Kashmir remains one of the world's most militarized areas of dispute, having been in the grips of an armed insurgency against India since the late 1980s. In existing scholarship, ideas of territoriality, state sovereignty, and national security have dominated the discourses on the Kashmir conflict. This book, in contrast, places Kashmir and Kashmiris at the center of historical debate and investigates a broad range of sources to illuminate a century of political players and social structures on both sides of divided Kashmir and in the wider Kashmiri diaspora. In the process, it broadens the contours of Kashmir's postcolonial and resistance history, complicates the meaning of Kashmiri identity, and reveals Kashmiris' myriad imaginings of freedom. It asserts that 'Kashmir' has emerged as a political imaginary in postcolonial era, a vision that grounds Kashmiris in their negotiations for rights not only in India and Pakistan, but also in global political spaces.

Winner, 2022 John F. Richards Prize, American Historical Association

Winner, 2023 Berkshire Women Historians Book Prize, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

'Shahla Hussain deftly uses a vast array of textual sources and interviews to give us a uniquely comprehensive, detailed, and insightful account of local and migratory Kashmiri intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders, journalists, poets, and others who transformed public culture in Kashmir during a century of struggles for freedom wracked by cultural fractures and stymied by dominant state powers determined to subordinate and control the Muslim majority.'

David Ludden - Professor of History, New York University

'A tour de force, Shahla Hussain’s new history of Kashmir gets to the heart of what Kashmiris mean when they ask for azadi, freedom, and why its meanings have changed in recent decades. She offers new and critical insights into debates on secularism and political Islam in Kashmiris’ struggle for justice, insaaf. Using poetry, ballads, official archives, and interviews, Hussain writes a fine-grained history from below that foregrounds Kashmiri experiences. Her wide sweep includes Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir, in Britain, and the wider diaspora, and analyses the role of expatriate Kashmiris in bringing global attention to their beloved homeland. This book is essential reading if we are to move beyond the tired constraints of national security frameworks and patronage politics, and the new looming threat of Kashmiris becoming a disenfranchised minority in their own land. The paths not taken, or once taken, discussed here, can help us begin anew the process of treating Kashmiris as human beings with rights, aspirations, and a determining voice in their future.'

Neeti Nair - Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia

'Kashmir’s struggles since India’s independence are now over seven decades old. There are, however, few scholarly studies that have looked past the India-Pakistan conflict to take stock of the intellectual roots and historical evolution of this struggle. This is a timely and insightful work of scholarship, meticulous in its research and incisive in its analysis. Shahla Hussain has made valuable contribution to scholarship on contemporary South Asia and our understanding of the Kashmir conflict.'

Vali Nasr - Professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Shia Revival and the Forces of Fortune

'A comprehensive and insightful study of politics and resistance in Kashmir and the Kashmiri diaspora. A must-read to understand the situation in contemporary Kashmir.'

Chitralekha Zutshi - Class of 1962 Professor of History, College of William and Mary