HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 38 Number 1 Article 26 June 2018 Review of History of Armed Struggles in Kashmir by Rao Farman Ali Inshah Malik Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Malik, Inshah. 2018. Review of History of Armed Struggles in Kashmir by Rao Farman Ali. HIMALAYA 38(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol38/iss1/26 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reviews tremendously due to lack of access Dogra rule of Kashmir in the early to information and censorship. A 1850s, we get acquainted with Kashmiri-authored book on the Kashmiri political actors through contentious issue of armed struggles anecdotes and descriptions of events is a welcome step in reigniting the that demonstrate the Kashmiri passion for scholarship among a new people’s historical willingness to generation of Kashmiris. It is further fight for their rights and assert notable that the book is published their need for political autonomy. by JayKay Books, which is one of The biggest contribution that Ali the oldest indigenous publishing makes here is that he links the houses in Kashmir. Kashmiri consciousness to the idea of political and labor rights, which The book is divided into six chapters. took incremental steps over several The first chapter, the introduction centuries to consolidate into a to the book, does not prepare the History of Armed national political consciousness. reader for the book’s main thesis— Struggles in Kashmir. Much of this predates modern namely, that the armed struggle did pan-Islamism and it is here that not just abruptly start in 1989. Ali Rao Farman Ali. Srinagar: the book makes a brave departure disputes the scholarly consensus that JayKay Books, 2017. 304 pages. from looking at Kashmir only presents the year 1989 as a historic ISBN 9789383908646. through the prism of the “Islamic moment before which Kashmir was extremism” problem. Reviewed by Inshah Malik largely peaceful. He alludes to the fact that the violent political action When the Dogra rulers entered The idea of presenting a history is to in Kashmir is older than 1989 and has Kashmir after acquiring it from invoke human agency, highlight the its roots in early Kashmiri political the British colonialists through the changing circumstances of the human consciousness that rose alongside the Treaty of Amritsar in 1809, Ali argues condition, and offer an understanding Indian subcontinent’s anti-colonial that Kashmiris unified in a protest of our existing political order. politics. However, the chapter does against an imposed foreign ruler. Rao Farman Ali’s History of Armed not make a case for this argument, It took a full-fledged British armed Struggles in Kashmir rises up to this but instead offers, first, a description intervention to quash the resistance challenge and explores the political of Kashmir’s political geography, that greeted Gulab Singh in Kashmir agency of the Kashmiri people and followed by a half-hearted attempt (p. 11). Similarly, artisans’ rights painstakingly catalogues details that to refute the Hindu mythological were an issue that brought Kashmiri achieve an astounding girth. The description of how Kashmir came shawls-weavers together to observe book attempts to reintroduce and into existence (which is presented a ‘first demand day’ on April 29, reorganize the historical material on almost as a matter of historical fact). 1865. This marked the beginning Kashmiri political action to create an This leads to serious lapses in the of a resistance movement against indigenous narrative on Kashmir’s organization of the book. the Rahdari system, which was put politics. However, it fails in producing in place after Kashmiri artisans In the second chapter, Ali begins a line of argument that could help us started fleeing in large numbers to to build a background for his understand our present moment. avoid heavy taxation. The second actual subject, that is, the armed Dogra ruler, Ranbir Singh, ordered Under political occupation, struggles. In the shawl weavers’ all roads out of Kashmir to be Kashmiri scholarship has suffered political movement against the 206 | HIMALAYA Spring 2018 …the book makes a brave departure from looking at Kashmir only through the prism of the “Islamic extremism” problem. Inshah Malik on History of Armed Struggles in Kashmir closed and even ordered the fleeing operation, and politics of armed that demanded a plebiscite, which artisans to be killed by drowning. groups after 1947. These are precisely Jawaharlal Nehru promised and to This movement is the first instance the aspects of Kashmiri political which the United Nations committed. in Kashmir’s history of political life that hardly receive any serious Ali argues these conditions were organization for demanding rights; scholarly attention. The dispute over a ripe for more leftist groups, like Red it also notably provided an outlet for functional constitution, the escalation Kashmir, to mushroom in Kashmir, channeling dissent under an imposed of violent attacks, arson, and armed and in the early 1960s the Jammu & monarchy (p. 15). rebellion in the Poonch area as protest Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was against disallowing democratic started by Amanullah Khan (p. 61). Under the third Dogra ruler, Pratab resolution of the Kashmir issue were Singh, public education improved In Chapter Four, Ali details how stark political realities of Kashmir’s through missionary schools and eventually a Palestinian-style Al post-accession polity. anjumans (Muslim organizational Fatah group formed along with the schools). By this time, the issue of the Chapter Three, although entitled Young Men’s League in the late weavers’ rights had created a platform “Second Generation Armed Struggle,” 1960s. Together, these introduced the to raise a national demand since the actually focuses on the first Kashmiri polity to strategic armed level of political education among generational armed struggle, when struggle and guerilla warfare. Ali the masses was gradually growing. most Kashmiris found themselves further unravels the relationship However, raising such a national at a politically opportune moment between the Plebiscite Front demand resulted in social ruptures to demand political change through Movement and Al Fatah through oral along class lines. While lower-class, violent politics. On October 16, 1948, anecdotes, the details of which bring poor Muslim weavers conceived the Mujahid Front was launched to light the complicated relationship of a nation free of oppression and to refute the claim of finality and between the armed groups and exploitation, Kashmir’s upper-class fairness of accession. The group the National Conference in the Pandits demanded that their class argued that the king had no authority 1960s and 1970s. interests be protected. The Pandits to sign the accession because he In Chapter Five, the author presents started a parallel demand, namely, was widely unpopular and resented details of the widely known the Roti (bread) movement, which by the majority of his subjects (pp. 1980s armed struggle. He focuses sought assurance from the king that 57-9). The Mujahid Front engaged specifically on the formation of the they would be employed by the state in several mass political education Islamic Student’s League, the Jammu (pp. 16-18). The organization of this drives to educate Kashmiris about the Kashmir Liberation Front, and Hizbul national movement was further “deceitful” nature of accession (p. 59). Mujahideen, documenting their complicated by the decolonization Ali demonstrates how the events intricate inner details and locating of the subcontinent. Ali provides a and conditions of the early 1940-50s their splinter groups. There is a brief peek into those complications and finally consolidated a need to resist description of women’s institutions addresses Kashmir’s accession to India. Indian rule through a dedicated and activism in the 1980s and passing Through problematizing Kashmir’s armed struggle as early as the 1950s. references of incidents of women’s accession to India (pp. 23-8) and the The coup that led to the incarceration participation in various phases. Ali formation of the interim government of the popular National Conference also documents Pakistan’s several that brought the National Conference leader Sheikh Abdullah and replaced interventions into the Kashmiri (a secular Kashmiri nationalist party) him with a Pro-Indian Bakshi regime resistance movement, such as to power in Indian-occupied Kashmir in 1953 also led to the formation of operation Gibraltar. He maintains (p. 29), the author traces the existence, an organized political front in 1960 that Pakistan has been supportive HIMALAYA Volume 38, Number 1 | 207 of Kashmir’s freedom cause without any critical engagement with the nature and strategic motivations of that support. In the concluding chapter, Ali’s discussion of the resolution of the Kashmir dispute is generic and incongruous with the actual potential of the book. The lapses in the book are reflected in the absence of both the identification of political actors (besides names) and an introduction to the political philosophy of these organizations, which leaves the reader confused. The book offers encyclopedic information on Kashmiri resistance movements but does so unfortunately with very little argument. Nevertheless, at this stage it has a potential to become a ‘go to’ resource for students and scholars interested in different phases of Kashmir’s resistance history. Inshah Malik holds a PhD in Political Theory and Gender Studies. She was the Fox International Fellow at Yale University for 2014-15.