Srinagar, May 17 -- Wajahat Qazi

WORDS and their etymology are powerful in their own right but they are also signifiers-of class, status and power in a given society. Kashmir and its social mix and constituents are no exception in this regard. Words such as 'khoje' (upper class wealthy person), 'waatal' (roughly the sweeper and the cobbler class), doomb (the lowest classes), peer (the priestly class), 'haenz'( the boat peopleof Kashmir, who live almost in a different world and zone ), 'groos'(peasant) and so on are signifiers of social class in Kashmir suggesting the class or caste(used interchangeably here) of persons in what was and is a deeply hierarchical society. All these words have, over time, acquired pejorative connotations as w...