Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The guest editorial of the special section of the journal argues that one should not view the conflict as simply a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, but as experienced by Kashmiris as the heavily militarised control of everyday life (which means disappearances, unmarked mass graves, torture and rape carried out by armed forces with impunity). It is those inside Kashmir who can provide the possible solutions to the conflict. The author provides a historical background to the State of Jammu and Kashmir from the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, through decolonisation and the refusal to hold the promised plebiscite on Kashmir’s future, to the rise of militant insurgency. It situates in current conditions the articles that follow: by Nyla Ali Khan (on her grandfather Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah and the 1953 coup); Gowhar Geelani (on not letting the world forget Kashmir); Jim Drummond (on the political use of the death penalty); Sajid Iqbal (on the possibility of transitional justice); Noor Ahmad Baba (on the potential for political solutions); and Gull Wani (on sub-regional contradictions and devolved power).

Keywords

autonomy Dogras Indian armed forces Instrument of Accession insurgency Jammu and Kashmir Line of Control mass graves Mohammad Afzal Guru Partition Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Kak

Sanjay

, ‘The apparatus’, Caravan Magazine (1 March 2013), available at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/apparatus; Hamid

Peerzada Arshad

, ‘Kashmir’s tortured past and present’, Himal Southasian (September 2007), available at: http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/1284-Kashmir’s-tortured-past-and-present.html.

‘Indian forces use pepper gas in Kashmir’, The Kashmir Walla (10 March 2013), available at: http://www.thekashmirwalla.com/2013/03/indian-forces-use-pepper-gas-in-kashmir-despite-shrc-directions/; ‘Lady dies due to pepper gas, second death in a week’, The Vox Kashmir (8 March 2013), available at: http://www.thevoxkashmir.com/2013/03/08/lady-dies-due-to-pepper-gas-2nd-death-in-a-week/; ‘Pepper gas claims life’, Greater Kashmir (9 March 2013), available at: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Mar/9/pepper-gas-claims-life-61.asp; ‘The pellet stories!’, The Vox Kashmir (10 March 2013), available at: http://www.thevoxkashmir.com/2013/03/10/the-pellet-stories/; ‘Women on forefront to get their dear ones released’, Greater Kashmir (11 March 2013), available at: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Mar/11/women-on-forefront-to-get-their-dear-ones-released-35.asp; Amnesty International, India: a ‘lawless law’: detentions under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (Amnesty International, 2011), available at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA20/001/2011/en.

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s letter to the UN Security Council, ‘Death blow on the effectiveness of the Security Council’, available at: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Feb/5/death-blow-on-the-effectiveness-of-the-security-council-21.asp.

One lakh = 100,000.

Ahad

Dr Abdul

, ‘Revisiting the Treaty of Amritsar’, Greater Kashmir (14 March 2013), available at: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Mar/14/revisiting-the-treaty-of-amritsar-14.asp; Snedden

Christopher

, Kashmir: the unwritten history (Harper Collins India, 2013); http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=13745#.UUNjg6hV_nI.facebook; Para

Altaf Husain

, ‘Sale of Kashmir: a day we want to forget’, Rising Kashmir (16 March 2013).

Rai

Mridu

, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, community and the history of Kashmir (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004).

Interview with Ved Bhasin, ‘Jammu riots changed J and K politics’, available at: http://kashmirsolidarity.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/1000/.

Anderson

Perry

, ‘Why Partition?’, London Review of Books (19 July 2012), available at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n14/perry-anderson/why-partition; Lamb

Alastair

, Kashmir: a disputed legacy 1846–1990 (Oxford, OUP, 1992).

Bose

Sumantra

, Kashmir: the roots of conflict, paths to peace (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2005).

10.

Baruah

Sanjib

, Durable Disorder: understanding the politics of Northeast India (Oxford, OUP, 2007).

11.

Roy

Arundhati

., The Hanging of Afzal Guru and the Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament (Penguin India, 2013).