Presentation short abstract

This paper explores the conflict-induced climate crisis in Jammu and Kashmir, showing how (neo)colonial structures and militarization create ecological degradation and human vulnerability. It redefines vulnerability as resistance, highlighting Kashmiri resilience and decolonial climate agency.

Presentation long abstract

This paper situates the conflict-induced climate crisis in Jammu and Kashmir within the broader debates on climate justice and political ecology. It argues that the region exemplifies how colonial and neocolonial systems generate both ecological degradation and human vulnerability. Kashmir’s environmental decline is not a natural by-product of conflict but a result of historical power asymmetries and epistemic violence that have shaped the governance of land, nature, and people. The study shifts the focus from “natural vulnerability” to a vulnerability that is deliberately produced and sustained through militarization and territorial control.

In one of the world’s most militarized regions, political occupation and environmental change intersect to create forms of slow violence that alter both landscapes and livelihoods. Deforestation, glacial melting, disrupted river systems, and the loss of livelihoods reflect India’s extractive governance and securitization, where military and infrastructural projects redefine ecological and human relations.

Drawing on the concept of vulnerabilisation, the paper examines how Kashmiris are simultaneously portrayed as “threats” and “victims” within dominant climate narratives, reinforcing hierarchies that determine whose lives are valued. Yet, vulnerability in Kashmir also becomes a site of resistance. Through indigenous ecological knowledge and collective resilience, Kashmiri communities reclaim their relationship with land and environment. Their lived experiences articulate an alternative environmental consciousness that challenges colonial modernity and the depoliticized discourse of climate change, transforming vulnerability into a moral and political strength rooted in justice, belonging, and decolonial agency.