ZUTSHI CHITRALEKHA

Kashmir's Contested Pasts is a long history of the historical imagination in Kashmir. It explores the articulation within Kashmir's multilingual historical tradition of the idea of Kashmir and the idea of history in conversation with each other. Contrary to the notion that the Indian Subcontinent did not produce histories the book uncovers the production circulation and consumption of a vibrant regional tradition of historical composition in its textual oral and performance forms from the late sixteenth century to the present. It reveals the deep linkages amongst Sanskrit Persian and Kashmiri narratives as they drew on and informed each other to define Kashmir as a sacred landscape and polity. It argues that within this interconnected narrative tradition Kashmir was and continues to be imagined as far more than simply an embattled territory or a tourist paradise. History and history writing too the book further illustrates were defined in multiple ways-astradition facts memories stories common sense and spiritual practice. The book thus offers a historically grounded reflection on the historical memories narrative practices and institutional contexts that have informed imaginings of Kashmir and its past and explores the challenges posed to these ideas in Kashmiri political culture today.