Precarity in princely India: The political economy of (un)employment in Kashmir (1819–1931)

Moving beyond dominant historiographical narratives that frame the Treaty of Amritsar (1846) as a moment of political rupture, this paper provides a comparative analysis of the Sikh period (1819–1846) and the Dogra regime to foreground the patterns of employment, unemployment, and precarity in Kashmir. Drawing on archival records, administrative reports, and contemporary writings, it argues that, despite its rent-seeking character, the Sikh administration largely operated through a pragmatic logic of governance to incorporate local intermediaries. In contrast, the Dogra rule gradually institutionalised more structured forms of exclusion, by increasingly privileging non-local elements, particularly Punjabis, in bureaucracy. This shift was closely linked to the growing importance of education as a prerequisite for bureaucratic entry, even as access to educational opportunities remained highly unequal. Situating unemployment within the broader political economy of governance, the paper further analyses the emergence of the ‘State Subject’ category as a mechanism through which access to employment, resources, and social mobility came to be regulated.