Paper short abstract:

The paper explores formal action, clique utilisation and collaboration as three significant ways of dealing with an 'oppressive' state, where the response is significantly informed by the individual's social situation especially the class and active family support.

Paper long abstract:

The paper builds on local as the site where the state and society overlap. As such, local becomes the site where citizens encounter the various agencies and aspects of the state. The encounters inform much of their notions and relationships with the state. This in turn shapes the dynamics of their everyday practices vis-à-vis the state. In Downtown Srinagar, the notion of the state as perpetrator of ‘zulm’ (oppression and injustice) remains significantly popular. For most of the people there, the coercive interface of the state forms their primary imaginary of the state. It apparently produces and reproduces the discourses and notions of ‘zulm’ vis-à-vis the state.By virtue of three ethnographic case studies, the paper maps out three broad patterns of responses – formal action, clique utilisation and collaboration – by different people to deal and do away with the zulm of the state. Formal action reflects the direct and upfront means of doing away with the zulm of the state, especially by utilisation of legal processes. Clique utilisation as a means of appropriation turns out as a way of bypassing the zulm of the state. Collaboration on the other hand, comes out as a means of evading the zulm of the state. Moreover, with respect to the case studies, the respective response is significantly informed by the social situation of the individual(s) especially vis-à-vis their class and active family networking and support. Also, from the standpoint of resistance, the three modes of appropriation depict ways of popular resistance against state.