The Forgotten Massacres

Abstract

In 1991, historian Alastair Lamb wrote that “… at the moment of writing it has become apparent that the Indian Republic is faced with, at least in that part of the Vale of Kashmir which it occupies, what can only be described as a terminal colonial situation” (1993, 22). Simmering Kashmiri resentment against political repression had burst out into an armed struggle in 1989. Contrary to the dominant Indian narrative, which has attributed this to the rise of Muslim fanaticism and Pakistani interference, writers like Baba (2014), Bose (2005), Schofield (2010) and Robinson (2013) see it as an indigenous Kashmiri response to the decades of political repression and the denial of the Kashmiri right to self-determination. Pakistani involvement was not a cause but a product of the insurgency, which offered an opportunity to inflict low-cost damages on the Indian army.