Paper short abstract:

How can we reflect on the nuances on the modes of resistance by the Kashmiris for a sovereign state through an analysis of the aesthetics of politics in contemporary times?

Paper long abstract:

The Kashmir conflict is one of the oldest conflicts in South Asian region.It is interesting to look at how a population with a history revolving around the question of state legitimacy beginning from pre-colonial times up till now has come to interact with the ideology of azadi for a sovereign nationhood for themselves.

The movement for azadi of Kashmir and its people today faces with many dilemmatic discourses which have certainly made an impact on its politics. Most important has been how the matrix of "politics" has altered. The 2010 civil unrest witnessed the young Kashmiris as stone-pelters as a form of resistance against the government of India and its armed forces and subsequently in 2011, the Harood Literary Festival provoked further debates on "political" and "unpolitical" character of dissent from the Kashmiris. The attempt would be to look into these recent instances to reflect on the nuances of "self-making" by the Kashmiris for a sovereign state through an analysis of the aesthetics of politics in Kashmir.

This paper will look into the questions how on the one hand, people's struggle for nationhood and autonomy, with its own mapping of demography imagine and conceptualizes the terms of sovereignty, considering the fact that the people as a population are not a homogeneous and monolithic entity? One needs to conceptualize how these modes of protest speak for certain kind of political recognition and imagination of a certain population.