Abstract: Abstract This article examines the major 'Kashmir films' of 1960s Bollywood: Junglee (), Kashmir Ki Kali (), Jaanwar (), Jab Jab Phool Khile (), Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon (), and Aarzoo (). These films made the Kashmir Valley the space for the expression of a new youthful modernity for urban Indians, especially through the technology of colour. Through a symptomatic and materialist analysis attentive to both cinematic strategies and contemporary political context, this article links the pleasures of these films with the formation of a modern Indian subjectivity, contrasts these pleasures with the mounting political tensions within Jammu and Kashmir, and based on fieldwork in Jammu and Srinagar, examines how they are remembered by Kashmiris today. The historicization it offers of Bollywood's long Kashmir obsession is thus equally an exploration of how this obsession fits into the contested political relationship between Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian Union. Acknowledgements Sincere thanks to: Montu Saxena, Girish Shahane, Dinesh at The Music Shop, Khan Market, Delhi, Kaushik Bhaumik, for films and conversations about films; James Proctor, for the Stirling invitation; Azmat Khan, for pointers on the Mirpuri diaspora; Shukla Kabir Sinha for hula hoops, Shireen Kabir Mirza for tight kurtas and drainpipe churidars; and Amartya Sen, Emma Rothschild, Sugata Bose, and the British Academy for supporting my Kashmir work; Kashmiri debts are acknowledged in note 11. Notes 1. Anonymous, 'Shammi Kapoor', http://www.upperstall.com/people/shammi kapoor.html, accessed</emph> 30/06/2004. Translations from Hindi are mine. 2. The contested geopolitics of the region under discussion makes it necessary to clarify my own nomenclature. I distinguish the 'Kashmir Valley', or 'the Valley', a discrete geographic, ethnolinguistic region, from the federal administrative unit (state) within India called 'Jammu and Kashmir'. This latter term derives from the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, a British colonial creation that lasted from 1846 to 1947 as one of components of Princely India (not British India); see, in this context, Rai, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects. Since the undivided boundaries of princely Jammu and Kashmir continue to furnish the vision of independent Kashmir, I use also that term for that vision, with context‐driven specifications. For that section of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir now under Pakistani jurisdiction, I use the official Pakistani title of Azad ('Free') Kashmir, without commenting on the validity of the adjective. Through the simplex 'Kashmir', I invoke an imaginary and imaginative construct (current in contemporary India), which is a symbolic, metonymic extension of the Valley. For some of these issues, see Hewitt, Reclaiming the Past, pp. 2–11. 3. The signposts in the Roja debate were Niranjana, 'Integrating Whose Nation?', 1994 Niranjana, Tejaswini. 1994. 'Integrating Whose Nation? Tourists and Terrorists in Roja'.. Economic and Political Weekly, 29(3): 79–82. [Google Scholar], Chakravarty and Pandian, 'More on Roja', , Srinivas, 'Roja in "Law and Order" State', and Bharucha, 'On the Border of Fascism', 1994 Bharucha, Rustam. 1994. 'On the Border of Fascism: Manufacturing Consent in Roja'.. Economic and Political Weekly, 29(3): 1389–95. [Google Scholar]; the phrase 'secret politics of our desires' is Nandy's (Secret Politics, 2002 Nandy, Ashis, ed. 2002. The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Popular Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). For Indian 'cinephilia' see Gopalan, Cinema of Interruptions, 2003 Gopalan, Lalitha. 2003. Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 1–34. 4. I avoid the term 'terrorism'; 'militancy' and 'separatism' are used with invisible scare‐quotes. 5. 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[Google Scholar]; for a South Asian understanding, see Kabir, 'Musical Recall', 2004b Kabir, Ananya Jahanara. 2004b. 'Musical Recall: Postmemory and the Punjabi Diaspora'.. Alif: Journal of Comparative Studies, 24: 1–18. [Google Scholar]. 13. See Kabir, 'Language of One's Own', forthcoming Kabir, Ananya Jahanara. forthcoming. "'A Language of One's Own: Linguistic Under‐Representation and the Kashmir Conflict'.". In Identities and Alterities in the Contemporary World, Edited by: Horskotte, Silke and Peeren, Esther. Amsterdam: Rodopi. [Google Scholar]. 14. The original Hindi of the poem and its translation was made available to me by Dr Agni Shekhar at Jammu in April 2004. 15. Cf. the analogous concept of the 'third Punjab', or Punjab‐in‐diaspora; coined by Singh and Thandi, Punjabi Identity, 1999 Singh, Pritam and Shinder Singh Thandi, eds. 1999. Punjabi Identity in a Global Context, New Delhi: Oxford UP. 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Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 13
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