What Happened to Governance in Kashmir?

The first of its kind, this book delineates the strategies and tactics employed by the Indian state through its clientele governments and patronage democracies to manage the conflicted state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the process the book unfolds the nature and functioning of the state, politics and governance in Kashmir after 1947.

What Happened to Governance in Kashmir is a telling tale on the state of governance in Kashmir; the policies and strategies adopted by Indian state and the successive patronage governments to grapple with the multifarious problems of the state. Kashmir is an ailing state. It is the victim of colonialism and partition, which subverted its geographical centrality with serious economic implications besides making it a permanent conflict state causing immense human and material loss. Besides being claimed by India, Pakistan, and Kashmiris, it is also a rainbow state very difficult to manage with various ethno-regional and sub-regional nationalities at cross-purposes. Added to this, it is a dependent state. This book situates governance in its total milieu and examines the governance in the framework of challenge and response continuum. It unfolds how in a conflict state like Kashmir democracy and governance is always guided and controlled. This is the first comprehensive book on the post-1947 governance in Kashmir.