Kashmir and the Future of South Asia

Sugata Bose is the Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University, USA. His books include A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (2006), His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle Against Empire (2011), The Nation as Mother: and Other Visions of Nationhood (2017) and, with Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (4th edition, 2017, also published by Routledge).Ayesha Jalal is the Mary Richardson Professor of History at Tufts University, USA. Her books include Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam (2000), Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia (2008), The Pity of Partition: Manto’s Life, Times and Work Across the India-Pakistan Divide (2013) and, with Sugata Bose, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (4th edition, 2017, Routledge).

• 1. Introduction: Freedom’s Open Wound 2. Kashmir Scars: A Terrible Beauty is Torn 3. Cups of Nun Chai: 2010–ongoing 4. The State of Azadi: Voices from Pakistan-administered Kashmir 5. Affective Governance, Disaster, and the Unfinished Colonial Project 6. Infrastructures of Occupation: Mobility, Immobility, and the Politics of Integration in Kashmir 7. Narratives From Exile: Kashmiri Pandits and their Construction of the Past 8. Kashmiri Imaginings of Freedom in the Global Arenas 9. Kashmir and the Fire this Time 10. Conclusion: Healing the Wound

"[T]his book […] seeks an answer to the unfinished legacy of partition and the festering wound it created, i.e. Kashmir problem. It seeks to explore the impact of such a psychological division on the political imagination of India, Pakistan, and more importantly Kashmiris; and looks into how India and Pakistan imagine Kashmir’s presence within their respective fold, and how resistance is viewed by Kashmiris, and how the unending Kashmir conflict is viewed in the global scenario. It shows how the cultural, historic, and political space of Kashmir persists, as the people of Kashmir and their cultural, literary, and artistic productions cannot be contained within the reigns of the countries through which this country is divided. It continues to haunt the postcolonial national present. The book also examines how long-term resolution demands a commitment to historical forces, political actors, and social groups that are beyond the nation-state. The writers used an approach focusing on the people of Kashmir rather than standard statistics and national security concerns." Anayat Ullah Mugloo, University of Kashmir, Mainstream, VOL LIX No 28, June 2021