The Parchment of Kashmir

In this volume, Kashmiri scholars of all disciplines undertake a new look at their homeland. Taking account of both mainstream ideologies and contrary discourses, the authors provide a set of visions for Kashmiri culture and society. The authors underline the repercussions of India's anti-democratic strategies, delineate the fundamental structural inequities in the Jammu & Kashmir polity, and analyze the effects of nationalist, militant and religious discourses and praxes on a gender-based social hierarchy. The book offers a panorama of key cultural concerns of Jammu & Kashmir today, from the military aspects of the Kashmir conflict to the modern-day revival of indigenous cultural institutions.

Nyla Ali Khan has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches several courses, including South Asian Studies, Twentieth-Century Anglophone Postcolonial Literature, Postcolonial Theory, and Cultural Studies. Formerly an associate professor at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, she is the author of The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism (2005) and Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan (2010). A native of Kashmir, she has written extensively on issues related to Jammu & Kashmir. Her articles on Kashmir have appeared in leading English dailies in Kashmir and in Indian and Pakistani mainstream national newspapers.