Colonising Kashmir: State-building Under Indian Occupation
By Hafsa Kanjwal
Stanford University Press
ISBN: 978-1503636033
384pp.

Colonising Kashmir by Prof Hafsa Kanjwal offers a theoretically informed and empirically rich account of Kashmir’s relationship with postcolonial India. The book mobilises the case study of Kashmir to expand the existing theoretical framework of postcolonial and critical South Asian studies.

Typically, the concept of ‘colonial occupation’ refers to the occupation of former colonies (South countries) by European powers, driven by resource extraction and market expansion. By examining Kashmir, the book raises a fundamental theoretical question: can a postcolonial (South) country be conceptualised as an occupying colonial power? This question has significant epistemic implications, extending well beyond India and Kashmir.

In fact, on page four, Kanjwal explicitly makes this point by raising the following two questions: “What can the case of Kashmir tell us about how state-building occurs in other politically liminal sites, tied to the emergence of the (post-) colonial nation-state?” and “What insight can Kashmir provide us in ongoing theorisations of colonialism, settler colonialism, and occupation?”

By framing these questions, Kanjwal engages a broad spectrum of readers who may not be primarily interested in the particularities of Kashmir but rather seek a conceptual framework that helps them understand South-South relationships.

The book comprises seven chapters, in addition to an introduction and conclusion. Chapter One offers genealogies of colonial occupation and state-building in Kashmir. Chapter Two contextualises the role of the media under Bakshi Ghulam Mohamad’s government in shaping discourse on Kashmir, both domestically and internationally. Chapter Three provides a detailed analysis of the role of tourism and cinema in promoting Kashmir as an integral part of India in popular imagination.

A book examines India’s fraught relationship with Occupied Jammu........

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