
dubious record, had made every attempt to disempower Abdullah
and his organization, but Abdullah’s iconic status and the resur-
rection of the PF as the NC defeated its nefarious designs to elimi-
nate oppositional politics in J & K. Sensing Abdullah’s disregard
of the emasculating conditions of the Delhi Accord, the Congress
withdrew its support for him in 1977 and fresh elections were
held. The 1977 elections were a landmark event in the history of
Kashmir, with Abdullah’s NC eradicating the Congress presence in
the Valley and capturing an indisputable majority in the Legislative
Assembly, 47 seats out of 75. The strength of the Congress was
reduced to a mere 11 seats, greatly diminishing its hitherto fabri-
cated larger-than-life presence in Indian-administered J & K. The
political ideology of the Jamaat-i-Islami was unable to importune
the electorate and secured just 1 seat. The fairness of the 1977
election has been highlighted by many political analysts: it off-
set the preposterous elections held in Indian-administered J & K
between 1951 and 1972. Democratic elections, the installation
of a representative government, and the forging of a political
space that accommodated multiple ideologies contributed to the
creation of a nonrepressive, relatively stable political atmosphere
(Bose 2003: 90).
 Political Debacles 91

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah addresses a mammoth gathering at the historic

Lal Chowk in Srinagar, 1975. (Courtesy: The Archives of the National
Conference, with the permission of the general secretary of the National
Conference, Sheikh Nazir Ahmad)

Dynastic Politics within the National Conference

After this victory of magnified proportions, Abdullah remained in office
until he died on 8 September 1982. In 1981, shortly before his death,
Abdullah, contrary to his socialist politics, presided over the “corona-
tion” of his oldest son, Farooq Abdullah, as president of the NC. This
act perpetuated the subcontinental tradition of dynastic politics. The
trauma of incarceration, political persecution, ill health, and age had
substantially reduced the magnificence of the “Lion of Kashmir” when
he assumed office in 1975. But his leonine stature and formidable roar
92 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

intimidated New Delhi until the day he died and left an ineradicable
mark on the political and cultural matrix of the state. Ian Copeland
(1991: 246) articulates the political and cultural authority enjoyed by
Abdullah in the state: “Despite the best efforts of the Pakistani authori-
ties to discredit him before the UN, the Sheikh remained, in the world’s
eyes, the personification of Kashmiri nationalism, and in the end the
Pakistanis had to come to terms with that fact.”
Although the NC was founded on socialist principles, the central-
ization that occurred in the organization toward the late 1970s did not
enable the engendering of a second generation of mature and responsi-
ble leadership. The “enthroning” of a new generation of leaders within
the NC for whom the symbols of the 1930s were insignificant and
who did not identify with Abdullah’s rhetoric fueled an already explo-
sive situation toward the end of the 1980s. Subsequent to Abdullah’s
death, even those who had vehemently condemned the political strat-
egies that he had deployed during his three decades as the voice of
Kashmiri self-determination assessed his politics applaudingly. An
old associate of his who had migrated to Pakistan, Shahnawaz Khan
Niazi, describes what he thought Abdullah symbolized:

Sheikh Abdullah was a total idealist and his only interest was the best
deal he could get for Kashmir and Kashmiris. His often repeated state-
ment to me was that destiny had played an important role, that circum-
stances were such that they did not permit him to come to an
understanding with Pakistan. Every small opportunity he got to make
a point or establish the separate identity of Kashmiris he took. (Quoted
in Taseer 1986: 67)

Despite the furious opposition of his detractors and the relentless

efforts of the governments of India and Pakistan to delimit Abdullah’s
sphere of influence, and to dismantle the paradigmatic political and
cultural structures built by him, his significance as the symbol of
Kashmir’s unique cultural identity and its stentorian demand for self-
determination remains indelible.
 Chapter Four

Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s disillusionment with Indian democ-

racy and his dismal reassessment of India’s proclamation of repub-
licanism, secularism, and democracy proved uncannily prophetic.
After Abdullah’s untimely death on 8 September 1982, the National
Conference (NC) was led by his oldest son, Farooq Abdullah, until
2002, when he chose to step down as president of the party. In a curi-
ous turn of events since then, however, the NC nominated Farooq
Abdullah as its chief ministerial candidate for the 2008 assembly elec-
tions. Subsequent to Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s death, Farooq
Abdullah took over as head of government and led the NC to a
resounding victory in the assembly elections in 1983. At that point
in India’s political history, Indira Gandhi was attempting to bolster
her political platform by making overt and covert appeals to Hindu
majoritarianism against grossly exaggerated secessionist threats from
Muslim and Sikh minorities (for a thorough discussion of Hindu
majoritarianism, see Bose 1997). Indira Gandhi’s mobilization of
Hindu fanaticism worked wonders for the Congress in the Jammu
region, where it won 22 out of 32 assembly seats. But the performance
of the Congress in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley was dis-
mal, where it won just 3 seats, and 1 in Ladakh. The NC had another
landslide victory in the Valley, winning 35 out of 41 assembly seats.
The NC also won 7 seats in the Jammu region and 1 in Ladakh,
enabling it to form the state government with the Congress as a large
opposition. But Indira Gandhi did not accept the unambiguous ver-
dict given by the people of Kashmir in a democratic fashion. Her ire
was particularly provoked by the alliance that the NC formed with
other Indian parties in an attempt to unify anti-Congress forces as
preparation for the parliamentary elections in late 1984. By forging
such a relationship with the opposition parties, Farooq was subvert-
ing a tacit clause in the 1975 Delhi agreement that had enabled Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah’s release, according to which the NC would
make no attempt to undermine Congress rule at the central govern-
ment in exchange for the Congress government’s noninterference in
94 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

the political supremacy of the NC in Indian-administered J & K.

In order to quell Farooq’s declaration of autonomy, Indira Gandhi
resorted to undemocratic and unconstitutional means as his govern-
ment approached the end of its first year in 1984. The Congress gov-
ernment in New Delhi orchestrated the formation of a new political
party, comprising twelve NC legislators who unconstitutionally quit
their party and formed a new government with the support of the
Congress legislators in the J & K Assembly. The leader of this break-
away faction was Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s older son-in-law,
Ghulam Mohammad Shah, who had cast his lot with Abdullah in the
heyday of the Plebiscite Front (PF).

Dismissal of the Farooq Government and

Installation of the Shah Government
Ghulam Mohammad Shah, unlike Farooq, was not a political green-
horn, and he had nurtured ambitions of being Abdullah’s succes-
sor. Ministerships were bestowed on the twelve NC defectors in the
new government. Farooq Abdullah wrote as follows about this plot
hatched by the Congress prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi:

. . . the Congress high command decided to work for my downfall through

disgruntled elements in my party [National Conference] who were
already in league with Mrs G.M. Shah [Farooq’s older sister]. The plan
to overthrow my government was given final shape on 23 June
1984. . . . The conspiracy had been hatched and the blueprint drawn up in
1 Safdarjang Road, New Delhi [Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s official
residence]. The cast which performed as directed was presided over by
Mrs Gandhi, who was the director and producer. (F. Abdullah 1985: 8)

As the old adage goes, those who forget history are condemned to
repeat it, and Farooq had to pay a heavy price for having forgotten
New Delhi’s treatment of his father. The 1984 coup de grâce was rem-
iniscent of the 1953 coup d’état. Farooq’s appeal for fresh elections
was denied by Indian-administered J & K’s New Delhi–appointed
governor, Jagmohan.
The dismissal of the Farooq government was perceived as a blow to
the morale of the Kashmir people who had placed him on the political
pedestal previously occupied by his father. I recall that divisive period
as being a particularly difficult one for my maternal grandmother,
Begum Akbar Jehan, and also for my mother, Suraiya Ali Matto.
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 95

They were devastated by the rift in the family and were painfully torn
apart. In a society in which relationships are hierarchically structured
and kinship ties determine loyalties, my maternal grandmother felt
obligated to be loyal to her older son, the purportedly “legitimate”
heir apparent despite his inefficacious administration. The protests
that ensued in the Valley were brutally repressed by detachments of
the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Indian paramilitary
forces, which were flown surreptitiously from Delhi to Srinagar the
night before the coup (conversations with the family in Kashmir,
2007). Salman Rushdie (1991: 43), in a display of political acumen,
observed:

The growth of Hindu fanaticism, as evidenced by the increasing

strength of the RSS, the organization which was behind the assassina-
tion of Mahatma Gandhi, has been very worrying; and it has had its
parallel . . . in the increased support for the Muslim extremist Jamaat
Party in Kashmir—the support being, itself, the result of the toppling
of Farooq Abdullah by the Centre [the central government], which
seemed to legitimize the Jamaat’s view that Muslims have no place in
present-day India.

The beginning of representative government in Indian-administered

J & K (in 1977) was summarily destroyed in 1984.
The shoddy dismissal of Farooq’s government engineered by New
Delhi’s political bigwigs showed a callous disregard for the wishes
and aspirations of the Kashmiri people, and brought political apathy
in its wake. Later that year, India’s parliamentary elections were held.
Indira Gandhi’s Congress, led by her older son Rajiv Gandhi, availed
itself of the sympathy wave created in the wake of Indira’s assassi-
nation by her two Sikh bodyguards on 31 October 1984, and won
by an overwhelming majority. But all three parliamentary constitu-
encies in the Kashmir Valley, Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag,
elected NC representatives with enormous majorities. The Congress
won the two parliamentary seats from the Jammu region and one
from Ladakh, but overall the NC made a wonderful recovery and a
palpable dent in New Delhi’s heinous designs (Akhtar 2000: 32). In
1986, the Congress government at the central government dismissed
the G.M. Shah government and Governor Jagmohan took over as
the representative of the central government and effective ruler of
Indian-administered J & K. The rationale given by New Delhi to
replace Shah with Jagmohan was the breakdown of the law and order
machinery. This political move, in which Kashmiri politicians were
96 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

shunted around like pawns, destroyed political autonomy and created

institutional paralysis. During this election, the Farooq-led NC was
ferociously opposed by Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress. Quite a few writers
on Kashmir have summarized the destructive effect of the policies
deployed by New Delhi and India’s political and military interference
in the state during that fateful decade of the 1980s.

Ramifications of Despotic Gubernatorial Politics

Jagmohan, the governor imposed by New Delhi on the people of
Indian-administered J & K, was adept at carrying out the oppressive
policies of his patrons to a tee. He was responsible for the attempted
extirpation of the secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front
(JKLF), which adhered to the ideology of an independent Kashmir.
The incarceration and torture of its leader, Maqbool Bhat, occurred
during Jagmohan’s reign. Physical brutality began to be unapolo-
getically employed as a tool for psychological degradation. Young
Kashmiri men were arrested on suspicion and mercilessly tortured
and killed by Indian soldiers. Kashmiri women, irrespective of age,
were defiled and humiliated. This state-sponsored brutality boomer-
anged with young men subscribing to a form of militant nationalism
and willy-nilly taking up arms to fight the Indian state (Ali 2003:
246). In late 1986 Farooq Abdullah conceded defeat by forging an
alliance with the Congress party at the central government. The cre-
ation of this alliance was a death knell for regional political aspira-
tions and cultural pride. Farooq’s attempt to establish harmonious
relationships with the Congress regime was met with contempt and
derision by NC’s popular base, but enabled his installation as head
of government pending fresh assembly elections in March 1987. His
capitulation to New Delhi created a deep rift between the NC and its
mass following. Elections were held in Indian-administered J & K in
1987 in order to constitute a legislative assembly and a state govern-
ment. By then the NC had managed to alienate its popular base and
represented only the interests of a powerful political elite.
During the 1987 elections, the NC was opposed by an unwieldy
coalition of nonmainstream, antiestablishment groups calling itself
the Muslim United Front (MUF). It was a conglomerate that lacked
structure and a unifying political ideology. However, as the news-
magazine India Today (31 March 1987: 26) observed during the cam-
paign, the emergence of the MUF indicated that “the Valley is sharply
divided between the party machine that brings out the traditional
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 97

vote for the NC, and hundreds of thousands who have entered poli-
tics as participants for the first time under the umbrella provided by
the MUF.” As I mentioned previously, the MUF comprised several
political organizations. Its main component was the Jamaat-i-Islami,
chaired by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Despite having participated in the
1972, 1977, and 1983 elections, and as part of the MUF conglom-
erate in the 1987 elections, the Jamaat had been unable to make a
mark on the political matrix of Indian-administered J & K. It had,
however, succeeded in making an impact in religious institutions
where young boys were indoctrinated by mullahs, which Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah had attempted to quell by closing down places
of religious education (Verma 1994: 74). In addition, Abdul Ghani
Lone’s People’s Conference, G.M. Shah’s breakaway NC faction, the
Awami National Conference, and Maulvi Farooq’s Awami Action
Committee expressed unity of opinion, purpose, or interest with the
MUF. The ideological or experiential solidarity among a large num-
ber of opposition parties presented a formidable front. In the 1987
elections, the people of Kashmir unanimously expressed their wish
to elect a party that would redress their grievances and nurture their
aspirations (interview by the author with political activists of the
National Conference and independent candidates, Kashmir, 2007).
The emphasis laid by the MUF on Kashmiri nationalism and cultural
pride enabled it to woo a large number of Kashmiri youth. The MUF
underlined its ultimate objective of working toward Islamic unity
and disallowing political interference from the Indian government in
New Delhi (Verma 1994: 159). But New Delhi was not willing to let
antiestablishment organizations rule the roost in a state in which it
could exercise power only through proxy. As reported in India Today
(15 April 1987), the 1987 elections were characterized by heavy rig-
ging and booth capturing. The lower bureaucracy administering
the voting and counting processes worked brazenly in favor of the
Congress–NC alliance. The predictable outcome was the landslide
victory of this alliance, which won 63 seats and formed the state gov-
ernment without hindrance. This instance of the egregious erosion
of democratic processes and institutions worked to the advantage of
the Congress Party, which had been unable to form a mass base in
Kashmir and had traditionally been perceived as the arch opponent of
Kashmiri nationalism and cultural pride. There was an exponential
rise of fundamentalist forces in the Kashmir Valley during this period
(Balraj Puri, quoted in Verma 1994: 141). However, while the resur-
gence of religious fanaticism may have provided the disgruntled youth
of Indian-administered J & K with an ideological bastion, Islamist
98 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

organizations in the Valley were unable to convince Shah’s Awami

National Conference and Lone’s People’s Party of the viability of
forming a theocratic state.

Faulty Electoral Processes

The 1987 elections tarnished the reputation of the Farooq-led NC
and showcased it as a marionette that could be manipulated by New
Delhi’s seasoned puppeteers. The methods deployed in this election
exacerbated the mood of sullenness and political apathy in the Valley.
Farooq Abdullah’s regional credibility was jeopardized by his will-
ingness to kowtow to political strategists and gurus in New Delhi.
Armed struggle gained impetus in the Kashmir Valley once the popu-
lace was disabused of the notions of regional integrity and autonomy
it had once held. The subversive acts engineered by the JKLF in 1988
prognosticated political wreckage of extraordinary proportions. The
disenchantment caused by dictats issued by the Indian government
spawned resistance factions in various parts of Indian-administered
J & K. “The JKLF, however, was singled out by the Indian authori-
ties as being mainly responsible for the upsurge in internal disorder”
(Schofield 2002: 140).
In the late 1980s, anti-India sentiments in the Kashmir Valley
engendered uncritical support for Pakistan. While forty-one years of
independence were being fervently celebrated in the rest of India on
15 August, the Valley resonated with sounds of lamentation about
its fate: “Whereas in 1947 the Pakistanis were deemed the invad-
ers whilst the Indians were greeted as the liberators, by 1988 in the
minds of the militants the roles had been psychologically reversed”
(ibid.). On 11 April 1988 in Ojhri in Pakistan, several people were
killed in an ammunition dump that had been used as a depot for arms
intended for Afghan rebels. In order to express their solidarity with
Pakistan, zealous pro-Pakistanis in the Valley coerced shopkeepers
to keep their shops shut for a day as a symbolic gesture of sympathy
for those killed. This day of mourning was marked by instances of
clashes with the police, vandalism, arson, and brandishing of pro-
Pakistan feelings. In the wake of these events, Indian nationalist par-
ties critical of the inefficacy of the Farooq-led government demanded
his resignation (ibid.). Thus, as the decade of the 1990s dawned, the
Kashmir Valley became a playground for Indian military and para-
military forces, as well as for innumerable resistance factions that
toed different ideological lines. The hitherto torpid Valley began to
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 99

shake with a thunderous energy that would cause the complacency of

the governments of India and Pakistan to teeter, and would expose
their complicity in the neglect of the peoples of the former princely
state of J & K.

Beginning of Armed Insurgency

The disillusionment and sense of disenfranchisement created by New
Delhi’s machinations and the collusion of Farooq’s regime with it gen-
erated a new phenomenon. A large number of young men from various
parts of the Kashmir Valley crossed the Line of Control (LOC) in search
of ammunition and combat training. Sumantra Bose (2003) eloquently
outlines the gist of the contemporary problem in Kashmir: a conflict
driven by nationalistic and religious fervor, with each side pointing
to the violence and injustice of the other, and each side pointing to its
own suffering and sorrow. The distrust, paranoia, and neurosis per-
meating the relationship between a large number of people of Indian-
administered J & K and the Indian Union had intensified the conflict.
Kashmir, which to most outsiders was a becalming tourist haven, had
been engulfed by the conflagration of armed insurgency. “The armed
insurgency which gathered momentum after the 1987 election caught
the rest of the world unawares” (Schofield 2002: 138).
The guerrilla war in the state has gone through a series of phases
since 1990, but repressive military and political force remains the
brutal reality, which cannot be superseded by seemingly abstract
democratic aspirations (see Bose 2003). After the forces of separatism
reared their heads in Indian-administered J & K, the Indian Union
exacerbated the violence and disorder by deploying tactless means.
For instance, on 1 October 1990, Indian paramilitary forces razed
the bazaar of Handwara, a town located in the northwestern part of
the Valley. This action, taken after a guerrilla attack, resulted in the
indiscriminate killing of a large number of civilians. Ever since that
reprehensible incident, the town has been garrisoned by Indian mili-
tary and paramilitary troops. The landscape has been tarnished by
shanty-like bunkers with firing positions adorned with Indian flags
and nationalist slogans, underlining the brutal repression of regional-
ist and antiestablishment aspirations. Despite the conspicuous pres-
ence of Indian police and military forces, however, the dense forests
of Handwara have provided a safe haven for the guerrilla fighters
and have enabled them to wage a constant subversive war against the
Indian army, which was heavily deployed in that area (ibid.: 138).
100 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Unfortunately, systemic erosion of democratic rights in Indian-

administered J & K has been the underlying theme of India’s policy
toward Kashmir since the dawn of independence in 1947.
While the popularity of the NC was steadily diminishing, a new
phenomenon was emerging in Indian-administered J & K in 1988. A
large number of young men had gone across the LOC, supposedly of
their own volition, in order to acquire arms and combat training to
fight for the cause of Kashmiri independence. On 31 July 1988, bomb
explosions occurred outside Srinagar’s central telegraph office and at
the Srinagar Club, an establishment for the political and business elite
of the state. Although the attacks were launched by young Kashmiri
men trained across the LOC, they had been planned by Mohammad
Rauf Kashmiri, a Pakistani member of the JKLF, an organization
committed to regaining the independent status of J & K (conversation
with political activists of the National Conference and the Congress,
Kashmir Valley, 2007). To reinforce the point that I made earlier,
events that were celebrated in the rest of India were overtly mourned
in Kashmir: 15 August (the day India gained independence in 1947)
and 26 January (India’s Republic Day in 1950) were occasions that
evoked a resentful and pain-filled response in the Valley, creating a
paralysis of sorts.
Unfortunately, Farooq Abdullah’s response to this new phenome-
non and its ramifications was not particularly diplomatic. He resorted
to belligerent tactics: invoking the political and economic support of
New Delhi and antagonizing the Kashmiri people, who did not see a
ray of hope in New Delhi (see Puri 1995). As the insurgency began to
spread its tentacles, the authority of the Farooq-led government began
to slacken and it experienced a progressive political decline. The hall-
mark of Farooq Abdullah’s second term in office, which lasted until
January 1990, was a sense of unaccountability. His behavior dur-
ing this term was described as a virtual renunciation of authority
vested in him (India Today 30 April 1990: 10). Veteran journalist and
author of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah: Tragic Hero of Kashmir, Ajit
Bhattacharjea has critically analyzed Farooq’s political prowess: “The
last symbol of secular Kashmiriyat remained a lightweight given to
helicopter sorties over the stricken Valley, to elitist projects to attract
tourists, while basic facilities were ignored” (Bhattacharjea 1994:
257). Farooq gained the reputation of a sybarite and a connoisseur of
luxury. His cabinet acquired a reputation for unaccountability.
In November 1989, another Indian parliamentary election was
held in Indian-administered J & K, which the JKLF and other proin-
dependence groups asked the populace to boycott. The electorate
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 101

responded by abstaining, resulting in an overwhelming victory for

the NC. The NC won unopposed in Srinagar, and in Baramulla and
Anantnag, the other two parliamentary constituencies in the Valley,
it won enormous victories. Although the NC ostensibly represented
the Kashmir people and was accountable to them, a large proportion
of the state’s population was not just alienated but palpably antago-
nistic toward New Delhi: the political history of Indian-administered
J & K is replete with examples of political dogmatism, repression,
undemocratic methods, and state-sanctified brutality. Representative
governments installed though democratic processes existed in J & K
in 1947–1953 and 1977–1984. Otherwise the territory has been
benighted by reprehensible misgovernance and trammeled by a mili-
tarized culture.
By the late 1990s the purportedly secular policies of the Congress
had been replaced by the Hindu nationalist politics of the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). In the Kashmir Valley, Islamist groups mush-
roomed as Afghan mercenaries came across the border to perpetuate
the reign of terror. The main rival organizations during that period
were the homegrown Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), the Pakistani-
sponsored and abetted Lashkar-i-Taiba, and Harkat-ul-Mujahidin
(interview with political activists of the National Conference and
independent candidates, Kashmir, 2007). These groups assassinated
each other’s militants—HM and JKLF were belligerently opposed to
each other, kidnapped Western tourists in order to extort money or for
political mileage, harassed Kashmiri Pandits who had been an inex-
tricable part of the region for centuries, took punitive action against
Kashmiri Muslims who did not subscribe to their ideology, and orga-
nized subversive action against Indian forces and officials. Some con-
tend that these groups did not target Kashmiri Pandits because of
their religious affiliation or secular Muslims because of their ideo-
logical affiliation, but state agents. The factionalism in these groups
enabled New Delhi to create gulfs between them, which disallowed
them from joining hands in order to defeat the designs of the Indian
administration and forces. Some of the Islamist groups in this region
are the creation of Pakistani military intelligence (Ali 2003: 251).
Governor Jagmohan employed ruthless measures to pulverize the
support that these Islamist groups had managed to garner: nightlong
house-to-house raids became the norm. Indian soldiers kidnapped
young men at gunpoint only to barbarously torture and kill them
in custody (ibid.: 247). Jagmohan’s autocratic rule and the tyranny
of the Afghan mercenaries resulted in the militarization of Kashmiri
culture and the torture of hapless Kashmiri civilians. The sense of
102 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

disenfranchisement in Kashmir was aggravated by New Delhi’s rule,

which lasted until 1996 when the Farooq Abdullah NC came back
to power. But Farooq’s collaboration with the Hindu fundamentalist
BJP further eroded the mass base of the NC.
Indian-administered J & K is an example of a neocolonial territory
manipulated by New Delhi in collusion with comprador governments
unrepresentative of the populace, and reliant on the political and
military prowess of their patrons. This policy appears to have been
formulated to circumscribe anti-India and pro-Pakistan allegiances.
This strategy, however, has had the adverse effect of stunting the
development of democratic and civic structures conducive to suffrage
and participatory procedures. The conscious policy of the Indian
state to erode autonomy, populist measures, and democratic institu-
tions in J & K has further alienated the people of the state from the
“demonic” Indian Union (Bose 2003: 97–98). The erosion of political
opposition in Indian-administered J & K has delegitimized the voice
of dissent and radicalized antagonism toward state-sponsored institu-
tions and organizations. The exposure of Indian democracy as a bru-
tal façade has instigated disgruntlement and antipathy toward Indian
democratic procedures and institutions in the state. The cause of the
independence and/or autonomy of J & K has been thwarted by both
India and Pakistan. Beijing is also worried about the ramifications
that Kashmiri independence would have in Tibet. In India, the BJP
has been deviously planning the balkanization of Indian-administered
J & K along religioethnic lines, first propounded in 1950 by Sir Owen
Dixon, the United Nations representative for India and Pakistan,
which I have written about in chapter one.
In its initial years, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s NC enabled
the emergence of a well-educated, politically aware generation of
Kashmiris. But in the 1970s and the 1980s, Indira Gandhi’s Congress
regime characterized every demand for local empowerment as poten-
tially insurgent, and discouraged the growth of a progressive genera-
tion of Kashmiris (Ganguly 1997: 84–85; Kohli 1997: 341–42; Rai
2004: 295). Sheikh Abdullah’s strategic campaign to free the former
princely state of J & K from the systemic violence perpetrated by the
Dogra monarchy, which was launched in the early 1930s, had won
strong support from the Kashmiri people, including the women. As
Kashmiri historian Mohammad Ishaq Khan (1978: 192) is quick to
point out, “13 July 1931 was a historic day in the annals of Srinagar.
The ‘dumb-driven cattle’ raised the standard of revolt. . . . Even the
women joined the struggle and to them belongs the honor of fac-
ing cavalry charges in Srinagar’s Maisuma bazaar.” That political
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 103

awareness manifested itself again in 1989–1990 when masses of

women bolstered the JKLF’s campaign to free J & K from Indian rule
in the labyrinthine lanes of Srinagar city.

Militant Resistance to the Indian

Administration
The rebellion that had been simmering in 1989–1990 soon erupted
into a conflagration in 1990, in brutal resistance to Indian occupa-
tion in the Kashmir Valley. Assassinations of individuals suspected of
being Indian spies occurred in large numbers toward the end of 1989.
Such killings atrophied the government machinery and rendered its
intelligence apparatus dysfunctional. Contrary to the belief in main-
stream Indian political and civil circles, approximately three-fourths
of the victims, comprising political or social bigwigs accused of col-
laborating with Indian forces, alleged spies, and local politicians who
had either tacitly or overtly supported J & K’s accession to India, were
Muslims. The rest were Kashmiri Pandits, members of the privileged
and comprador Hindu minority (Bose et al. 1991: 224–53). The par-
liamentary elections that were held in Indian-administered J & K in
late November 1989 were boycotted by a large section of the popula-
tion, rendering the process a sham.
In December 1989, Rubaiya, the daughter of Mufti Mohammad
Sayeed, the Kashmiri Muslim Interior Affairs minister in India’s fed-
eral cabinet and chief minister of Indian-administered J & K from
2002 until 2005, was kidnapped by militants of the JKLF. This inci-
dent manifested a growing malignancy in a culture that had prided
itself on shielding its women from political and religious turbulence,
and caused fear in the hearts and minds of young women all over the
Valley. I recall the tangible tension and loaded silence in the examina-
tion hall at the Government College for Women where I was taking
my British Literature examination the day after Rubaiya was kid-
napped. Her captors demanded the release of six high-profile JKLF
activists then in incarceration. Rubaiya Sayeed was kept in captivity
until the government of India succumbed to the demands of her cap-
tors. The six JKLF activists who were released were welcomed by
numerous Srinagar residents with happiness and triumph, undeterred
by the Indian troops. The inability of the redoubtable government of
India to work toward a resolution that did not require succumbing to
political machinations and coercive force was incomprehensible, to
say the least. Its choice to tread the path of least resistance bolstered
104 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

the courage of organizations that deployed kidnappings, extortions,

killings, and other violent methods as their modus operandi. In
January 1990, Farooq Abdullah’s defanged government resigned, cit-
ing a breakdown of civil order as the rationale.
Subsequently, J & K was brought under the direct rule of New
Delhi. Jagmohan, who had played a treacherous role in J & K between
1984 and 1986, was sent back to Srinagar to govern with reinforced
high-handedness and unaccountability (conversations with political
activists and other civilians in Kashmir Valley, 2007). Huge demon-
strations in support of independence surfaced in every part of the
Valley. It was as if the unspoken urge for self-rule, lost among the
debris of dismantled insurrectionist resolves, began to collect and
cohere to form the certainty of this political demand. The cry for
independence pierced the stifling atmosphere, and people marched
with abandon along the uneven streets of various parts of the Valley.
The rallying cry of independence galvanized people from all walks of
life. In a gesture of defiance, adolescent boys and girls pelted stones
at the well-equipped Indian military and paramilitary forces. The
response of the Indian administration to the vociferous resurgence of
this insurrectionary force was the implementation of bloodcurdling
repressive measures. The state-sponsored violence in the Valley esca-
lated between July and September 1990 after the Indian government
legislated an Armed Forces Special Powers Act and a Disturbed Areas
Act that reinforced the barbarism of Indian military and paramilitary
troops, and legitimized the violence and reprisal unleashed by them.

From our investigations . . . we found that the paramilitary forces and

the Army jawans [soldiers] had no excuse of self-defence [sic] [as nor-
mally given when dealing with riotous mobs] when they fired indis-
criminately upon what were crowds of unarmed demonstrators. A
savage thirst for blood seemed to have gripped the CRPF, as evident
from the calculated manner in which they went about pumping bullets
into bodies of injured people in the Gow Kadal [Srinagar] area on
21 January 1990. The brutalities perpetrated by the Army jawans on
1 March 1990, call for serious disciplinary action against them.
Attempts by the army authorities to justify their killing of bus pas-
sengers at Tengpora [Kashmir] on that day by inventing a false story,
are a further blot on the country’s defense forces who are required to
be highly disciplined cadre dedicated to the task of protecting our
people. (Bose et al. 1991: 233)

The attempt of the Indian administration to represent the Kashmiri

as a fanatical terrorist is indicative of political and military discourses
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 105

of exclusion that rely on tightly drawn boundaries to maintain the

“authenticity,” or purity, of their respective discourse. The Kashmiri,
by his or her status as a secessionist traitor, served to reaffirm dra-
conian authority that required opposition in order to assert itself.
Initially, the insurgent demand for autonomy resonated just
through the Kashmir Valley, reminiscent of the 1930s and 1940s
when the Valley had been festooned with the pennants of the NC,
streaking the sky with the color of liberation. The political rebellion
of these two organizations was forcefully reiterated by the JKLF in
the early 1990s in the Valley. The JKLF’s unwavering commitment
to the discourse of an independent state antagonized the Pakistani
military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which abruptly withdrew
its economic and political support to the organization (for the secu-
lar formation of the separatist group JKLF, see Khan 1970). As a
retaliatory measure, the ISI patronized and facilitated the establish-
ment of two pro-Pakistan organizations, Al-Umar Mujahideen and
Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, which deployed guerrilla tactics to perpetrate
a reign of assassinations and unbridled terror. The ISI also enabled
the entrenchment of bigoted Islamic groups such as Harkat-ul-Ansar
and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) in the Valley (interview with politi-
cal activists of the National Conference and People’s Democratic
Party, Srinagar, 2007). The strategies employed by these organiza-
tions and their pro-Pakistan leanings created a generation of trigger-
happy youth, engendering a malignant gun culture in the Valley. The
fanaticism of the HM led to an upsurge of violence in the Valley. The
rising strength of pro-Pakistani guerrilla outfits caused marginaliza-
tion of the JKLF. Sporadic disagreements leading to violent clashes
between the JKLF and the HM occurred in 1991 and 1992 in various
parts of the Valley. The HM had an uncontested dominance over the
Islamist and pro-Pakistan outfits in the Kashmir Valley. In the early
part of the insurgency, the HM claimed that its employment of guer-
rilla strategies would render Indian-administered J & K impregnable
for the Indian military and paramilitary forces, intern the Indian
forces in their restrictive camps, and make them vulnerable. This spu-
rious claim impaired the credibility of the HM, particularly after the
increasing factionalism within the organization (ibid.). In the early
part of 1992, the JKLF made an assiduous attempt to regain lost
ground by organizing a march to the LOC to underscore the unity
between Indian-administered J & K and Pakistani-administered
J & K. The march was dispersed by Pakistani border troops who,
firing indiscriminately, killed twenty-one marchers. This incident cre-
ated a wave of sympathy for the JKLF, and 60,000 people convened
106 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

at the Hazratbal shrine to express condemnation of the unwarranted

show of strength by Pakistani forces, marking an overwhelming polit-
ical victory for the JKLF (India Today, 31 March 1993: 27).
In 1993, over thirty political organizations joined hands to form a
coalition group known as the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC).
The conglomerate comprised Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Jamaat-e-
Islami, Abdul Ghani Lone of the People’s Conference, Maulvi Abbas
Ansari of the Liberation Council, and Professor Abdul Ghani Bhat
of the Muslim Conference (MC), and was headed by the then teen-
aged religious leader of the Awami Action Committee, Maulvi Omar
Farooq. The commonality that bound these politicians and religious
leaders of disparate ideologies was the necessity to give the people of
J & K the right of self-determination. The various components of the
APHC were at loggerheads about whether independence was the most
desirable solution for the troubled state, or whether unification with
Pakistan was the better alternative. “The Hurriyat Conference gave
the militants a united political platform through which they could
voice their grievances, but their demands did not permit them to con-
sider a solution which lay within the existing framework of the Indian
Union” (Schofield 2002: 60). The APHC has since been joined by the
leader of a breakaway faction of the JKLF, Yasin Malik. While most
of the other components of the conglomerate lean toward unifica-
tion with Pakistan, Malik tenaciously adheres to JKLF’s ideology of
independence for the former princely state. A leader of one of the
core groups of the APHC, Abdul Ghani Lone was assassinated in
2002 by the Lashkar-i-Taiba. Another unyielding Islamist member of
the organization, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, severed ties with the APHC
after Maulvi Omar Farooq seemed to do a volte-face by beseeching
the militant factions to adopt a more reconciliatory approach. It is
necessary to point out here that Geelani was a member of the J & K
Legislative Assembly from 1972 to 1977, 1977 to 1982, and 1987 to
1990. During his three tenures as a member of the assembly, Geelani
was not quite as vociferous about the illegitimacy of the accession of
J & K to the Indian Union, nor did he publicly prioritize the auton-
omy of the state. The Omar Farooq-led APHC has been vacillating
about its political stance vis-à-vis the status of the state, equivocat-
ing between reversion to the pre-1953 autonomous status of Indian-
administered J & K within the Constitution of India as the most
expedient solution to the Kashmir conflict, and the unacceptability of
any solution within the said Constitution. Despite the participation
of its leadership in various international forums, the seemingly bona
fide intentions of the organization have come under severe scrutiny,
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 107

and political analysts as well as laypeople have leveled allegations of

corruption and complicity with the law-enforcing agencies of both
India and Pakistan.
Pakistan’s attempt to chart the course of the insurrection cre-
ated paranoia in the Valley and was resented by JKLF supporters.
By the mid-1990s, the HM had become notorious for targeting
not just JKLF’s proindependence supporters, but also members
of nondescript militant groups. Many ex-militants, renegades or
baaghee, and their families sought security—physical, financial, and
otherwise—through collaboration with Indian counterinsurgency
forces. The emergence of such collaborators, who were incorporated
into the Special Task Force (STF)—a militia group comprising ren-
egades that I have written about in chapter five—bolstered India’s
military and political campaign against Kashmiri insurgents and
Pakistani infiltrators. Although the government of Pakistan did not
explicitly avow the legitimacy of insurgency in Indian-administered
J & K in terms of acknowledging its financial and military support
in the armed conflict, the perception in India was that Pakistan sup-
ported the insurgency through its formidable intelligence agency, the
ISI. This common perception was created by the recognition of the
centrality of the Kashmir issue to the theocratic and nationalistic
identity of Pakistan (Desmond 1995: 15).

Communal Turn of the Insurgency

The communal turn taken by the insurgency in the state was exacer-
bated with the grisly murder of sixteen Hindu men who were taken
off a bus on their way to Jammu and killed at point-blank range
in August 1993. In September 1989, a Kashmiri Pandit, Tikka Lal
Taploo, was brutally killed; he was an advocate of the High Court
and a leader of the Hindu nationalist BJP. Soon after this incident,
another Kashmiri Pandit, Neel Ganth Ganju, was remorselessly
killed. Ganju was a retired sessions judge who had passed the death
sentence on the iconicized founder of the JKLF, Maqbool Bhat
(Schofield 2002: 144). Reports of the desecration of women by mili-
tants did much to besmirch their image. In 1990, a Kashmiri Pandit
nurse at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar,
Sarla Bhat, was reportedly raped and killed by JKLF militants for
having informed the police/state authorities about injured militants at
the Medical Institute. Rita Manchanda, whose politics are ambigu-
ous, quotes Kashmiri Pandit sources, according to whom Sarla Bhat
108 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

had the acronym “JKLF” inscribed on her naked torso (“Guns and
Burqaa,” 2001: 62). Asia Watch reported that while it was unclear
that militant leaders willfully permitted such abuses, there was little
indication that they had taken substantive action to prevent such grue-
some incidents. Some of the victims and their families were accused
of being police informers, and the brutal humiliation of these women
was a tool wielded to wreak revenge and silence the detractors of mili-
tant organizations (Asia Watch 1993: 98). In 1995, a group of Western
tourists was kidnapped by an obscure militant outfit, Al-Farhan. One
of the tourists, a Norwegian, was decapitated; one of the Americans
in the group surreptitiously escaped; and the whereabouts of the other
three are unknown to date. Proindependence and proautonomy orga-
nizations in the Valley are of the opinion that this gruesome inci-
dent, like the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, was orchestrated by
the Indian government to tarnish the insurrection in J & K, and to
pigeonhole it as zealot and talibanized. By 1996–1997, the coercive
tactics employed by Indian counterinsurgency forces had successfully
emasculated most of the guerrilla outfits and rendered the JKLF a
moribund organization.
In 2000 the HM restored its damaged organizational ethos by
engineering and executing a series of attacks reminiscent of the guer-
rilla tactics used by them in the 1990s, but with escalating violence.
These attacks were clearly designed to instigate communal dissension
in Indian-administered J & K and to maintain the tenuousness of the
India–Pakistan rapprochement. The chilling and horrifying phenome-
non of suicide bombing had surfaced in the state in 1999 and mounted
in hostility in the early 2000s. The first suicide attack occurred in
August 1999 when militants of the Lashkar-i-Taiba, a group purport-
edly consisting of ultraorthodox Muslims from Pakistan but believed
by many Kashmiri locals to be working in collusion with Indian para-
military forces, stormed a Border Security Force (BSF) post in the
Kupwara district. The official estimate is that since then fifty suicide
attacks have occurred in the Kashmir Valley, of which twenty-nine
took place in 2001. While most of the attacks have occurred in the
Valley, the suicide bombers have made their mark in the Jammu region
and in Delhi as well. A suicide squad of the Lashkar-i-Taiba launched
a bloody attack on an army garrison positioned inside the Red Fort
in Delhi on 22 December 2001 (Ramachandran 2002). The demand
for autonomy made a foray into the Jammu region in the 1990s. In
August 2002, an army colonel supervising counterinsurgency opera-
tions was killed in a mine blast in the Doda district in Jammu. This
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 109

attack was attributed to HM operatives in the area (Kashmir Times,

20 August 2002).
Toward the end of 2002 the Indian government, tarnished by the
widespread and condemnable allegations of human rights abuses by
its military and paramilitary forces, organized assembly elections
in the state in order to form a new state government. I was in the
Kashmir Valley a couple of months before that election, in which
the NC suffered a miserable and humiliating defeat. The first phase
of the elections covered constituencies in Baramullah and Kupwara
in the Kashmir Valley, Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu, and Leh and
Kargil in Ladakh; the second phase covered constituencies in Srinagar
and Badgam in Kashmir Valley and Jammu; the third phase covered
constituencies in Pulwama and Anantnag in the Kashmir Valley, and
Udumpur and Kathua in Jammu; and the fourth phase of the elections
covered constituencies in Doda in the Jammu division. The voter turn-
out in most constituencies was dismal, and demonstrations in favor of
autonomy and against integration into the Indian Union were held at
several places. The NC performed poorly, winning 9 out of 37 assem-
bly seats in Jammu, 18 out of 46 seats in the Kashmir Valley and 1
out of 4 seats in Ladakh. The Congress secured 15 seats in Jammu
and 5 in the Valley. In a curious turn of events, the Hindu national-
ist BJP was able to secure just 1 seat in the predominantly Hindu
Jammu province. National and local newspapers reported despicable
attempts at intimidation and coercion by Indian paramilitary troops.
According to a rather dubious claim by Indian authorities, voter
turnout was 42.97 percent in Baramullah district, 54.57 percent in
Kupwara district, 35.57 percent in Poonch, 44.94 percent in Rajouri,
76.89 percent in Kargil, 43.82 percent in Badgam, 12.83 percent in
Srinagar, 60.19 percent in Jammu, 29.45 percent in Pulwama, 24.43
percent in Anantnag, 59.82 percent in Udumpur, 62.35 percent in
Kathua, and 53.24 percent in Doda. These figures, however, included
voters who were coerced to exercise their franchise. Interestingly,
almost a million and a half citizens entitled to vote were just not reg-
istered and were therefore not included when estimating these fig-
ures. Apparently women did not participate either, in large numbers
or enthusiastically (interview with observers of the electoral process
in Kashmir, 2007). There were districts, however, in which the vot-
ing was impartially carried out. The politicization that was palpable
in Kashmiri-speaking areas had not occurred in the predominantly
Gujjar or Ladakhi constituencies, which did not harbor the antipathy
toward the Indian state and its institutions that a large section of the
Kashmiri Muslim population did.
110 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Terrors of Counterinsurgency
More than a decade later, in 2010, the Valley remains the hub of
counterinsurgent activity. In March 2008, for example, Farooq
Ahmad Sheikh, resident of Sopur, Kashmir, was coercively detained
by a cohort of policemen in civilian clothes. Fearing police savagery,
his family made frenetic inquiries about his whereabouts. They were
callously informed that he had drowned.
His wife had been mercilessly widowed and his once mollycoddled
son was now a waif. The incessant wails heard in Farooq’s house, beg-
ging salvation, the ineluctable disarray in the lives of his wife and child,
plunged any democratic process in the Kashmir Valley into an unfath-
omable abyss (Greater Kashmir, 25 March 2008). In another incident
in Sopur, Kashmir, students of the Sopur Degree College protested
against the killing of a fellow student, Mohammad Ramzan Shah, by
soldiers of the Indian army in an allegedly fake encounter. The police
deployed unwarranted force to quell the protests and in the resulting
violence, thirty people were injured (Greater Kashmir, 13 September
2007). In September 2007, twenty-five people were brutally beaten by
Indian soldiers when they voiced their resentment against the reign of
terror unleashed by Indian military and paramilitary forces in Graw
Gund Kulpora, Pulwama, in south Kashmir. Residents of that area
lamented the inhumane treatment meted out to them by the police
and military personnel (Greater Kashmir, 13 September 2007).
In an unprecedented move, G.M. Shah’s Awami NC petitioned the
government of J & K to make substantive attempts to redress the
violation of human rights and liberties in the state. Shah (president of
the Awami NC) e-mailed the petition to me (2 April 2008), and I take
the liberty of reproducing portions of it:

The state of Jammu and Kashmir is in turmoil since 1989. People are
mentally tormented and unsure of their future. Deeply humiliated by
the excesses, human rights violations, unwarranted killings, kidnap-
pings, rapes, and other inhuman atrocities under state terrorism
through its police force and security agencies in the name of rule of
law, peace and security, the people are at the receiving end. The people
are witness to the on-going spectacle of deception and manipulation
which has given rise to confusion, insecurity and cynicism. The
situation is fraught with immense danger to the welfare of the state, its
people and their identity. This situation has left hundreds of thousands
of youth and others dead, displaced sections of the populace as
refugees, and thousands are languishing in jails away from their homes.
The anarchy and non-governance in the state should not lull
 Militarization of Jammu and Kashmir 111

the government into further inaction. The present regime, instead of

pulling the state out of its hopeless condition of violence and destruc-
tion has miserably failed in discharging its obligations toward lay peo-
ple. The present chief minister of the state is avoiding his moral
responsibility and obligations toward the people of the state by letting
them suffer tyranny, anarchy and annihilation at the hand of police
forces, security and other paramilitary agencies endowed with draco-
nian authority. Kashmiris find themselves embroiled in a cruel and
heartless campaign to make Kashmir an expendable pawn in the game
of world politics. No worthwhile effort has been made to address the
genuine grievances and just demands of the people. It is unbelievable
that people of the subcontinent and the world once considered Kashmir
as “heaven on earth.” The place lies in shambles and the survival of the
people at large has been jeopardized. Human rights abuses in the state
have reached their peak and the security agencies have been given
unbridled powers to deal with the populace in an arbitrary manner.
These agencies are unaccountable for the acts which they have been
carrying out since 1989 in Indian-administered J & K, as a result of
which approximately one lakh people have lost their lives, thousands
of crores worth of property has been destroyed, thousands of custodial
deaths and rapes have taken place. Some details about human rights
abuses which have occurred recently, are given below. On 27 Sept.
2007 Colonel Sharma and Major Azad of Rashtriya Rifles 33, along
with a huge force, plundered the Magam, Kashmir, police station,
snatched weapons, broke furniture, manhandled the local police per-
sonnel, and decamped with 20,000 rupees belonging to the state police.
On 27 September 2007 Bilal Ahmad Bhat in Pulwama, Kashmir, was
shot in cold blood after his refusal to hand over a box of apples to a
Central Reserve Police Force trooper. On 14 October 2007 Abdul
Rashid Mir, a teacher at Rehbar-i-Taleem in Rawatpora Kupwara,
Kashmir, was killed while trying to protect a female colleague from
being molested by army personnel. On 14 October 2007 a fifteen-year-
old mentally retarded boy, Aqeel Ahmad Mir, was shot dead by the
army in Watlab Sopore, Kashmir, for no fault of his. On 17 November
2007 Riyaz Ahmad Sofi was shot dead in Damal Hanjipora, Kashmir,
by nine soldiers of the Rashtriya Rifles without any cause. Sofi leaves
behind his widow and three children. On 16 December 2007 Imtiaz
Ahmad and Mohammad Amin of the Special Operations Group tried
to raze a house to the ground. After protests from local residents, they
opened fire injuring scores of people and killing Ghulam Mohammad
Lone on the spot. On 15 December 2007 Zahoor Ahmad Mir was
killed when the police opened fire on peaceful demonstrators demand-
ing establishment of a degree college in Magam, Kashmir.
Rights relating to life, liberty and dignity of the people, guaranteed
by the Constitution, embodied in the fundamental covenants and
enforceable by courts of law, are being gravely violated. It is respectfully
112 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

requested that the recent killings brought to the notice of the honorable
Human Rights Commission be investigated/enquired into through
some impartial and credible agencies, subject to the direction and con-
trol of the Commission, under Section 15 (1&2) of the J & K Protection
of Human Rights Act 1997. We further request the members of the
Commission to visit jails and detention centers where thousands of
innocent persons are languishing and make recommendations thereof.
Considering the unified command consists of various police, security,
military and paramilitary wings, including the Task Force, Central
Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force, their respective com-
manders are collectively and individually responsible and legally liable
for the gross violations, killings and all other human rights abuses
committed against the people en masses. We request the Human Rights
Commission to initiate appropriate criminal prosecution against per-
sons found connected, directly or indirectly, or in abetment of the
above crimes. (“Petition under Jammu and Kashmir Protection of
Human Rights Act 1997, Chapter no. 111, Section 13”)

Despite the sectarian and ethnic violence in Indian-administered

J & K, the cultural syncretism of the state has managed to garner the
strength of conviction to survive.
In 2002, a large number of Kashmiri Pandits participated in a festi-
val held at a Hindu shrine, Khir Bhawani, in a village close to Srinagar,
where they enjoyed the hospitality and protection of the Muslims in
the area. This occasion marked the return of many migrant Pandits
to the Kashmir Valley. This celebration was held after a pain-filled
hiatus of eighteen years, and was conducted in a convivial atmosphere
(Fazili Tribune News Service 2000). The representative organization
of dislocated Kashmiri Pandits, Panun Kashmir Movement, which
is riven by factionalism as well, now acknowledges that the exodus
of their community in 1990 was orchestrated by the government of
India (Greater Kashmir, 12 November 2007).
The administrators of India and Pakistan cannot remain steadily
indifferent to requests from human rights organizations to probe
into the instances of carnage that have been occurring in J & K since
1989–1990. How long will the blaring trumpet of “war on terror”
sanctify the gauche attempts of the governments of India and Pakistan
to blame every calamitous occurrence on foreign mercenaries?
 Chapter Five

Negotiating the Boundaries of Gender,

Community, and Nationhood

What are the traditional freedoms and prerogatives of Kashmiri

women in the land of a spiritual luminary like Lalla-Ded? Is there
any history of a substantive indigenous or modern feminist movement
in Kashmir? Although, traditionally, women’s experiences in situa-
tions of state-sponsored violence, armed insurgency, and counterin-
surgency have been negated in narratives of dominant history, the
recollection and interpretation of the lived experiences of the women
I talked with in conflict-torn Indian-administered J & K showcase the
nuances of women’s narratives in these situations.

Militarization of Kashmiri Culture

Over the years, tremendous political and social turmoil has been
generated in the state by the forces of religious fundamentalism and
by exclusionary nationalism that seek to erode the cultural syncre-
tism that is part of the ethos of J & K. These forces are responsible
for the shutting down of dissenters who voice cultural critiques for
the repression of women, for political anarchy, economic depriva-
tion, lack of infrastructure, and for the mass displacements that
have been occasioned by these events. Since 1949, the United
Nations and Pakistan have consistently demanded that a plebiscite
be held in order to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people
(for more information on the provisional accession of the former
princely state of J & K to India, (see “Appendix A” 175–178). India
has denied this wish for fear of losing the vote in the predominantly
Muslim Kashmir Valley. India uses Pakistan’s reluctance to with-
draw its forces and the decision of the U.S. government to supply
arms to Pakistan in 1954 to justify its denial (Ganguly 1997: 43–57;
Rahman 1996: 4). Nearly 400,000 Indian army and paramilitary
forces have been deployed in the state to date, in India’s most
beefed-up counterinsurgency operation. Financing these operations
114 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

has taken an enormous toll on the annual administrative budget of

the state (Ganguly 1997: 1–2).
Since the inception of the secessionist movement in 1989, more
than 50,000 Kashmiris have been brutally murdered by the Indian
forces, 100,000 Pandits have migrated to Jammu and other parts of
India for fear of persecution, a large number of women (over 5,000
according to a conservative estimate) have been violated, and innu-
merable people have been incarcerated and held incommunicado. UN
experts on extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions have not
been invited to Kashmir, and international human rights monitoring
organizations have been prevented from entering the state (Amnesty
International, “India Must Prevent Torture,” 2005). In such a con-
flict situation, the law and order machinery is rendered dysfunctional,
increasing the vulnerability of women and children. The counterin-
surgency operations in Indian-administered J & K have been brutal—
not just militarily, but politically and economically as well. Has J & K
now been reduced to a garrison state?
The unpleasant reality in which J & K lives—one of Indian and
Pakistani dominance—is marked by the overwhelming presence of
paramilitary troops, barbed wire, and invasive searches; dispossessed
youths trained in Pakistani training camps to unleash a reign of mis-
guided terror; custodial killings in detention centers, and mothers whose
faces tell tales of woe waiting outside those gloomy centers to catch a
glimpse of their unfortunate sons (an exercise in futility); and burqa-
clad women living in fear of the wrath of fundamentalist groups as
well as paramilitary forces bent on undercutting their self-respect. The
military has carte blanche under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety
Act of 1978 and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act
of 1987 (for a discussion of the draconian laws in J & K, see Puri 1995;
Widmalm 2002; Wirsing 2002). The traditional communal harmony in
Kashmir has been eroded by Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism in the
state, India’s repression of every demand for local autonomy and shelv-
ing of self-determination for the people of the state, and the eruption of
ethnoreligious fervor as a result of the central government disregarding
democratic institutions in Indian-administered J & K (Ganguly 1997:
14–20). The anarchy that pervades the cultural and political fabric of
Indian-administered J & K has been stoked by government-sponsored
militants and foreign mercenaries. Such an unwieldy situation has ren-
dered women psychologically incarcerated (ibid.), and does not enable
an autonomous life, devoid of the pressures that people of the state
have been subjected to since 1947. The brutalization of the culture has
been rendered more lethal by the socialization of Kashmiri boys and
 Negotiating Boundaries 115

men into a military culture. Within such a masculinist discourse and

praxis, the rigidly entrenched hierarchical relationship between men
and women is inextricably linked with sexualized violence. Although
I consider her agenda questionable and am skeptical about her schol-
arship, there is an element of truth to Rita Manchanda’s observation
that “the conservative patriarchal ideology of the Kashmir struggle cast
women as symbols—Grieving Mother, Martyr’s Mother and Raped
Woman. It developed an instrumental relationship with women as the
frontline of the propaganda war over human rights violations by the
Indian state and undervalued their activism, dismissing it as acciden-
tal” (“Guns and Burqaa,” 2001: 43).
For instance, numerous cases of rape are reported to have been
committed by Indian security forces in the state since the inception of
the secessionist movement in 1989 (Prasad 1999). A number of women
have been ruthlessly violated by members of the paramilitary troops
deployed in Indian-administered J & K as a tool to avenge themselves,
and indelibly scathe the consciousness of a culture that dared to raise
its insurgent head against the two mammoth nuclear powers on the
subcontinent. Although rape was construed as a weapon of war in the
then burgeoning discourse of armed insurgency evoking a submerged
nationalist identity and the corollary discourse of human rights viola-
tions, “dishonored” women retained their status as familial and cul-
tural chattels lacking control over their own bodies. Furthermore,
custodial disappearances, custodial deaths, and bestial interrogation
methods have indelibly scarred the psyche of the Kashmiri people. In
a highly brutalized culture can women assume hitherto unexplored
agential roles?1

Mobilization of Women

Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons

(APDP)
Parveena Ahangar is one of many unfortunate mothers whose son
was a victim of custodial disappearance. Her son, Javed Ahmad,

1
I consider it important to underline my assiduous attempt not to hinder or obstruct
the various testimonies that I listened to with foregone conclusions or unfounded
biases. The women I spoke with were not testifying simply to empirical data but to the
profundity of survival and resistance to the pervasive “culture of silence” in which
they were bearing witness to the traumas they had lived through (see Felman and
Laub 1992 for insights on trauma theory).
116 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

was picked up by the National Security Guards (NSG) in Batmaloo,

Srinagar, on 18 August 1990, and taken to one of the interrogation
centers that have emerged all over the Valley. Javed was a school-
going adolescent when the NSG, suspecting him of being affiliated
with a militant organization, brusquely picked him up without a sub-
stantial rationale for questioning. I met Parveena at her house in July
2006, and she graciously spent a couple of hours explaining to me the
plight of ordinary Kashmiris who do not have access to the echelons
of power, and therefore live anonymously in the fortresses of ruthless
militarism until they are buried in the catacombs of history. Parveena,
a courageous and forthright woman, chose to shed the veil and the
inhibitions imposed by her cultural mores in order to verbalize the
agony of a wounded mother. Instead of lamenting voicelessly behind
the closed portals of her cultural and societal standards, she formed an
organization called the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons
(APDP), comprising bereaved mothers whose sons had been victims of
custodial disappearances or deaths. Politicians at the helm of affairs
in the Valley have only managed to turn the groans of these moth-
ers into screams that cut through the air, laden with pain and long-
ing for their children. In early 1999, Amnesty International (“If They
Are Dead, Tell Us”) estimated that since 1990 over 800 people have
been victims of custodial disappearances; in August 2002, Kashmir
Times (“Militancy in Kashmir Valley Completes Fourteen Years”),
a local English daily, estimated the figure to be 3,500. Members of
the APDP mobilize women on the basis of the concept of protect-
ing the dignity and rights of nonpartisan citizens who do not have
vested political interests. It is an apolitical organization that does not
receive funding from any regional or national political organization,
and is not patronized by either the establishment or by the opposi-
tion. Parveena succeeded in assembling the relatives of persons who
had been subjected to torture, death, solitary confinement, and other
brutal methods while in the custody of the police or military forces in
various parts of the Valley. In the course of foregrounding their tri-
als and tribulations, she participated in conferences on human rights
violations in the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia and organized
peaceful demonstrations in the backyard of India’s political gurus and
masters, New Delhi. She stuck to her conviction in the midst of force-
ful antagonism, refusing even the monetary compensation that was
offered to her to forget “the unfortunate incident.”
Parveena and other mothers like her seek to know the fate of
their children who disappeared in the abyss of political and military
oppression before life had a chance to beckon them. The unknown
 Negotiating Boundaries 117

fate of their children is a constant presence in their lives, like a leaden

sky whose clouds are getting lower and lower. The lack of closure in
their lives makes their existence unbearable. Their stories evoke tragic
destinies, unredeemed by justice. “There are many families of disap-
peared persons who are deprived of the basic necessities of life. There
are hundreds of half-widows [grass widows], who have been rendered
destitute and don’t know whether to await the return of their spouses
or move on,” says Parveena (conversation with the author, Srinagar,
2006). Although the APDP relies on the cultural and moral authority
of the mother, which is religiously sanctioned, members of the orga-
nization have carved a niche for themselves in the public space. It is
as bereaved mothers that the members of this organization can chal-
lenge the apathy and complacency of the political and bureaucratic
machinery.
On the other hand, women like Farida Dar also emerged within the
fractured fabric of insurgency. Farida shelved her maternal role and
did not avail herself of the discourse that sanctified the dignity of the
mother. In 1996, she along with Farooq Ahmad Dar was incarcerated
as a co-accused in the Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi, bomb blast. After
having founded the Students Liberation Front, Farida became an oper-
ative of the outlawed militant organization Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen.
When I spoke with Farida, she told me that although her complicity
in the Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi, bomb blast case has yet to be proven,
she was mercilessly interrogated by Special Operations Group person-
nel, the heinous role of which I have written about in a later section, at
the infamous Papa II interrogation center in Srinagar after her arrest.
Subsequently, she was transferred to the impregnable fortress of Tihar
jail, which is Asia’s biggest prison complex, located in New Delhi.
Farida was confined to ignominious preventive detention for five
years, during which, she claims, she did not buckle under pressure or
wilt in the ignominy of an imposed invisibility. When I asked Farida
about her stance vis-à-vis a feasible solution to the Kashmir conflict,
she ruled out self-determination and emphasized tripartite talks, in
which India, Pakistan, and Kashmir would engage in security-related
dialogues in order to make changes in areas of security policy, such
as military doctrines or new political agreements (telephone conver-
sation with the author, 2009). But how much credence would those
involved in bilateral or multilateral negotiation processes in order to
discuss conflict resolution give to the opinion of a nonstate actor like
Farida?
Ethnographer Sharon Pickering, in her study of women in Northern
Ireland, theorizes that historically, political analysts and social
118 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

scientists have not considered the experiences of those coerced and

tortured by state violence as relevant to their studies (Pickering
2001: 490). But the unflinching courage of marginalized women like
Parveena in their fight for justice symbolizes the self-actualization and
intervention of Kashmiri women in patriarchal national history by
speaking from their locations about the current political realities. J.P.
Hewitt’s theorization of identity is relevant to the situation of women
like Parveena: “As the definition of a situation is first disrupted and
then reconstituted, people carve out new roles for themselves, and in
locating themselves within these new perspectives they acquire new
identities” (1989: 162). Recently, the APDP broke the walls of silence
when its researchers found the graves of 1,000 unidentified corpses,
unceremoniously dug in graveyards across Uri, the de facto frontier
region that divides Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Despite
its meager sources and the uphill climb ahead, the APDP has made “a
strong case for an independent international scientific investigation”
(Greater Kashmir, 31 March 2008). Such an investigation would
facilitate the creation of a climate of accountability, curb the carte
blanche given to the Indian paramilitary forces, and provide civil-
ians with recourse to legal procedures. The resolve of the members
of the APDP to make their voices heard validates their experiences
and their perception as a centrifugal force that vehemently calls into
question the coercive power of the state. It is the peripheralized, of
whom women form a large portion, that are concerned about struc-
tural changes that would enable transformations within entrenched
structures and appropriate the peace-building mission from the elitist
national security constituency.

“Dukhtaran-e-Milat” (Daughters of the Nation)

In contemporary Kashmiri society, the question of the role of women
in the nationalist scenario remains a vexed one. As Ann McClintock
observes about the role of the subaltern woman in “third-world” soci-
eties: “Excluded from direct action as national citizens, women are
subsumed symbolically into the national body politic as its boundary
and metaphoric limit” (McClintock 1997: 345). I reinforce that in
Kashmir there has been a dearth of secular women’s organizations
working toward structural change that would enable gender equity.
For instance, the only reactionary women’s organization in Kashmir,
the Dukhtaran-e-Milat (DM), claims that the image of woman as a
burqa-clad, faceless and voiceless cultural icon, devoid of the agency
 Negotiating Boundaries 119

to pave a path of her own choosing, is sanctioned by the interpreta-

tions of religious scriptures that this vigilante group subscribes to,
and reinforces her strength and courage of conviction to sacrifice
for the family. This group uses intimidating and questionable tactics
to raid houses that allegedly have been converted into brothels, and
brutally censors romantic liaisons between college-going boys and
girls. The members of DM would perhaps never identify the modern
Kashmiri woman with the liberated woman of secular discourse. On
the contrary, they make a facile attempt to reconstruct historical and
cultural discourses in order to inspire the kind of cultural nation-
alism that fundamentalist politics requires. Krishna Misri, former
principal of Government College for Women, Nawakadal, Srinagar
(1975–1982) and Maulana Azad Government College for Women,
Srinagar, Kashmir (1982–1991), wrote to me in an e-mail (dated
5 April 2008), that

the imposition of a dress code by authoritarian organizations such as

the DM signaled dangerous portents for the right of women to make
their own choices. I was shocked that barring a few, most of the Muslim
women staff members were clad in “burqas” when the Maulana Azad
College for Women reopened in March 1990. I thought the day of
reckoning had come and we had surrendered. The college had a rich
history. I could recollect only the past, while the present and the future
looked blurred.

Such organizations advocate the creation of a homogeneous culture

devoid of the freedoms that Kashmiri women have traditionally
enjoyed. Their draconian methods to enforce the purdah reinforce a
patriarchal structure in which an unaccompanied woman is rendered
vulnerable, and curtail the mobility of the tech-savvy youth in an
attempt to Arabize the syncretic ethos of Kashmir.
There seems to be an insensitivity in such reactionary organiza-
tions, as well as in former and current regional and national admin-
istrations—such as the Congress and People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) coalition government in the state and the centralizing regimes
of the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the National
Democratic Front in the central government—toward the diverse
interpretations of religious laws regarding the institutions of mar-
riage, divorce, inheritance rights, and so on, and to the rich hetero-
geneity of cultural traditions and the paradoxes within them. The
vociferous members of the DM would better serve the female popula-
tion of the state by campaigning for quotas for women in the legisla-
tive assembly, legislative council, parliament, and the judiciary. An
120 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

increase in the female representation in these institutions of authority

would facilitate a cultural shift in terms of gender role expectations,
legitimizing a defiance of the normative structure. The intrusion of
women into traditionally male domains would cause perceptible ero-
sion in the structural determinants of sexualized violence. Such a
form of empowerment would “frame and facilitate the struggle for
social justice and women’s equality through a transformation of eco-
nomic, social and political structures” (Bisnath and Elson 2002). In
the present scenario, no thought is given either by the state author-
ities or by the insurgent groups to women who have been victims
of the paramilitary forces and/or militant organizations. In the late
1990s the brutalization of the culture became further horrifying with
reports of “unidentified gunmen” intruding into the sanctum sancto-
rum of women and shooting them without an iota of compunction.
For example, on 28 August 1998 a well-reputed local English daily,
the Kashmir Times (Jammu), reported that in Poonch district two
women, Latifa and Khatija, who were allegedly moles, were shot in
cold blood by “unknown assassins,” alias renegade militants, merce-
naries, and paramilitary forces.
The women of Kashmir have borne the brunt of the violence. In
the absence of their menfolk, hapless women have been negotiating
with officials and military personnel, both materially and sexually.
Unfortunately, the innate conservatism of Kashmiri society dis-
ables them from overtly describing and condemning sexual exploi-
tation. Kashmiri women are further dehumanized because of the
self-denigration that accompanies physical defilement. There is no
statistical data of rapes and molestations in the state because of the
secrecy with which such acts are shrouded. I asked a Gujjar matri-
arch, Pathani Begum, about the political awareness of women in her
native village, Mahiyan, and neighboring rural areas in the Valley. I
asked her if she was familiar with the ideology of the DM. Pathani,
who did not pursue a formal education for fear of being ostracized,
claimed that she and her ilk had not heard about the DM and its polit-
ical agenda. Her concern was the inability of rural women to retaliate
against the harassment they are subjected to by militia groups such as
the Special Task Force (STF) and the Indian paramilitary forces. The
molestation of three women by members of the STF in Pathani’s vil-
lage had marked the ebb of youthfulness and stanched the blooming
atmosphere (Pathani Begum in conversation with the author, July 2006).
The validity of these fears was established by a recent study, which
reported that “There can be no two opinions that the women of
Kashmir during the past two decades have been in the vanguard and
 Negotiating Boundaries 121

have been fighting battles against all kinds of injustices and crimes
against humanity committed by the State and by some dubious non-
state actors” (Kashmir Human Rights Site 2005). A large propor-
tion of rape victims and war widows are afflicted with post-traumatic
stress disorder, and are prone to suicidal tendencies (ibid.).

Negotiating Political, Cultural, and

Social Spaces
In order to explore women’s empowerment in some of the rural areas
of Kashmir ravaged by militancy, I traveled to the villages of Mahiyan
and Qazipora in July 2005. These villages are in Tangmarg, a revenue
tehsil (revenue unit) of Kashmir bordering Pakistan. The Kashmiri
and Gujjar women I met with there belong to predominantly agricul-
tural communities, and are workhorses on the lands they cultivate,
but they lack the tools with which to critically understand their real-
ity and the causes underlying structural poverty. While conducting
my research, I found myself constantly beleaguered by the following
question: is the version of events of women absent from the official
records relegated to the archives of memory and history? While con-
ducting my research, I found myself constantly beleaguered by the
following question: Is the rich complexity in the social and cultural
positions of “native women” ignored in order to retain the remnants
of colonialist power-knowledge in “[the] appropriation and codifica-
tion of ‘scholarship’ and ‘knowledge’ about women in the third world
by particular analytic categories . . .”? (Mohanty 196).
My research enabled me to realize that despite being unable to
understand or overturn the structural determinants of their oppression,
these Kashmiri and Gujjar women are able to negotiate in small spaces.
The importance of context must be understood and used to identify
items within each boundary appropriate to local circumstances. None
of them had qualms about functioning as the main socializing agents
for their children, and considered the constitution of the mother–son
relationship as the nexus of every social relationship in their culture.
With their faces turned away from the camera and controlling their shy
laughter after being berated by their mother-in-law, the feisty Haneefa
Begum, Hafeeza Begum, Fareeda Akhtar, and Rifat Ara sang a med-
ley of folk songs for me in the intimacy of their hut. The songs, which
were translated for me by Shabeer Ahmad, a Gujjar lawyer, were a
doleful rendition of the self-abnegation and loneliness of a young bride
who is severed from everything familiar to her and finds herself being
122 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

ruthlessly molded to fit a new environment. The most articulate of the

group was Shabeer’s mother, who was content to understand historical
and social events within the explanatory frameworks of religious and
filial obligation. Her stance vis-à-vis the contexts that formed her iden-
tity displayed a capacity to act upon the social boundaries that “define
fields of action for all actors” (Hayward 1998: 27). The ostensibly
compliant attitude of these women seems to be a strategy of survival
in a social setting in which relationships are hierarchically structured,
maintaining social and political stasis. The notion of uncompassionate
in-laws is a part of their folklore. But it might be easier to imagine the
survival strategies that women deploy in that environment if we think
of power “not as instruments powerful agents use to prevent the pow-
erless from acting freely, but rather as social boundaries that, together,
define fields of action for all actors” (ibid.).
Subsequent to the dismantling of the feudal economic and social
structure in Kashmir in the early 1950s, feudal clans and the emas-
culated nobility clung to their decadent traditions with unparalleled
ferocity. Educated Kashmiri women like Dr. Hameeda Naeem, profes-
sor at the University of Kashmir, are unable to relate to the ideologies of
such dethroned feudal clans and of the DM as well. Hameeda Naeem
articulately delineated the brutal human rights violations occurring in
Indian-administered J & K at the United Nations Conference in Geneva
in 1996, after which the government of India impounded her passport
until 2005, rendering it impossible for her to speak at other interna-
tional conferences during that period. In an enlightening conversation
with Hameeda at my parents’ house in Srinagar (in July 2006), she
described the DM as self-styled custodians of the Islamic faith who had
caricaturized Islam by reducing it to the veil. She categorically stated
that the DM did not represent all Kashmiri women and lacked the
authority to enforce a code of conduct. I asked her how sixteen years
of armed insurgency and counterinsurgency had pervaded the social
fabric, and what measures, if any, had been taken to redress the griev-
ances of women adversely affected by militancy. Hameeda expressed
an adverse judgment on the government of Indian-administered J & K
for having facilitated the psychological, sexual, economic, and emo-
tional violation of women, particularly in the insulated rural areas.
The law of the jungle that prevails in those areas leaves no scope for
rehabilitation of the victims of violence. The desecration of the politi-
cal, social, and cultural landscape looms large over the lovely face of
nature in its pure majesty. The grievances of these lacerated hearts are,
inevitably, not redressed. The unalloyed purity of nature and the spiri-
tual illumination it inspires have, therefore, been indelibly tarnished.
 Negotiating Boundaries 123

Hameeda’s unequivocal censure of Indian military and paramili-

tary forces was echoed by Shamim Firdous. Shamim was a member
of the Legislative Council of J & K from 1999 to 2005, and is now
the president of the women’s wing of the National Conference (NC)
and a member of the newly elected Legislative Assembly of J & K
(2008). She is responsible for having opened vocational centers in her
constituency, Habbakadal, for illiterate and semiliterate women who
lack financial autonomy. Despite being well educated and well spo-
ken, Shamim was relegated to the background in the prestigious halls
of the Legislative Council. In response to my question (during a dis-
cussion in Srinagar, in July 2006) about whether she had adequately
represented the people of her constituency in the Legislative Council,
she was critical of the treatment meted out to women legislators, who
are not deemed worthy of consulting on matters of governmental pol-
icy. Although they are permitted to voice their opinions, their claims
or objections are pooh-poohed. The strident machismo of the male
legislators in the council enables the reductive objectification of the
women members. Although educated women desire full participa-
tion in professional and political life in Kashmir, the nexus between
patriarchy and militarism has insidiously indoctrinated women, to
the extent of making a virtue of helplessness and destitution. Shamim
expressed her resentment at the complicity of women in fortifying
existing political and social structures.
Women in Kashmir now live in an unendurable atmosphere cre-
ated by the acrimonious implementation of draconian laws. Indian
paramilitary forces, militants, and mercenaries have unleashed indis-
criminate violence in the state, which has metamorphosed the legend-
ary beauty of Kashmir into an intolerable inferno of molten bodies
and bottomless perdition.

Brutalization of Women in the Conflict Zone

Horrifying narratives of women and adolescent girls being humiliated
and brutally interrogated in remote villages are absent from the offi-
cial records, and are fearfully voiced in the atmosphere of paranoia
that pervades the Valley. For instance, in 1991, more than 800 sol-
diers of the Fourth Rajput Regiment raped between 23 and 60 women
in the course of one night in the village of Kunan Pohpura in Kashmir.
These soldiers raided the village on the pretext of interrogating the
local men who were allegedly insurgents. Another gruesome incident
of a similar nature occurred in Handawara village in 2004, where a
124 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

mother and her minor daughter were sadistically violated by a major

of the Rashtriya Rifles (RR). In Mattan in south Kashmir, an Indian
army subedar and his bodyguard of the Seven Rashtriya Rifles were
involved in a chilling rape case against which the necessary govern-
mental action is yet to be taken (interview with human rights activists
in the Kashmir Valley, June 2004; Kashmiri Women’s Initiative for
Peace and Disarmament 2004).
The rape of a pristine young bride, Mubeena Bano of Lissar
Chowgam, on her way to her marital home is particularly disturbing.
In anticipation of her marriage to Abdul Rashid Malik on 18 May
1990, Mubeena had been weaving youthful dreams of creating a
romantic life away from the trials and tribulations of her militant-
infested village. Her family had gone to great lengths to give their
home a festive, bridal air. Despite threats from militants who were
opposed to celebrations of any kind, Mubeena and her relatives had
managed to create an atmosphere of laughter and happiness. Little
did Mubeena’s family know that their precious daughter, whom they
had sheltered from the turbulent waves of life, was not destined to
be indulged by the affection of her husband and in-laws. While on
her way to her husband’s home along with his entourage of relatives
and friends, baratis, the virgin bride was horrendously violated by
a bestial group of paramilitary personnel. The groom, Malik, and
some members of his entourage were brutally shot at without provo-
cation at Bodhasgam crossing. The pain-filled screams of the young
bride, who had given her heart and soul to her groom, would have
pierced the hardest of hearts. She had been defiled and her beauti-
ful innocence had ended. She felt abandoned with no one to turn to.
Had God forsaken her? Would she be saved by a messiah or would
she be left at the mercy of these satanic creatures? Was this a night-
mare that would vanish at the break of dawn? Would she wake up
to find herself in the bridal chamber, anxiously awaiting the sound
of her husband’s footsteps? Mubeena’s mind was so numbed that
she could not remember a single Quranic verse that she had been
taught to recite when in danger. Her husband, who had hitherto car-
ried himself with dignity, was incapacitated for a while after this
horrendous incident. I met Mubeena and Abdul Rashid Malik on
25 July 2008, at Sarnal. Mubeena is now an emaciated woman who
is plowing a lonely furrow. Subsequent to the violence unleashed on
18 May 1990 at Bodhasgam crossing, Mubeena was ostracized by
her in-laws. They were unwilling to forgive her for having been bru-
tally raped by paramilitary personnel. Despite the indelible scar on
her psyche and her humiliation, Mubeena had the resilience to cope
 Negotiating Boundaries 125

with the buffets that fate had dealt her. Her husband’s unflinching
support helped to strengthen her. Abdul Rashid, unlike a lot of men
raised in a patriarchal culture, was sympathetic to his wife’s physi-
cal pain and psychological crippling. He made the firm decision to
defy everyone who cast aspersions on Mubeena and who chose to
shun her. Abdul Rashid realized that he could have been in the same
plight as Mubeena. With the pervasion of the culture of violence and
humiliation of the dominated, there has been an increase of such
dishonorable and shameful incidents. Mubeena is now the mother
of three spirited and courageous children who know about the rep-
rehensible atrocities inflicted on their parents. Her children have the
strength to protect their mother’s dignity with aplomb. Her younger
son gave me the First Information Report (FIR) that his parents had
filed soon after the incident of 18 May 1990. That FIR, like many
others filed by people who lacked the armor of clout or money, was
buried under the detritus of law and order. Mubeena’s husband,
Abdul Rashid, like a lot of young and able-bodied Kashmiri men,
is unemployed, exacerbating his sense of impotence. Will the griev-
ances of such wounded and powerless people ever be redressed? Will
the violated women of Kashmir ever have the satisfaction of knowing
that those who wronged them did not go unpunished?
In order to further my research, in June 2009 I asked the director
of the Psychiatric Diseases Hospital, Dr. Margoob, to allow me to sit
in on a couple of his sessions with militancy related trauma patients.
Dr. Margoob was magnanimous enough to permit me to observe some
of these patients carefully. It was heart-wrenching to see despondent
women with hopelessness entrenched in their atrophied looks and
minds. Orphaned, widowed, improvident; socially marginalized and
left to their own devices; unsought by those with the means to help;
each sigh bespoke a grief that knew no bounds and had no hope of
respite. These repositories of communal values and cultural traditions
were unable to find a support system in a community that had experi-
enced the trauma of state formation at its expense. The political tur-
bulence in Indian-administered J & K has taken its toll on such people
and has left them stone-faced with a stoicism that expects no recom-
pense. Does the state give any thought to the economic and emotional
rehabilitation of such people? Dr. Margoob lends a sympathetic ear
to his patients; provides them with fatherly care; boosts their morale;
is quick to provide them with the necessary medical care; and is doing
groundbreaking work in a culture in which people don’t mention
psychiatric ills without fear of being stigmatized. It was enlightening
to see young men and women seeking psychiatric care of their own
126 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

volition. I was pleasantly surprised to see a peasant from a rural area

take his grandson to the child psychologist and beseech his grandson
to conceal nothing from the psychologist. But we still have a long way
to go in recognizing the dire consequences of trauma brought on by
political turmoil, military brutality, and psychosis of fear created by
such happenings. There are people who do not have recourse to the
judicial and administrative machinery. Prabal Mahato found in an
independent survey of the Psychiatric Diseases Hospital in Srinagar,
conducted July–August 1999, that post-traumatic stress disorders
increased from 1,700 in 1990 to 17,000 in 1993 and to 30,000 in
1998 (Mahato 1999). It is unfortunate that the more unaccountable
state-sponsored agencies have become in Indian-administered J & K,
the more aloof and gluttonous the bureaucratic, military, and admin-
istrative machinery has become. The culture of impunity has grown
around India and Pakistan unabated. Women and children are in a
miserable plight because of the lack of not just physical infrastructure
but from a deficit in gynecological, obstetric, welfare, and economi-
cally rehabilitative services as well.
I met three female patients of Dr. Margoob who were traumatized
after the loss of their male heads of the households. Two of the women
had been widowed and the third orphaned because of the frenetic
violence at the apex of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Indian-
administered J & K. Their counseling sessions with Dr. Margoob
were enabling them to redefine their life experiences as contribut-
ing to the depression and suicidal ideation in their adult lives; work
through the discourse of victimhood was developing into the con-
struction of their identities as survivors; they were clearly working
toward accepting their life circumstances and tentatively attempting
to redefine them within clear conceptual frameworks (see Warner
and Feltey 1999: 161–174, for details about traumatized women and
identity reconstruction). Do such patients have access to a commu-
nity perspective, or a reference group, or avenues for rehabilitation
(Shibutani 1961)?
Women representatives of the then ruling PDP and those of its ally,
the Congress Party, were quick to make visits accompanied by their
entourages to isolated villages or towns in which the Indian army had
trammeled upon the sensibilities of the female population. The PDP,
while in opposition, raised the issue of human rights abuses, which,
until then, had not been given much credence by the NC government.
But they were unable to advocate reforms that were specific to women,
and no stringent and timely measures were taken to redress those
wrongs. In effect, the Kashmiri woman is constructed as a parchment
 Negotiating Boundaries 127

on which the discourses of religious nationalism, secular nationalism,

and ethnic nationalism are inscribed, and the most barbaric acts are
justified by the Indian paramilitary forces as means to rein in separat-
ist forces and by militant organizations as means to restore the lost
dignity of the “woman.”

Construction of Kashmiri Womanhood by

Ethnonationalists
Secular as well as ethnonationalists assert that as long as the inner
or spiritual distinctiveness of the culture is retained, an autonomous
“nation” of Indian administered J & K can equip itself to cope with a
globalized world without losing its essential identity. This nationalist
discourse creates the dichotomy of the inner/outer in order to make
the inviolability of the inner domain look traditional. For example,
ethnonationalists assert that a native woman of Indian-administered
J & K who marries a non-Kashmiri, non-Dogra, or non-Ladakhi
loses her legal right to inherit, own, or buy immoveable property in
the state. To them, by inhabiting the metaphoric inner domain, the
native woman of J & K embodies the virginal purity of their culture
and ethnicity, and these would get tainted by her stepping over the
cultural threshold.
As a strategy to maintain the inviolability of the cultural sanctum
sanctorum, ethnonationalists problematize the law concerning state
subjects that was promulgated in J & K on 20 April 1927 by Maharaja
Hari Singh. This injunction was meant to protect the interests of the
local landed class and the peasantry against wealthy people from out-
side the state who had the wherewithal to buy the locals out of hearth
and home. In 1957 the new constitution of the state changed “state
subject” to “permanent resident,” and permanent resident status was
accorded to individuals who had been living in the state for at least a
decade before 14 May 1957. On 25 March 1969, the state government
issued an injunction requiring deputy commissioners to issue certifi-
cates of permanent residence to women of Indian-administered J & K
(Kashmiri, Dogra, Ladakhi, and Gujjar), with the stipulation that the
status was valid only till marriage. After that, women who married
permanent residents would need to get their certificates reissued, and
those who married outside the state would automatically lose their
permanent resident status; on the other hand, a male permanent resi-
dent would have the privilege of endowing his nonstate subject spouse
with the ability to own and inherit property in the state as long as she
128 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

did not leave the state for permanent residence elsewhere (for a clearer
delineation, see Abdullah 1993; Zutshi 2004).
In 2002, the High Court declared that this proviso had no leg-
islative sanction because it violated the gender equality clause of
the constitution of the state as well as of India. The court held that
the proviso relied on Section 10 of the British law, which had gov-
erned pre-partition India and which had itself been amended (see
Bhagat 2005; Puri 2004). The bench quoted Section 4 of the Sri
Pratap Consolidation Law Act to declare that the only legislative
prohibition was that the property inherited by a woman permanent
resident who married a nonpermanent resident could not be sold
to a nonstate subject. But this decision of the court created a furor,
with the then opposition NC asserting that the earlier proviso inval-
idating the permanent resident status of women who married out-
side the state as outmoded was an attempt to erode the distinctive
cultural identity of the state. The NC accused the then ruling PDP
of having made a compromise by withdrawing its appeal from the
Supreme Court against the judgment of the state High Court. The
angst of power caused the PDP, including its women members, to
immediately draft a Permanent Resident Bill reinforcing the earlier
stipulation. The High Court’s decision was supported by the PDP’s
coalition partner, the Congress. The issue of permanent residence
was hijacked by Hindu fundamentalist organizations, the BJP and
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to inflame regional divi-
siveness; they condemned the opposition of the NC and the PDP
to the High Court’s decision as acts of Muslim secession, which
excluded the predominantly Hindu Jammu. Representatives of the
NC and the PDP in the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council
opposed the decision of the High Court that declared the earlier
proviso archaic and outmoded, and the Congress and the BJP sup-
ported them (Puri 2004). In effect, thus, women were deployed as a
political tool not just by regional political organizations, but also by
national political parties.
Women politicians in the Legislative Assembly and Legislative
Council played the role of tokens, bolstering the social, cultural, and
moral institutions that maintain a male-dominated power structure
(Amnesty International, “India,” 2005; Kashmiri Women’s Initiative
for Peace and Disarmament 2004). Even those with access to the ech-
elons of power refused to engage “more effectively with the politics
of affiliation, and the currently calamitous dispensations of power”
(McClintock 1997: 396). Despite its firm promise, the then coalition
government comprising the PDP and the Congress was unable to
 Negotiating Boundaries 129

entirely incorporate the Special Operations Group (SOG), a paramili-

tary division of the police accused of heinous human rights violations,
into the regular police force. The SOG continues to run amok and
functions as an entity that only obeys the law of the jungle. Alongside
the SOG, the Special Task Force (STF), a militia group comprising
renegade militants, was incorporated into the regular police force
but was not disbanded, in contravention of a promise made by the
PDP government at the time of its installation in office. These forces
were deployed to handle extrajudicial matters in arbitrary ways, and
were responsible for gross misdemeanors against women (Amnesty
International, “India,” 2005).

Women as Repositories of Communal Values and

Cultural Traditions
Why is gender violence such a consistent feature of the insurgency and
counterinsurgency that have wrenched apart the Indian subcontinent
for decades? The equation of the native woman to the motherland
in nationalist rhetoric has, in recent times, become more forceful. In
effect, the native woman is constructed as a trough within which male
aspirations are nurtured, and the most barbaric acts are justified as
means to restore the lost dignity of women.
The story of the partition of India in 1947 into two separate nation-
states, India and Pakistan, is replete with instances of fathers slaugh-
tering their daughters in order to prevent them from being violated
by the enemy, and of women resorting to mass suicide to preserve the
“honor” of the community (for further discussion of gendering and
structural determinants of gender violence, see Kaul 1999; Kumari
and Kidwai 1998; Jayawardena 1986; Ray 2000). If a woman’s body
belongs not to herself but to her community, then the violation of that
body purportedly signifies an attack upon the honor (izzat) of the
whole community.
In one instance, the crime of a boy from a lower social caste
against a woman from a higher upper caste in Meerawala village in
the central province of Punjab, Pakistan, in 2002, was punished in a
revealing way by the “sagacious” tribal jury. After days of thought-
ful consideration, the jury gave the verdict that the culprit’s teenage
sister, Mai, should be gang-raped by goons from the wronged social
group. The tribal jury ruled that to save the honor of the upper-caste
Mastoi clan, Mai’s brother, Shakoor, should marry the woman with
whom he was accused of having an illicit relationship, while Mai
130 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

was to be given away in marriage to a Mastoi man. The prosecution

said that when she rejected the decision she was gang-raped by four
Mastoi men and made to walk home seminaked in front of hundreds
of people. The lawyer for one of the accused argued the rape charge
was invalid because Mai was technically married to the defendant at
the time of the incident (Reuters 2002).
Such acts of violence that occur on the Indian subcontinent bear
testimony to the intersecting notions of nation, family, and commu-
nity. The horrific stories of women, in most instances attributed to
folklore, underscore the complicity of official and nationalist histo-
riography in perpetuating these notions. I might add that the femi-
nization of the “homeland” as the “motherland,” for which Indian
soldiers and Kashmiri nationalists in Indian-administered Kashmir
and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are willing to lay down their
lives, serves in effect to preserve the native woman in pristine retarda-
tion. Although this essentialist portrayal of the Kashmiri woman in
J & K is clearly suspect, it is embedded more deeply in the quasi-feudal
culture of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan-administered
Kashmir has been a fiefdom of feudal lords whose only concern is with
the impregnability of their authority and the replenishment of their
coffers. Tribal women in Azad (Free) Kashmir are still circumscribed
within the parameters created by the paternalistic feudal culture that
disallows the creation of a space for distinct subjectivities; see discus-
sions about the creation of Pakistan in Cohen 2004; Talbot 1998).

Conceptualization and Crystallization of

Women’s Agency
My attempt to theorize women’s empowerment in terms that allow
the creation of a space for distinct subjectivities involves framing the
concept with regard to its cognitive, psychological, economic, and
political aspects. I borrow eminent educationist Nelly Stromquist’s
assertion regarding agency, which involves taking decisions that
deconstruct cultural and social norms, and beliefs that structure
seemingly intransigent traditional gender ideologies; the psychological
aspect refers to developing self-esteem, for which some form of finan-
cial autonomy is a basis; the political aspect involves the ability to
organize and mobilize for social change, which requires the creation
of awareness not just at the individual level but at the collective level
as well (Stromquist 1995: 12–22). For me, empowerment is a process
that enables the marginalized to make strategic life-choices regarding
 Negotiating Boundaries 131

education, livelihood, marriage, childbirth, sexuality, and so forth—

choices that are critical for people to lead the sort of lives they wish to
lead and that constitute life’s defining parameters (Kabeer 1999: 437).
It is important to keep in mind, however, that women are constrained
by and grapple with the normative structures through which societies
create gender roles.
I was raised in a secular Muslim home where we were encouraged
to speak of the “liberation of women” and of a culturally syncretic
society. I was taught that Islam provides women with social, politi-
cal, and economic rights, however invisible those rights are in our
society. It was instilled in me that Islam gives women property rights
(the right of Mrs. Ghulam Kabra, a Kashmiri state subject, to inherit
the property to which she was the legal heir was challenged as early
as 1939 because she had married a nonstate subject, but the High
Court legislated that she could inherit the property bequeathed to her
by her parents); the right to interrogate totalizing social and cultural
institutions; the right to hold political office (Khalida Zia and Sheikh
Hasina in Bangladesh, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Najma Heptullah
and Mohsina Kidwai in India, and my maternal grandmother,
Begum Akbar Jehan, in Kashmir [who represented the Srinagar and
Anantnag constituencies of J & K in the Indian parliament from 1977
to 1979 and 1984 to 1989, respectively, and was the first president
of the J & K Red Cross Society, from 1947 to 1951; see Lok Sabha
2000]); the right to assert their agency in matters of social and politi-
cal import; and the right to lead a dignified existence in which they
can voice their opinions and desires so as to “act upon the boundar-
ies that constrain and enable social action by, for example, changing
their shape or direction” (Hayward 1998: 271).
Renowned historian Tariq Ali, among many others, has
written about Begum Akbar Jehan’s enormous political and social
contribution:

She threw herself into the struggle for a new Kashmir. She raised
money to build schools for poor children and encouraged adult educa-
tion in a state where the bulk of the population was illiterate. She also,
crucially, gave support and advice to her husband, alerting him, for
example, to the dangers of succumbing to Nehru’s charm and thus
compromising his own standing in Kashmir. (Ali 2003: 230–31)

Begum Akbar Jehan established an organization, the Jammu and

Kashmir Markazi Behboodi Khwateen, in 1975, for the purpose of
providing women from the downtrodden sections of society with
132 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah and Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the
last viceroy of British India, with a Kashmiri peasant woman, 1947.
(Courtesy: The Archives of the National Conference, with the permission
of the general secretary of the National Conference, Sheikh Nazir Ahmad)

functional literacy, training in arts and crafts, health care, and social
security. Once economically empowered, these women would gain self-
respect, be able to protect their rights, and lead purposeful existences.
The organization was registered under the Societies Registration Act
of 1998. Its current vice chairperson, Suraiya Ali Matto, provided
 Negotiating Boundaries 133

illuminating information (e-mail dated 10 April 2008 about the aims

and objectives of the Behboodi Khwateen:

to impart intensive training to women in various arts and crafts which

would become a source of livelihood for them, enabling them to
become better citizens and homemakers, and work for the betterment
of society; to run homes for destitute women and disenfranchised
orphans; to provide supplementary nutrition to preschool children in
ghettoized areas; to provide accommodation for working women from
rural areas.

In order to highlight the groundbreaking work accomplished by local

agencies, cadres, and social networks in Kashmir, the distinction
between traditional praxes that conscript the role of women and pro-
gressive roles prescribed for women within Islamic norms needs to be
underscored by responsible scholarship and social work. The Western
preoccupation with empirical observation has led to an inaccurate
conflation of Islamic norms with practices. Western feminist episte-
mologies can impair the research paradigms, hypotheses, and field
work on women in Islamic societies.
I would emphasize that the articulation of the fervent patriotism of
Kashmiri women, which manifested itself in their emboldened pres-
ence in 1931, 1947, 1950, and 1975 until the dawn of insurgency and
counterinsurgency in 1989–1990, requires research that gives as much
credence to the path-paving work of women within religious, familial,
and communal frameworks as to the work of those women who decon-
structed established frameworks in order to lead subaltern movements;
motivate minority education as opposed to state-controlled education;
and recognize culture and history as sites of struggle.

Reminiscences about Women’s Agential Roles or

Lack Thereof, 1947 and 1989
Do women’s multiple narratives reveal a capacity for alternative ways
of negotiating the construction of conflictual identities? Does the
assumption of agential roles by traditional women in a patriarchal
culture cause an identity conflict crisis that can be resolved through
a firm commitment to specific values and goals? While reminiscing
about Begum Akbar Jehan’s and other women’s significant roles in
1947, Krishna Misri writes about the formation of the National Militia
and Women’s Defense Corps—volunteer forces of men and women
134 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

organized under the leadership of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah—to

ward off the onslaught that occurred on 22 October 1947 when
hordes of tribesmen from the Northwest Frontier Province, under the
patronage of the Pakistani army, crossed the border of the princely
state of J & K in order to coercively annex the region:

In the absence of a competent civil authority, volunteers of the National

Militia filled the void. They patrolled the city day and night with arms,
kept vigil, guarded strategic bridges, approaches to the city, banks,
offices, etc. With preliminary training in weapons, some of them were
deployed with army detachments to fight the enemy at the war front.
With its multi-faceted and radical activities, Women’s Self Defense
Corps (WSDC) was a harbinger of social change. It provided a forum
where women steeped in centuries-old traditions, abysmal ignorance,
poverty and superstition could discuss their issues. Attired in tradi-
tional Kashmiri clothes and carrying a gun around her shoulders,
Zoon Gujjari symbolized the WSDC. A milk vendor’s charismatic
daughter, hailing from a conservative Muslim family that lived in
downtown Srinagar, she received well-deserved media coverage. My
elder brother, Pushkar Zadoo, joined the National Militia, while I
along with my sisters, Kamla and Indu, became volunteers of WSDC.
We were first initiated into physical fitness and then divided into
smaller groups where weapons’ training was imparted. It was essential
to follow the instructions given by our instructor, an ex-army service-
man to a tee. Soon we understood the operational details of loading
and unloading a gun, taking aim, and finally pressing the trigger. To
get acclimatized to shooting the 303 rifle, sten-gun, bren gun and pis-
tol, practice drills were organized in an open area, known as
“Chandmari.” The initial nervousness soon gave way to confidence
and we would hit the target when ordered. For all parades including
“ceremonial guards” and “guard of honor,” the practice was that men’s
contingents were followed by women’s contingents.
During that invasion of 1947, Begum Akbar Jehan undertook exhaus-
tive relief work to rehabilitate displaced and dispossessed villagers. She
addressed the volunteers on political issues to raise their political con-
sciousness. Miss Mahmuda Ahmad Shah, a pioneering educationist and
champion of women’s empowerment, along with other women, was in
the forefront of WSDC. Begum Zainab was a grass-root level leader. She
took charge of the political dimension of WSDC. Shouldering a gun, she
was in the forefront, leading women’s contingents. Sajjada Zameer
Ahmad, Taj Begum Renzu, Shanta Kaul, and Khurshid Jala-u-Din
joined the “Cultural Front” and worked with Radio Kashmir as anchors,
announcers, and actors. Several women writers and poets emerged on
the literary scene and contributed to the cultural renaissance that fol-
lowed down the decades. (E-mail to author 5 April 2008)
 Negotiating Boundaries 135

Women, as evidenced by the work of constructive and rehabilitative

work undertaken by political and social women activists in the for-
mer princely state during both turbulent and peaceful times, have
more or less power depending on their specific situation, and they
can be relatively submissive in one situation and relatively assertive
in another. Assessing women’s agency requires identifying and map-
ping power relations, the room to maneuver within each pigeonhole,
and the intransigence of boundaries (Hayward 1998: 29). The level
of a woman’s empowerment also varies according to factors such as
class, caste, ethnicity, economic status, age, family position, and so
on. Also, structural supports that some women have access to bolster
their commitment to action. In 1950, the government of J & K devel-
oped educational institutions for women on a large scale, including
the first Government College for Women. This institution provided
an emancipatory forum for the women of Kashmir, broadening their
horizons and opportunities within established political and social
spheres. Higher education in the state received a greater impetus with
the establishment of the Jammu and Kashmir University (Misri 2002:
25–26). The mobilization of women from various socioeconomic
classes meant that they could avail themselves of educational oppor-
tunities, enhance their professional skills, and attempt to reform exist-
ing structures so as to accommodate more women. The educational
methods employed in these institutions were revisionist in nature, not
revolutionary. But the militarization of the political and cultural dis-
course in the state in 1989–1990 marginalized developmental issues
and negated the plurality of ideologies through a nonnegotiable value
system. In her e-mail to me (5 April 2008), Misri wrote about the gory
landscape of 1989:

In 1989, Kashmiris were caught between the terrorists and state terror-
ism, two sides of the same coin. Women bore the brunt of the suffering
since, ironically, the two forces wielding power shared a patriarchal
mindset that views women as symbols of individual and collective
“honor.” As has been the case throughout history, women’s bodies in
Kashmir became sites of war irrespective of their class, caste, religion,
region or ethnicity. Physical violations of women became common and
were used to challenge the collective honor of the community. Rape,
gang-rape, abductions, kidnappings, naked corpses with amputated
limbs hanging from tree-tops, were visible manifestations of the grim
reality that gripped women’s lives in the Valley. In addition were the
hordes of panic-stricken people on the run, uprooted from their moor-
ings, bereft of their home, history and identity. They had become refu-
gees in their own land. For women, the new reality was in part reflected
136 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

in the new identities they assumed: rape victims, abducted women,

widows, grass widows, migrants and so on. The United Nations
Declaration on Elimination of Violence against Women states that per-
vasive violence against women is a product of “unequal power rela-
tions” between men and women, which characterizes gender relations
in all parts of the world. Violence is built into patriarchal structures
and it is practiced during peace as well as war. Kashmiri women have
gone through immense turbulence and torture in the last two decades,
and reconstituting their devastated lives is a formidable challenge.
Given the urgency of the problem, what they need is empowerment.
However, much of the discourse in the last two decades has focused on
women either as victims/losers or welfare beneficiaries. Scant attention
has been paid to their attempts to reconstitute their lives and to face
the struggles of everyday existence. One of the ways in which victim-
ized and displaced Kashmiri women are rebuilding and creating
meaning in their lives is by taking up agency-oriented roles. The resource-
fulness of underprivileged women in becoming part of a larger recon-
stitution and conflict-mitigation process is to be commended. For
example, Parveena Ahangar’s untiring search for her son culminated
in the creation of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons.
This association has become a rallying forum for parents and relatives
in search of missing kith and kin. Others have set up self-help groups
that deal with specific issues pertaining to widows, grass-widows and
orphans. Still others have become involved in large-scale social work
and/or social activism.
Agency-oriented roles are highly visible in the political participation
and mobilization of women. Outnumbering men at times, they have
made their presence felt in a big way in protest rallies and dangerous
political missions. Women are organized under several political orga-
nizations that are affiliated to their male counterparts. Dukhtara-e-Milat
(“Daughters of the Nation”) is affiliated to a radical Islamist group and
advocates restrictive codes of conduct for women. They even condone
the use of coercive methods to enforce their agenda. Those aligned with
moderate militant groups, on the other hand, have less restrictive codes
and refrain from the use of coercive methods. At the other end of the
continuum is Daughters of Vitasta (Daughters of the Jhelum, a river
that is the lifeblood of Kashmir), the women’s wing of Panun Kashmir
(“Our Own Kashmir”), mainly operating from Jammu and Delhi. They
seek resolution of the problems of internally displaced Kashmiri Pandits
in terms of a separate homeland within the geographical space of the
Valley. Despite their varying perceptions, all the women’s organiza-
tions in India-administered J & K share some common traits: they are
based on a radical politicization of religious identities and their agen-
das exemplify their exclusionary ideologies. Though these women have
served in the lower and middle tiers of their respective organizations,
they have to date been excluded from the upper echelons. Some of these
 Negotiating Boundaries 137

organizations have expressed deep reservations about including women

in the top tier, and none of them has a plan of action for women. How
women perceive their future after struggle in a regressive discourse is
unclear. It appears that they look at issues from the lens of their patri-
archies and believe in an illusionary post-conflict resolution. While
women have gained some “agentive moments,” these gains are flawed
as their agendas stem from an insulated world-view.

I agree with Misri’s passionate articulation of the merciless forms

of oppression that Kashmiri women now confront: “The focus has
shifted from empowerment of women to the brutal politics of intimi-
dation and coercion symbolized by attempts to enforce a dress code
on them. . . . The burden of the new adjustments has disproportion-
ately fallen on women” (Misri 2002: 26).
Realizing the significance of oral historiography and the impor-
tance of preserving it for posterity, I touched base with Sajjida Zameer,
a dedicated member of the WSDC in 1947 and former director of the
Education Department, J & K. I also wanted to delve into the politi-
cosocial activism of women like Begum Akbar Jehan, Sajjida Zameer,
Krishna Misri, and Mehmooda Ahmad Ali Shah in order to study
their transition from keepers of home and hearth to people who saw
themselves as a social force to be reckoned with. Within the confines
of nationalist discourse they claimed the right to define themselves.
Sajjida was in the forefront of the cultural movement, designed to
awaken and hone a political consciousness through mass media:

In the early 1930s Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah spearheaded the

struggle for a socialist, democratic government under the banner of the
Muslim Conference. He had a very clear vision for Kashmir. Maharaja
Hari Singh’s rule hadn’t done anything for the masses. While select
courtiers and those who enjoyed royal patronage became richer, the
poor led a truly miserable existence. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
wanted the support of Indian leaders and masses to gain freedom from
the Maharaja. While the rest of India chanted “Quit India” to the
British, we in Kashmir chanted “Kashmir Chhod Do” (“Quit Kashmir”)
to the Maharaja’s government. I was very impressed by the fervor to
build a new Kashmir. The slogan was, “Kashmiriyon utho, yeh jang
hai apne aap ho banana ki” (“Wake up Kashmiris, this is a battle to
create yourself anew”). On 3 September 1947, under Operation
Gulmarg, Pakistan initiated its raid across the state borders. The state
administration was in shambles and the unending stream of refugees
from Pakistan created many problems for the ruler. The Maharaja fled
to Jammu, leaving Kashmiris to be brutally killed by the intruders. At
this stage it was Abdullah who took charge and enlisted the help of
138 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

civil society to save human lives. Even before Indian troops landed in
Srinagar, the citizens of Kashmir had organized themselves into a mili-
tia to protect the land from raiders. Young men who had never seen a
gun, let alone handled one, volunteered to join the militia. The wom-
en’s militia was formed simultaneously in 1947. The slogan that
inspired us was “Kadam kadam bhadayenge hum, mahaz pe ladenge
hum” (“We will advance step by step to fight on the front”). Women,
men and children were infused with a sense of patriotism. It was with
this spirit that the people of Kashmir lived without salt for six months.
Food items were to be supplied by Pakistan under the Standstill
Agreement, but Pakistan withheld supplies of essential commodities in
an attempt to force the issue of accession. The common Kashmiri puts
a pinch of salt even in his/her tea. Yet people did not complain. There
was a unifying bond of nationalism, a feeling that we could overcome
all hurdles. Men and women joined together to form committees to
prepare the people of the former princely state to fight against maraud-
ing raiders. I was able to follow the battles fought by the army due to
my involvement in the women’s militia. My husband, who was in the
men’s militia, kept me posted with all the details. I was an active vol-
unteer in the militia. We were trained in the use of firearms by Indian
army officers. Often firing competitions were held at Badami Bagh
cantonment. At one competition I fired on target. General Cariappa,
who was the chief guest, asked me to fire again to ensure that the bull’s
eye was not a mere fluke. I fired bang on target again, to win the
“Brigadier Lakhinder silver Cup.” I went to hospitals to visit the sol-
diers with homegrown fruits and vegetables. Some of them were so
young and were away from their families. But their cheerful courage
was heart-rending. For the first time I realized that war is initiated by
Machiavellian politicians, but soldiers lose their lives and the masses
are put through untold misery. Many army officers stand out in my
memory for the way they carried out their duties. War was thrust upon
India when Pakistan sent tribal irregulars and its soldiers into the for-
mer princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Even as the situation in the
Kashmir Valley was stabilized, the threat continued to be serious in the
Jammu region. On 3 November 1947 the raiders reached Badgam a
few miles from the Srinagar airfield. Major Somnath Sharma was sent
to Badgam. Being outnumbered by seven to one, Sharma immediately
sent a request to Brigadier Sen for reinforcements. He knew that if the
enemy advanced any further, the airport would be lost and Kashmir
would become a province of Pakistan; the airfield was the only lifeline
between the Kashmir Valley and the rest of India. His last wireless
message stated that they would fight to the last man and the last bullet.
Soon after, Somnath Sharma was killed by a mortar. In November, I
remember there was absolute panic because 3,000 enemy troops were
on the outskirts of Srinagar in Shalateng, just four miles from the city
 Negotiating Boundaries 139

centre, preparing to attack the city. In a brilliantly planned and exe-

cuted operation, Colonel Harbaksh Singh attacked Shalateng on 22
November and routed the Pakistani raiders. Finally, Brigadier Sen was
able to lure the raiders into the net of Indian forces, near Shalateng.
The raiders were defeated and the threat to Srinagar was over. If the
capital city had fallen, it would have been one of the greatest disasters
for the people of Kashmir. Today, there would have been no talk of
self-determination for Kashmir. We would have been administered
stringently like a poor cousin of Pakistan, similar to Pakistan-
administered Kashmir. I wonder how many Kashmiris realize this. The
militia worked with the army, guiding them through unfamiliar ter-
rain, gathering vital information and giving details of the raiders’
movement. The women’s militia played a substantive role in repulsing
the raiders. Zoon Gujjari of Nawakadal, Srinagar, Jana Begum of
Amrikadal, Srinagar, and Mohuan Kaur, a refugee from Baramullah,
Kashmir, were active participants in the women’s movement. Kashmiris
from all walks of life, irrespective of religion or race, actively partici-
pated in the various activities of the Cultural Front of the militia.
Prominent among the Kashmiri participants were Mahjoor, a very
famous poet who wrote poems about Kashmir, its freedom and secular
traditions. Other well-known indigenous poets in the movement were
Noor Mohammed Roshan Arif Beigh, Premnath Pardesi, Pushkar
Baan, Mohanlal Aima, Ghulam Mohammed Rah, and Abdul Sattar.
Lending his voice to their verses was Abdul Ghani Namtahali (from
Wathura Budgam, Kashmir). I must also mention Ghulam Qadir, a
small-time businessman who would partake in the activities.
I joined the cultural front due to a crisis situation that arose when
the leading lady, Ms. Usha Kashyap, in the play Kashmir Yeh Hai
(This is Kashmir) had to leave due to some pressing personal prob-
lem. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of independent
India, and other dignitaries were due to arrive to watch the play writ-
ten by Professor Mehmood Hashmi, a refugee from Jammu who had
fled to Srinagar. All the members of the Cultural Front pleaded with
me to take over Kashyap’s role. I had just a few days to prepare for
the grand event. However, the play was a huge success and it moved
the audience to tears. We staged another play during that time,
Shaheed Sherwani (Martyr Sherwani), written by Prem Nath Pardase
whose illustrious son Som Nath Sadhu, along with Pushkar Bhan,
later aired a very popular program, “Zoon Dab,” on Radio Kashmir.
I also worked for Radio Kashmir whenever required sans remunera-
tion. Also, I vividly remember the role played by Sumitra Lakhwara
and her sisters who worked relentlessly round the clock with the
women’s militia. Members of the women’s militia hoisted the flag of
Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir when Abdullah was sworn
in as prime minister of the state in 1948. Sumitra, her sister and I
140 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

passionately sang the anthem of the state, “Leheraaye Kashmir ke

Jhanday” (“The flag of Kashmir is unfurled and flies high”), at the
ceremony.
After the attack by Pakistani raiders was successfully repulsed, the
men’s militia was amalgamated into the Indian army as the Jammu and
Kashmir Light Brigade. The amalgamation, however, was not with ret-
rospective effect, from the day the militia was formed, but from a later
date. This affected the seniority of the officers and soldiers of the
Jammu and Kashmir Light Brigade. The fact that the amalgamation
came into effect from a date later than the actual formation of the
militia was construed as the Government of India’s attempt to dis-
criminate against Kashmiris. (E-mail from Sajjida Zameer to author,
1 April 2008)

Ironically, women in J & K have not yet found niches in the upper
echelons of decision-making bodies—political, religious, or social.
Asymmetrical gender hierarchies legitimized by the forceful dis-
semination of fundamentalist and militarized discourses portend the
debasement and prostration of women.
Kashmiri society needs to recognize the terror caused by such
predatory discourses that swoop down on the vulnerable, devour-
ing their ideological and experiential strengths. The retrieval of the
strength that nurtured the rich experiential content of the teachings
of mystic poet Lalla-Ded, the conviction of the women volunteers of
WSDC, the vision of women activists who were harbingers of change
in the sociopolitical and cultural realms, would facilitate the recom-
position of women’s roles in the significant process of nation building.
Do women embody the history of a culture and community only as it
is remembered in the murky corridors of officialdom? The inception
of the militant separatist movement in J & K in 1989 scorched the
landscape, particularly the headway that had been made in providing
women with educational and economic opportunities. The ongoing
story of the trouble-torn state is replete with instances of fathers forc-
ing their daughters to live in marital unions of psychological, sexual,
and material frustration, to prevent them from being violated by the
paramilitary forces or by trigger-happy militants; of women accept-
ing physical and emotional torture in their marital homes to preserve
the “honor” of the family and the community; and of women who
were “dishonored,” either by being violated or by asserting their
political and sexual agency, being shunned by their families (Amnesty
International, “India,” 2005; Kashmiri Women’s Initiative for Peace
and Disarmament 2004). Consider Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s
delineation of the contexts in which the politics of representation
 Negotiating Boundaries 141

renders mute the figure of the “third-world woman,” which would

apply to the situation in Kashmir:

Between patriarchy and imperialism, subject-constitution and object-

formation, the figure of the woman disappears, not into a pristine
nothingness, but a violent shuttling which is the displaced figuration of
the “third-world woman” caught between tradition and modernization.
(Spivak 1999: 304)

Power relations within the prevalent discourses of patriarchy and fun-

damentalism mediate the Kashmiri woman’s identity. The valoriza-
tion of her subordination is underwritten by praxes that legitimize
gender identities, which are necessary to patriarchal and fundamen-
talist dominance.
Despite the political mobilization of Kashmiri women during the
upheaval in 1931 and the politically volcanic “Quit Kashmir” move-
ment of 1946, they have now reverted from the public sphere to the
private realm. The onslaught of despotism in 1931 unleashed by
Maharaja Hari Singh awakened Kashmiri women from their slumber

Kashmiri women protesting against the atrocities inflicted by police and

paramilitary troops, Srinagar, Kashmir. (Courtesy: The collection of Shuaib
Masoodi/Rising Kashmir)
142 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

and induced them to rattle the confining bars of the monarchical cage.
Remarkably, the illiterate women of Srinagar, Kashmir, were initi-
ated into political activism and it was they who heralded the politi-
cal participation of educated women (Khan 1978: 115). The “Quit
Kashmir” movement of 1946–1947 saw the evolution of women into
well-informed and articulate protestors, assuming leadership roles in
the quest for a Kashmiri identity: “When male leadership was put
behind bars or driven underground, women leaders took charge and
gave a new direction to the struggle” (Misri 2002: 19). But this con-
sciousness of the women, which could have produced women cadres,
was diluted by the reversion to normative gender roles. Attempts to
drown the voices of progressive women into oblivion became more
frequent with the onset of militancy in 1989–1990. Can women step
out of their ascribed gender roles, once again, to significantly impact
sociopolitical developments in J & K? Can the political and social
exigencies of the women of J & K be addressed in more nuanced and
purposeful ways?

Delineation of Concrete Measures

In November 2007, an intra-Kashmir women’s conference, “Connecting
Women across the Line of Control (LOC),” was organized in Srinagar
by the Delhi-based Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation (CDR), in
collaboration with the Women’s Studies programs at the Universities
of Kashmir and Jammu. Women delegates from both sides of the LOC
participated in the conference to productively discuss concrete meth-
ods of rehabilitating victims of violence, either state-sponsored or mili-
tancy related. Women from Indian- and Pakistani-administered J & K
discussed the socioeconomic hardships, psychological neuroses, and
political marginalization caused by dislocation, dispossession, and
disenfranchisement. Delegates at the conference sought mobilization
of women for effective change in political and social structures. They
vehemently endorsed diplomacy and peaceful negotiations in order to
further the India–Pakistan peace process; withdrawal of forces from
both sides of the LOC; decommissioning of militants; rehabilitation
of Kashmiri Pandits to rebuild the syncretic fabric of Kashmiri soci-
ety; and rehabilitation of detainees (Barve 2008). Some of the strate-
gies delineated at the conference may seem utopian, but it highlighted
the ability to imagine confidence-building measures that grapple with
normative structures and underscore the decisive role that women
can play in raising consciousness, not just at the individual but at the
 Negotiating Boundaries 143

collective level as well, giving the marginalized a vision with which to

redefine life’s constituting parameters.
Historically, cultural, societal, and market constraints have denied
women access to information about the outside world. But the sort of
advocacy concretized by the intra-Kashmir women’s conference could
overturn the historical seclusion of women and provide them with
routes to make forays into mainstream cultural and socioeconomic
institutions. Perhaps the mobilization of women at the collective level
would enable a metamorphosis, fostering the skills and ability of
women to make informed decisions about issues in the nondomestic
sphere. The conference provided a forum where women’s experiences
were contextualized, theorized, and politicized. Culture inscribes a
wide range of experiences that centralizing institutions attempt to
render invisible and homogeneous. But women in J & K, as in other
postcolonial countries, are positioned in relation to their own class
and cultural realities; their own histories; their sensitivity to the diver-
sity of cultural traditions and to the questions and conflicts within
them; the legacies of Sufi Islam; their own struggles not just with the
devastating effects of Indian occupation and Pakistani infiltration,
but also with the discourses of cultural nationalism and religious fun-
damentalism; their own relations to the West; their interpretations
of religious law; their beliefs in the different schools of Islamic and
Hindu thought; and their concepts of the role of women in contem-
porary societies.
 Conclusion

Complexity of the Kashmir Issue

The people of Kashmir have tried, time and again, to translate them-
selves from passive recipients of violence, legitimated by legislations
of the physically and psychologically removed parliaments of India
and Pakistan, into subjects who recognize that they can exercise
agency and command their own destinies. They march forward with
a refusal to allow history to be imposed on them, and they attempt to
take charge of their own social and political fortunes. The confluence
of religious nationalism, secular nationalism, and ethnic nationalism
create the complexity of the Kashmir issue.
Over the years, successive Congress governments of the Indian
Union may have made attempts to highlight the purported illegitimacy
of Article 370, but they have taken no serious measures to revoke it
from the Constitution of India. Surprisingly, even the Hindu right-
wing BJP, when it assumed power in New Delhi, avoided succumbing
to the pressure put on it by its more fanatical cohorts to eradicate the
special status enjoyed by the Muslim-dominated Indian-administered
state of J & K. India’s policy vis-à-vis Kashmir was influenced by
other variables. Pakistan’s formal political alignment with the United
States motivated the Soviet Union, in the 1950s, to overtly support
the Indian stance toward Kashmir. The Soviet premier Khrushchev
made explicit his government’s pro-India position on Kashmir in
1955, when he belligerently declared in Srinagar, the heartland of the
Kashmir Valley:

The people of Jammu and Kashmir want to work for the well-being of
their beloved country—the Republic of India. The people of Kashmir
do not want to become toys in the hands of imperialist powers. This is
exactly what some powers are trying to do by supporting Pakistan on
the so-called Kashmir question. It made us very sad when imperialist
powers succeeded in bringing about the partition of India. . . . That
Kashmir is one of the States of the Republic of India has already been
decided by the people of Kashmir. (Jain 1979: 15–20)

The explicit political support of the Soviet Union in the Cold War era
bolstered Jawaharlal Nehru’s courage, and, in 1956, Nehru reneged
146 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

on his earlier “international commitments” on the floor of the Indian

parliament.
He proclaimed the legitimacy of the accession of Kashmir to
India in 1947, which ostensibly had been ratified by the Constituent
Assembly of J & K in 1954. Nehru’s well-thought-out strategy was
deployed in full measure when the Soviet Union vetoed the demand
for a plebiscite in Kashmir made at a meeting of the UN Security
Council convened at Pakistan’s behest (see Dasgupta 1968). It was
in 1953 that Pakistan initiated negotiations with the United States
for military assistance. Bakshi protested that “America might arm
Pakistan or help her in any other way but Kashmir will never form
part of Pakistan” (The Hindu Weekly Review 1953). Nehru vehe-
mently warned Pakistan and the United States that, “it is not open
[to Pakistan] to do anything on Kashmir territory, least of all to give
bases” (Indiagram 1953). He expressly declared that the agreement
between him and Pakistani Premier Liaquat Ali Khan regarding the
Kashmir issue would change if Pakistan received U.S. military aid
(Speech, House of the People, 29 December 1953).
Subsequent to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, India lost its
powerful ally (Kodikara 1993). India’s relations with the United States
reeked of distrust and paranoia at the time. This worsened when senior
officials in the first Clinton administration questioned the legality of
the status of Kashmir as a part of the Indian Union (Battye 1993). The
nonproliferation agenda of the United States in South Asia actively
undermined India’s proliferation strategy in the early and mid-1990s
(Perkovich 1999: 318–403). Washington’s agenda was propelled by
the fear that South Asia had burgeoning potential for a nuclear war in
the future (see Kelly 2008). Pakistan’s overt policy of abetting fanati-
cal Islamic elements in Kashmir and Afghanistan led to its political
insularity and seemingly legitimized India’s proactive approach. The
United States adopted the policy of persuading both India and Pakistan
to actively participate in the nonproliferation regime by agreeing to
comply with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and to an
interim cap on fissile-material production (Talbott 1998).

Human Rights Violations during the Insurgency

The insurgency in J & K, which has extracted an enormous price
from the people of the state, was generated by the systemic erosion
of democratic and human rights, discrimination against the Muslims
of the Valley, socioeconomic marginalization, relegation of the right
 Conclusion 147

to self-determination to the background, and so on. While the rebel-

lion may have been incited by India’s political, social, and economic
tactlessness, it has been sustained by military, political, and economic
support from Pakistan. Proponents of the independence of the state
of J & K are just as stridently opposed to Pakistan’s administration of
Azad (Free) Kashmir as they are to India’s administration of J & K.
During the ongoing insurgency, the Indian military has been granted
carte blanche without an iota of accountability. In a telephone con-
versation (21 April 2008) with the chairman of the breakaway faction
of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Yaseen Malik
reiterated his commitment to an independent J & K. Speaking in favor
of an ideology of nonviolence, in a tenor that was radically differ-
ent from the violent rebellion he had espoused in 1988–1990, Malik
was forthright in condemning the irreverence of the Indian Union
toward the aspirations of the people of J & K. He pointed out that
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had led a nonviolent struggle for self-
determination from 1953 to 1975, to no avail. During that period, the
Indian Union treacherously employed its institutional powers to grad-
ually defang Abdullah so that his struggle of mammoth proportions
could be pummeled into a much-weakened substitute. In the spirit of
Kashmiri nationalism, the JKLF keeps the revolutionary flames of the
Plebiscite Front (PF) alive, the movement spearheaded by Abdullah
and Mirza Afzal Beg, Malik said. (I have discussed the formation and
the credo of the PF in chapter three.) Foregrounding the ugly side of
Indian democracy, Malik pointed out that his espousal of nonviolence
has only won him more brickbats from the purported upholders of
democratic processes in the Indian Union. Although he declared a
unilateral cease-fire in June 1994, he and his comrades have been per-
sistently harassed, tortured, and brutalized. He observed that from
1988 onward the political sentiment of the majority of Kashmiris
has been concretized through immeasurable sacrifices made by the
people. Most families in the Valley have lost at least one member and
have been uprooted or dispossessed.
Custodial disappearances and deaths continue, and official
orders regarding the protection of detainees are brazenly rubbished.
While condemning the impunity with which paramilitary forces
and the police conceal the illegal, malicious, or premeditated kill-
ing of a detainee, the acting chairperson of the State Human Rights
Commission observed:

The growing incidences of torture and death in police custody have

been a disturbing factor. Experience shows that the worst violations of
148 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

human rights take place during the course of investigation, when the
police, with a view to secure evidence or confession, often resort to
third-degree methods including torture. It [the police] hides arrest
either by not recording the arrest, or terming the deprivation of liberty
merely as a prolonged interrogation. (Greater Kashmir, 20 March
2008)

A particularly draconian decree, the Jammu and Kashmir Public

Safety Act (1978), permits law-enforcing agencies to detain a per-
son for up to a period of two years on grounds of vaguely defined
suspicion. The act originally stipulated that a detainee could be kept
in custody for up to a year without being formally charged if public
order was in jeopardy and for up to two years if the security of the
state was jeopardized. A modification to the act in 1990 made it non-
obligatory for the authorities to provide the detainee with reasons
for his or her arrest. The International Commission of Jurists, in its
report, has drawn the inference that victims of the aforementioned
act have undergone terrible trauma. The discriminatory nature of this
act undermines efforts to discover the whereabouts of such persons
(Human Rights in Kashmir 1994).
Another equally stringent measure was the Terrorist and Disruptive
Activities (Prevention) Act of 1987, which was designed to quash ter-
rorist acts. In the zeal of the moment, the act defined disruptive activi-
ties in the following words:

any action, whether by act or by speech or through any other media or

in any other manner, which questions, disrupts the sovereignty or ter-
ritorial integrity of India, or which is intended to bring about or sup-
ports any claim for the cession of any part of India or the secession of
any part of India from the Union. (Section 4, as quoted in Human
Rights in Kashmir 1994)

This rather high-handed definition was a violation of the freedom of

speech. Under the act, two special courts were established, in Srinagar
and Jammu, to try arrested persons.
The Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act was
enacted in 1990, giving the Union government in New Delhi and its
representative in the state, the governor, the authority to arbitrarily
declare parts of J & K “disturbed areas” in which the military could
be willfully deployed to quell legitimate political activity. The mili-
tary was entitled to shoot to kill, which involved “a potential infringe-
ment of the right to life” (ibid.). The introduction of other severe
laws by the government of India has made it further nonobligatory to
 Conclusion 149

provide for any measure of accountability in the military and politi-

cal proceedings in the state. Despite these highly discriminatory and
unpopular measures, the support enjoyed by some of the militant
organizations in the early 1990s abated by the mid-1990s. Balraj
Puri (1995: 78) points out that the mushrooming of militant orga-
nizations, the disarray within their ranks, disagreements regarding
their ultimate objective, and Pakistan’s vacillating attitude toward
the insurgents contributed to the steady decrease in their verve and
influence.

Human Rights Violations in Areas under

Pakistani Control
While strongly conveying its disapprobation of the treatment meted
out to the Northern Areas by the government of Pakistan, the Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan reported, in its monthly newsletter in
January 1994, that:

The government of Pakistan governs the Northern Areas (NA)

through the Kashmir and Northern Areas Division (KANA).
Authority behind KANA has remained vague. The executive head is
the chief commissioner appointed by KANA and only answerable to
it. The place is totally under bureaucratic rule. There is no industry
in NA. The Judicial Commissioner does not have writ jurisdiction
and, as the people of the NA do not have any fundamental rights, the
Judicial Commissioner does not have jurisdiction to enforce them.
The Judicial Commissioner has no say in the appointments and the
transfers of subordinate court judges, which are done by the KANA
division. The people of the NA have no say in what laws should gov-
ern them. The KANA exercises the powers of the provincial govern-
ment for the NA, and by notification extends laws of Pakistan and
such amendments as it thinks fit to the NA. Entrusting such absolute
legislative powers to a government functionary is not without its
share of hardships. By a notification, Order 39 of the Civil Procedure
Code was amended, taking away the powers of the civil courts to
grant temporary injunctions against the government. By another
notification, the Speedy Trial Courts Act, 1992 was made applicable
to the NA with the amendment that in appeals from the trial court,
any differences of opinion between the two judges of the Appellate
court will be settled by the chairman of the court. Such arbitrary
application of laws is particularly unfair because not only do the
people have no forum to protest against or amend these laws, but
150 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

also because the courts have no writ jurisdiction, nor do the people
have any fundamental rights. Thus such laws cannot be tested for
their legality and reasonableness for violation of fundamental rights.
The Northern Areas Council is headed by the minister of KANA and
meets whenever called by the minister. The members cannot convene
a meeting. The orders require that a meeting of a Council should be
called every two and half months, but in practice the minister does
not convene one for months. The Council in any case has no power.
It cannot form a government, cannot legislate, and has no say in the
administration. It cannot suggest development schemes. The main
function of the Councilors, as a cynic said, is receiving dignitaries
from Pakistan. The police in the NA has no prosecution of crime
branch nor a forensic laboratory. No newspaper is published within
the NA. There are few local language weeklies and monthlies, but
they are printed elsewhere. It has even given rise to the occasional
rumor that the government itself pays the Ulema [Islamic clergy] to
start the clashes. With very low literacy, extreme poverty and no
organized political activity, it is not surprising that the Ulema have
acquired such a strong hold over the people. No judicial enquiry has
been held into the clashes in 1992, and no compensation paid to the
heirs of the person killed or for properties damaged.

The remorseless militarization of the region, ecological and economic

plunder, negation of legal procedures, lack of infrastructure, and vir-
tual erasure has fueled the hitherto restrained resentment and anger in
the NA. It is ironic that pro-Pakistan separatist groups in the Kashmir
Valley gloss over the arbitrary exercise of authority in the NA, and
glibly declare that these areas chose their geographical and political
affiliation, legitimizing the lack of fundamental rights and the unac-
countable authority of the KANA.

Military Crises and Diplomatic Rapprochements

During the last decade, each military crisis between India and Pakistan
has been followed by attempts at diplomatic rapprochement, which
have turned out to be fiascos. The two countries go through sporadic
peacemaking efforts, characterized by negotiations. For instance, in
January 2004, the then Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
and the Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, agreed “to the
resumption of a composite dialogue” on all issues “including Jammu
and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.” Musharraf assured
the Indian government that he would not permit “any territory under
 Conclusion 151

Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner”

(The Hindu, 6 January 2004). But this joint statement could not miti-
gate the existing skepticism:

Many observers have interpreted the joint statement as a tacit admis-

sion of Pakistan’s past support for the LOC in Kashmir and an indica-
tion of its resolve to finally end military confrontation over the dispute.
However, there is also considerable skepticism in India on the nature
of change in Pakistan’s policy: is it tactical or strategic? Similarly, the
Pakistani government fears that India is taking unfair advantage of
Islamabad’s restraint to consolidate its political and military grip over
Kashmir. (Kampani 2005: 179)

Pakistan has won the disapprobation of international powers by

adopting the policy of fighting proxy wars through radical Islamist
groups, which has reinforced New Delhi’s confidence that the inter-
nationalization of the Kashmir dispute would not get unwieldy.
India also believes that the restraint it exercised during the 1998
nuclear tests has given it the reputation of a responsible nuclear
power.
Despite international pressure, the India–Pakistan crisis has not
been defused; on the contrary, it is highly volatile. Given their inter-
ests in South Asia, Russia and China have expressed concern about
the brinksmanship between the two countries. In order to facilitate
a rapprochement, President Vladimir Putin of Russia offered to play
the role of mediator between Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and
Pakistani President Musharraf at the scheduled regional summit con-
ference in Almaty, Kazakhistan. Both Putin and the Chinese presi-
dent, Jiang Zemin, held talks with Vajpayee and Musharraf in order
to create a space for political negotiations. But the two heads of state
continued to remain aloof and uncompromisingly condemned each
other’s belligerence. The one positive outcome of the summit talks,
however, was the proposal of the Indian government for joint patrol-
ling of the Line of Control (LOC) by Indian and Pakistani forces.
But the Pakistani government was quick to reject this proposal and
expressed the requirement for building a third-party force instead.
Subsequently, the lethal and hitherto readily adopted practice of
maneuvering a dangerous situation to the limits of tolerance mellowed,
due to Vajpayee’s and Musharraf’s judicious approach to nuclear war-
fare. But the simmering grievances between India and Pakistan, and
the distress of the Kashmiri people, remained unredressed (Schofield
2002: 242).
152 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Indian Militarism and Pakistani Infiltration

Senior research associate at Proliferation Research and Assessment
Program, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Gaurav
Kampani’s (2005) assessment of Indian militarism and Pakistani infil-
tration seems of particular relevance: valid concerns about the disas-
trous repercussions of a large-scale conventional war and the menace
of nuclear escalation looming large on the horizon have deterred
India from launching full-scale attacks on training camps, insurgent
strongholds, and permeable routes in Pakistan-controlled territories
that precipitate infiltration (ibid.: 166). Pakistan has been successful
in aiding and abetting insurgents in Kashmir, in providing a red her-
ring to divert the attention of the Indian military from insurgency
and counterinsurgency operations in the Valley, and in underlining
the internationalization of the Kashmir dispute. Pakistan has care-
fully wooed the United States by making the argument that nuclear
disarmament can be achieved in South Asia only if the Kashmir crisis
is resolved (Iqbal 1993). Again, I turn to Kampani’s interesting infer-
ence regarding Pakistan’s strategic rationale for its nuclear capabil-
ity and its constant attempts to foreground the Kashmir issue: “the
political linkage between regional nuclear disarmament and the reso-
lution of the Kashmir dispute appears to be an opportunistic attempt
on the part of Islamabad to create nonproliferation incentives for
US policymakers to intervene in the Kashmir conflict” (Kampani
2005: 167; also see Chadha 2005). The Pakistani military reinforced
Western concerns regarding nuclear proliferation in South Asia. In
reaction to Pakistan’s aggressive transgression of the LOC, India
exercised political tact and restraint, winning international support
for its diplomacy. Washington’s political volte-face became apparent
when it explicitly demanded that Islamabad withdraw from occupied
Indian positions and maintain the legitimacy of the LOC in Kashmir.
It was implicit in this demand that it saw Pakistan as the egregious
aggressor.
The attempt by the United States to mitigate Pakistan’s aggression
also implied that it would not reinforce the status quo in Kashmir
(Kampani 2005: 171). Washington’s incrimination of Pakistani
aggression mitigated New Delhi’s fear that internationalization of
the Kashmir dispute would spell unambiguous victory for Pakistan.
India’s strategy of diplomacy and restraint increased the international
pressure on Pakistan to withdraw its forces from Indian territory.
India took recourse to limited conventional war under nuclear condi-
tions, prior to President Clinton’s March 2000 visit to New Delhi. At
 Conclusion 153

this point in time, proliferation was relegated to the background in

Indo–U.S. relations. In an e-mail to me (dated 10 April 2008), senior
advocate of the Supreme Court of India, the late P.N. Duda, wrote:

The US has a morbid syndrome of commune-phobia. After the end of

the World War I, Palestine was brought under the mandate of the UK,
and on releasing it for freedom, an enclave in the heart of Palestine,
Israel, was created as landing, stacking and attacking base to all West
Asian states. Now the sole superpower and its conclave are interested
in creating another Israel to artfully manage the former Soviet Union,
China, Mongolia and Afghanistan in South Asia. There cannot be a
better place for that than India.

Stephen P. Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta underline the further reces-

sion of this issue to the background during the Bush administration.
The neoconservatives in that administration zeroed in on India as a
country in the Asia–Pacific region that would offset China’s burgeon-
ing economy, which I see as an attempt to reconstruct the Cold War
paradigm (“U.S.–South Asia: Relations under Bush,” 2001).
U.S. strategic ties with New Delhi were further consolidated in the
wake of 11 September 2001, when the links between militant Islamic
groups and Pakistan’s military and militia forces were underscored.
As one of the consequences of the decision of the Bush administration
to eliminate Al-Qaeda and its supporters in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s
General Pervez Musharaff found himself with no option but to sever
ties with the Taliban. Following this drastically changed policy deci-
sion to withdraw political and military support from Al-Qaeda and
the Taliban, Islamabad found itself unable to draw a clear line of dis-
tinction between “terrorists” in Afghanistan and “freedom fighters”
in Kashmir. Islamabad’s quandary proved New Delhi’s trump card
(Chaudhuri 2001). New Delhi was able to justify its military stance
vis-à-vis Pakistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the J & K
State Assembly in the summer capital, Srinagar, in October 2001,
and then the attacks on the Indian Parliament, New Delhi, a month
later. New Delhi’s strategy was validated by U.S. military operations
in Afghanistan and the deployment of U.S. forces in and around
Pakistan to restrain Pakistani aggression. India was assured by the
United States that it would stall any attempt by Pakistan to extend
the Kashmir dispute beyond local borders, which might disrupt its
operations against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Also, deployment of
the U.S. military in Pakistani air bases strengthened New Delhi’s con-
fidence that Islamabad would hesitate to initiate nuclear weapons use
(Kampani 2002). The result of India’s policy of coercive diplomacy
154 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

was that the Musharraf regime was pressured by the United States to
take strict military action against the mercenary and militant Islamic
groups bolstering the insurgency in Kashmir (Armitage 2002). New
Delhi was successful in getting Islamabad to both privately and pub-
licly renounce its support of insurgents in J & K.
The Indian administration decided that in the event deterrence
measures failed, the Indian army would have to fight a limited conven-
tional war under nuclear conditions. The possibility of fighting a war
has driven the Indian government to contemplate a nuclear response to
Pakistan’s deployment of nuclear weapons (see Chengappa 2000). But
Indian leaders have threatened Islamabad with punitive measures if
Pakistan resorts to nuclear weapons use (Tellis 2001: 251–475). India
and Pakistan routinely brandish their nuclear capabilities to intimi-
date each other. The two countries have also resorted to direct nuclear
signaling through ballistic-missile tests. Such strategies emphasize the
military and political volatility in South Asia (Dawn, 27 December
2001). Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has given its military the prowess
it requires to exploit the disgruntlement of the Muslim population of
the Kashmir Valley. Kampani makes an intelligent assessment about
the growing nuclear capabilities of both India and Pakistan, and the
role they have played in deterring a large-scale conventional war.
Pakistan’s military leaders are privately convinced that its daunting
nuclear arsenal has dissuaded India from embarking upon a large-
scale war. India’s cautious stance is, however, dictated by multiple
factors. Its primary concern is that a limited war will not enable it to
accomplish substantive political or military objectives; that such a war
might spin out of control and would be impossible to cease according
to the wishes of the administration and the military; that India might
find itself in disfavor with and spurned by the international commu-
nity; and that a war might beef up nuclear armament. The impending
menace of precipitative nuclearization has been one of the many fac-
tors underlining the necessity to maintain a quasi-stable regime in the
South Asian region (Kampani 2005: 177). In effect, one of the ramifi-
cations of India and Pakistan climbing the ladder of nuclear prolifera-
tion has been a tottering stability, maintained amidst the continuing
conflict in Kashmir. However, the overt support that the Pakistani
government has lent to the insurgents in Kashmir has enabled India to
tarnish Pakistan’s reputation by labeling it a terrorist state.
Pakistan’s explicit aiding and abetting of insurgents in Kashmir
has created misgivings about its strategies and enabled India to pre-
vent UN mediation. New Delhi managed to diminish the threat
of internationalization of the Kashmir dispute in 2001–2002 by
 Conclusion 155

threatening a nuclear exchange unless the United States intervened to

prevent Pakistan from fomenting cross-border terrorism (ibid.: 178).
The ideological and power rivalry between India and Pakistan, how-
ever, transcend the Kashmir dispute (Tellis 2001: 8–11). Regardless
of the possibility of nuclear restraint in South Asia, a resolution of
the Kashmir dispute would put a monkey wrench in the drive in both
countries to beef up their nuclear arsenals.

Groping for Concrete Resolutions to the Conflict

Disenchanted by the intractable political positions taken by India and
Pakistan vis-à-vis the former princely state of J & K, there are orga-
nizations, political leaders, insurrectionists, intellectuals, and social
activists on both sides of the LOC that propagate politically workable
solutions for a resolution of the complex Kashmir issue. For example,
the late G.M. Shah, political veteran and older son-in-law of Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah, also former chief minister of J & K and presi-
dent of the Awami National Conference, took an initiative of provid-
ing a broad-based forum for masses, leaders, and intellectuals of all
hues and faiths to come together and deliberate upon the intricate
Kashmir tangle. His desire was to generate practically workable and
politically feasible recommendations for coming out of the imbroglio.
Toward this objective he had proposed a two-day conference, “J & K
Conference—In Search of Peace and Solution,” in Jammu on 17–18
March 2001 to enable the “power of dialogue” to reassert itself in the
former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir;

to enable, for the first time in fifty years, political leaders, protagonists
of the armed struggle, social activists, intellectuals, technocrats and
eminent citizens from both sides of the Line of Control to meet and
interact; to enable the supporters of diverse political solutions and
thoughts to sit face to face and exchange views on the political, ethnic
and social dimensions with the people of all regions of the state; to
enable detailed discussions on all aspects and complexities of different
proposals put forth over the past fifty years by various personages and
political opinions for the resolution of the Kashmir issue. (E-mail to
the author from G.M. Shah dated 2 April 2008)

The objective of this conference was to generate ideas, proposals, and

recommendations for a broad-based resolution to the conflict, which
would be acceptable to the people of the state. Shah’s well-publicized
willingness to undertake this initiative awakened eager interest
156 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

in Gilgit, Baltistan, and Skardu as well. But the turmoil in Indian-

administered J & K and rumblings of discontent in Balawaristan,
unfortunately, created an atmosphere distended with misgivings and
paranoia. The governments of India and Pakistan, impaired by the
travails of political instability and military belligerence, did not allow
the conference to be held in 2001.
I do not question the bona fide intentions that might have propelled
Shah’s organization to propose an intra-Kashmir conference. But,
rather than hypothetical ideas, the deescalation of violence in the for-
mer princely state requires decentralization of power. Decentralized
autonomy in the entire region might prove a feasible solution to the
political upheaval in the state. A well-constructed autonomy pro-
posal, observes ex-foreign secretary of India Jagat S. Mehta, would
require Pakistan to terminate its policy of infiltration and abetment
of the insurgency in J & K. The political legitimacy of the state and
its autonomous status would be established by the retention of Article
370 of the Indian Constitution. The separate identities of Jammu
and Ladakh would be accommodated in the aforementioned policy
of decentralization, and not through divisions along ethnoreligious
lines. The LOC would be converted into the de facto international
border, facilitating travel and economic exchanges while maintain-
ing the political status quo of India and Pakistan. Free and fair elec-
tions in a democratic setup would need to be held simultaneously
in both Indian- and Pakistani-administered J & K, after which the
two elected governments would establish contact with each other in
order to encourage economic and cultural exchanges between the two
parts of the former princely state. Mehta’s proposal stipulates that a
final resolution of the Kashmir issue would be shelved for an agreed
upon period, during which Pakistan would refrain from demanding
internationalization of the issue or from holding a partial or state-
wide plebiscite under UN auspices (Mehta 1992: 388–409, quoted in
Wirsing 1994: 225–28).
In an e-mail exchange (dated 14 April 2008) that I had with a
source at the Pakistan chapter of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference
(APHC), the source observed that:

the turbulence in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has had a

terrible fall-out on the political, economic and social life. Today, our
politics is rough, vulgar, vengeful and materialistic. The economy of
the state is devastated, and the social fabric has broken with disparity
and unemployment amongst the lower sections of society. Moral val-
ues are trembling, and exploitation of weaker sections such as women,
 Conclusion 157

widows and orphans is common. Islam is used merely as a political

slogan and not as the most peaceful code of conduct and civilization.
A viable solution to the conflict is to create a neutral, independent and
federal democratic state of Jammu and Kashmir after complete demili-
tarization of the state. Let the right of self-determination of Kashmiris
be supreme. Both India and Pakistan should respect the free will of the
people of the state [former princely state]. There is a profound truth in
the statement of Sir Morrice James, British High Commissioner to
Pakistan in 1961–66, who, before his death in November 1989, said
that, “if Kashmiris had inhabited an area of Sub-Saharan Africa or an
island in the Indian Ocean instead of a key area of the Himalayas, their
flag would long since have been hoisted along with those of other
states—outside the United Nations building in New York.”

Rather than demand pulverization of the insurgency and cessation of

infiltration, the people of Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir
would favor resumption of dialogue with the militant groups in the
state.
In order to protect the autonomy of the state, Article 370, which (as
I have shown in chapter three) has undergone steady erosion, would
need to be bolstered. Once the LOC is converted into a de facto inter-
national border, the Kashmir issue would be relegated to the cata-
combs of history. What substantive measures would sustained contact
between the democratically elected governments of the two halves of
the former princely state achieve? Is Mehta’s insistence on Pakistan’s
renunciation of its demand for a plebiscite under UN auspices a sur-
reptitious way of India ensconcing itself in a no future negotiations
position? Does this proposal take the ethnic divisions in the former
princely state into account?
Policy analyst and veteran journalist B.G. Verghese advocates a solu-
tion that would allow for conversion of the LOC into a soft, demilita-
rized international border. He proposes the creation of an overarching,
transnational administration that would facilitate periodic meetings
on matters of common interest, such as trade and tourism, economic
exchange, environmental concerns, and so on (Verghese 1993, quoted
in Wirsing 1994: 229). The efficacy of such an administration is not,
however, developed by Verghese beyond its nascent appeal. The auton-
omy option is a lot more complex than it is made out to be by the
plethora of proposals laid out by the Indian intelligentsia. As opposed
to the various autonomy proposals, the notion of independence for
either part or all of the former princely state is derided as impractical,
economically destructive, and dangerous in terms of arousing the mon-
strous passion of communalism in the rest of the Indian subcontinent.
158 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

Robert G. Wirsing (1994: 231) sums up the repugnance toward inde-

pendence for part or all of J & K in both India and Pakistan: “Kashmiri
self-determination . . . has never meant for Pakistanis that Kashmiris
had a right to any more than a bifold choice of destinies. The seem-
ing unpopularity of the independence option among both Indians and
Pakistanis leaves the Kashmiri Muslims as its only consistent advo-
cate.” Will such seemingly nonnegotiable antipathy expressed by polit-
ically and militarily powerful players allow for the implementation of
UN resolutions by holding a free, fair, and internationally monitored
plebiscite in the state?

Historical Omissions and Repressions

P.N. Duda wrote to me (e-mail dated 15 April 2008) about the tur-
moil in the state in an amusingly perceptive manner:

I think I should stop reading newspapers. They make me sick with

disgust. It has become common in the world of public media that the
government of India will continue army siege of Kashmir till terrorism
does not die, and in Kashmir making generous offer of line of control
being converted to international border of Kashmir—India’s common-
place political refrain! Or, Pakistan generously participating in bilat-
eral talks with India from section officers’ to secretaries’ levels. That
conveys nothing more than dogs in rings, moving at tremendous speed
and stopping precisely at the point wherefrom they started. I fear both
India & Pakistan have gone totally mad. The export wealth of G-7 is
conventional arms and ammunitions. Under USA foreign affairs strate-
gies currently, there are around four hundred big and small armed
conflicts going on at intra or inter third world countries, USA in main
and other G-7 giants graciously providing toys of killing in exchange
for surrendering their options for development to breaking tariffs for
flooding their markets with lifestyle junk. Their hundred percent occu-
pations are: for one, occupying Kashmir without meaning it; the other,
maintaining it as a state under siege. For both it is a God-given gift to
both rape people’s minds with animus against the other, for seeking
support for their underworld politics that has taken the most dominant
place in both. Not surprisingly, both tacitly being armed to their fin-
gertips to be engaged in a Kilkenny Cat fight till rendered into lifeless
bleeding tails.

The insurgency in Kashmir, India and Pakistan’s ideological differ-

ences, and their political intransigence could result in the eruption of
a future crisis.
 Conclusion 159

The atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust is exacerbated by the

frightening attempts of Hindu fundamentalist groups to rewrite
Indian history and the recasting of Pakistani history by Islamist orga-
nizations: efforts to radically redefine Indian and Pakistani societies
in the light of ritualistic Hinduism and Islam, respectively. Writing
about this antihistorical attitude, Kai Friese reported in the New York
Times that in November 2002, the National Council of Education
Research and Training, which is the central government organization
in India that finalizes the national curriculum and supervises educa-
tion of high school students, circulated a new textbook for the social
sciences and history. The textbook conveniently overlooks the embar-
rassing fact that the architect of Indian independence, Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist in
1948, a year after the proclamation of independence. Friese also
points out that Indian history has been embellished with some inter-
esting fabrications, one of which is the erasure of the Indus Valley
civilization and the conjuring up of a mythical “Indus–Saraswati”
civilization in its stead. This is a strategic maneuver to transform a
historical civilization into a mythical one. The chapter on the Vedic
civilization in the history textbook lacks important dates and is inun-
dated with uncorroborated “facts,” such as: “India itself was the orig-
inal home of the Aryans. The Aryans were an indigenous race and the
creators of the Vedas” (Friese 2002). Similarly, mainstream Pakistani
history portrays the movement for the creation of the nation-state
of Pakistan as a movement for an Islamic state, the carving out of
which became a historic inevitability with the first Muslim invasion
of the subcontinent. This version of Pakistani history establishes the
Islamic clergy as the protagonists of the movement for the creation
of a theocratic state (Hoodbhoy and Nayyar 1985: 164–77). Such
propaganda to further narrow agendas makes it impossible to hold
informed debates on issues of political and religious import. Jingoistic
textbooks and biased interpretations negate the possibility of reach-
ing a national consensus regarding Kashmir.
In the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007,
the politically chaotic climate of Pakistan, the belligerence of the mili-
tary, and the tenacious control of fundamentalist forces basking in
the glories of a misplaced religious fervor stoked by a besmirched
leadership, can India and Pakistan produce visionary leaders capable
of looking beyond the expediency of warfare, conventional or oth-
erwise? Will the emerging leadership in Pakistan seek to douse the
flames that threaten to annihilate the entire region by shelving the
issue for future generations to resolve? Preparing to lead the new
160 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

coalition government in Pakistan, cochairperson of the Pakistan

People’s Party and Benazir’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, condemned
the distrustful atmosphere created in the Indian subcontinent by the
Kashmir imbroglio. While underwriting the importance of fostering
amicable relations between the two countries, Zardari said that the
Kashmir conflict could be placed in a state of temporary suspension,
for future generations to resolve (Greater Kashmir, 22 March 2008).
Will the besieged populace of the state of the former princely state of
J & K remain beholden to a leadership that doles out crumbs to them
while dividing the spoils among themselves?
There is a dearth of responsible leaders in Indian-administered
J & K: “Admittedly, there is no Sheikh Abdullah now, no single leader
who authoritatively embodies the aspirations of his people” (Guha
2004: 15). Unlike the Machiavellian actors in current subcontinental
politics, as Dr. Wahid, retired chair of the Department of Internal
Medicine, Sher-e-Kashmir Institute for Medical Sciences, Srinagar,
eloquently observed,

every one of the founders of the freedom struggle who assembled in

1931 against the autocratic Dogra rule knew that this rebellion would
mean death, torture, imprisonment and what not. Their ultimate aim
was not to win an assembly seat. They were not electoral politicians.
They all were a gift from God, who were destined to lead a tough
struggle. They were all young and were not familiar with political
machinations and maneuvering. They all had a sentiment and har-
bored a purpose. In spite of having interpersonal misgivings and
distrust, they all were great and the nation owes a lot to them. Nobody
is perfect. They all had a deficiency here and there. But every great
person can have such deficiencies. This does not make him small. Every
one of them thought that his ideology was correct. Some of our intel-
lectuals try to belittle their greatness and nobility. It is ironic that both
India and Pakistan tried to demolish Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah but
they did not succeed. Our tragedy is that we are never objective and
carry with us malice and hatred based on false and ill-fed propaganda.
(E-mail to the author dated 25 March 2008)

Within the wide political spectrum in the state, one does not even
come close to a representative body willing to forge a reasonable
dialogue. Duda, too, lamented the leadership vacuum in the Indian
subcontinent, made more glaring by the insidious political culture
in India and Pakistan. Before he passed away in December 2009,
he was working on a Causative History of Kashmir Politics since
Partition with Dr. Pushpesh Pant of the Department of International
 Conclusion 161

Relations, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Duda wrote (in

an e-mail to the author dated 6 April 2008):

For four and a half decades, your grandfather, Sheikh Mohammad

Abdullah, played the same role in politics which Noor-ud-Din Wali
and Lalla Arifa played in religion. I look upon him as the greatest
secular leader South Asia has produced. And when I say that I have in
mind Nehru and Gandhi too, who didn’t come close to him in secular
and humane politics. The Kashmir matter calls for two voices: prob-
lem exists; no solution seems plausible. These leaders have come to be
carrying a price-tag; almost the entire leadership is a commodity for
sale and purchase; there is no idealism; no patriotism; people of
Kashmir (India-occupied) will suffer if Pakistan gets control over them
because they might be looked upon as apostates and suffer worse;
Kashmir on boil is providing to both India and Pakistan a blood-
stained bowl for begging that provides access to easy money. The
material problems and ambitions will continue to be rewarding in mul-
tiples if the movement continues with slaughter, death and rape of a
few to seek notice and attention. Some time back I read a gossip col-
umn that an army officer from Uri, near the de facto Pakistan border,
revealed that when some insurgents were trying to cross over from
across the border, a bargain took place: five were killed (for a pat on
the back from Army headquarters), twelve were permitted to enter (for
booty-sharing of sizeable degree in US dollars). The Muslim leadership
in Kashmir has reached an abysmally degenerate stage of the political
marketplace where they sell the interest and honor of Kashmir to polit-
ical mafiosos of India. The way the Hindu fundamentalist leadership is
behaving is metaphorically spitting on the faces of Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, manifesting the
fast-depleting traces of secularism.

Efficacy of the Discourse of International

Conferences on Local Realities
In an attempt to create a congenial atmosphere for rational dia-
logue, the globally known nonprofit organization Pugwash orga-
nized a two-day seminar on the Kashmir conflict, in the capital city
of Pakistan, Islamabad, on 29–30 March 2008. The purpose of the
Pugwash conference was to facilitate a convention of public figures
and intellectuals from India, J & K, Pakistani-administered J & K,
and political and scholarly persons of international repute, in order
to define conflict-mitigating strategies in South Asia. The governmen-
tal and military representatives at the conference discussed stability
162 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

in the state of J & K; initiatives to promote peace and cooperation

between India and Pakistan; volatility of the situation in Afghanistan
and measures to counter the instability in that region; and the impact
of the changed Pakistani political scenario on the South Asian region
(Daily Etalaat, 3 April 2008).
Such conferences are held on a regular basis but the propositions
discussed have failed to make a substantive impact on the fragile
Kashmir issue. Although representatives from both sides of the LOC
make regular appearances at these venues, the prevalent discourse
is rather elitist in nature and the woes of the marginalized remain
unheard. Participants at the 2008 Pugwash conference in Pakistan
were those with access to the higher echelons of power who prefer to
toe the line of totalitarian political and cultural institutions, and who
to date have not outlined a meaningful plan for conflict resolution
and rehabilitation of the dispossessed in the fractious political sphere
of J & K. A global discourse that is generated at international forums,
such as the recent Kashmir Summit Meet in Brussels, Belgium, held
on 1 April 2008, can do little to formulate constructive programs
for the ethnic and religious minorities in the bellicose nation-states
of India and Pakistan unless the bona fide effort is to demilitarize
the region and rehabilitate the disenfranchised—those who have been
languishing in Indian and Pakistani jails without a cause, militancy
affected people, and victims of counterinsurgency repression. At times
it seems that such summits, organized by the hegemonic powers, and
their privileged participants would not willingly allow the dilution of
their raison d’être, namely, conflict situations.
A feasible solution to the conflict in Kashmir must fulfill the con-
ditions delineated decades ago by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. It
should not be designed to assuage the insecurities of either India or
Pakistan. But it must, unconditionally, allay the fears of ethnic and
religious minorities in both countries, and it must be in accordance
with the wishes of the people of the state. International legal scholar
Gidon Gottlieb, in his discussion of the changing world order, under-
lines the need to deconstruct old notions of sovereignty and, instead,
construct a transnational community that would endow stateless
peoples with citizenship and territorial and security guarantees:

Nations and peoples that have no state of their own can be recognized
as such and endowed with an international legal status. Those that are
politically organized could be given the right to be a party to different
types of treaties and to take part in the work of international organiza-
tions. (Gottlieb 1993, quoted in Wirsing 1994: 233)
 Conclusion 163

But the solution outlined by Gottlieb is unrealistic and rather utopian.

It is predicated on the nullification of national identity, cultural integ-
rity intertwined with attachment to territory, and is clearly a politi-
cally vexed issue for the people of the former princely state, who, as
I have underlined in the introduction, would stop being altogether in
the absence of a body politic built on national pride. A solution of this
sort could lead to further balkanization in the South Asian region,
depleting national resources.
The Indian Union is on the verge of becoming an insuperable eco-
nomic power. In order to enhance its economic and political clout in
the South Asian region, it requires stability. Can it begin the process
of establishing itself as a stable political force by initiating a serious
political process in Kashmir in which the people of the state have a
substantive say (telephone conversation with Yaseen Malik, chairman
of the breakaway faction of the JKLF, on 21 April 2008)? A political
package short of autonomy for the entire state is viewed with suspi-
cion by Kashmiris. Can the governments of India and Pakistan make
a smooth transition into the globalized world by shelving the poli-
tics of duplicity and recognizing the autonomous status of the former
princely state? I do not pretend to know the answers to these ques-
tions. I do not know if the brand of treacherous politics that pervades
not just the Indian subcontinent, but also Western vested interests
will undergo a transformation in the years to come. Will the interna-
tional community recognize the poignancy of the countless sacrifices
made by the people of Kashmir over the last eighteen years?
In a post 9/11 world, political and cultural edifices that have been
entrenched by imperial discourse have sanctified the convenient “first
world–third world” dichotomy. Institutional politics have facilitated
the construction of the “third world” subject as an eternally feral being
whose essential savagery is not amenable to sociocultural condition-
ing. The rationale provided for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan,
for example, is those territories’ purportedly dehumanized condition
that cries out for enlightenment, underscoring the constructed besti-
ality of non-Western, other cultures. The rhetoric of hate and destruc-
tion rent the air and engender a mass hysteria, inciting communal
riots and human rights violations, as evidenced, for example, by the
reprehensible negligence of human rights in J & K and the relentless
persecution of Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002.
The construction of the “first world–third world” dichotomy has
befouled institutionalized politics and cultures, and vitiated progres-
sive political and social change. In such a scenario, I, as a feminist
activist–scholar, have sought to reinterpret the repressive frameworks
164 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

of military occupation, nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and

an ethnoreligious nationalism that developed unevenly among the
social classes and regions of J& K. I have written this book specifi-
cally with the goal that it be useful in getting a broader picture of
the Kashmir issue. I, uncharacteristically, have consigned theory
to an obscure position, no matter how sophisticated, if I thought it
did not have a practical application to the real lives of real people
in J & K.
As I revise this conclusion to my book, the 2008 J & K Assembly
election results have were declared in December 2008 and an
NC–Congress coalition government was installed in January 2009.
As the results of the assembly elections show, none of the mainstream
political parties elicited a particularly ecstatic or loyal response from
the electorate. Out of 46 assembly seats in the Kashmir Valley, the
NC won 20, the PDP won 19, and the Congress secured 3 seats. Out
of 37 assembly seats in Jammu, the NC won 6, the PDP won 2, the
Congress made quite a showing by securing 13, and the Hindu right-
wing BJP performed incredibly well by winning 11—a tremendous
leap from the 1 seat it had won in Jammu in the 2002 assembly elec-
tions. In Ladakh, the NC won 2 out of 4 assembly seats, the Congress
won 1 seat, and the PDP and BJP were nonexistent in that region. In
a replay of history, the Congress with a total of 17 assembly seats and
the NC with a total of 28 assembly seats, the same number it had in
2002 when it shunned the possibility of power-sharing and chose to
sit in the opposition in all probability because neither Farooq nor his
son, Omar, had a chance of heading the government as the former
had not contested the election and the latter lost by a big margin to
an obscure green horn. It could have been politically fatal for Omar
to allow anybody else in the NC to taste blood. The same holds true
for the PDP where the father-daughter duo would not want anyone
else in their party to taste blood either, both parties contributing to
the installation of democratic monarchy. This brings to my mind a
couplet of the celebrated poet-philosopher Allama Iqbal: Hum ney
Khud-Shahi ko pehnaya hey jumjoori libas, jab zara adam hua hay
khus shinas-o khud nigar. (We have adorned our royal selves with a
democratic attire, the moment man gained self-confidence and politi-
cal sagacity). The Congress and the NC have now formed a coalition
government headed by Farooq Abdullah’s son, Omar Abdullah. The
NC has managed to regain its lost dominance in the urban areas of
the Kashmir Valley, whereas the authority of the PDP has remained
unchallenged in the rural areas of the Valley. The BJP continues to be
a political pariah in both the predominantly Muslim Valley and the
 Conclusion 165

predominantly Buddhist Ladakh, evidenced by its inability to win a

single seat in either. The PDP, which has donned the robe of messiah
of the rural populace of the Valley, also was unable to cut a figure in
Ladakh. The Awami National Conference, which participated in polls
after a hiatus of twenty-two years, was unable to make inroads into
a single constituency in J & K. It remains to be seen if the increase
in female representation in the 2008 assembly elections will facilitate
the creation of a well-defined position for women in decision-making
bodies in the national scenario (conversation with observers of the
electoral process, 2008). The outcome of the election has reinforced
the religious, regional, and provincial ruptures in the political fabric
of the state. The dominance of the Congress has been buttressed by
the fractured verdict and the zealous overtures made to it by the two
mainstream regional parties, the NC and the PDP.
Subsequent to the declaration of the election results, the signifi-
cance of the collective will of the people was undermined by the
anxious appeals made to the Congress by regional parties to forge a
jagged coalition government with them. It was interesting to watch the
politicians rush to New Delhi in order to humbly submit their peti-
tions to the Congress “High Command,” which observed the political
developments in J & K from its minaret in the citadel of quasi-secular
politics. The yearning with which J & K politicians awaited “posi-
tive signals” from New Delhi about which party the Congress would
choose to tie the proverbial knot with does not bode well for those
who were hoping for a well-orchestrated fight for an independent,
or at the least autonomous, J & K and a sincere attempt to protect
“Kashmiriyat.”
Has a veil been drawn over the wishes and aspirations of the people
of the state? Have two decades of insurgency and counterinsurgency
been made insignificant by the facile claim of mainstream politi-
cians and separatist leaders that there is a clear line of demarcation
between elections within the Constitution of India and the struggle
for self-determination? Is the boundary between the two truly that
well delineated?
The process of nationalist self-imagining is likely to remain in a
nebulous state so long as the destiny of mainstream Kashmiri pol-
iticians is etched by the pen of the calligrapher in New Delhi and
determined by maneuvers in the murky den of subcontinental politics.
Can J & K politicians rise above their myopic aspiration to willy-nilly
grab the throne and scepter? The obvious lack of self-reflexivity in
regional parties shows a glaring inability to carefully consider the
stakes. I wanted to end my book on a hopeful note but, sadly, the
166 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

reins of J & K are yet again in the hands of New Delhi. The powers
that be can pull those reins in any direction they deem fit. The two
mainstream regional parties—the NC and the PDP—are pawns in a
game of chess in which the odds are in favor of the Congress. A mere
case of one-upmanship or power by “hook or by crook.”
J & K in the current political context is a house divided. It is par-
adoxical to watch political bigwigs, bureaucrats, and civilian and
paramilitary officers preening and gearing up to celebrate India’s
Independence Day, 15 August, while many Kashmiris continue to
remain in the abyss of socioeconomic deprivation and political mar-
ginalization. J & K is a palimpsest that has been inscribed upon two
or three times, yet the previous texts have been imperfectly erased and,
therefore, remain partially visible. A history of unfulfilled pledges,
broken promises, political deception, military oppression, illegal
political detentions, a scathing human rights record, sterile political
alliances, mass exodus, and New Delhi’s malignant interference have
created a gangrenous body politic that hasn’t even started to heal.
The various political, religious, and cultural discourses written on the
palimpsest of the state may have created alternative epistemologies
but without an epicenter.
On the one hand, lavish sartorial and epicurean preparations are
annually made for Independence Day; on the other hand, there is a
legitimately disgruntled segment of the populace that really hasn’t
experienced the trickle-down effect of India’s burgeoning economy
or flourishing democracy. August fifteenth has been a day of mourn-
ing for the marginalized, the disenfranchised, silenced, and invisible
people of J & K. It is my hope that political actors of various hues in
the state do not inter the victims of military and police brutality to
the catacombs of history in their ardent desire to ingratiate themselves
with the puppeteers in New Delhi and Islamabad who are adept at
manipulating marionette regional representatives. August fifteenth is
entrenched in world history as the day the nation-state of India gained
independence and ousted the British colonial master, but in J & K it
remains a day that reinforces the fragility of an ill-defined democracy
and is blurred by the incessantly flowing tears of widows, orphans,
dispossessed people, and despondent mothers.
After the first edition of Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir:
Between India and Pakistan, published in June 2009, was reviewed by
several Kashmiri academics, it was pointed out to me that autonomy
was an inadequate solution. The intractability of the Kashmir con-
flict has made advocates of conflict resolution rather wary of apply-
ing a seemingly workable but facile solution to the complex political
 Conclusion 167

conflict. Mainstream media, intellectuals housed in academic institu-

tions, formulators of public policy, and members of think tanks are
quick to point out that regardless of the bloody and seemingly infi-
nite nature of a political, ethnic, or racial conflict, a viable solution
can always be found to dilute the fierceness of a conflictual situation.
But one is cautioned against glibly advocating a kitsch solution to
the Kashmir conundrum by the complexity of the Kashmir conflict,
which embodies the brutalities of nation building devoid of myth
or self-infatuation. The unruliness of the Kashmir conflict has led
many to confuse the idea of nation with the power and brute force
of the nation-states of India and Pakistan. Although the idea of self-
determination collides with military oppression on the contentious
site of nationalism, political accommodation can lead a war-weary
people out of the colonnade of duplicitous rhetoric, political domi-
nation, and forceful imposition. The debate among political think-
ers, scholars, and policy makers about finding viable ways to placate
marginalized ethnic minorities in J & K has been infinite. Since the
advent of independence, New Delhi’s self-deluding and self-serving
“democratic” approach has been to allow the disaffected people of
J & K to voice their “seditious” opinions within the existing political
framework legitimized by governmental rhetoric. The reasonableness
of the autonomy solution advocated by mainstream political parties
in J & K may seem axiomatic, but what is the likelihood of its being
adopted in an undiluted form to metamorphose Kashmir’s political,
cultural, or territorial circumstances?
Both India and Pakistan have a long history of deploying rhetorical
strategies to skirt the issue of plebiscite or complete secession of the
former princely state of J & K. When feeling particularly belliger-
ent, Pakistan cries itself hoarse declaring the legitimacy of plebiscite
held under UN auspices in J & K; India responds just as aggressively
by demanding the complete withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the
territory of pre-partition J & K; or, in a moment of neighborly solici-
tude, for conversion of the LOC to a permanent international border.
Which of these solutions is the most viable? Currently, mainstream
political parties in Indian-administered J & K have jumped on the
autonomy bandwagon. Although these terms are often used inter-
changeably, the differences between them are not insignificant. New
Delhi asserts, time and again, that a revitalized Indian federalism will
accommodate Kashmiri demands for an autonomous existence. But,
historically, federalism hasn’t always adequately redressed the griev-
ances of disaffected ethnic minorities. Here, I concur with Robert
G. Wirsing’s observation that, “while autonomy seems to imply less
168 Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir

self-rule than does the term confederalism, for instance, it is gener-

ally understood to imply greater self-rule than federalism, which as in
the American case, need not cater to ethnic group minorities at all”
(2003: 199).
Given Kashmir’s treacherous political climate and the rampant
political factionalism in that region, the appeal of an ambiguous
“autonomy” remains intact for some groups but for others, as has
been forcefully pointed out to me by a couple of political scientists,
it is a wrong narrative to establish in the case of Kashmir. Sadly, the
Kashmir conflict is no longer just about establishing the pristine
legitimacy of the right of self-determination of the people of J & K,
the former princely state. Rather, prolonging the conflictual situation
works in the interests of some of the actors, state as well as nonstate,
on both sides of the LOC. Some civil and military officials—Indian,
Pakistani, and Kashmiri—have been beneficiaries of the militariza-
tion of Kashmir and the business of the “war on terror.” Also, some
militants, armed and unarmed, have cashed in on the political insta-
bility in the state to establish lucrative careers. For such individuals
and groups self-determination and autonomy work well as hollow
slogans stripped of any substantive content. The dismal truth is that
the wish to establish the legitimacy of self-determination or autonomy
vis-à-vis J & K is not universal. The current political discourse in the
state has strayed far from home.
 Negotiating Necrophilia:
An Afterword
Ashis Nandy

Kashmir overwrites almost everything that is written about it. Not

because of its unique culture, its geopolitical significance, or its
breathtaking natural beauty but because of its pain. Like Palestine
and Northern Ireland, Kashmir is a typically twentieth century prob-
lem that has gate-crashed into the twenty-first century. All three
places are beneficiaries of partitions mindlessly implemented by a
tired imperial power and all are associated with gory, repetitious,
gratuitous violence that wear out outside observers and analysts, but
not those who participate in the violence.
State formation and nation building have an ugly record the world
over. The subsequent humanization of many states and nations can-
not wipe off that record, for the earlier memories are immortalized as
part of a myth of origin that includes the idea of an unavoidable birth
trauma. The sufferings experienced and the sufferings inflicted blend
in that myth. Under the lofty rhetoric of today lie the persistent fears,
bitterness, and anxieties of the past, even when the past has become
distant. Every nation-state, thus, is permanently on guard. So are its
detractors, enemies, and critics. That is because the myth of origin
never fades or dates. Each generation rediscovers it, sometimes with
even more passion than the earlier generation did.
Sadly, Kashmir has been captive, during the past sixty years, in
the making of the myths of origin of India and Pakistan. Even more
sadly, it now seems unable to resist the birth of a new creation myth
of its own, which promises to replicate the efforts of its tormentors
faithfully. Once a community experiences the trauma of state forma-
tion at its expense, its capacity to envision a different kind of political
arrangement weakens. Happily, the myth may not have yet gelled in
Kashmir. This is where Nyla Ali Khan comes in.
The main issues in Kashmir, as the officialdoms would have it,
center around national interest, strategic significance, territorial con-
test, and security implications. Only ordinary Kashmiris trying to
live ordinary lives in extraordinary times—Muslims, Hindus, and
Buddhists—sense that the problem of Kashmir has to do with survival,
170 Negotiating Necrophilia: An Afterword

clash of death machines, and the collapse of social ethics, that the
pain of communities and families, however unfashionable and out-
dated the idea may sound in the security community and policy elite,
is the central reality in the land. To the experts and professionals,
who man higher rungs of a state apparatus, and increasingly to the
mainstream media, things like trauma and suffering are artifacts that
have little to do with realpolitik, diplomacy, and public policy. They
want to solve the problem of Kashmir the way such problems are
usually sought to be solved—very scientifically, very dispassionately,
and very professionally—backed by the coercive machineries of the
states involved. They would rather not solve the problem if the solu-
tion involves going beyond their known world.
In the meanwhile, Kashmir is becoming a haunted land where tens
of thousands of dead haunt the landscape and question the living on
the meaning and purpose of their deaths. The living cannot answer,
because their melancholia has no place left anymore for lofty ideas
and ideologies. At some level they know that the dead have died in
vain, whether they have died resisting the Indian army or fighting
militant Islam or Pakistan’s territorial ambitions. Because Kashmir’s
own creation myth is not yet fully formed and functional, the rhetoric
of martyrdom fails to compensate for the sense of loss. Kashmiris
know that the death machines have done their job; that both sides
can now only hope to say if they win, in the language of Yudhisthira
in the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata, “This, our victory is inter-
twined with defeat.”
The high casualties of violence in a small community only three
million strong leaves no one untouched. Neither the official figures
nor the unofficial estimates of human rights groups include the perma-
nently maimed, those whose lives have been cut short by the trauma
of uprooting, bereavement, or psychosomatic ailments. Everyone
is bereaved and everyone is a mourner. The casualties include not
merely the official and unofficial dead and the incapacitated, but also
those who have disappeared without a trace. Family and kinship ties
are strong in South Asia and the death of a distant cousin or an aunt
can be a shattering personal tragedy. There is in Kashmir a miasma of
depression that touches everyone except the ubiquitous tourist deter-
mined to consume Kashmir’s unearthly beauty. For decades, I am
told, Srinagar’s only medical college has had two beds for psychi-
atric patients. Sometimes they seemed insufficient but usually they
sufficed. Now some psychiatrists and psychotherapists estimate that
the college requires the facilities to treat at least fifteen thousand at
a time.
 Negotiating Necrophilia: An Afterword 171

There are also the invisible victims of Kashmir, in Kashmir and

outside. Thousands have died fighting for Kashmir; others have died
in Kashmir, fighting for India or Pakistan. But there are even more
humble victims, invisible and inaudible. I once met a few Kashmiri
Muslim families, staying on the banks of Yamuna at Delhi in an
impromptu slum. Someone took me to meet them because no one
even wanted to listen to them. I listened to them but could not find out
why they were there; they gave contradictory, often incoherent rea-
sons for their plight. Were they simply looking for jobs in the plains
pretending to be uprooted? Were they the victims of the militants
for real or imaginary collaboration with security forces? Were they
victims of suspicious security forces for their connections with the
militants? I still do not know, but it seemed to me at the time that the
political upheavals in the valley had created new kinds of refugees
who had fallen through the black holes of the history of South Asia.
They constitute parts of the flotsam and jetsam of our times.
One tragic instance of such uprooting are the Kashmiri Pandits.
Ancient inhabitants of the Kashmir Valley, almost all of them have
been driven out of the Valley to become invisible refugees. Even human
rights groups look at their uprooting either as a case of minor collat-
eral damage or an instance of foolish, self-induced trauma. Was the
community really seduced by Governor Jagmohan’s advice to them to
leave their ancestral home? Do people leave a place where they have
lived for centuries just because one bureaucrat, however important
and powerful, single-handedly goads or invites them to implement
the world’s only known case of self-induced ethnic cleansing? Were
there no genuine reasons at all for them to fear for their security?
After their ouster from the Valley, some of the Pandits in their bitter-
ness have organized themselves into a cacophonous, Hindu national-
ist political group, further arousing the disdain of most human rights
activists trying to be politically correct. Indeed, militant Kashmiri
leaders have spoken to me about the Pandits with more compassion
than have most scions of progressivism and radicalism.
During the last sixty years, Kashmir has emerged as the ultimate
litmus test for the two largest South Asian states of their commitment
to the ideas of a humane, democratic state and political imagination.
Nyla Ali Khan spends much time in this book detailing the dishon-
esty, chicanery, inhumanity, and sheer cruelty that have characterized
the behavior of the Indian and Pakistani states, the former claim-
ing to be the world’s largest democracy committed to global peace
and Gandhian values, the latter continuously and noisily claiming to
be an upholder of Islamic virtues. However well intentioned Khan’s
172 Negotiating Necrophilia: An Afterword

efforts, she has probably wasted her time. For this part of the story is
by now well known to all except rabid nationalists and the cocooned
bureaucracies and foreign policy elite of the two countries. What
is less known is how, in the process, the problem of Kashmir has
strengthened some of the worst trends in the political cultures of the
two countries that comprise nearly three-fourth of South Asia.
The most noticeable of these trends is the growth of a culture of
impunity around the two states. As they have intermittently unleashed
their army, police, and paramilitary forces against the local popula-
tions in Kashmir, Nagaland, Balochistan, and Manipur in the name
of territorial nationalism or Islamic solidarity, strangely, they have
succeeded in debasing both the languages of nationalism and politi-
cal Islam and discrediting the armies and the police. Indeed, many of
the technologies South Asian states have deployed to fight secession
and armed dissent are now being routinely deployed to crush dissent
and abridge freedom, even in normal situations and normal times—
such as state-sanctioned, fake-encounter deaths sometimes for rea-
sons as trivial as bravery medals or businessmen facing threats from
local thugs; large-scale use of third-degree methods during interroga-
tion, an official euphemism for torture; and proliferating cults of vio-
lence. People have been subjected to aerial bombing in South Asia for
aggressively articulating their grievances against the state. Entire vil-
lages have been burned down and women raped in the wake of army
operations against secessionist movements. The large-scale degenera-
tion and dehumanization in the state sector in the region finds expres-
sion not merely in normal pathologies of the security sector such as
multimillion dollar scams in defense deals and the emergence of the
region’s own arms dealers with vested interest in war and conflict, but
also in the triumph of the culture of nuclearization (which encourages
the Left in India, backed by the silence of the First-World Left, to
demand not the denuclearization of the country, but the full sover-
eignty for India’s nuclear weapons program), and the growing culture
of secrecy, censorship, and surveillance.
But nowhere have the two most populous states of South Asia faced
such stubborn, recalcitrant people unwilling to turn docile, obedient
citizens, safely integrated into either the world’s largest democracy
or the world’s only nuclear-armed Islamic country. And the resis-
tance has been more exasperating because of the passive-aggressive
style that has often characterized it. A clue to this unequal battle
lies probably in Kashmir’s unique version of Sufism, with its distinc-
tive touch of the androgynous. Kashmiris were officially seen by the
British-Indian state—and, following it, by the court of the erstwhile
 Negotiating Necrophilia: An Afterword 173

maharaja and the successor regimes—as a nonmartial race, mired

in passive, life-denying sufiana, ever unwilling to aggressively con-
front their political authorities. They were underrated by the rulers of
India and Pakistan, the way the latter had underrated the nonmartial,
poetry-chopping Bengalis in East Pakistan in 1971. No one believed
that the worm would turn one day, that Kashmiri teenagers would
react to and defy popular stereotypes to pick up guns and give the
Indian army a run for its money. They were out to assert their mas-
culinity the hard way.
Yet, remarkably, as in Bangladesh in 1971, while Kashmiri men
were trying to erase the feminine within themselves, Kashmiri women
showed a resilient capacity to meet head-on the violence let loose in
Kashmir, the violence that saw Kashmiri suffering and pain as pri-
marily nothing more than necessary blood sacrifice at the altar of
nation building and state formation. Kashmiri women, this book
suggests, have mostly been a defiant yet healing presence signaling
restitution and reconciliation—in a battle-ravaged, terrorized society
mediating between yesterday and tomorrow to keep hope alive today.
Lalla-Ded, who can be considered the protagonist of this book’s nar-
rative, directly in some ways and indirectly in others, is significant
by virtue of being a surviving symbol of what Kashmir was and still
could be. Nyla Ali Khan uses her as a possible key to a future that
contemporary politics chooses to see as only a red-ribboned fantasy
produced by fevered imagination.
The memory and imagination of that singular woman seems to
emerge out of the pages of this book to acquire an autonomous exis-
tence that mocks the merchants of war. She waits to become the pre-
siding deity and moral pivot of another Kashmir that lives in the hearts
of the Kashmiris—and perhaps also in the rest of South Asia—as a
political possibility that has not yet been erased by the war dogs of
our times.
Nyla Ali Khan’s passionate, affectionate portrait of Kashmir looks
to the future with hope because her reading of Lalla-Ded and the
Kashmiri women’s struggle for survival is the story of the possibilities
that may not have been crushed by the combined efforts of fanatic
militants and the Indian army. Kashmir can still be, under an imagi-
native visionary arrangement, a culture mediating between South
Asia and Central Asia, between India and Pakistan, and perhaps even
between Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
A few suspicious of the format of contemporary nation-states
speak of Tibet not as a cat’s-paw that may help break China, but as a
country that might someday help resume a number of vital dialogues,
174 Negotiating Necrophilia: An Afterword

some ancient and some new—such as those between the Sinic and the
Indic civilizations; between Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism;
between a rigid, copybook version of a nation-state and a loosely ter-
ritorial, proudly soft state; and perhaps even the secular, the non-
secular and the postsecular. Like Tibet, Kashmir can also become a
location of our experiments with ourselves, outside the apparently
inescapable frame of the European-style, nineteenth-century idea of
progress. In any case, most Kashmiris, like most Tibetans, carry three
invisible, imaginary passports and, spiting the rules of well-defined
citizenship, they may in the future want to be simultaneously citizens
of Kashmir, India, and Pakistan. That imagination has nothing to
do with the nation-states in the region; it will have something to do
with the conversations among cultures and civilizations going on for
centuries in this part of the world.
 Appendix A

KASHMIR’S ACCESSION TO INDIA:

MAHARAJA–MOUNTBATTEN
CORRESPONDENCE
(His Highness the Maharaja Bahadur of Jammu and Kashmir State,
in a letter to His Excellency the Governor General of India, announc-
ing the accession of Jammu and Kashmir State to the Dominion of
India stated:)
My dear Lord Mountbatten,
I have to inform Your Excellency that a grave emergency has arisen
in my State and request the immediate assistance of your Government.
As your Excellency is aware, the State of Jammu and Kashmir has
not acceded to either the dominion of India or to Pakistan.
Geographically my State is contiguous to both the dominions. It has
vital economic and cultural links with both of them. Besides my State
has a common boundary with Russia and China. In their external
relations the dominions of India and Pakistan cannot ignore this fact.
I wanted to take time to decide to which dominion I should accede,
or whether it is not in the best interests of both the dominions and of
my State to stand independent, of course with friendly and cordial
relations with both.
I accordingly approached the dominions of India and Pakistan to
enter into a standstill agreement with my State. The Pakistan
Government accepted this arrangement. The dominion of India called
further discussions with representatives of my Government. I could
not arrange this in view of the developments indicated below. In fact
the Pakistan Government, under the Standstill Agreement, are oper-
ating the Post and Telegraph system with the State.
Though we have got a Standstill Agreement with Pakistan
Government, that Government permitted steady and increasing stran-
gulation of supplies like sugar, salt and petrol to my State.

* The three appendices are from the archives of the National Conference, with the
kind permission of Sheikh Nazir Ahmad, General Secretary of the National
Conference.
176 Appendix

Afridi soldiers in plain clothes and desperados with modern weap-

ons have been allowed to infiltrate into the State, at first in the Poonch
area, then in Sialkot, and finally in mass in the area adjoining Hazara
district on the Ramkote side. The result has been that the limited
number of troops at the disposal of the State had to be dispersed and
thus had to face the enemy at several points simultaneously so that it
has become difficult to stop the wanton destruction of life and
property and looting.
The Mohora power house, which supplies electric current to the
whole of Srinagar, has been burnt. The number of women who have
been kidnapped and raped makes my heart bleed. The wild forces
thus let loose on the State are marching on with the aim of capturing
Srinagar, the summer capital of my Government, as a first step to
over-running the whole State.
The mass infiltration of the tribesmen, drawn from distant areas of
the N.W.F.P. (North West Frontier Province) coming regularly in
motor trucks and using the Mansehre-Muzzaffarabad road and fully
armed with up-to-date weapons, cannot possibly be done without the
knowledge of the provincial Government of N.W.F.P. and the
Government of Pakistan. In spite of the repeated appeals made by my
Government, no attempt has been made to check these raiders or stop
them from coming to my State. In fact both Pakistan Radio and the
Press have reported these occurrences. Pakistan Government even put
out a story that a provisional Government had been set up in Kashmir.
The people of my State both Muslims and non-Muslims, generally
have taken no part at all.
With the conditions obtaining at present in my State and the great
emergency of the situation as it exists, I have no option but to ask for
help from the Indian Dominion. Naturally they cannot send the help
asked for by me without my State acceding to the Dominion of India.
I have, accordingly, decided to do so, and I attach the Instrument of
Accession for acceptance by your Government. The other alternative
is to leave my State and my people to free-booters. On this basis no
civilized Government can exist or be maintained. This alternative I
will never allow to happen so long as I am the Ruler of the State, and
I have life to defend my country.
I may also inform Your Excellency’s Government that it is my inten-
tion at once to set up an Interim Government and ask Sheikh Abdullah
to carry the responsibilities in this emergency with my Prime Minister.
If my State has to be saved, immediate assistance must be available
at Srinagar. Mr. Menon is fully aware of the gravity of the situation,
and he will explain to you, if further explanation is needed.
 Appendix 177

In haste and with kindest regards,

Yours Sincerely
Hari Singh, The Palace Jammu
October 26th 1947.

In reply Lord Mountbatten wrote to His Highness The Maharaja

Bahadur of Jammu & Kashmir State.
Government House, New Delhi
October 27, 1947.

My dear Maharaja Saheb,

Your Highness’ letter dated October 26, has been delivered to me by
Mr. V. P. Menon. In the special circumstances mentioned by Your
Highness, my Government have decided to accept the accession of
Kashmir State to the Dominion of India. Consistently with their pol-
icy that, in the case of any state where the issue of accession has been
the subject of dispute, the question of accession should be decided in
accordance with the wishes of the people, it is my Government’s wish
that, as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir, and her
soil cleared of the invader, the question of State’s accession should be
settled by a reference to the people. Meanwhile, in response to your
Highness’ appeal for military aid, action has been taken to-day to
send troops of the Indian Army to Kashmir to help your own forces
to defend your territory and to protect the lives, property, and honour
of your people. My Government and I note with satisfaction that your
Highness has decided to invite Sheikh Abdulla to form an Interim
Government to work with your Prime Minister.
With kind regards,
I remain,
Yours very Sincerely,
Mountbatten of Burma.

[HEADNOTE: 1947, ADDRESSED TO THE INTERNATIONAL

COMMUNITY, Abdullah’s noncommunal politics were vindicated
by the ruthlessness of the Pakistani tribal raiders’ miscalculated
attack, which drove various political forces in the state to willy-nilly
align themselves with India. Although the raiders, or Qabailis, were
unruly mercenaries, they were led by well-trained and well-equipped
military leaders who were familiar with the arduous terrain, and the
raiders launched what would have been a dexterous attack if they had
not been tempted to pillage and plunder on the way to the capital city,
Srinagar (Dasgupta 1968: 95). En route to Srinagar, the tribal raiders
178 Appendix

committed heinous atrocities: they raped and killed several Catholic

nuns at a missionary school, and tortured and impaled an NC worker,
Maqbool Sherwani (Copeland 1991: 245). The brutal methods of the
raiders received strong disapprobation from the people of the Valley
who had disavowed a quintessentially Muslim identity and replaced it
with the notion of a Kashmiri identity. This political and cultural
ideology underscored the lack of religious homogeneity in the popula-
tion of Kashmir. The raiders antagonized their coreligionists by per-
petrating atrocities against the local populace, including women and
children. The undiplomatic strategies of the tribal raiders and
Pakistani militia expedited the attempts of the All India National
Congress to incorporate Kashmir into the Indian Union.
 Appendix B

JUDGE O’ Ye HUMAN BEINGS!

“THIS” MEANS PAKISTAN

During the last few years, a war-torn world has been witness to the
dark depths to which treachery can sink in pursuit of conquest through
Aggression. But what happened to Kashmir, I dare say, adds alto-
gether a new pattern to perfidy. Thousands of tribal Pathans equipped
with mechanized weapons of war, swooped down on us not merely as
armed bandits but as a centrally directed force with the avowed object
of subjugating our land to the vassalage of Pakistan at the point of the
gun. Unawares of such danger ahead of us, and without any warning
from outside, we found that the invader had almost pierced through
the heart of our country. They were perilously threatening Srinagar,
the capital itself. Our people were literally stunned, not because they
were afraid of losing their lives, but because they realized how serious
a challenge it was to their will to be independent to decide their own
destiny.
Sincerely,
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah

[As the first Prime Minister of India-administered J & K from 1948

through 1953 Abdullah, with his socialist politics, many times reiter-
ated his commitment to challenge the safely guarded domain of privi-
lege and power that had disenfranchised the Muslim majority,
reinforced the seclusion of Kashmiri women, and made their support
irrelevant for the Dogra sovereigns and later for the regimes installed
by New Delhi. Interestingly, it was the Kashmiri Muslims led by
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who rallied around the notion of
regional nationalism].
 Appendix C

ABDULLAH’S CALL TO HIS PEOPLE TO

STAND AGAINST EXPLOITERS OF ISLAM
My fellow people of Jammu and Kashmir,
For a long time you have been prey to poverty and heart breaking
sufferings. For ages you have groaned under slavery, tightly shackled,
only to die slowly from the tortures of hunger and pitiless want. You
bore it in the ultimate hope that the dawn of deliverance will surely
dispel darkness and distress from your benighted existence.
With that hope in front of us, I made the freedom of my people the
first purpose of my life. It was a holy resolve which found an echo in
many patriotic hearts, who are today by my side as most devoted col-
leagues, all sworn unto death to serve you and bring the happy gift of
free and prosperous life. For years now we have faced bullets and
bayonets. In that cause you have been with us as determined crusad-
ers. Our martyrs, whom we salute, bear testimony to the purity of our
purpose and the grandeur of our ideals as lovers of freedom.
Head of State,
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah
 Glossary

Abdullah, Sheikh Mohammad: Popularly known as the Lion of

Kashmir, Abdullah reigned as prime minister of J & K from 1948 to
1953. When the pledge to hold a referendum was not kept by the Indian
government, Abdullah’s advocacy of Kashmir independence led to his
imprisonment. He was shuttled from one jail to another until 1972 and
remained out of power until 1975. During the period of Abdullah’s
incarceration, Congress Party-led governments in New Delhi made
covert arrangements with puppet regimes they had installed. Prior
to the 1975 accord between the Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah-led
National Conference and the Indira Gandhi-led Congress, Abdullah
demanded the revocation of all central laws extended to the state that
delegitimized the popular demand for plebiscite. The then prime min-
ister, Indira Gandhi, forged an accord with Abdullah in 1975 by prom-
ising to partially restore the autonomy of the state by revoking certain
central laws that had arbitrarily been imposed on J & K. The same
year, Abdullah returned as chief minister of the state. Sheikh Abdullah
and his National Conference won an overwhelming victory in the elec-
tion of 1977, and he remained in office until his death in 1982.
Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP): The APDP is
an apolitical organization comprising mothers of Kashmiri Muslim
boys who were victims of custodial disappearances or deaths. It was
founded in the early 1990s by Parveena Ahangar, an illiterate and des-
perate mother whose son was arrested by Indian paramilitary forces
on grounds of suspicion and taken to an unknown destination for
interrogation. His whereabouts are still unknown. The APDP doesn’t
receive funding from any regional or national political organization.
Parveena organizes demonstrations in Kashmir to protest the use of
unwarranted torture and other brutal methods of interrogation by the
police or military forces in various parts of the Valley.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): A party that advocates Hindu nationalism
and claims to protect the unitary identity of India’s Hindu majority.
Border Security Force (BSF): The largest part of the enormous Indian
paramilitary apparatus in Indian-administered J & K, deployed in
counterinsurgency operations since 1990.
182 Glossary

Buddhism: A set of philosophical and religious teachings, Buddhism

was founded in the fifth century BC by Siddhartha Gautama, or the
Buddha. Buddhism was a corrective to the social and political inequi-
ties perpetrated by ritualistic Hinduism.
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF): A paramilitary force deployed
in Indian-controlled J & K.
Congress: The party that spearheaded India’s independence strug-
gle against British colonial rule and superseded other organizations
in India’s political arena for almost four decades. Over the years,
the Congress has acquired dynastic overtones and has come to be
closely associated with Jawaharlal Nehru, first prime minister of
independent India (1947–1964), and his progeny, Indira Gandhi
(prime minister 1966–1977 and 1980–1984), Rajiv Gandhi (prime
minister 1984–1989), and Sonia Gandhi (president of the Congress
1991–present).
Dogra: A martial Hindu community located in the Jammu region. A
Dogra dynasty founded the principality of J & K and was the indis-
putable ruling house from 1846 to 1947.
Dukhtaran-e-Milat (“Daughters of the Nation”; DM): The only wom-
en’s reactionary organization in Kashmir claiming that the Arabized
version of religious scriptures to which this vigilante group subscribes
is the authentic version. A large percentage of the Kashmiri populace
looks upon the moral policing undertaken by this group in the Valley
rather unfavorably. The DM advocates accession to Pakistan as the
only viable option for Indian-controlled J & K.
Gujjar: Gujjars are a pastoral people who trace their lineage to the
Rajputs of Rajasthan in India.
Hinduism: The world’s oldest religion, Hinduism comprises diverse
beliefs and traditions. It is a conglomerate of philosophy, theology,
and mythology.
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM): This guerilla outfit was formed in 1989.
It has pro-Pakistani leanings and espouses a conservative religious
ideology.
Instrument of Accession: The accession of J & K to the Indian
Union took place under the provisions of the Constitution of India
and was legitimized on 15 August 1947 and accepted by the gov-
ernor-general, Lord Mountbatten. The subtext of the Instrument of
Accession was that the wishes of the Kashmiri people would be taken
 Glossary 183

into consideration once political stability had been established in the

newly formed nation-states of India and Pakistan. The United Nations
Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) decreed a plebiscite for
Kashmir on 13 August 1948 and 5 January 1949. Needless to say, a
plebiscite was never held.
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI): The ISI is the Pakistani military’s
well-organized and well-funded intelligence and covert operations
wing. It has been actively supporting and charting the course of the
insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir since the late 1980s.
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF): An organization
founded in the 1960s in Pakistani-controlled J & K, it espouses the
political ideology of reuniting the entire territory of the former princely
state of J & K as an autonomous state. JKLF activists pioneered the
insurgency that started in Indian-administered J & K in 1990.
Jehan, Begum Akbar: Sheikh Abdullah’s spouse, Jehan’s maiden name
was Nedou. She was part Austrian and part Gujjar. Akbar Jehan sup-
ported Abdullah’s struggle and represented Srinagar and Anantnag
constituencies in J & K in the Indian parliament from 1977 to 1979
and 1984 to 1989, respectively, and was the first president of the
Jammu & Kashmir Red Cross Society from 1947 to 1951.
Kashmiri Saivism (Shaivism): A philosophy founded and propounded
by Vasugupta and his contemporary, Somanand, in the eighth century
AD. Vasugupta revealed the philosophy in his Spanda Shâstra, and
it was further expounded by Somanand in his Pratyabhigyâ Shastrâ,
Sanskrit works. It is a monistic philosophy that underlines the one-
ness of the self and the supreme deity. Kashmiri Saivism (Shaivism)
is an idealistic philosophy that doesn’t completely deny the objective
reality of the world and propounds egalitarianism as opposed to an
orthodox religious hierarchy.
Kashmiriyat: The doctrine of Kashmiriyat was shrewdly used by
Abdullah’s National Conference in order to create a secular ethos
that would enfold both the Pandits and the Muslims of Kashmir. This
secular ideology was intended to keep the intrusive policies of New
Delhi at bay and to maintain the autonomous status of J & K. This
notion of cultural harmony was, however, predicated on the main-
tenance of Kashmiri Pandit privileges. The political, economic, and
social rights of the Muslim majority were barely incorporated into the
larger political necessity of protecting the rights and privileges of the
Pandit minority.
184 Glossary

Lalla-Ded: A poetess syncretizing the Gnostic traditions of Sufism

with Saivism (Shaivism), Lalla-Ded was born in 1334 into a Kashmiri
Brahman home in Simpur village, about four miles from Srinagar,
the summer capital of Kashmir. She witnessed Kashmir’s transition
to Islam, a period of tremendous upheaval as a new ruling dynasty
was installed and a new religious ideology engendered tremendous
zeal. The most significant contribution of Lalla-Ded to the Kashmiri
language and literature is that she translated the sophisticated, eso-
teric concepts of Shaiva philosophy and her mystic experiences into
the vernacular and made them accessible to the masses. She incorpo-
rated seemingly ordinary and mundane images into the philosophical
teachings, enabling laypeople to relate to them.
Line of Control (LOC): This 740-kilometer dividing line between
Indian-controlled J & K and Pakistani-controlled northern territories
was created as a cease-fire line in January 1949 at the cessation of
the first Indo–Pak war. It remained the LOC by amicable agreement
between the two governments in July 1972. While the Indian admin-
istration refers to its portion of the territory as J & K, the Pakistani
administration refers to its part of the territory as Azad (Free) J & K.
The cease-fire line between the Republic of India and the People’s
Republic of China in the Aksai Chin is referred to as the Line of
Actual Control.
Maurya Empire: Ruled by the Maurya dynasty from 322 to 185 BC,
it wielded extraordinary political dominance and military prowess in
ancient India. Founded in 322 BC by Chandragupta Maurya, it was
probably the largest empire to control the Indian subcontinent.
Mughal Empire: An imperial power that politically and militarily
controlled most of the Indian subcontinent from the early sixteenth
to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The classic Mughal period began
with the crowning of Jalauddin Akbar in 1556 and ended with the
death of Aurangzeb in 1700. Emperor Jalauddin Akbar’s army cap-
tured Kashmir in 1589. His successor, Jahangir, built the magnifi-
cent Shalimar Garden in Srinagar, Kashmir, a testimonial to the
captivating charms of the Valley and to the sophisticated aesthetic
sense of the Mughals. His empress, Nur Jahan, built the imposing
Pathar mosque on the banks of the river Jhelum, which fell into disuse
during the Dogra period but was restored to its former glory in 1932
after the upsurge of Kashmiri Muslim nationalism. Jahangir’s succes-
sor, Shah Jahan, and his heir apparent, Dara Shikoh, further enhanced
the aesthetic appeal of the Valley and its beauteous landscape by
 Glossary 185

building mosques and gardens of unparalleled architectural grace.

Subsequent political inefficacy, military feebleness, inability to quell
local revolts, and growing dominance of British colonialism led to the
decline of the Mughal Empire.
Muslim Conference (MC): Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah created a
legitimate forum for himself and the state’s Muslim population by
founding the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference in 1932.
Abdullah’s disillusionment with the marginalization of the Muslim
majority drove him to forge a movement that would focus on the struc-
tural inequities legitimized by the state. A unitary national identity
was fashioned by the young leadership of the MC, including Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, and Maulana
Sayeed Masoodi, in order to expound upon the political expediency
of the institution of a constituent assembly, adult suffrage, and pro-
tective measures for minorities. Eventually, the MC was replaced by
the secular All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, presided
over by Abdullah in June 1939. Its first president was Abdullah’s
Communist ally, G.M. Sadiq.
Muslim United Front (MUF): An unwieldy coalition of nonmain-
stream, antiestablishment groups, the MUF remained a structureless
organization besieged by multiple and intractable political ideologies.
In 1987, the emphasis laid by the MUF on regionalism and cultural
pride enabled it to woo a large number of Kashmiri youth.
National Conference (NC): The Muslim Conference (MC) was con-
verted into the All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference in 1939.
In 1944, the NC sought a reconstitution of the political, economic,
and social systems of J & K. The NC came to be identified with the
socially leftist republicanism and personality of Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah. Abdullah’s NC was responsible for the eradication of a feu-
dal structure and its insidious ramifications; giving the right of the
land he worked on to the tiller; rescinding any political solution that
did not take the aspirations and demands of the Kashmiri people into
consideration; asserting the right of Kashmiris to high offices in edu-
cation, bureaucracy, and government; and forming of the Constituent
Assembly of J & K to institutionalize the constitution of the state in
1951, which was an enormous leap toward the process of democrati-
zation. The unwelcome alliance of the NC with the Congress in 1986
and with the Hindu nationalist BJP in 1997 under the leadership of
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s older son, Farooq Abdullah, eroded
its mass base and diminished its popularity in the Valley. Currently,
186 Glossary

the NC is the major opposition party within the political spectrum of

the state, but it has greatly diminished in popularity and strength. It
worked to restore its popular base for the 2008 elections. In a replay
of history, the Congress with a total of 17 Assembly seats and the
NC with a total of 28 Assembly seats, the same number it had in
2002 when it shunned the possibility of power-sharing and chose to
sit in the opposition, have formed a coalition government headed by
Farooq Abdullah’s son and current NC president, Omar Abdullah.
But the NC has greatly diminished in popularity and strength.
Pandits: A small Hindu minority, the Pandit population of the Valley
enjoyed privileges and perks in the political, civil, and economic struc-
tures of which the Muslim majority was deprived. After the emergence
of insurgency in Indian-administered J & K in 1990, most Pandits left
the Valley. Some Pandits have either continued to remain in the Valley
or have maintained their properties from abroad.
People’s Democratic Party (PDP): Formed in Indian-controlled J & K
in 1999 under the patronage of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the PDP
ostensibly has pro-India leanings but prior to the 2002 elections was
successful in formulating and foregrounding its populist measures.
In the 2002 elections, to elect a new legislature in the state, the PDP
won 16 of 46 assembly seats in the Valley and Sayeed formed a tot-
tering coalition government with the Congress. Although the PDP is
currently in the opposition in the political spectrum of the state, its
authority remained unchallenged in the rural areas of the Valley in
the 2008 assembly elections.
Plebiscite Front (PF): In August 1955, a group comprising eight legis-
lators from the Constituent Assembly initiated a political movement
called the Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front. The first president
of this organization was Abdullah’s trusted lieutenant, Mirza Afzal
Beg. Beg spearheaded this movement during Abdullah’s probation-
ary period. The credo of this organization was the restoration of civil
liberties, right of the Kashmiri people to decide their political fate
through a plebiscite under UN auspices, withdrawal of the armed
forces of both India and Pakistan from Kashmir, and democratic
and impartial elections. The oppositional stance of this organization
met with state-sponsored violent repression. The PF had a popular
mass base in Indian-administered J & K between 1955 and 1975. It
particularly enjoyed tremendous support in the Kashmir Valley.
Rashtriya Rifles (RR): Regular Indian army troops involved in coun-
terinsurgency operations in Indian-administered J & K since the
inception of insurrection in 1990.
 Glossary 187

Rishiism: An order that practiced Lalla-Ded’s doctrine of religious

humanism, founded by the followers of Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali,
also known as Nand Rishi and Sahazanand, after his death. Lalla-Ded
facilitated Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali’s immersion into the intellectual
radicalism generated by her philosophy of religious humanism.
Shah Hamadan: A famous saint, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, also
known as Shah Hamadan, Amir Kabir, and Ali Sani, was a leader
of the renowned Suhrawardy order of Sufism (Kubrawi sub-order),
unorthodox iconoclasts who were rigorous believers in social jus-
tice and who protected the marginalized from political oppression.
Hamadan is said to have arrived in Kashmir between 1379 and 1380,
where he acquired political and religious clout over the monarch,
Sultan Kutbuddin. He exercised tremendous influence in the conver-
sion of predominantly Brahmanical Kashmir to Islam.
Sikhism: Founded by Guru Nanak in the fifteenth century, Sikhism’s
historic homeland is the Punjab region in India. Guru Nanak was a
social reformer and a religious leader. The religious and sociopolitical
identity of Sikhism was institutionalized by Guru Gobind Singh in
the seventeenth century. The Sikhs established a militarily and politi-
cally powerful nation under Ranjit Singh in the nineteenth century.
Traditionally, Sikhs are known for their military prowess and, more
recently, for their demand for secession from India and the formation
of a separate nation-state. The Sikhs comprise about 2 percent of the
Indian population.
Singh, Hari: The Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh signed
the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, formally acceding
J & K to the newly formed nation-state of India.
Special Operations Group (SOG): A paramilitary division of the
Indian-controlled J & K police force accused of heinous human rights
abuses. The SOG continues to run amok and is a law unto itself.
Special Task Force (STF): A militia group comprising renegade mili-
tants that alongside the SOG has been responsible for egregious
crimes.
Sufism: A Gnostic movement in Islam. Sufis were eclectic and unorth-
odox, imbued with Asiatic, European, and Hindu thought. Sufiism
generated oppositional and dissident resistance to orthodox Islam.
Wali, Sheikh Noor-ud-Din: The founding father of the predominant
Sufi sect in the Kashmir valley, Rishiism, acknowledged Lalla-Ded as
his spiritual mentor. He is said to have been an older contemporary of
188 Glossary

Shah Hamadan. Wali is also known as Nund Rishi and Sahazanand.

Lalla-Ded facilitated Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali’s immersion into
the intellectual radicalism generated by her philosophy of religious
humanism. His inimitable poetry significantly enriched Kashmiri lit-
erature and is a defining aspect of Kashmiri culture. Noor-ud-Din
Wali’s paradigmatic sayings have had a considerable impact on
Kashmiri cultural discourse.
 Bibliography

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———. “India Must Prevent Torture.” Kashmiri–Canadian Council, November
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Opening Address by Honorable Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Jammu and

Kashmir Constituent Assembly, Srinagar, 1951.

Books
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 Index

Abbas, Chaudhri Ghulam, 20–1 accession issue, 5, 8, 26–37, 63, 65,

Abdullah, Begum Akbar Jehan, 82, 67, 72–5, 89, 103, 106, 113,
88, 94–5, 131–4, 137, 183 138, 146, 175–8
Abdullah, Farooq, 91, 93–6, ceasefire line, 32
98–100, 102, 104, 164, 185 and citizens’ choice, 30–1, 65, 75
Abdullah, Sheikh Mohammad, and India, 30–6, 175–8
xv–xvi, 19–33, 38–41, Maharaja-Mountbatten
63–92, 93–4, 97, 102, 137, correspondence, 175–8
147, 161–2, 176–7, and the United Nations, 30–6
179–80 See also invasion of Kashmir;
addresses of, 23–6, 28, 80, Kashmir dispute
179–80 Afghanistan, 3, 8, 98, 101, 146,
appearance, 19 153, 162–3
on autocratic rule, 66, 72 Afridi soldiers, 176
on autonomy of J & K, 67–8 agency, concept of, 14–15, 118–19,
charisma of, 19, 21 130–42, 145
death of, 93 Ahangar, Parveena, 115–18, 136
and democracy, 39 Ahmad, Sheikh Nazir, 64, 72–3,
imprisonment of, 25–6, 70, 77, 78, 80, 85, 175
73, 75, 79, 81–2, 84, 86, Al-Qaeda, 153
90, 93 Al-Umar Mujahideen, 105
and leadership, 19–20, 24, 137 Ali, Tariq, 63, 66, 131
the “Lion of Kashmir,” xv, 86, Aligarh Muslim University (British
88, 91 India), 18–19
photographs of, 22, 38, 64, 78 All India States People’s Conference
political externment of, 81–2 (AISPC), 17–18, 27
prime minister (1948–1953), 65, All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim
70, 73, 179 Conference (MC), See Muslim
and the United Nations, 32–3 Conference
and women’s rights, 39–40, All Jammu and Kashmir National
102–3 Conference (NC), See National
See also land reforms; National Conference
Conference; Quit Kashmir All Parties Hurriyat Conference
Movement (APHC), 106, 156–7
Abedin, Zainul (Budshah) Amnesty International, 114, 116,
(1429–1470), 2–3 128–9, 140
Academy of Arts, Culture, and Anantnag, 95, 101, 109, 131, 183
Languages, 61–2 Anglo–Sikh war, first (1845), 4
202 Index

Anjuman-i-Nusrat-ul-Islam, 18 Buddhists, 2, 23, 35, 42, 63, 169

Ansari, Maulvi Abbas, 106 Bush, George W., 153
Armed Forces Special Powers Act,
104, 148 Canada, 32
Association of Parents of Centre for Dialogue and
Disappeared Persons (APDP), Reconciliation (CDR), 142
115–18, 136 Central Reserve Police Force
autonomy (Kashmiri), 8, 28, 66–9, (CRPF), 95, 104, 111–12, 182
72–5, 83, 87, 89, 94, 96, 98, Chaudhry, Ghulam Abbas, 20–1
102, 105–9, 114, 123, 156–7, China, 3, 7–9, 34, 41, 77, 84, 102,
163, 166–8, 181 151, 153, 173, 175, 184
Awami Action Committee, 97, 106 Clinton, William Jefferson, 146,
Awami National Conference, 88, 152–3
97–8, 110–12, 155, 165 Cohen, Stephen P., 153
Azad Conference, 20 Cold War, 145–6, 153
Azad (Free) Kashmir, 8, 32, 130, communalism, 23, 26, 29, 157
147, 184 communism, 24, 33, 66, 73, 75–7
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Bakshi, Ghulam Mohammad, 23, (CTBT), 146
30, 61, 70, 72–4, 76–8, 81, Congress party, 6, 18–19, 23, 27–9,
86, 89, 146, 185 37, 68, 75, 83, 85–90, 93–7,
Balawaristan National Front, 9, 156 100–2, 109, 119, 126, 128,
Baltistan, 3, 4, 7, 9, 32, 156 145, 164–5, 178, 181, 182,
Baramulla, 95, 101, 109, 139 185–6
Barnett, L., 50 “Connecting Women across the
Bazaz, Prem Nath, 6, 19, 22–3, 25, Line of Control (LOC)”
46, 48, 63, 70, 84 conference, 142–3
Beg, Mirza Afzal, 38, 68, 70, 72, Constituent Assembly of India,
74–5, 78–9, 81, 88–9, 147, 186 67, 69
Behera, Navnita Chadha, 6, 27–8 Constituent Assembly of Jammu
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 88, and Kashmir, 23–5, 40,
101–2, 107, 109, 119, 128, 145, 65–6, 69–70, 74–6, 146,
164, 181, 185 185–6
Bhat, Maqbool, 96, 107 Constitution of India, 17–18, 24,
Bhutto, Benazir, 131, 159–60 67–8, 74, 83, 86, 89, 106,
Bhattacharjea, Ajit, 100 145, 165
Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 9, 90 Constitution of Kashmir, Articles
Border Security Force (BSF), 108, 356, 357, and 370, 67, 74,
112, 181 83–5, 89, 145, 156–7
Bose, Sumantra, 21, 30, 67, 69, 73, Copeland, Ian, 91–2
76–7, 83, 87, 91, 99, 102–4 counterinsurgency, 11–12, 14, 108,
British Empire, 3–6, 20, 24–5, 28, 110–12, 113
61, 166, 172–3 coup d’état (1953), 70–1, 94
See also East India Company; cultural syncretism, 13–14, 25, 27,
Partition of India 45, 48–9, 58, 112–13
 Index 203

culture (Kashmiri), xv, 1–3, 8, East India Company, 3–5

9–14, 40, 45, 56, 61–2, 81–3, elections, xvi, 11, 21–2, 69, 74,
89–90, 92, 101, 113–15, 135 76–7, 82, 85–90, 93–100, 103,
See also militarization; 109, 156, 164–5, 181, 186
nationalism; regionalism faulty electoral processes, 11, 98–9
custodial disappearance, 115–17, 136 1934, 21
1957, 76–7
Dar, Farida, 117 1960s, 77, 85–6
Dar, Farooq Ahmad, 117 1970s, xvi, 87–8, 90, 97, 181
Dasgupta, Sunil, 153 1980s, 93–5, 96–100
Davidson, Michael, 33 2000s, 93, 109, 164–5, 186
Defense of India Rules, 84 Election Commission of India, 75–6
Delhi Accord of 1952, 68–70 ethnonationalism, 12–13, 127–9
Delhi Accord of 1975, 89–91, 93
Democratic National Conference, Farooq, Maulvi, 79, 97
77, 83 Farooq, Maulvi Omar, 106
democratization, 11, 20–3, 37, Fateh Kadal Reading Room
39–40, 43, 63–8, 70, 73, 75, Party, 19
76–8, 81, 83–7, 90, 93–4, 97, feudalism, 13, 17, 24, 26, 40, 56–7,
99–102, 105, 110, 114, 119, 65, 69, 71, 122, 130, 185
137, 146–7, 156–7, 167, 171, Firdous, Shamim, 123
185, 186 Fourth Rajput Regiment, 123
See also elections Friese, Kai, 159
Dhar, Amar Nath, 49
Dhar, Birbal, 3 Gandhi, Indira, xv, 82, 87, 89–90,
Dhar, D.P., 70 93–5, 102, 181, 182
Diakov, A.M., 65 Gandhi, Mahatma (Mohandas
Diamir, 9 Karamchand), 7, 95, 161,
Disturbed Areas Act, 104 159, 171
Dixon, Sir Owen, 32–6, 102 Gandhi, Rajiv, 95–6, 182
Dukhtaran-e-Milat (Daughters of Gandhi, Sonia, 182
the Nation) (DM), 118–21, Geelani, Syed Ali Shah, 97, 106
136, 182 Gilgit, 4, 7, 9, 19, 32, 155–6
Dogra, Giridharilal, 70 Gilgit–Baltistan United Action
Dogra language, 37 Forum, 9
Dogras, 4–6, 8, 17–20, 24–8, 38–40, Glancy Commission, 20
65, 70–2, 102, 160, 127, 179 Gottlieb, Gidon, 162–3
British suzerainty, 4–5, 17–20 Graham, Frank, 36
and despotism, 17–20 Grierson, Sir George, 48–50
and “land to the tiller” Gujjars, 13, 120–1, 127, 134, 139
legislation, 38–9 Gulmarg, 1, 137
ousting, 25–8
Dogra Sabha (1903), 18 Habbakadal, 123
Duda, P.N., 153, 158, 161 Hamadani, Syed Mir Ali (Shah
Durrani, Ahmad Shah, 3 Hamadan), 2, 20, 53–4, 60
204 Index

Handwara, 99–100 Indian army, 15, 29–30, 113,

Hangloo, R.L., 41, 50 138, 177
Harkat-ul-Mujahidin, 101 Indian Jammu and Kashmir
Hashmi, Mehmood, 139 (IJK), 32
Hazaribagh, Kashmir, 26 Indian National Congress, See
Hazratbal, 91, 105–6 Congress Party
Hewitt, J.P., 118 Indian Parliament, 83, 86
Hindu fundamentalism, 7, 93, 95, Indian Supreme Court, 69,
102, 128, 159 73–4, 153
Hindu nationalists, 66–7, 69–70, Indian Union, 30, 37, 66–9, 73–4,
76, 83, 101, 159 83, 89–90, 99, 102, 106, 109,
Hinduism, 1–2, 6–7, 13, 18, 23, 145–7, 163, 178, 182
25–6, 28, 35, 45, 66, 70, 107, Indo–Pakistan war (1965), 84, 90
112, 128, 164, 169 Instrument of Accession (1947), 30,
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), 101, 63, 176, 182, 187
105, 107, 182 insurgency, 10–12, 14, 98–112,
holy relic, 78–9 113–15, 117, 120, 122–3, 126,
Human Rights Commission, 147–50 129, 133, 146
human rights violations, 15, beginning of, 99–103
103–12, 113–43, 146–50, 170–1 communal turn of, 107–9
See also custodial disappearance; and counterinsurgency, 110–12
rape; trauma and the electoral process, 98–9
Hunza, 4, 8, 9 and the Indian administration,
103–7
Id-uz-Zuha (religious festival) See also counterinsurgency;
prayers, 20 human rights violations
Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, 105, 117 integration, Kashmir with India or
independence (Indian), 5, 19, 24–5, Pakistan, 109, 28–36
27–8, 40, 61, 100, 159, 165–6 Inter Services Intelligence (ISI),
independence (Kashmiri), xv, 28, 105, 183
70, 72, 96, 100, 102, 104, International Commission of
106, 147 Jurists, 148
India invasion of Kashmir (1947), 29–32,
army of, See Indian army 34, 138–40, 175–9
and China, 77 See also Kashmir dispute
and democracy (1967), 85–7 Iran, 41
destiny of, 24–5 Islam, 1–2, 27–8, 42, 49, 97, 122,
militarism of, 152–5 131–3, 150, 156–9, 169, 180
nation-state of (1947), 6–7 Islamabad, 9, 152–4, 161, 166
paramilitary forces, See Islamic extremism, 89–90, 95–7,
paramilitary 101, 105–6, 159
pre-partition (1885), 6–7 See also Jamaat-i-Islami
as republic (1950), 67
united, 27–8 Jagmohan, 94–8, 101, 104, 171
See also independence (India); oppressive policies of, 96–8
Partition of India Jahangir, 9–10, 184
 Index 205

Jama Masjid, 2, 19–20 Kashmir

Jamaat-i-Islami (Jamaat Party), autonomy, See autonomy
89–90, 95–7, 106 beauty of, 9–12
James, Morrice, 157 coup d’état (1953), 70–1, 94
Jammu, 3, 4, 7, 18, 35, 66, 69–72, culture of, See culture (Kashmiri)
76, 85–8, 93, 95, 107, 114, demilitarization, 32–5
128, 156, 164 dispute, See Kashmir dispute
Jammu and Kashmir (J & K) and electoral process, See
and India, 7–8, 14, 30–6, 63, 136 elections
historical overview of, 1–9 and Great Britain, See British
invasion of, See invasion of Empire
Kashmir historical overview of, 1–9
militarization of, 14, 32–5, identity of, xv, 8, 29–30, 34–5,
93–112 40–1, 83, 92, 142, 178
Muslim, See Muslims, Kashmiri invasion of, See invasion of
national identity of, 25–6 Kashmir
and Pakistan, 8–9, 30–1, 66 literature, See literature (Kashmiri)
people’s choice in accession, 31, military base, 33
65, 75 Muslims, See Muslims, Kashmiri
as postcolonial state, 42–3 and secularism, 7
princely state (1846–1947), 4–5, as territory, 4
17–29, 42, 90 Kashmir Affairs and Northern
symbols of, 8 Areas (KANA), 9, 149–50
territories, 4 Kashmir Constituent Assembly, 24
See also self-determination Kashmir dispute, 28–37, 75–85, 90,
Jammu and Kashmir Arms Act 106, 117, 152–68, 169–74,
(1940), 27 175–9
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation and ceasefire (1949), 31–2, 36, 90
Front (JKLF), 96, 98, 100–3, conferences on, 161–8
105–8, 147, 163, 183 and demilitarization, 32–6
Jammu and Kashmir Markazi and history, 158–61
Behboodi Khwateen, 131–3 invasion of Kashmir, 30–6
Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Nehru’s stance on, 36–7
Front (PF), See Plebiscite resolutions to, 155–8
Front (PF) Kashmir Valley, xv, 1–2, 4, 5, 7,
Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety 9–12, 14, 17, 25–6, 29, 32, 35,
Act (1978), 114, 148 38–9, 42–3, 45, 48–9, 60, 69,
Jammu and Kashmir State 72–3, 76, 79, 81, 83–6, 88–90,
Assembly, 67, 69, 83 93, 95–101, 103–5, 178
Jhelum Valley, 35 anti-India sentiments, 98
Jiang Zemin, 151 lack of infrastructure, 11–12
Jinnah, Mohammad Ali, 27, 146 militarization of, 10–12, 98–9
political organizations of, 11, 96–7
Kabra, Ghulam, 131 political protests, 83–4
Kampani, Gaurav, 152–4 See also insurgency; pro-Pakistan
Karra, Ghulam Mohiuddin, 79 factions
206 Index

Kashmiri, Mohammad Rauf, 100 Lashkar-i-Taiba, 101, 106, 108

Kashmiri Muslim Interior Lawrence, Walter, 43
Affairs, 103 Legislative Assembly of J & K, 20,
Kashmiri Muslims, See Muslims, 76, 87, 89–90, 106, 128
Kashmiri Liberation Council of J & K, 106,
Kashmiri Pandits, See Pandits, 123, 128
Kashmiri Line of Control (LOC), 12, 42–3,
Kashmiri Youth League, 22 90, 99–100, 142, 151–2, 155,
Kashmiriyat, 14, 40–2, 45, 63, 157–8, 162, 167, 184
100, 165, 183 literature (Kashmiri), 14, 48–9,
Kaura, Uma, 6–7 53, 59–62
Khaleq, Abdul, 76 Lone, Abdul Ghani, 97–8, 106
Khan, Ayub, 78, 81, 84
Khan, Liaquat Ali, 30–1, 34 Maharaja-Mountbatten
Khan, Mohammad Ishaq, 58, 102 correspondence, 175–8
Khan, Sir Zafarullah, 31 Mahiyan, 120–1
Khawatin-i-Kashmir (1902), 50 Mahjoor, 21, 139
Khir Bhawani, 112 Makhdum, Shaikh Hamza, 58
Khrushchev, Nikita, 84, 145 Malik, Abdul Rashid, 124–5
Khunjerab pass, 9 Malik, Mubeena Bano, 124–5
Kodaikanal, 81–2 Malik, Yaseen, 106, 147, 163
Koh-e-Ghizer, 9 Manchanda, Rita, 115
Korbel, Josef, 23–4, 34, 43 Masoodi, Maulana Sayeed, 23, 70,
Kosygin, Alexei, 84 78, 79, 81
Krishen, Rajbans, 32 Matto, Suraiya Ali, 81–2, 94–5,
132–3
Ladakh, 3, 4, 7, 8, 32, 35, 40, Mattoo, Neerja, 45, 53, 55, 57
63, 69, 85, 93, 95, 109, 127, Maulana Azad Government College
156, 164–5 for Women, 103, 119, 135
Lalla-Ded, 12, 14, 42, 45–61, 113, McClintock, Ann, 118–19, 128
140, 161, 173, 184 McNaughton, A.G.L., 32
and Christianity, 53–4 Mehta, Jagat S., 156–7
and female oppression, 52–3, Menon, V. P., 176–7
56–60 methodology, 12–15
impact of, 55–6 militarization (of Kashmiri culture),
and monolithic ideology, 56–9 11–12, 14–15, 93–112, 113–38
and nationalist literatures, 59–61 See also counterinsurgency;
oppression of, 45–6 insurgency
and patriarchy, 46, 48, 55, 56 Misri, Krishna, 39, 119, 133,
and religious humanism, 48–51 135–7, 142
and self-awareness, 51–4 Mountbatten, Lady Edwina, 132
and Sufi mysticism, 48, 60 Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 30,
and Victorian women, 59 175–7
as yogini, 46 Mughal Empire, 2, 3, 9
Lamb, Alastair, 5, 30, 84, 86 Muhammad-ud-Din Fauq, 50
land reforms, 18, 37–9, 63–6, 69, 73 Musharraf, Pervez, 150–1, 153–4
 Index 207

Muslim Conference (MC), 20–3, National Democratic Front, 119

27–8, 106, 185 National Militia, 30, 133–4
Muslim identity, 6–7, 21, 27, 29, 178 National Security Guards (NSG),
Muslim League, 6, 27–9, 66 115–16
Muslim United Front (MUF), 96–7, nationalism (Indian), 6–7, 69,
185 82–3, 98
Muslims, Kashmiri, 3, 5–8, 13–14, See also Congress Party
17–22, 24–5, 39–40, 45, 49, nationalism (Kashmiri), xv, 6–8,
58–60, 63, 69–70, 76, 80, 84, 11–15, 17–26, 34–5, 39–41,
96–8, 101, 103–5, 109, 146, 63, 66–7, 72–3, 79, 86, 89, 92,
154, 158–9, 171, 179, 181, 184 96–9, 118–21
and Dogra brutality, See Dogras awakening of (1930s), 15, 17–20, 63
and higher education, 18–19 and national identity, xv, 8, 23,
and oppressive policies, 96–8 25–6, 34–5, 40–1
political mobilization of, 18–22 and oppressive policies, 96–8
as “terrorists,” 104–5 and regional identity, 21, 39
See human rights violations; role of women in, 118–21
insurgency; land reforms; See also Hindu nationalists;
nationalism Kashmiriyat
Muttehada Quami Party, 9 nationalism (Pakistani), 6–7
Muzaffarabad, 4, 7, 81 Nationalist Literatures, 59–61
“native women,” 59, 120–1,
Nadim, Dina Nath, 60, 62 127, 129–30
Naeem, Hameeda, 122–3 Naya Kashmir Manifesto, 37–9
Nagar, 4, 8–9 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 25, 27–8,
Nair, A.R., 87 30–1, 36–7, 63–4, 68, 70–1,
Nandy, Ashis, 7 73–5, 77–81, 83–4, 87, 131,
Narayan, Jayaprakash, 84 139, 145–6, 160–1, 182
National Conference (NC), xv–xvi, photograph of, 64, 78
22–4, 27–31, 33, 37–41, stance of, 36–7
64–6, 70–4, 75–80, 83, New Delhi, 11, 37, 67, 71,
88, 91–103, 105, 110, 123, 94–102, 104, 116–17, 145,
126, 128, 164–5, 175, 148, 151–4, 160–1, 165–7,
178, 185 177, 179, 181, 183
archive photographs, 22 Niazi, Shahnawaz Khan, 92
dynastic politics within, 91–2 Nimitz, Chester, 73
and political mobilization, 37 Northwest Frontier Province
rupture within, 70–4 (N.W.F.P.), 134, 176
waning popularity of, 93–100 Northern Areas (NA), 9, 32, 35
and women’s rights, 39–40, Northern Ireland, 117–18,
102–3 149–50, 169
See also “land to the tiller” nuclear weaponry, 37, 115, 146,
legislation; National Militia; 151–5, 172
Naya Kashmir Manifesto
National Council of Education Observer (London), 33, 67
Research and Training, 159 Ojhri, Pakistan, 98
208 Index

Pakistan Plebiscite Front (PF), 74–5, 83–4,

creation of nation-state of 87–9, 94, 105, 147, 186
(1947), 6–7 Poonch, 4, 5, 7, 69, 109, 120, 176
and human rights violations, post-traumatic stress disorder,
149–50 121, 126
and India, 30–6 poverty, 121, 134, 150, 180
infiltration of, 152–5 Preventive Detention Act, 88
oral history, 15 pro-Pakistan factions, 73, 79, 89,
relationship with China, 77 73, 79, 89, 98, 105
and terrorism, 150–5 See also Al-Umar Mujahideen;
tribal raiders, 29–31, 34, 175–9 Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen;
See also invasion of Kashmir; Jamaat-i-Islami
pro-Pakistan factions Proliferation Research and
Palestine, 153, 169 Assessment Program, 152
Pandits, Kashmiri, 8, 18, 40–1, 45, Psychiatric Diseases Hospital,
49–50, 55, 60, 70, 76, 84, 101, Srinagar, 125–6
103, 108, 112, 114, 136, 142, Public Security Act, 70
171, 183, 186 Pugwash conferences, 161–2
Pant, Pushpesh, 160–1 Punjabi people, 6, 7, 26, 32, 187
Panun Kashmir Movement, 112 Putin, Vladimir, 151
paramilitary forces (Indian), 12–13,
15, 118, 120, 123–7, 129, Qabailis, 175–7
140–1, 147, 165, 172, 181–2, Qasim, Mir, 71, 77, 85, 88–90
187 Quit Kashmir movement (1940s),
See also Border Security Force; 15, 24, 25–9, 137, 141–2
Central Reserve Police Force;
Special Operations Group Radio Kashmir, 134, 139
Parishad, Praja, 66, 68, 76–7 Rahi, Rehman, 60, 62
Partition of India (1947), 5–8, Rai, Mridu, 40–1
27–8, 70, 129, 145 Raina, Gopinath, 50
Patel, Vallabhbhai, 68 Rajatarangini (River of Kings), 1–2
patriarchy, 46, 48, 55, 56, 115, rape, 107, 110–11, 115, 120–1,
118–19, 123, 125, 133, 123–5, 129–30, 135–6, 158,
135–7, 141 161, 172, 176, 178
People’s Conference, 97–8, Rashtriya Rifles (RR), 111,
106, 160 124, 186
People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
105, 119, 126, 128, (RSS), 95, 128
164–5, 186 regional/regionalism, 6–8, 18, 21,
Permanent Resident Bill, 128 27, 34–5, 39, 73, 79, 99,
Persia, 27, 41 179–80
Pickering, Sharon, 117 religious fundamentalism, 7, 11–13,
playwrights (Kashmiri), 61, 139 93, 113–14, 143, 163–4
plebiscite, 27, 31–6, 63–4, 72–5, See also Hindu fundamentalism;
83–4, 87–9, 94, 113, 146–7, Islamic extremism
156–8, 167, 181, 183, 186 religious humanism, 48–51, 187–8
 Index 209

repression, 10–11, 20, 39, 72, 74–5, Shah, Muhammad Yusuf, 19–20
83–4, 86, 90–1, 95, 99, 101, Shah, Rainchau (Sadruddin), 2
104, 113–14, 158–63, 186 Shah Hamadan mosque, 47
Republic of India, 77, 145 Shah Mir of Swat, 2
Rishiism, 48–9 Shahi Masjid (mosque), Srinagar,
Royal Asiatic Society, 50 27
Rushdie, Salman, 45, 95 Shalimar the Clown, 45
Russia, 31, 84, 151, 175 Shameem, Shameem Ahmad, 89
Shamsuddin, Khwaja, 77, 79, 85
Sadiq, Ghulam Mohammad, 24, Sharma, Somnath, 138
30, 33, 70, 73, 75–7, 79, 81, Shastri, Lal Bahdur, 84
83, 85, 88–9, 185 Sheikh, Farooq Ahmad, 110
Sadr-i-Riyasat, 61, 71, 83 Sherwani, Maqbool, 29, 178
Sahadev, Raja, 2 Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah:
Said, Edward, 43 Tragic Hero of Kashmir, 100
Saivism, Kashmiri (Shaivism), Sialkot, 176
49, 183 Sikhs, 3, 7, 25–6, 70, 95
Saraf, Shyamlal, 70 Silk Labour Union, 22
Sayeed, Mufti Mohammad, 103 Simla Agreement (1972), 90
Schofield, Victoria, 9 Singh, Dhyan, 5
secessionist movements, 35, 69, Singh, Harbaksh, 139
84, 93, 105, 114–15, 148, Singh, Karan, 65, 70–2
167, 172, 187 Singh, Maharajah Gulab, 3–5
secular/secularism, 7, 22–3, 27, 37, Singh, Maharajah Hari, 5, 17–18,
39–41, 50, 54, 67, 83–4, 93, 28, 30, 71–2, 127, 137, 141,
96, 100–1, 105, 118–19, 127, 175–8
131, 139, 145, 161, 165, 174, Singh, Maharjah Ranjit, 3, 5
183, 185 Singh, Pratap, 5
Security Council, See United Singh, Ranbir, 5
Nations Security Council Singh, Sadar-i-Riyasat Karan, 61
self-determination, 8–9, 14, 24, 33, Smith, Vincent H., 11
37, 65, 72, 74–5, 86–7, 89, 92, socialist/socialism, 22–4, 30, 37,
104, 106, 114, 117, 139, 147, 39, 63, 65, 67, 72, 80, 84,
157–8, 165, 167–8 91–2, 137, 179
separatist movements, 8–9, 37, 79, Societies Registration Act of 1998,
81, 140 132
September 11, 2001, 153, 163 Sofi, G. M. D., 50
Seshan, T. N., 82 South Asia, 9, 58, 146, 151–5,
Seven Rashtriya Rifles, 124 161–3, 170–3
Shah, Ahmad Ullah, 19–20 Soviet Union, 33, 65, 70, 84,
Shah, Ghulam Mohammad, 88, 145–6, 153
94–8, 110–12, 155–6 Special Operations Group (SOG),
Shah, Haider, 3 111, 117, 128–9, 187
Shah, Mehmooda Ahmad Ali, Special Task Force (STF), 107, 120,
134, 137 129, 187
Shah, Mohammad Ramzan, 110 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 140–1
210 Index

Sri Pratap Consolidation Law Act, United Nations Declaration on

128 Elimination of Violence against
Srinagar, Kashmir, 2, 18–20, 25, Women, 136
27, 29–30, 63–4, 78–80, 86–7, United Nations Security Council,
89, 91, 95, 100–5, 107, 176–9 31–6, 65–6, 75, 84, 146
near invasion of, 29–30, 176–9 United States, 31–3, 108, 113,
Standstill Agreement (1947), 28–9, 145–6, 152–5, 158, 161
138, 175–6 University of Kashmir, 122
state subject, 23, 127–8, 131 University of Hyderabad, 41, 50
Stromquist, Nelly, 130 Urdu literature, 14, 37
Students Federation, 22 Uri, 118
Students Liberation Front, 117
Sufiism/Sufi Islam, 2, 12, 45, 48–9, Vajpayee, Atal Behari, 150–1
53, 58–61, 172 The Valley of Kashmir
See also Lalla-Ded (1895), 43
Swati dynasty, 2 Vedic Hinduism, 45, 159
Verghese, B.G., 157
Taing, Mohammad Yousuf, 53
Taliban, 153 Wali, Sheikh Noor-ud-Din, 42,
Tamils, 7 48–9, 54, 58, 61, 161
Taploo, Tikka Lal, 107 Western epistemologies, 133
Tashkent Declaration, 84–5 Western tourists, and kidnapping,
Telegraph Employees Union, 22 101, 108
Temple, Sir Richard Carnac, 50–1 Wirsing, Robert G., 157–8, 167
terrorism, 104, 110, 114, 135, 148, women (Kashmiri), 12–15, 26, 30,
150–5, 158 39–40, 45–62, 96, 102–3,
Terrorist and Disruptive Activities 107–9, 113–43, 173
(Prevention) Act of 1987, and agency, 14–15, 130–42
114, 148 in ancient times, 46, 47
Tibet, 8, 63, 102, 173–4 and armed conflict, 14
Tihar jail, 117 brutalization of, 123–7
Times (London), 24, 36 as cultural repositories, 129–30
The Times of India, 30 and “culture of silence,” 115
trauma, 115, 121, 125–6, 148, 169–71 empowerment of, 12, 102, 120–1,
Treaty of Amritsar (1846), 4–5, 130–1, 134–7, 142–3
24, 27 and ethnonationalists, 127–9
Tuzuk-i-Jahangir, 9–10, 184 financial autonomy of, 123, 130
humiliation of, 107–8, 123–7
United Kingdom, 31–3 identity, 118, 122, 141–2
United Nations, 9, 24, 30–6, 63, militarization of, 14, 113–15,
65–6, 73–4, 90, 156 133–42
United Nations Conference mobilization of, 115–21
(Geneva) (1996), 122 and nationalist literatures, 59–61
United Nations Commission for negotiating spaces, 121–23
India and Pakistan (UNCIP), oppression of, 13, 103, 107–8,
23–4, 31, 34, 65 137
 Index 211

organizations of, 136–7 World War II, 65

political mobilization of, 109, writers (Kashmiri), 10, 14, 40, 50,
127–9, 141 55, 61–2, 96, 134, 139
rights of, 39–40, 103, 107–8 See also Lalla-Ded; literature
survival strategies of, 122 (Kashmiri)
and the Victorian woman, 59
and violence, 12–13, 122, 129, Yawak Sabha (1915), 18
135–6 Yôginî, 46
See also human rights violations;
Lalla-Ded; “native women” Zainab, Begum, 134
Women’s Self Defense Corps Zameer, Sajjida, 137
(WSDC), 133–4, 137, 140 Zardari, Asif Ali, 159–60