Rohi Jehan
PhD candidate in Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. Exchange fellowship at the Newberry Library Institute, Chicago.
In 2023, I was awarded the Newberry Library-John Rylands Research Institute Exchange Fellowship. I spent six weeks, from July to September, at the Newberry Library Institute in Chicago, studying archival material on early settlements in the Americas. My goal was to identify links between early land allotment schemes in the Americas and contemporary settler colonies, particularly Indian-controlled Kashmir. This exchange fellowship has been instrumental for me in understanding the similarities and differences.
The Newberry Library holds a six-century collection of Indigenous people's history that provided answers to most of my questions. I was interested in exploring the link between the current settler colonialism in Kashmir and the earlier settler colonies in the Americas. I particularly explored some archival documents from their Edward Ayer collection and noticed a pattern of land dispossession in both colonies. I wanted to investigate what happened to the lands after earlier dispossessions. My aim was to examine the pattern of dispossessions and their history to establish a connection to Kashmir from a decolonial theoretical perspective. Specifically, I applied Tabar and Desai's (2017) argument that the colonial and imperial strategies and the relational colonial and capitalist systems operate globally. By analyzing this argument over the historical period, I intended to understand contemporary systems through early colonial setups.
My doctoral research examines India's efforts to dispossess indigenous Kashmiris of their lands and the resulting perpetuation of gender inequality. I draw parallels between historical land allotment policies like the General (Dawes) Allotment Act of 1887 and contemporary Indian measures such as the Jammu and Kashmir Land Reorganisation Act of 2019, alongside the state-sponsored “anti-encroachment” campaigns. These initiatives aim to legally acquire land from those unable to prove inheritance rights, creating land banks for settlements and private industries. Kashmiri women, who are among the least landowners, bear the brunt of this dispossession, rendering them more vulnerable. By permitting settlements and industries in Kashmiri territory, India perpetuates a system resembling colonial control and settler colonialism projects elsewhere, deepening historical injustices and exacerbating existing inequalities.
During my six-week archival study on settler colonialism, I discovered some interesting potential linkages that I would like to explore further in the future. The study's short duration limited its applicability in my doctoral research, so I plan to use this experience as a guide for future research in this area. My future research aims to expand upon the initial study of the historical connections between different settler colonialisms across various time periods. Thanks to the exchange fellowship, I have been able to write a postdoc research proposal that focuses on the links between land dispossession and multiple time periods. I plan to utilize the six-week fellowship to continue building on my research, which I believe will make a valuable contribution to the field of settler colonialism.