Kashmiri Life Narratives takes as its central focus writings -- memoirs, non-fictional and fictional Bildungsromane -- published circa 2008 by Kashmiris/Indians living in the Valley of Kashmir, India or in the diaspora. It offers a new perspective on these works by analyzing them within the framework of human rights discourse and advocacy. Literature has been an important medium for promoting the rights of marginalized Kashmiri subjects within Indian-occupied Kashmir, successfully putting Kashmir back on the global map and shifting discussion about Kashmir from the political board rooms to the international English-language book market. In discussing human rights advocacy through literature, this book also effects a radical change of perspective by highlighting positive rights (to enjoy certain things) rather than negative ones (to be spared certain things). Kashmiri life narratives deploy a language of pleasure rather than of physical pain to represent the state of having and losing rights.

Over the last three decades, Kashmir has been ravaged by insurgency. While reams have been written on it - in human rights documents, academic theses, non-fiction accounts of the turmoil, and government and military reports - the effects of the violence on its inhabitants have rarely been rendered in fiction. Feroz Rather's The Night of Broken Glass corrects that anomaly. Through a series of interconnected stories, within which the same characters move in and out, the author weaves a tapestry of the horror Kashmir has come to represent. His visceral imagery explores the psychological impact of the turmoil on its natives - Showkat, who is made to wipe off graffiti on the wall of his shop with his tongue; Rosy, a progressive, jeans-wearing 'upper-caste' girl who is in love with 'lower-caste' Jamshid; Jamshid's father Gulam, a cobbler by profession who never finds his son's bullet-riddled body; the ineffectual Nadim 'Pasture', who proclaims himself a full-fledged rebel; even the barbaric and tyrannical Major S, who has to contend with his own nightmares. Grappling with a society brutalized by the oppression of the state, and fissured by the tensions of caste and gender, Feroz Rather's remarkable debut is as much a paean to the beauty of Kashmir and the courage of its people as it is a dirge to a paradise lost.

Azad (Free) Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)) is that part of Kashmir within Pakistan, separated by a Line of Control from Indian territory. This book is a rarity: it offers a fresh interpretive history of the largely forgotten four million people of Azad Kashmir. The author contends that in October 1947, pro-Pakistan Muslims in south-western J&K instigated the Kashmir dispute-not Pashtun tribesmen invading from Pakistan, as India has consistently claimed. Later called Azad Kashmiris, these people, Snedden argues, are legitimate stakeholders in an unresolved dispute. He provides comprehensive new information that critically examines Azad Kashmir's administration, economy, political system, and its subordinate relationship with Pakistan. Azad Kashmiris considered their administration to be the only legitimate government in J&K and expected that it would rule after J&K was re-unified by a UN-supervised plebiscite. This poll has never been conducted and Azad Kashmir has effectively, if not yet legally, become a (dependent) part of Pakistan. Long disenchanted with Islamabad, some Azad Kashmiris now favour independence for J&K, hoping that they may survive and prosper without recourse to either of their bigger neighbours. Snedden concludes his book by assessing the various proposals to resolve Azad Kashmir's international status and the broader Kashmir dispute.

Kashmir is a forgotten conflict. Since ages, it has remained as an unattended human tragedy. Consequently, many changes at political and social level have mutated the discourse of life subtly. There are many untold and unheard real stories reeling under the debris of turmoil. This book is an attempt to narrate those voices through their character(s) and unearth the decayed truths of the place.

Set in the once-fabled land of Kashmir, Behold, I Shine moves beyond male voices and focuses, instead, on what the struggle means for the Valley's women and children-those whose husbands remain untraceable; whose mothers are half-widows; those who have confronted the wrath of 'Ikhwanis', or the scrutiny of men in uniform, and what it means to stand up to it all. This book also brings to focus the resilience of the Valley's women and children-of activists like Parveena Ahangar and Anjum Zamrud Habib, who, after debilitating losses, start human rights organizations; of ordinary homemakers like Munawara who have taken on the judiciary; and of a young generation of thinkers like Uzma Falak and Essar Batool who foreground the interaction of gender, politics and religion, and won't let Kashmir forget. Stitching together their narratives, Behold, I Shine not only memorializes women's voices-thus far forgotten, unwritten, suppressed or sidelined-but also celebrates the mighty spirit of the Valley.

Faith & Frenzy is a collection of short stories that brings to the reader the intimate details of forgotten Kashmiris of all hues, caught in the quagmire of terror and murky politics. Their stories have remained untold, submerged as they remain under layers of shady rhetoric and politics of deceit. Most, but not all, stories take place in a background of escalating militancy that brought terror, insecurity and mayhem into the lives of people and dealt a deathblow to the tradition of amity, tolerance and peaceful living that had defined Kashmiri life over significant periods of history. A unique feature of many of these stories is that they are discovered and revealed through the lens of a doctor who is also a keen observer of a society in flux. The author himself is the narrator of the stories. More importantly, he is also involved as one of the key participants in most of them. His initial contact with the main characters often begins in his role as a physician. He receives them as patients and, while providing his professional services, he finds himself entwined into the intricacies, uncertainties and struggles of their lives. The stories peep deep into their lives, and probe inside their souls. Above all, these are stories of the universal human circumstance. This title is published by Vitasta Publishing Pvt. Ltd. and is distributed worldwide by Untreed Reads.

Partitioned Lives: Narratives of Home, Displacement, and Resettlement features fifteen essays that focus on personal, subjective experiences of partition, rather than on official accounts. The book analyses fiction, films, and biographical and autobiographical accounts relating to the experience and influence of Partition. It also studies partition-related migrations not only to and from West Pakistan, East Pakistan, and India, but also to the West. Essays discuss how partition continues to influence cultural identities both in the subcontinent and among the diaspora.

Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world—and one of the most ignored. Under an Indian military rule that, at half a million strong, exceeds the total number of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, freedom of speech is non-existent, and human- rights abuses and atrocities are routinely visited on its Muslim-majority population. In the last two decades alone, over seventy thousand people have died. Ignored by its own corrupt politicians, abandoned by Pakistan and the West, which refuses to bring pressure to bear on its regional ally, India, the Kashmiri people’s ongoing quest for justice and self- determination continues to be brutally suppressed. Exploring the causes and consequences of the occupation, Kashmir: The Case for Freedom is a passionate call for the end of occupation, and for the right of self- determination for the Kashmiri people.

Rahul Pandita was fourteen years old when he was forced to leave his home in Srinagar along with his family. They were Kashmiri Pandits-the Hindu minority within a Muslim-majority Kashmir that was by 1990 becoming increasingly agitated with the cries of 'Azaadi' from India. Our Moon Has Blood Clots is the story of Kashmir, in which hundreds of thousands of Pandits were tortured, killed and forced to leave their homes by Islamist militants, and forced to spend the rest of their lives in exile in their own country. Pandita has written a deeply personal, powerful and unforgettable story of history, home and loss.