Settler/colonialism in Kashmir

This book examines India’s settler/colonial rule in Kashmir through historical and contemporary settler/colonial geopolitics. Analysing Kashmir’s place in the geopolitical settler/colonial world order and ecological catastrophe, the book contributes to pressing debates regarding current planetary crises. In 2019, the Indian government annexed Indian-occupied Kashmir and revoked its semi-autonomous status. India’s subsequent changes to Kashmir’s land and domicile laws enabling its settler/colonialism in Kashmir has prompted a settler/colonial turn in recent scholarly analyses within Critical Kashmir Studies. Widening this canvas in conversation with settler/colonial, decolonial and Indigenous Studies, this book examines Indian settler/colonial rule in Kashmir in the context of the global settler/colonial world order. It theorises the historical shaping of European settler/colonial sovereignty as catastrophic for Indigenous worlds, and how this form of sovereignty informs Indian rule in Kashmir. By exploring historical British and present Indian indirect and direct rule, the book traces the ways in which Kashmir was reshaped through settler/colonial sovereignty as a catastrophe in geopolitical, economic, religio-cultural and ecological terms. Examining Indian rule in Kashmir in the context of a destructive geopolitical settler/colonial world order, Settler/colonialism in Kashmir offers a cogent anti-colonial analysis as a contribution to current scholarship on Kashmir in the context of Critical Kashmir, settler/colonial, Indigenous, decolonial and South Asian Studies. Its focus on the intersections of sovereignty, catastrophe, Indigeneity and ecology offers a timely and pressing contribution to ongoing debates about the role of settler/colonialism in shaping planetary crises. This book examines Indian rule in occupied Jammu and Kashmir through the lens of settler-colonial geopolitics. Engaging with settler-colonial, decolonial and Indigenous studies, the book traces how European sovereignty was shaped through settler-colonial practices that proved catastrophic for Indigenous worlds and helped generate today’s climate crisis. It argues that India draws on these same mechanisms in governing Kashmir, thereby fuelling ecological harm and reinforcing a global settler-colonial order. Analysing the India–China rivalry, Kashmir’s political economy and India’s indigenisation of Hindu sacred geography in the region, the book reframes Kashmiri resistance as an Indigenous anti-colonial struggle. By exploring the intersections of sovereignty, catastrophe, Indigeneity and ecology, it positions Kashmir within broader debates on settler-colonialism and planetary crises.

Pages: 256, Hardcover, Manchester University Press