Paper short abstract:

In Kashmir, where Indian forces have fought pro-independence militants for 17 years, state violence is not only a means to an end but an expression of the logic of nation-building and notions of cultural and territorial identity.

Paper long abstract:

Paper proposal

Symbol and function in the violence of counterinsurgency: stories from Kashmir

Shubh Mathur

June 2006

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Connecticut College

This paper looks at the violence of the ongoing conflict in Kashmir, where Indian forces have fought pro-independence militants for seventeen years. It seeks to understand the violence of counterinsurgency not only in terms of its stated goals but also as an expression of the underlying logic of nation-building and notions of Indian cultural and territorial identity. Representations of this violence in Indian media, official and academic accounts constitute a second wave of symbolic violence, serving to silence or marginalize the voices of its victims and survivors.

This paper questions these accounts from the perspective of Kashmiri victims and survivors - torture survivors, families of the disappeared, former prisoners and their advocates. It seeks to understand the everyday reality of state terror and thereby to add another dimension to the study of the Indian state and its social and political dynamics. Three stories are used to illustrate the mechanics and symbolic meanings of violence - the killing of human rights lawyer Jalil Andrabi by the Indian army in 1996 and the impunity provided by the state to the killers; the 'disappearance' of a chemist, father of three children, who was arrested by Indian forces in Budgam district in 2002; and the use of teenage children as 'human shields' by Indian forces in search operations.

Finally this paper seeks to evaluate the positive and negative consequences of 'dangerous anthropology', of research on conflict situations where the safety of subjects and researcher are at stake.