The problem of Jammu and Kashmir and of the Kashmir valley in particular, must be the most explored and the most overworked theme in a variety of studies that range from conflict, to nationality and nation, to federalism, to patriotism, to security, to terrorism, to accounts of the Partition, to communal conflict, and to India-Pakistan relations. Looming large over all these scholarly imaginations is the ‘P’ factor—Pakistan, the ‘T’ factor—terrorism, the ‘S’ factor—security, and in the aftermath of 9/11 the ‘I’ factor—Islamic terrorism. Arguably, in the excessive concern with security, terrorism, and particularly nationalism—concern with which borders on fascism at times—something is lost; that something being the way in which the people of the Kashmir valley live out their everyday lives. For instance when I embarked on a project to compare militancy in Punjab and Kashmir, I found much to my dismay that though reams have been scripted on the political economy of Punjab, especially on the political implications of the agrarian revolution, very little has been written on the political economy of Jammu and Kashmir; and this though J&K has carried out one of the most successful of land reforms in the history of India.
January 2005, volume 29, No 1