This document provides information about the book "Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir" by Nyla Ali Khan. The back cover contains summaries from two reviewers that describe the book as examining the cultural roots and effects of the ongoing conflict in Kashmir from both a feminist postcolonial perspective and as an advocate for Kashmiri sovereignty. It reflects on the region's history over the past seven decades of being disputed between India and Pakistan and the trauma of insurgency and repression that has undermined Kashmiri culture and eroded women's roles. The author, who has family ties to Kashmir's first Prime Minister, aims to reveal how nationalist, militant, and religious forces have relegated Kashmiri women and

1. PALGRAVE COVER COPY
SPINE
Logotype
Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir
Nyla Ali Khan
logo
FRONT COVER
Comparative Feminist Studies
Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir
Between India and Pakistan
Nyla Ali Khan
logo bottom right
BACK COVER
“Composed with love by the granddaughter of the Lion of Kashmir, Khan’s thoroughly
engaging history of her homeland brings welcome attention to the cultural roots that
sustain the ‘scathed’ inhabitants of one of the world’s most beautiful warzones.
Comparing the people of Jammu and Kashmir to Adam and Eve wandering, with glazed
eyes, through the Garden of Eden after defying Yahweh, Khan echoes Frantz Fanon’s
recognition that colonization has real effects in the psyches of the colonized—and among
them is the blurring of nationalist self-imagining.”--John C. Hawley, Professor of
English, Santa Clara University and author of Amitav Ghosh: An Introduction
“Kashmir has been caught for seven decades between India and Pakistan. During the past
two of these decades, it has experienced traumatic waves of insurgency and
counterinsurgency, causing an estimated 50,000 deaths and 4,000 disappearances. Khan,
scholar and activist, reflects on this history from two intertwined perspectives: as a
feminist postcolonial cultural critic and as a passionate advocate of Kashmiri national
sovereignty. Her research for Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir includes
examination not only of the usual books, articles, and official documents, but also of oral
histories, family and personal testimonies, plus several dozen interviews with key figures
amply cited. Along the way Khan poignantly evokes Kashmir’s pre-war syncretic culture
(Kashmiriyat), the ancient vernacular poetry of Lalla Ded, and the serene beauty of the
Valley as counterpoints to the current militarized political and sectarian chaos.”--Vincent
B. Leitch, George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Paul and Carol Daube Sutton
Chair in English, University of Oklahoma

2. Since 1989, religious fundamentalism and exclusionary nationalism in Jammu and
Kashmir have generated political and social turmoil and eroded the ethos and culture of
Kashmir. These forces are responsible for the silencing of dissenters, economic
deprivation, lack of infrastructure, mass displacements, political anarchy, and the
repression of women. Women in Kashmir constantly grapple with both the devastating
effects of Indian occupation and Pakistani infiltration and their own complicated
histories. Nyla Ali Khan, the granddaughter of the first Prime Minister of Jammu and
Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, gives an insider's analysis of the effects of
nationalist, militant, and religious discourses and praxes on a gender-based hierarchy.
This cross-disciplinary project shows the attempted relegation of Kashmiri women to the
archives of memory and reveals the women’s powerful and persistent endeavors to
rise from the ashes of immolated identities.
Nyla Ali Khan is Visiting professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.
She is the author of The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism. Her articles
on the Kashmir conflict have been published in Indian and Pakistani national newspapers,
English dailies in Jammu and Kashmir, and a newspaper on South Asian perspectives in
England.
Cover design by
Cover image credit line: Sheikh Abdullah addressing a crowd in Lal Chowk, Srinagar,
1975. Image courtesy of the Kashmir National Conference.
Boilerplate (Logotype/URL)
Printed in the United States of America
Bar code 0-230-10764-8