Kashmir Valley

Shrines of Sufi saints in Kashmir are an important public space in the larger vacuum of spatial avenues for Kashmiri women. Shrines provide demarcated spaces and roles for women in its property and rituals, and facilitate religious education, socialisation, as well as political mobilisation. Despite being steeped in piety and devotion, mystic legacies and practices still pose as a relatively liberal alternative to the male-dominated public sphere in the valley. Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper seeks to unpack the gender politics in a religious public space and its ramifications for our larger understanding of the public sphere itself.

Read more about Gender Politics and Public Sphere

Of Tulips and Daffodils

Vol. 52, Issue No. 15, 15 Apr, 2017

Anubhuti Maurya

This article examines the emergence of the concept of Kashmir jannat nazir as a literary and political imaginary in the Mughal court. It represented a distinct imagination about the region and emerged as a literary imaginary in the late 16th century and over the early part of the 17th century, entering into the imperial chronicles. By the mid-17th century, the concept had become a part of the political discourse and the language of Mughal sovereignty. The literary and political imaginary of Kashmir in the Mughal court drew upon older textual traditions like the literature and histories from Kashmir, corpora of Arab and Persian geographies compiled from the ninth century onwards, travel accounts, wonder tales and the chronicles of the Ghaznavid and Timurid courts.

Read more about Of Tulips and Daffodils

The Valley, the Hills and the Summit

Vol. 36, Issue No. 31, 04 Aug, 2001

K Balagopal

Over the past fortnight and more, the purveyors of views, official and unofficial, have been dishing out commentaries that look at the valley and the hills from the unreal vantage point of the 'summit'. Unless we learn to see the summit the way it looks from the valley and the hills, we will never understand all that needs to change before any just and honourable resolution of the dispute is even thinkable.