Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir

The Kashmiri leader Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah (1905-82) is one of the best-known
and most controversial political figures of twentieth-century South Asia. A fierce
Kashmiri nationalist, Abdullah is best remembered for opposing the Dogra monarchy’s
exploitative economic and political system; securing Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to
India in 1947; passing revolutionary land reforms as Prime Minister of J&K; and later
for championing the cause of Kashmiri self-determination—as a consequence of which
he was imprisoned for two decades—before coming to terms with the Indian
government in 1975. He has been alternately celebrated as a patriot and reviled as a
traitor in Kashmir, in India and in Pakistan.
In this richly researched and elegantly crafted biography, renowned historian
Chitralekha Zutshi transcends these labels by placing Abdullah’s life in the context of
critical global developments in the twentieth century. She deftly illustrates how his
political trajectory—forged in the inequities of the princely state system and burnished
in the flames of anti-colonial nationalism, Islamic universalism, socialism, communism,
secularism, communalism, federalism and the Cold War—embodies the becoming of
India itself. Based on new archival sources as well as oral histories, this book is as
much a biography of one Kashmiri as that of an entire generation of leaders who
shaped the politics and institutions of twentieth-century South Asia.
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India is not the most important nor the most powerful country in the world. However, it
has strong claims to being the most interesting. This modern nation is heir to a rich
civilizational history, with the rise and fall of mighty empires juxtaposed with the rise
and renewal of great religious traditions. The past two centuries have witnessed an epic
struggle against colonial rule as well as the construction of the world’s largest
democracy—in the inhospitable soil of the world’s most hierarchical society. This
history, ancient and modern, has featured many extraordinary individuals active in a
variety of fields: politics, spirituality, social reform, science, literature, art, music, film,
sport and more.
Each book in the Indian Lives series, written by a leading writer/scholar, focuses on
the life and legacy of an important figure from India’s history.