Srinagar, July 29 -- By Moin S. Hakak

Reading Wajahat Qazi's article on Orientalism in Kashmir Observer led me to a simple but consequential question: Should postcolonial critique become a substitute for self-criticism?

While the article engages with the concepts of Orientalism and postcoloniality, it features abstractions that distort the analytical lens of Orientalism.

Consequently, the article seems to impose the generalisations and abstractions it intends to critique.

The Europeans constructed the Kashmir imagery through three tropes: paradise, degeneration, and governability. However, the thematic scope of Qazi's Orientalism discourse is confined to the degeneration tropes, and this response restricts itself accordingly.

Althoug...