DIASPORA DIALOGUES: Unpacking Kashmir's Long Struggle for Self-Determination
In conversation with a Kashmiri historian on memory, exile, and the unfinished fight for freedom.
ANNOUNCING A NEW SERIES!
One of the most quietly disorienting parts of being part of a diaspora is how little we often know about the places we come from. War, migration, colonization—and even silence within our own families—can interrupt or erase those histories. Add to that the lack of education about other immigrant communities and their homelands, and it’s easy to feel unmoored or alone.
Diaspora Dialogues is a course correction.
This Q&A series from Port of Entry will feature conversations with thinkers, creators, and cultural workers navigating life between worlds. Together, we explore what it means to build, remember, and belong when “home” isn’t just one place—and when the past still echoes in the present.
We talk about the hard stuff: displacement, loss, identity, assimilation.
But we also make space for joy, creativity, and resilience—what emerges when people live at the intersections of culture and memory.
A Homeland Denied: Unpacking Kashmir's Long Struggle for Self-Determination
On April 22, 2025, a brutal attack near Pahalgam—a popular tourist destination in Kashmir—took the lives of twenty-six people. The incident—the deadliest in the region in twenty-five years—prompted India to shut its border with Pakistan and reignited international attention on a conflict that has simmered for decades.
Kashmir has been a disputed region between India and Pakistan since both nations gained independence in 1947. When British colonial rule ended, Kashmir's status was left unclear. Each country controls different parts of Kashmir, but both claim the entire territory. For decades, this region has been caught between competing claims and broken promises—a place where colonial history continues to shape present-day realities.
Kashmir sits at the intersection of three nuclear-armed powers—India, Pakistan, and China—making it one of the world's most geopolitically important locations. Kashmir is also strategically crucial because it controls the headwaters of rivers that supply about sixty-five percent of Pakistan's territory, giving India significant leverage over Pakistan's water security. The region also provides access to Central Asian trade routes and natural resources, while serving as a gateway for major connectivity projects like China's Belt and Road Initiative. Both India and Pakistan view control of Kashmir as essential to their national security and regional influence, which is why neither will compromise on their territorial claims.
For the first edition of Diaspora Dialogues, I spoke with historian and scholar Dr. Hafsa Kanjwal to understand something often missing from discussions about Kashmir: what Kashmiris themselves actually want.
Hafsa Kanjwal is an associate professor of South Asian history at Lafayette College, and her work centers on modern Kashmiri history—a subject that’s deeply personal to her. She was born in Kashmir and came to the U.S. in the early 1990s with her family, during the height of the armed rebellion and heavy militarization in the region. Growing up in a politically aware household that supported the Kashmiri freedom movement, she always had a strong sense of connection to what was happening back home.
Even though she was raised in the U.S., Hafsa often traveled back to Kashmir, especially during her college years, driven by a desire to better understand the place she came from. But when she turned to books and academic research to learn more, she was struck by how little of it reflected the lived experiences of Kashmiris. Most of the scholarship she found was written by Indian authors—and occasionally Pakistani ones—and it often framed the conflict through the lens of terrorism or separatism. There was very little that spoke to the realities of life under occupation or represented the voices of Kashmiris themselves.
That disconnect pushed her to pursue history, specifically Kashmir’s history, so she could help fill that gap. When she first started, there weren’t many Kashmiri scholars in the field, but over time she connected with others who were also working to challenge dominant, often nationalist and Islamophobic narratives about the region. Together, they’ve helped shape a new wave of scholarship that centers Kashmiri perspectives and tells the story of Kashmir on its own terms.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length*
A lot of people tend to start Kashmir’s story in 1947 during the independence of India and Pakistan and the partition of the two nations. But you argue that it’s important to go back a bit further. Why is that?
Dr. Kanjwal: 1947 is a critical year, but to really understand Kashmir today, we have to go back earlier, to the time of British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent. Kashmir wasn’t directly ruled by the British—it was a princely state. That means it was semi-autonomous, ruled by local monarchs who pledged loyalty to the British Crown.
What’s important here is that the British essentially sold Kashmir to a dynasty called the Dogras—upper-caste Hindus from the Jammu region. They expanded their control militarily to form what became the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.
So the idea of Kashmir as a unified “state” is relatively new?
Dr. K: Exactly. The princely state was an artificial construct. It pulled together multiple regions–the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, Poonch, Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan–that didn’t necessarily share a long-standing, cohesive identity. This becomes important later when people talk about “what Kashmiris want.” The identity of the state itself was imposed from above.
What was the mood in Kashmir around the time of Partition?
Dr. K: At the time of Partition in 1947, Kashmir was a Muslim-majority society. Most people assumed that Kashmir would go to Pakistan—because of religious identity and also because of cultural and economic ties. People from the Valley, for example, had stronger connections to Lahore than to Delhi— through trade, travel, education. What became Pakistan was simply closer to their imaginary and daily lives.
But that’s not what happened.
Dr. K: No, it isn’t. One major complicating factor was Sheikh Abdullah, a Muslim leader from the Valley who had gained prominence. He grew close to India’s Congress Party, especially to Jawaharlal Nehru [India’s first prime minister], who promised him that if Kashmir acceded to India, it would enjoy maximum autonomy. Abdullah would be Prime Minister, Kashmir would have its own constitution and assembly, and its relationship to India would be restricted to defense and foreign affairs. India also ensured, especially when drawing the boundary lines at the time of Partition, that the J&K state could easily accede to India, and placed pressure on both Abdullah and the last Dogra ruler to do so.
And India didn’t uphold those promises?
Dr. K: Correct. Over time, India backtracked. It tried to further integrate Kashmir, despite those early assurances. Sheikh Abdullah resisted—and that’s a story in itself.
How did these early dynamics impact communal divisions within Kashmir?
Dr. K: The Dogra rulers had already created deep divisions. For example, Kashmiri Pandits—the Hindu minority—received significant patronage and held elite positions. So they were more inclined to align with India to preserve their status. In contrast, many Kashmiri Muslims had already experienced what Hindu majoritarian rule looked like under the Dogras—and were deeply skeptical of India’s promises about secularism. Divisions in Kashmir didn’t erupt out of nowhere–they were built into the class and caste based foundations of the Dogra state.
There's a dominant narrative that the Pandits were targeted by Muslim insurgents which led to a mass exodus of that community in the 1990s. How do you see that story functioning in the broader Indian imagination? What gets lost when that's the only version people hear?
Dr. K: One of the classic strategies of colonial powers is that they create divide and rule policies between different communities on the ground. The tragedy of the Kashmiri Pandits—a vast majority of whom left Kashmir in the 1990s (although a small minority remained)—has been weaponized by various constituencies to paint the Kashmir freedom struggle as communal, anti-Hindu, extremist, and justify continued Indian colonization of Kashmir. What gets lost is the deeply contested narratives about what actually happened that led to this and the role of the state in exacerbating the fears—and as many argue, facilitating the departure of—a community that had previously enjoyed significant privileges in Kashmiri society as political and economic elites under Indian colonization, and were now faced with a massive political uprising against that rule.
What also gets lost is that pro-freedom Kashmiri groups have always called for the return of Kashmiri Pandits and stated that they are an important fabric of Kashmiri society. They have also demanded a neutral investigation into what is called the Pandit 'exodus', in addition to a neutral investigation of all the massacres, killings, and human rights violations that have occured in Kashmir. These demands have been rejected by the Indian state.
To be sure, this tragedy—like all tragedies in Kashmir in the past 75+ years—needs to be addressed. But it cannot be addressed by only treating the pain and trauma of Kashmiri Pandits as the singular pain in this whole history, and nor can it be addressed by denying Kashmiri Muslims their place in Kashmir by only speaking of Kashmiri Pandits as "indigenous" to the region.
So during those early decades, what did self-determination actually mean to most Kashmiris?
Dr. K: Initially, many saw self-determination as a choice between joining India or Pakistan, in line with UN resolutions. Beginning in 1948, the first of many UN resolutions called for the right of self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir through a free and impartial plebiscite or vote. Through the ’50s, ’60s, and even into the ’70s, there was a stronger pro-Pakistan sentiment, especially since that was the only other option provided in the UN resolution. In the parts of Kashmir under Pakistani administration, some Kashmiris who were organizing on that side felt that the Pakistan state—not the people—was not honoring its promises. The idea of an independent state emerged, particularly amongst the Azad Kashmir diaspora in the United Kingdom. This eventually led to the formation of the main group that led the armed rebellion, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) which became active in the Valley as well.
So today, when we talk about Kashmiri self-determination, there are generally two main strands: one pushing for full independence, and the other for accession to Pakistan. What’s clear, though, is that the overwhelming majority have never identified as Indian. This sentiment peaked in the 1990s with an armed movement and popular mass uprising — a moment of clarity for many Kashmiris.
And yet, support for Pakistan has often been criminalized in Kashmir, right?
Dr. K: Absolutely. Since 1947, any pro-Pakistan sentiment has been met with arrest, exile, or worse. When the armed rebellion began in the 1990s, Kashmiris turned to Pakistan for support—both symbolically and materially. Pakistan at this stage was willing to do so. That allowed India to dismiss the entire uprising as a proxy war, erasing Kashmiri agency. The narrative became, “This isn’t a real local movement — it’s Pakistan-backed.”
But for most Kashmiris, the distinction is clear: India is the occupier. Pakistan is a state they have expectations of—and many times even disappointments with—but it’s not seen as the same kind of aggressor. That’s a nuance often lost in mainstream conversations.
And Article 370? There’s so much confusion around what it actually did and why it was revoked. [Editor’s note: Article 370 was a provision in India's constitution that gave the state of Jammu and Kashmir special autonomous status—essentially allowing it to have its own constitution and make its own laws on most matters, while still being part of India. Only defense, foreign affairs, and communications remained under federal control.]
Dr. K: Some people think Article 370 was this great safeguard of Kashmiri autonomy. But many of us argue that it was actually a tool of containment. It was never meant to be permanent. For Indian leaders like Nehru, it was a way to get Sheikh Abdullah on board with the Maharaja’s contested accession to India.
Yes, it granted Kashmir its own constitution, assembly, even its own flag. But through presidential orders and legal loopholes, India continuously eroded those powers. When Sheikh Abdullah resisted, he was jailed in 1953 and replaced by a more compliant regime.
By 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government formally revoked Article 370, it had already become largely symbolic. But it still held significance because of an associated provision —Article 35A —which gave the state power to define “permanent residents.” That affected who could buy land, vote, or get government jobs.
And removing that opened the floodgates?
Dr. K: Exactly. Since the revocation, India has made it far easier for outsiders to acquire land and settle in Kashmir. Over 80,000 domicile certificates were issued within just a few years. This is demographic engineering—what we would describe as settler colonialism.
Some argue that 2019 marked the beginning of settler colonialism in Kashmir. I would say it’s been there since the start—but now it’s more visible, more aggressive. Earlier governments tried to assimilate Kashmiris into Indian identity. That didn’t work. So now, the approach is: replace them, marginalize them, make it hard for them to stay.
So when you say "settler colonialism," it’s not just about land rights. It’s about a whole system?
Dr. K: Yes, it’s about erasure. You control not just the territory but the narrative. That’s why you see India targeting Kashmiri journalists, clamping down on human rights documentation and scholarship, enforcing Hindi as a language of instruction. Everything is surveilled—mosques, schools, social media. The goal is to make Kashmiris feel like strangers in their own land.
And meanwhile, the international community largely turns a blind eye?
Dr. K: Yes. India has positioned itself as the world’s largest democracy and a global economic player. Western governments, especially, are unwilling to jeopardize those alliances. So Kashmir is dismissed as an “internal matter.” That silence is devastating—and strategic.
But Kashmiris continue to document, resist, and dream. They preserve memory. They push back against erasure. That’s why it's so important that their voices be heard and centered in every conversation about this “conflict.”
For those of us in the diaspora or outside the region, where do we begin?
Dr. K: First, we listen—really listen—to Kashmiri voices. Read their histories. Support grassroots efforts. Second, be willing to confront the discomfort. Solidarity means speaking up even when it's inconvenient. And finally, understand that solidarity isn’t about saviorism—it’s about standing alongside people who are demanding freedom.