Introduction

This chapter offers a brief overview of the Jammu and Kashmir conflict and the divergent nationalist politics prevalent in the Kashmir and the Jammu regions in relation to it. It introduces the Jammu region and its politics and places them both in the wider conflict debate. The historical origins of the conservative and upper-caste-based mainstream politics of Jammu and its antagonistic stand towards Kashmir's political discourse are laid out in this chapter. What is the position of marginal castes of Jammu vis-à-vis this dominant conflict-based discourse? What are their dilemmas? What are their strategies of resistance? This chapter sets the stage for probing these questions in the later chapters.

The Jammu and Kashmir State and the Conflict Narrative

Broadly, the Jammu and Kashmir region (Figure 2.1) includes the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir (IAJK) and Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit–Baltistan or Northern Areas. In this study, any references to Jammu and Kashmir are only to the Indian administered part, unless the term Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir (PAJK) is used. Jammu and Kashmir is divided into three main regions: Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh (Figure 2.2). Each of these regions is geographically, culturally and politically distinct from the others. Of the 22 districts in the state, there are 10 districts each in the Jammu and Kashmir regions and two in the Ladakh region. The linguistic, cultural and political plurality among districts provides for internal differentiation within each of these regions (Bose 1997). The cultural diversity of the state does not imply tight compartmentalisation, but overlapping multiple senses of belonging. There exist extensive relations within and between the three main regions, facilitated by economic exchange and socio-political interactions. Although Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim-majority state, it has varied religion-based demographic patterns. The residents of the Kashmir Valley are overwhelmingly Kashmiri-speaking Muslims (mainly Sunni with a sizeable Shia minority). Jammu, a socio-culturally more complex region, has a Hindu majority but Muslims comprise around 33 per cent of the population (Census of India 2011 [GOI 2011]) and are in the majority in many areas. Ladakh has 46.40 per cent Muslim, 39.65 per cent Buddhist and 12.11 per cent Hindu populations (Census of India 2011 [GOI 2011]).