Kashmir

Article

Kashmir is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between September 14, 2021 and July 24, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “his native Kashmir when he was growing up in the 1940s”; “Kashmir”; “Kashmir wasn’t really part of India”. It most often appears alongside India, Britain, China.

Metadata

  • Category: Places
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: September 14, 2021
  • Last seen: July 24, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

September 14, 2021 · Original source
According to Modi, when he was growing up (the 1950s) there was little racial division. Hindus and Muslims lived together and socialized together; Modi's own childhood best friend was a Muslim boy from a few blocks away. He attributes the worst prejudice and division in modern Indian society to the results of this Congress push to get everyone hating each other. Implausible? Kind of. But I remember reading Salman Rushdie, an Indian Muslim (though, uh, not a very good one), who also says there was almost no racial animus in his native Kashmir when he was growing up in the 1940s. And there's a historical pattern where there's decreased ethnic strife during colonial empires (since the colonizers are firmly in control, there's not much to be won in competitions between colonized groups), and then worsening strife after decolonization (different ethnic groups fight for control, or demagogues try to win elections by fanning inter-ethnic hatred). So I am not going to reject it out of hand when Modi says things were better back in the past - though I’m also can’t ignore everyone else’s position that worsening relations are due to Modi and people like him.
July 24, 2024 · Original source
21: Followup to discussion on how dictatorial Modi is vs. isn’t: famous Indian author and Modi critic Arundhati Roy is now being prosecuted under anti-terror laws for a fourteen-year-old remark that Kashmir wasn’t really part of India.