Fate Written on Matchboxes State-Building in Kashmir Under

In 1953, Sheikh Abdullah, the first prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir, was jailed for being too ‘anti-India’. His deputy Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed then took the reins, and was tasked with securing Kashmir’s contested accession to India. A Fate Written on Matchboxes tells the story of Bakshi’s ten-year client regime and the varying modes of control and governance it deployed. His “politics of life” foregrounded the day-to-day concerns of employment, subsidized rations, free education, and basic se...See More