Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the after of the armed militancy (1989-2003) in Doda region of Jammu and Kashmir. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it attempts to show how armed violence and its aftermath has enduringly changed the ways in which Hindus and Muslims conventionally related to each other.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the after of the armed militancy in Doda region of Jammu and Kashmir. Aftermath, here, is not simply an assessment of the toll of militancy or quantum of damage nor indeed solely the degree of psychological impact of the violent phase, but, crucially the nature of interventions on the part of state in the name of development and its bearing on local and everyday Hindu-Muslim relations. It is during vulnerable state that a society is exposed to new ways of perceiving and acting. A crisis becomes an opportunity for various ideologies to play. These ideologies may range from political to religious. Militarization became a dominant feature of the region. Similarly, religious revivalists have also gained traction owing to insecurities on the part of locals. In a situation where one person's religious identity determined their loyalty to a nation-state, everyday nationalism became very salient. The idea of development has often been imagined as an alternative to separatism. Reduced violence resulted in the reemergence of political actors and parties. This led to revival of democratic process and the discourse of development as an antidote to incipient insurgency gained currency. By analysing the potentiality of development discourse, which emerged as a major counterinsurgency strategy in the post-armed conflict period, I have tried to show its interactions with the local through the processes of militarization, electoral-politics and religious-reform movements. This interplay of these forces, I argue, has resulted in the politicization of religious identity and routinisation of communal violence.