Self, sovereignty and politics in modern Kashmiri poetry

Abstract

This paper explores the rise of modern ideas of self, sovereignty and politics in Kashmir through a study of Kashmiri poetry from the 1940s to the 1950s. Between the 1940s and 1950s as Kashmir transitioned from being a princely State in British India to the site of a conflict between India and Pakistan, Kashmiri poets articulated and negotiated new ideas of self, sovereignty and politics against the background of a tumultuous political upheaval. This paper traces the emergence of the ideas of political selfhood in Kashmir from the nationalist poetry of the 1940s in poets such as Ghulam Ahmed Mahjoor and Abdul Ahad Azad to the existential modernism of the 1950s in poets such as Rahman Rahi and Amin Kamil. It seeks to trace the changing ideas of self, sovereignty and politics in the poetry of Ghulam Ahmed Mahjoor, Abdul Ahad Azad, Amin Kamil and Rahman Rahi to the historical and moral crisis in Kashmir.