Delusional States

Delusional States is the first in-depth study of state-making and social change in Gilgit-Baltistan a Shia-majority region of Sunni-dominated Pakistan and a contested border area that forms part of disputed Kashmir. For over seven decades the territorial conflict over Kashmir has locked India and Pakistan in brutal wars and hate-centred nationalisms. The book illuminates how within this story of hate lie other stories - of love and betrayal loyalty and suspicion beauty and terror - that help us grasp how the Kashmir conflict is affectively structured and experienced on the ground. Placing these emotions at the centre of its analysis the book rethinks the state-citizen relation in deeply felt and intimate terms offering a multi-layered ethnographic understanding of power and subjection in contemporary Pakistan.