A Fate Written on Matchboxes (English, Paperback, Kanjwal Hafsa)

In 1953, Sheikh Abdullah, the first prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir, was jailed for being too ‘anti-India’. His deputy Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed then took the reins, and was tasked with securing Kashmir’s contested accession to India.

A Fate Written on Matchboxes tells the story of Bakshi’s ten-year client regime and the varying modes of control and governance it deployed. His “politics of life” foregrounded the day-to-day concerns of employment, subsidized rations, free education, and basic services while questions of self-determination were suppressed. To integrate and empower Kashmiris, Bakshi often doled out jobs by writing appointments on matchboxes and slips of paper.