Kashmir

Kashmir (Kashmiri: کٔشِیر / कॅशीर; Hindi: कश्मीर; Urdu: کشمیر‎), archaically spelled Cashmere, is in the northwestern region of South Asia. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range. As of 2021, the wider region of Kashmir is disputed among Pakistan, India and China.

Not to be confused with Kashmir Valley

Quotes

• “Mr Abdullah, you want that India should defend Kashmir. You wish India should protect your borders, she should build roads in your area, she should supply you food grains, and Kashmir should get equal status as India, but you don’t want India and any citizen of India to have any rights in Kashmir and Government of India should have only limited powers. To give consent to this proposal would be a treacherous thing against the interests of India, and I, as the Law Minister of India, will never do so. I cannot betray the interests of my country.”
  • (Disputed or attributed) Dr B.R. Ambedkar, attributed to Dr BR Ambedkar by vice president Venkaiah Naidu in an op-ed published on 17 August by The Hindu, quoted at [1]

• In Kashmir, rights relating to life, liberty, dignity of the people, and freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution, embodied in the fundamental covenants and enforceable by courts of law, have been gravely violated.
  • Nyla Ali Khan, "The Hidden Tragedy of Kashmir", Interview with Souad Sharabani, www.counterpunch.org, September 15, 2016.

• Whenever a VIP visit to Kashmir is planned, like that of Prime Minister, a hundred messages would fly around saying, 'finish this fellow', 'beat that guy', 'demolish that house' etc.
  • A.S. Dulat, in "Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years"

• Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace
  Like thoughts inside a dream.
  Heed the path that led me to that place,
  Yellow desert stream.
  My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon
  Will return again.
  Sure as the dust that floats b'hind you
  When movin' through Kashmir.
  • Led Zeppelin: Kashmir

• The current fascination among Muslims with the history of the Crusades, the vast literature on the subject, both academic and popular, and the repeated inferences drawn from the final extinction of the Crusading principalities throw some light on attitudes in this matter. Islam from its inception is a religion of power, and in the Muslim world view it is right and proper that power should be wielded by Muslims and Muslims alone. Others may receive the tolerance, even the benevolence, of the Muslim state, provided that they clearly recognize Muslim supremacy. That Muslims should rule over non-Muslims is right and normal. That non-Muslims should rule over Muslims is an offense against the laws of God and nature, and this is true whether in Kashmir, Palestine, Lebanon, or Cyprus. Here again, it must be recalled that Islam is not conceived as a religion in the limited Western sense but as a community, a loyalty, and a way of life—and that the Islamic community is still recovering from the traumatic era when Muslim governments and empires were overthrown and Muslim peoples forcibly subjected to alien, infidel rule.
  • Bernard Lewis, "The Return of Islam". Commentary. January 1, 1976. 

See also

• Islam in Kashmir
• Jammu and Kashmir
• Ladakh
• Srinagar