Paper short abstract:

My paper examines the relation between land and sovereignty in Indian-controlled Kashmir as rooted in history rather than in notions of indigeneity, by tracing the contemporary language of land rights to princely forms of protection and stewardship.

Paper long abstract:

My paper examines historical connections between land and sovereignty in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where a movement for self-determination/azaadi has been ongoing for decades. In 2019, the Indian government removed exclusive rights to buy and sell land vested in the “permanent residents” of Jammu and Kashmir, an act perceived by many as beginning an overt settler-colonial project aimed at changing the Muslim-majority demography of the Kashmir valley. I examine the existential threat posed by the loss of land rights against the historical refusal regarding setting up a land market in Kashmir. Reading together land transfer controversies, the history of land reform, and disputes between princely rulers and British colonial traders around private property, I show how maintaining land as “inalienable wealth” (Weiner 1989) became a signature of sovereignty in this region. During my fieldwork, assessments of sovereignty tied to the idea of hifazat – an Urdu word that means “to protect or guard” – invoked princely extraction alongside the princely protection of land and natural resources. While current demands self-determination are not rooted in past kingship as a basis for demanding political autonomy, ideas of hifazat emerge as distinctive political traces that underwrite ongoing struggles against political “selling out”, environmental destruction and land expropriation - drawing attention to claims on land rooted not in ideas of indigeneity, but in the twists and turns of history.