- Indian corporations and brands use Kashmir as an “aesthetic” place to shoot photos.
- The irony of the shoot is that these carpets are not even made by Kashmiri artisans but rather Indian products with Kashmiri names to achieve a certain Kashmiri “aesthetic”
- It is particularly disturbing considering the destruction of the Kashmiri handicrafts industry post-Article 370 and the thousands of cheap indian copies that have overtaken indigenous Kashmiri arts.
- The Kashmiri handicrafts industry is an old one that originates with the beginning of Islam in Kashmir, where Central Asian & Iranic missionaries (and Muslim Sultans at a state level) brought the art of craftsmanship from Persia and other Iranic cultures.
- The craftsmanship Kashmiri artisans practice is an intergenerational art, passed down and perfected by decades of work.
- The Indian state encourages this fetishization of Kashmiris, which has reduced Kashmiris and their culture into orientalist fantasies to be sold as consumable products to indian audiences all while actual indigenous Kashmiri culture and Kashmiris are destroyed and killed by the occupation.
- This construction of Kashmir as the “crown jewel of india” is reminiscent of how the british called india their crown jewel.
- Kashmir is a “prize” and a “paradise” for indians to enjoy and to show off.
- Brahmanical fascism views Kashmir as a holy hindu paradise that must be held onto at any costs and fetishizes the alleged “white-skinned” beauty of Kashmiri Muslims, and particularly Kashmiri Muslim women.
- Thus this oriental fantasy of Kashmir as a “beautiful paradise” and the “whiteness” of Kashmiris is to make Kashmir (and Kashmiris) desirable to the average indian and more agreeable to settle and colonize the land.
- This campaign normalizes this fantasy of Kashmir as a beautiful paradise for Indians to enjoy and erases the violent occupation that oppresses Kashmiri Muslims in their day to day lives.
- An indian can enjoy Kashmir to the fullest, but can a Kashmiri Muslim who is abused, beaten, oppressed, sexually harassed, murdered, and exploited say the same?
- Can Kashmiri Muslims who can be killed at any moment truly call their homeland a paradise?
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