Languages of Belonging

Download or read book Languages of Belonging written by Chitralekha Zutshi and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, in contrast, questions the notion of any transcendent cultural uniqueness and Kashmiriyat by returning Kashmir to the mainstream of South Asian historiography. It examines the hundred-year impact of indirect colonial rule on Kashmirs class formation. It studies the uses (and abuses) made of Kashmirs political elites by the state. It looks at the responses of Kashmirs society to social and economic restructuring. It shows that while all these historical changes had a profound impact on the political culture of the Kashmir Valley, there is nothing very inevitable or quite definite about the 'political regionalism' and 'Islamic particularism' of this area.