Colonizing Kashmir

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The Indian government, often hailed as the world's largest democracy, asserts that Jammu and Kashmir—its only Muslim-majority state—is "an integral part of India." This region, disputed between India and Pakistan and regarded as the world's most militarized zone, has been under Indian occupation for over seventy-five years. The author interrogates how Kashmir was deemed "integral" to India by examining the decade-long rule (1953-1963) of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the second Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Utilizing a diverse range of bureaucratic documents, propaganda materials, memoirs, and oral interviews in English, Urdu, and Kashmiri, the author explores Bakshi's state-building policies within the framework of India's colonial occupation. The analysis reveals how the Kashmir government aimed to integrate its Muslim population while grappling with inter-religious tension, corruption, and political repression. By challenging the binaries of colonial and postcolonial narratives, the author historicizes India's occupation of Kashmir through emotional integration, development, and empowerment, revealing new hierarchies of power that emerged post-decolonization. This work prompts a reevaluation of triumphalist narratives surrounding India's state formation and the sovereignty claims of the modern nation-state.