No place for ‘Kashmiri’ in Kashmiri nationalism*

Abstract

Language is often taken as a primary differentiating factor between people as it functions as a vehicle of cultural expression, thus becoming one of the primary markers of identity. In the history of nationalism, language has always enjoyed a privileged position. Not only had the German Romantics such as Herder and Fichte held language as the fundamental characteristic of a nation, but modernist scholars such as Anderson, too, have given language a central place in their respective assessments of nationalism. In Anderson's analysis, ‘languages of power’ enable an imagined community to become real. However, are all nationalisms glotto‐centric? If not, why not? This article takes the case of Kashmiri nationalism, or the Tehreek, to demonstrate that language and nationalism are not necessarily codependent. The paper will first explain why Kashmiri never came to become a language of power in the region and how the disadvantaged position of the Kashmiri language precludes/d it from having any significant role in Kashmiri nationalism. Second, the paper argues that the multilingualism of Kashmiris has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Tehreek and allowed Kashmiri nationalism to assert its civic character.

‘Emancipatory nationalisms’? The nationalisms of nations without states

“…The historical record, when read critically, is filled with examples that attest to nationalism's emancipatory promise. From Haiti (Dubois, 2004(Dubois, , 2013 to Algeria (Fanon, 1988), from Bangladesh (Jahan, 1973) to Tibet (Anand, 2019), and from Balochistan (Titus & Swidler, 2000) to Kashmir (Khandy, 2021), the creative potential of the marginalized and the colonized to take up nationalism as a counterpower to challenge and overcome the forces of formal colonialism in the past, and neo-colonial fantasies in the present, vindicates such a view. 2 The time has come for nationalism to be seen as a continuum or a spectrum rather than black-and-white categories separated by unbridgeable depths.…”