
Sheikh Abdullah
The Caged Lion of Kashmir
Author: Chitralekha Zutshi
Narrator: Jeed Saddy
Unabridged: 13 hr
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 05/28/2024
Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Asian Nonfiction, Political Biography
Synopsis
Abdullah (1905–1982) devoted much of his life to mobilizing Kashmiris to assert their rights, to trying to achieve a fair resolution for their politically contested state, to shaping its turbulent relationship with India, and to bridging the divide between India and Pakistan. Although he forged ties with the Indian National Congress, Abdullah's support for Kashmir's accession to India and his advocacy for a more autonomous position for the state within the Indian Union complicated his relationship with India and led to his fall from grace, arrest, and imprisonment. In 1975 he reached a compromise with India that alienated generations of Kashmiris for whose self-determination he had long fought. The people of Kashmir, India, and Pakistan continue to grapple with and contest his legacy.
Zutshi's rigorously researched and elegantly crafted biography brings this complex figure to life and offers a window onto the political fissures of twentieth-century South Asia more broadly.
