Legacy of a Divided Nation - pg. 9

Consider Kashmir. In the valley, where most muslims live, Islam absorbed many social and cultural practices of pre-Islamic origin, which are today attacked by the Ahl-i Hadith and the Jamaat-i Islami. And in the neighboring Punjab, a territory divided into two unequal halves in 1947, it provided a repertoire of concepts and styles of authority which served to encompass potentially competing values, including the values of tribal kinship, within a common Islamic idiom. In Bengal, an area far removed from the centre of imperial power, Islam took many forms and assimilated values and symbols which were not always in conformity with the Quranic ideals and precepts. The religio-cultural idioms underwent a rapid change, giving birth to a set of popular beliefs and practices which in essence represented the popular culture of rural Bengal rooted in the pre-Islamic past. The local syncretic beliefs and practices, predating the advent of Islam in the region, thus formed the popular culture in Bengali Islam from the beginning.

India After Gandhi - pg. 91

"Through the pages of SWATANTRA I wish to send my message of frateternity to the people of the south. Far back in the annals of India the south and north met in the land of Kashmir. The great Shankaracharya came to Kashmir to spread his dynamic philosophy but here he was defeated in argument by a PAnditani. This gave rise to the peculiar philosophy of Kashmir -- Shaivism. A memorial to the great Shankaracharya in Kashmir stands prominent on the top of the Shankaracharya Hill in Srinagar. It is a temple containing the Murti of Shiva. 

More recently it was given to a southerner to take the case of Kashmir to the United Nations and, as the whole of India knows, with the doggedness and  tenacity that  is  so usual to the southerner, he defended Kashmir. 

We in Kashmir expect that we shall continue to receive support and sympathy from the people of the south and that some day when we describe the extent of our country we shall use the phrase "from Kashmir to Cape Comorin.""

-- Sheikh Abdullah

writing in a Tamil Newspaper.