Islam Women And Violence In Kashmir

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Since 1989, religious fundamentalism and exclusionary nationalism in Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir have generated political and social turmoil that has eroded the ethos and fabric of Kashmiri culture. These forces are responsible for the silencing of dissenters, economic deprivation, lack of infrastructure, mass displacements, political anarchy, and repression of women.

This book seeks to analyze the effects of nationalist, militant, and religious discourses and praxes on a gender-based hierarchy. Review: .. .The book reveals the complex realities of the beautiful and strife-torn valley, and how women continue to suffer at the hands of both state and non-state actors.

Nyla probes the role of reactionary women's organisations such as the Dukhtaraan e Millat that use questionable tactics to propagate a patriarchal culture and enforce Islamic dress codes, robbing Kashmiri women of the freedom they traditionally enjoyed. - The Friday Times 'In reading a work with the depth and scope of Dr.

Nyla Ali Khan's new book, Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir, one enters a work so compelling that, as with good fiction, time seems to stop. One travels through an imaginative landscape when one ventures into the unknown, and as a citizen of the USA, I had no preconceptions to inhibit me from a full-on absorption of what has transpired in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.First, and perhaps surprisingly to Dr.

Khan, I found the personalities of two figures in the book even more compelling than the anguish of realizing that India and Pakistan took a region that was idyllic, and not broken, and 'fixed it' to open the door for religious combat, misogyny, and imperialist cannibalism by both those nuclear powers.

What had been the glory of Kashmir - its incredible geography and cultural syncretism - has become its chief vulnerability in the political and bellicose spheres. But these two figures - the poet Lalla-Ded and the author's grandfather, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah - impart such a potent and electric presence for the good that one ends up believing that their enduring examples will somehow keep the twin giants at bay.' - Jim Drummond of the Jim Drummond Law Firm in Oklahoma City, (http: //nylaalikhan.wordpress.com/books/islam-women-and-violence-in-kashmir_between_india_and_pakistan/book-review-by-jim-drummond/) 'Nyla Ali Khan documents the resultant violence and disenfranchisement of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in her forceful cultural histo