The People and Culture of Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh

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Parvéz Dewân can send you to sleep about Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. If anyone has the Ultimate Dossier on this region, it is he, after years of running about India's northernmost state, administering and adventuring his way around its valleys, peaks and rivers. During the first posting of his career Parvez revived the famous Basohli School of miniature painting, in the face of cynical predictions that the art that had vanished in 1856 could never come back. This success led him on a quest to determine if Kashmir had ever had its own tradition of miniatures. Working on weekends over two years he found more than a thousand miniatures painted in Kashmir, the oldest surviving paper-painting dating to AD 1430 and the last to the early 1900s. Parvez created the Ladakh Festival in 1993. A militant organisation threatened to kill every employee of the state Tourism department who worked on that festival. So, Parvez organised the festival with the help of two employees from outside, himself playing bus conductor and tour operator to the visiting media team. The Festival is now an established institution. Five years later, well before American Idol went on the air, Parvez conceived the All India Devotional Songs Competition at Katra. It has gone on to give unknown singers a springboard for lucrative careers (including in Indian cinema), has become financially self-sustaining and has spawned countless imitations. As the head of the Jammu district administration Parvez had to act against powerful people who claimed to be Gujjars in order to benefit from affirmative action meant for that nomadic tribe. This made him undertake self-financed research about who the Gujjjars really were, which included going to Georgia to trace their roots. The tribe appreciated this. Mian Basheer, the pre-eminent Gujjar chief, persuaded Parvez to build a summer cottage in Nara Nag Wangat, not far from the holiest shrine of the tribe.Parvéz Dewân can send you to sleep about Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. If anyone has the Ultimate Dossier on this region, it is he, after years of running about India's northernmost state, administering and adventuring his way around its valleys, peaks and rivers. During the first posting of his career Parvez revived the famous Basohli School of miniature painting, in the face of cynical predictions that the art that had vanished in 1856 could never come back. This success led him on a quest to determine if Kashmir had ever had its own tradition of miniatures. Working on weekends over two years he found more than a thousand miniatures painted in Kashmir, the oldest surviving paper-painting dating to AD 1430 and the last to the early 1900s. Parvez created the Ladakh Festival in 1993. A militant organisation threatened to kill every employee of the state Tourism department who worked on that festival. So, Parvez organised the festival with the help of two employees from outside, himself playing bus conductor and tour operator to the visiting media team. The Festival is now an established institution. Five years later, well before American Idol went on the air, Parvez conceived the All India Devotional Songs Competition at Katra. It has gone on to give unknown singers a springboard for lucrative careers (including in Indian cinema), has become financially self-sustaining and has spawned countless imitations. As the head of the Jammu district administration Parvez had to act against powerful people who claimed to be Gujjars in order to benefit from affirmative action meant for that nomadic tribe. This made him undertake self-financed research about who the Gujjjars really were, which included going to Georgia to trace their roots. The tribe appreciated this. Mian Basheer, the pre-eminent Gujjar chief, persuaded Parvez to build a summer cottage in Nara Nag Wangat, not far from the holiest shrine of the tribe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Parvez Dewan

Parvez Dewan was educated at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and the University of Cambridge, and was elected a Visiting Research Fellow of Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University. He hitchhiked through Nicaragua to study its total literacy miracle and trawled Cambodia and Central Asia for their architectural links to Kashmir's temples and shrines. An officer of the Indian Administrative Service, he is currently the Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir. Two of his libretti were recorded as rock operas in Denmark, a third was telecast on Britain's Channel Four (and none of the three was ever heard of again). At St. Stephen's he was elected President of the College Union society and was awarded the L. Raghubir singh History Prize for ranking first in his B.A. (Hons.) class. At Cambridge, he was awarded the Jennings Prize in 1987 for obtaining the highest marks, and a distinction, in the Development Studies class. He was the Senior Treasurer of the Cambridge University (C.U.) Friends of the Earth and was also with the C.U. Green Party. Most of the publications that Parvez has written for had to fold up (Youth Times, JS, The Hindustan times Evening News, The Metropolitan on Saturday, Shama (Urdu) and such sections of The Times of India as he regularly contributed to). However, some survived (notably the Times of India, India Today, The Hindustan Times, The Statesman and Stardust).

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Bibliographic information

Title
The People and Culture of Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh
Author
Edition
1st ed.
Publisher
ISBN
9788170493433
Length
387p., 8p. of Plates; Col. Illustrations; Maps; 25cm.
Subjects