On Uncertain Ground (Displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir)

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How do societies come to terms with dispossession, loss, nomadic existence, and protracted displacement? What does it mean to be a refugee in one’s own state? Centring on these questions, the current volume seeks to explore the lives of the Kashmiri Pandits—the Hindu Pandit minority of Kashmir Valley—and their — experience of forced migration and the conflict over Jammu and Kashmir.

Since 1989, Jammu and Kashmir has been affected by conflict between the Indian state and a movement demanding independence. As a result of this conflict, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits fled the valley and sought refuge in different parts of India, especially Jammu and New Delhi. Addressing the themes of violence, suffering, and victimhood in the context of forced migration, On Uncertain Ground explores the experiences of Kashmiri Pandits as they rebuild their lives after __ displacement, and their relationship to the Indian state and Indian and Kashmiri nationalisms. Focusing on ‘camp colonies’ and the lives of Kashmiri Pandits across Jammu and New Delhi, this book reveals the tension between the recovery of everyday life and the inability to feel at home and find one’s place in the world.

Ankur Datta is a social anthropologist and teaches at the Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi. He completed his masters at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London. He was raised in Singapore, Calcutta, and Mumbai. He has also lived in the city of Jammu where he conducted his fieldwork among the Kashmiri Pandits who have been displaced by the conflict in the Kashmir Valley. His work addresses questions of displacement and dis- location, place-making, and the politics of victimhood. He has a larger interest in exploring how people locate themselves in the world and in the context of complex histories. He has published articles based on his research journals ranging from Contributions to Indian Sociology to Forced Migration Review and Seminar.

**Contents and Sample Pages**