Many disenchanted Kashmiris continue to demand independence or freedom from India. Written by a leading authority on Kashmir’s troubled past, this book revisits the topic of independence for the region (also known as Jammu and Kashmir, or J&K), and explores exactly why this aspiration has never been fulfilled. In a rare India-Pakistan agreement, they concur that neither J&K, nor any part of it, can be independent. Charting a complex history and intense geo-political rivalry from Maharaja Hari Singh’s leadership in the mid-1920s to the present, this book offers an essential insight into the disputes that have shaped the region. As tensions continue to rise following government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns, Snedden asks a vital question: what might independence look like and just how realistic is this aspiration?

This book is a result of research undertaken on the subject by the scholars associated with the IDSA project on Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) - also known as Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) - which includes both the so-called "Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)" and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). This was legally a part of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which acceded to India in October 1947. The authors of this book seek to provide a critical analysis of the politics of the above mentioned two regions within PoK; throw light on the genesis and evolution of various political parties and interest groups, and acquaint the readers with different personalities playing important role in politics therein. The main aim of the publication is to help the scholars, analysts, and policy-makers to understand the dynamics of the political systems in PoK, the complex interaction of these systems with the government in Islamabad and the responses of the local leadership to Pakistan's strategy of keeping them under strict control in the name of representative governance over the last 70 years.

Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir in 1989 was their seventh such exodus since the arrival of Islam in Kashmir in the fourteenth century. This was precipitated by the outbreak of Pakistan-sponsored insurgency across Kashmir Valley in 1989. The radical Islamists targeted Pandits - a minuscule community in Muslim dominated society creating enormous fear, panic and grave sense of insecurity. In the face of ruthless atrocities inflicted on them, the Pandits’ sole concern was ensuring their own physical safety and their resolve not to convert to Islam. Over 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits were forced to flee en masse leaving their home and hearth. This was the single largest forced displacement of people of a particular ethnicity after partition of India. Pandits’ travails did not end with the exodus. The obstructive and intimidating attitude of the State administration towards the Pandit refugees made their post-exodus existence even more miserable. The Government at the Centre too remained indifferent to their plight. This book traces the Pandits’ economic and political marginalization in the State over the past six decades and covers in detail the events that led to their eventual exodus. In the light of ethnic cleansing of Pandits from the Valley, the book also examines some critical issues so crucial to India’s survival as a multi-cultural, liberal and secular democracy.

Since 1947-48, when India and Pakistan fought their first war over Kashmir, it has been reduced to an endlessly disputed territory. As a result, the people of this region and its rich history are often forgotten. This short introduction untangles the complex issue of Kashmir to help readers understand not just its past, present, and future, but also the sources of the existing misconceptions about it. In lucidly written prose, the author presents a range of ways in which Kashmir has been imagined by its inhabitants and outsiders over the centuries—a sacred space, homeland, nation, secular symbol, and a zone of conflict. Kashmir thus emerges in this account as a geographic entity as well as a composite of multiple ideas and shifting boundaries that were produced in specific historical and political contexts.

Resisting Occupation in Kashmir considers the social and legal dimensions of India's occupation of Kashmir and the ways in which Kashmiri youth are drawing on the region's history of armed rebellion to reimagine the freedom struggle in the twenty-first century.

This book is a compendium of the speeches and interviews of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who reigned as Prime Minister of the State of Jammu and Kashmir from 1948 to 1953, and who was a large presence on the political landscape of India for fifty years. The volume is designed to enable a student of South Asian politics, and the politics of Kashmir in particular, to analyze the ways in which experiences have been constructed historically and have changed overtime.

"Discusses the role of women in militancy in Kashmir from a historical perspective"--Provided by publisher.

An excellent presentation of the many complex factors which stem from the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. The author as the original Czech member of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan, brings to his narrative first-hand experience. Originally published in 1954. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.