Includes bibliographical references and index.

Despite its centrality to the political life of India and Pakistan, Kashmir has met with rather perfunctory treatment from historians of South Asia. The few works of history and politics that have appeared on this region, moreover, insist on defining Kashmiri culture, history and identity in terms of the ahistorical concept of Kashmiriyat, or a uniquely Kashmiri cultural identity.". "This book, in contrast, questions the notion of a transcendent cultural uniqueness and Kashmiriyat by returning Kashmir to the mainstream of South Asian historiography. It examines the hundred-year impact of indirect colonial rule on Kashmir's class formation. It looks at the responses of Kashmir's society to social and economic restructuring. It studies the uses made of Kashmir's political elites by the state. It analyses the effect of Islamic discourse on Kashmir's political culture. It shows that while all these historical changes had a profound impact on the political culture of the Kashmir Valley, there is nothing either very inevitable or quite definite about the 'political regionalism' or 'Islamic particularism' of this area.