ABSTRACT
Much of the map of modern South Asia shows artificial creations, such as both India and Pakistan, which share the same history but do not correspond to any separate nations in a true sense. The structure of Jammu and Kashmir mirrors this artificial character, lacking any religious, cultural or historical homogeneity. An absence of nations corresponding to the territories undermines the idea of nation states. With a two-nation theory, itself an artificial construct, Pakistan early paved the way which India now actively pursues with its emphasis on Hindutva, expected to provide cohesion to a wide spectrum of identities within Indian borders, with some identities conspicuously excluded, primarily that of Indian/Kashmiri Muslims. Inadvertently, the ideal of a secular state has become a distant mirage. Similarly, the ethos of Kashmir, Kashmiriyat, was invented relatively late, in the 1930s, in order to provide national cohesion but never extended beyond the Kashmir Valley. An interplay of various ethnic, linguistic, religious, local and other identities is perceived in Delhi as one of threats to the territorial integrity of India. These trigger-affective attitudes that, together with the responses they induce, work at three levels: personal, institutional and societal.
