[Reader-list] Kashmir leftist feminist iconography

[Andrew Whitehead]

I've come across some remarkable pamphlets from Kashmir in the late 1940s
which have a strongly socialist/communist style of design, and which feature
women as the central characters on the cover.

One is an early edition of the National Conference's 'New Kashmir' manifesto
- first published in 1944, but this one was published in Delhi probably four
years or so later. The cover features a design of a woman, her head covered,
waving the National Conference flag very much in the fashion of Marianne in
the French Revolution.

The second, 'Kashmir Defends Democracy', was published in Delhi in 1948. The
cover has a striking design of a photograph of armed women members of the
National Conference militia, above a design of a woman, lying on the ground,
her head covered, taking aim with a rifle. This appears to be a depiction of
Zuni, a Gujjar woman who was prominent both in the National Conference and
in the women's detachment of its militia. The design is credited to Sobha
Singh, who I imagine may be the artist who later painted devotional
portraits of the Sikh gurus.

I am intrigued by the leftist iconogrpaphy - by the design emphasis on women
- and by the brief but clearly important confluence of Kashmir nationalist
and leftist currents in the mid-1940s. What to make of it all? I'm keen to
hear from anyone with observations or information.

Andrew Whitehead (in London)
<andrewwhiteheadbbc at gmail.com>