Across the Line of Control: Inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir - Hardcover

Puri, Luv

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1849041733 ISBN 13: 9781849041737

Publisher: Hurst, 2012

Synopsis

The Kashmir issue has been a subject of international attention ever since the subcontinent was partitioned in1947. The clash between India and Pakistan over the coveted territory led to the emergence of Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered areas. While the social and political conditions in the former have been widely discussed, even among Kashmir experts there is little knowledge of Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir (PAJK), particularly its political, cultural and social aspects.

Luv Puri analyses the crucial pre-independence social and political processes which resulted in polarisation within the state and the violence that wracked the region during Partition. He tracks the effect of those events on Pakistan's Punjab province and the ensuing impact on Pakistan's position on the Jammu & Kashmir issue, and the many transformations in the pro-independence struggle from its inception to the present day.

About this title

About the Author:

Luv Puri is a Fulbright scholar at New York University. He was a correspondent with the The Hindu for several years and has contributed to various media publications and academic journals. In 2006 he was one of the prizewinners of the European Commission Award for Human Rights and Democracy. His special fields of interest include the situation of South Asian Muslims, the Kashmir conflict and Pakistan.

Review:

"Nuanced [and] evocative...[Puri's] work, based, on rare opportunities (for an Indian national) to travel in the region, traverses its historical experience. [He] patiently takes us through the region's colonial experience; the ugly communal fissures which exploded during partition; the complex politics which have seen new castes and social forces compete for influence there....Put simply, Puri teaches us that in Jammu and Kashmir, we confront not one unfolding historical crisis but several-each of which needs careful and patient political engagement."--Praveen Swami, The Book Review

"I was struck by the close parallels between the arbitrary and counterproductive ways in which the treatment of Azad Kashmir by the Pakistan government mirrors Delhi's own treatment of the Indian part of Jammu and Kashmir. Puri nicely depicts, among other things, the contribution of the Mirpur diaspora to the JKLF, and the pathos of divided families."--Ramachandra Guha, author India After Gandhi: the History of the World's Largest Democracy

"Much research and writing on the Pakistan-administered section of Jammu and Kashmir is either hortatory or polemical....A welcome departure from such accounts. It is carefully researched, cogently argued and historically sound. Journalists, policy analysts and scholars interested in the contemporary politics of this ill-understood region will find this work to be a most useful primer of the subject."--Sumit Ganguly, Ranbindranath Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana University

About this edition

• Publisher: Hurst
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1849041733
• ISBN 13: 9781849041737
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 276