Kashmir and Nationalism: A History of the Present

In August 2019, the Indian State unilaterally stripped the limited autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir. To understand this highly significant move, we must move beyond the dominant scholarship that sees Kashmir as a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, an unfinished agenda of the partition of British India, or a religious conflict (e.g., Akbar 1991; Amin 1995; Ganguly 1999; Joshi 1999; Lamb 1991). Instead, my research argues that these actions are best understood as a response to Kashmiri nationalism —a political phenomenon that, to date, has largely gone unacknowledged in Kashmir scholarship. My research fills this gap by tracing how Kashmiri nationalism emerged and resisted — through negotiation and adaptation — the colonial designs of India and Pakistan after 1947. However, my research does not rigidly apply conventional nationalism literature (e.g., Gellner 1983; Anderson 1991; Hobsbawm 1992), to the study of Kashmiri nationalism, due to the limitations of this canonical body of work. Consequently, my research offers a fresh theoretical approach to nationalism studies by employing a Foucauldian perspective that emphasises contingency over determinism. This perspective enables my research to critically analyse (Kashmiri) nationalism and write Kashmir’s ‘history of the present’ (Foucault 1995). I argue that to understand the developments in Kashmir before and since 5 August 2019, we must re-orient our analysis to the tripartite power relation between Kashmir, India, and Pakistan. Such an analysis shows how each actor has deployed a series of strategies and tactics — violent and non-violent — over the years to entrench or contest its position, to achieve the long-term goal of reinforcing its claims over Kashmir’s past, present, and future. The research draws on a multimodal dataset comprising multi-sited, multi-lingual materials, including semi-structured interviews (in-person and remote) with interlocutors from Indian-administered Kashmir, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and the Kashmiri diaspora in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East; extensive archival materials (private and official in the UK and South Asia) spanning colonial and post-1947 periods; and a range of (pop)cultural materials. Through a critical and contextual reading of this dataset, my research foregrounds the historical conditions that engendered Kashmiri nationalism. It examines how Kashmiri nationalism continues to produce Kashmiris as a nation actively resisting and challenging the States of India and Pakistan through an anti-colonial movement. In line with decolonial thought, my research reveals how coloniality persists in South Asia and examines how Kashmiri nationalism functions as a movement of counter-conduct (Foucault 2009) against the State-nationalisms of India and Pakistan, while also interrogating its omissions and exclusions. Through this Fellowship, I will consolidate my research profile by publishing and disseminating my doctoral work while further enhancing my research skills. Significantly, the fellowship will enable me to develop funding applications for my future research, wherein I will examine intra-diaspora dynamics in Britain. The research will build on my doctoral research and examine how the Kashmiri diaspora in the UK became one of the most marginalised South Asian communities despite its size and historical significance (Ali, 2003; 2009; Kile, 2009; Kalra, 2018), in contrast to Indian and Pakistani diasporas, which enjoy greater public visibility and policymaking influence and investigate how intra-diaspora power dynamics and homeland politics intersect to shape Kashmiri diaspora identity in a trans-local context. Additionally, the research will explore the Kashmiri diaspora’s historical and ongoing activism, including solidarity work with other marginalised groups in the UK.