There is a historical continuity in the separatist movement in Kashmir; just as there is one in the Indian state’s attitude towards it. Both remain unaddressed in a majority of the emerging literature on Kashmir—Navnita Chadha Behera’s State, Identity & Violence (2000) and Mridu Rai’s Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects (2004) being two exceptions—that reduce long and continuing processes to a paradigm rooted in the present. This makes it seem as if everything i