History of Kashmir and its Pandits

 The Valley of Kashmir has been a hotspot in the world for the last seventy-five years, a victim to the geo-political rivalries that arose after the Second World War. Pakistan waged three wars to snatch it from India and used random killings through proxy groups to create disorder. One of the great tragedies of modern history occurred in Kashmir just over thirty years ago when the community of Pandits was compelled to leave their ancestral homes after a campaign of terror waged against them by the Islamists. To put recent events in Kashmir in a historical context, the well-known scholar-scientist Ashok Raina has edited History of Kashmir and Its Pandits, with contributions by leading scholars. This excellent book on the political and cultural history of Kashmir starts with a summary of the land’s geological history and geography and an overview of its political history that provides the background to the tragedy that befell the Kashmiri Pandit community. Further contributions in the book include chapters on the Islamic period, the rule by the Dogras during the British times, the invasion of Kashmir in 1947 by Pakistan, the politics of post-independence Kashmir, and genocide in the 1990s, with material on several unique aspects of the culture of the Pandits. The last chapter speculates on whether their culture will survive now that they are scattered in far corners of the world.