wl-6991-Political Imaginaries of Peasants and Workers in Kashmir: A Study of the Kisan Mazdoor Conference

As much as intellectual history forefronts the ideas and beliefs of political actors of a given time period, it is usually dominated by the study of ‘innovating ideologists’ i.e., popular political figures. This is apparent in the case of South Asian intellectual history wherein most of the attention is placed on the popular leaders of the nationalist movements. Jammu & Kashmir’s intellectual landscape in the 1940s and 1950s manifests this hegemonic production of history well. The history of political thinking is associated with the National Conference whereas there is little or no mention of alternatives like the Kisan Mazdoor Conference (the peasants/workers party). This article locates the KMC in the intellectual tradition of that time, understanding its ideological positioning, and visions of a just future. Thereafter, it reads the KMC’s manifesto against the grain of NC’s Naya Kashmir Manifesto which has been, and still is, considered to be an exemplar of NC’s progressive politics. This article foregrounds KMC’s politics and interprets the content of its own manifesto to: a) show diversions from the vision of NC, and b) pluralize the history of political thought in the region.