On the Kashmir Question

The movement for Kashmir has as one of its underlying motifs, religion. In this paper, the author seeks to historically analyse the many ways religion has been put to serve different purposes. Influenced more by the rituals and doctrines that are particular and contingent in time, the universal and eternal component of Islam seems to have been all but forgotten, more so by those fighting for 'Kashmir', subdued by what the author labels as the 'Arkoun-Kuran' effect - when the unthinkable is gradually transformed over time into the unthought. South Asia has seen the coexistence and synthesis of Hindu and Muslim cultures and traditions - only a renewed awareness of this can reverse the Arkoun-Kuran effect.