GENDER and MILITARISATION in KASHMIR By
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BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND NATION: GENDER AND MILITARISATION IN KASHMIR By Seema Kazi A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of PhD London School of Economics and Political Science The Gender Institute 2007 UMI Number: U501665 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U501665 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This thesis focuses on the militarisation of a secessionist movement involving Kashmiri militants and Indian military forces in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The term militarisation in this thesis connotes the militarised state and, more primarily, the growing influence of the military within the state that has profound implications for state and society. In contrast to conventional approaches that distinguish between inter and intra-state military conflict, this thesis analyses India’s external and domestic crises of militarisation within a single analytic frame to argue that both dimensions are not mutually exclusive but have common political origins. Kashmir, this thesis further argues, exemplifies the intersection between militarisation’s external and domestic dimensions. Focusing on the intersection between both dimensions of militarisation in Kashmir, this thesis illustrates that the greatest and most grievous price of using the military for domestic repression in Kashmir and for military defence of Kashmir without (vis-a-vis Pakistan) is paid by Kashmir’s citizens and society. Drawing on women’s subjective experience of militarisation, this thesis highlights the intersection between state military processes at a ‘national’ level and social transformations at the local/ societal level. By way of conclusion, this thesis argues that Kashmir’s humanitarian tragedy - exemplified by its gender dimensions - underlines why militarisation and and over Kashmir has failed to ensure ‘security’ for the state or security and justice for Kashmiri citizens. A decentralised, democratic state with a plural concept of nation and identity, this thesis suggests, is the best safeguard against use of the military for domestic repression within and the extraordinary military and nuclear consolidation of the Indian state without. 1 Acknowledgements Sincere and grateful thanks to Prof. Mary Kaldor and Prof. Anne Phillips at the London School of Economics for their time, knowledge and support while writing this thesis. Grateful thanks to the Aga Khan Foundation, New Delhi, and to Catherine Hieronymi at AKF, Geneva. Grateful thanks also to Linda Johnstone, Rachel Trueblood and Ian Harriss and the International Peace Research Association, Colorado, for financial support during 2002-2004. Thanks to the LSE and the LSE Gender Institute for their generous financial support over the years. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the University of London’s Central Research Fund for financial support for field research conducted in Srinagar during March-April 2005. My deepest gratitude is to the people in Srinagar - both named and unnamed - who gave so generously of their time, knowledge, friendship and hospitality throughout my stay in Kashmir. Special thanks to the women (and men) I interviewed in Srinagar during 2004 - 2005 most of whom cannot be named yet whose words are central to this thesis. Thank you for trusting me without knowing me. Grateful thanks to Parvez Imroz and Khurram Parvez of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, Professor Bashir Ahmed Dabla and Hameeda Bano at the University of Kashmir, Tabassum Ishtiaq, Imtiaz Ahmed Khan, Yasmeen Raja, Parveena Ahanger, Showkat Kathjoo, Feizal Mir, Sohail, Veena and Sunita, the Principal and teachers of Government College For Women, Srinagar. Grateful thanks also to Yasin Malik and Tahir Ahmed Mir for their time and friendship in Srinagar. My thanks to the women in Kashmir and London who provided me a home away from home while writing this thesis. Thanks to Assabah Khan and Ghulam Fatima for their friendship and generous hospitality in Srinagar and to Monique Drummond for her warm friendship in London. Special thanks to Cynthia Cockbum for her friendship, generosity and steady support while writing this thesis. Thanks also to Marjan Lucas and Riet Turksma for their friendship and support. Finally, with love and gratitude to my mother and family - thank you for your patience. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 1 Acknowledgements 2 Table of Contents 3 Chapter 1 Background, Limitations and Summary of Research 6 Methodology 12 Representing Women: Empowering or Exclusionary? 18 Summary of Chapters 25 Chapter 2 An Introduction to Kashmir 37 Early History 37 Medieval Kashmir 40 Kashmir at Independence 44 Democracy in Kashmir: Promise and Betrayal 48 Chapter 3 Militarism and Militarisation 54 Militarism in the Modem World 55 Militarism in the Global South 61 Inside/Outside the Nation State in the Global South 65 A ‘State’ of Militarism 68 State against Nation 69 Militarisation 73 Militarisation and the Nation-State 75 Militarisation and Nation-State Building 76 War, Gender and the State 78 3 Gender, Militarisation and the State 83 Chapter 4 Militarisation and the Indian State 88 A Requiem for Non-Violence 91 The Giant and the Dwarf 94 A‘State’of Militarisation 102 Between Democracy and Nation 107 The 1990s: The ‘State’ of ‘The Nation’ 117 Militarised Nuclear Nationalism: Inside/Outside the Nation-State 125 Concluding Remarks 132 Chapter 5 Militarisation in Kashmir 134 Between Democracy and Nation in Kashmir 137 Kashmir: State of Fear and Fear of State 149 Judicial Paralysis 159 Inside/Outside the World’s Most Beautiful Prison 163 Ethnic Fragmentation 165 Violence and Counter Violence 169 Education 170 Media 172 Health 173 Socio-Cultural Destruction 175 Civil Society 176 4 Chapter 6 Gender and Militarisation in Kashmir 182 Azadi: A Popular Sentiment 185 A World of Widows 192 A Matter of ‘Honour’ 198 The Cultural Politics of Militarisation 209 A Socio-Economic Crisis 213 A Psychological Crisis 215 The New Militancy 217 From Revolt to Jihad: The Struggle ss Corrupted 222 Concluding Remarks 225 Chapter 7 Conclusion 228 Illusions of ‘Power’ 231 Democracy, Militarisation and the Indian State 235 Gender, State and Militarisation 239 Re-imagining India by Re-Imagining Kashmir 242 Outside As Inside: Bridging the Inside/Outside Dichotomy 248 Bibliography 251 Appendix 286 Interviewee Details 286 United Nations Map of Jammu and Kashmir 288 5 Chapter 1 Background, Limitations and Summary of Research This research focuses on the militarisation of a secessionist movement involving Kashmiri militants and Indian military and paramilitary forces (hereafter referred to as the military) in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir1 (hereafter referred to as Kashmir). Between 80,000 to 100,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since the beginning of the crisis in 1989-90. In the year 2007, the conflict entered its seventeenth year with little hope towards cessation in the violence or human rights abuse that characterises militarisation in Kashmir. The term militarisation in this research connotes the crisis of the militarised state and, more primarily, the growing influence of the military within the state that has profound implications for state and citizen. The end of World War II and the decline of colonial powers led to the emergence of a number of new states in the Global South based on the model of the European nation-state. This model centred on the concept of state security from external threat that was assumed to be predominantly military in nature (Azar and Moon 1988a, 3). The idea of military security was based on a realist interpretation of world politics premised on the assumption that states exist in an ‘anarchic’ world that, in turn, demands the possession and consolidation of military force in order to resist or deter attacks from rival states. “Such logic dictates that each nation develop, maintain and exercise coercive... power...The capacity to coerce, kill, and destroy becomes the important source of power, and thus the pre-eminent safeguard for national security” (1988a, 4). 1 The conflict is situated in the Kashmir Valley in the north India state of Jammu and Kashmir. The term Kashmir here refers to the Valley, bound by the Jhelum River in the North to the town of Anantnag in the southeast. The Valley of Kashmir lies between the Himalayan Pir Panjal and Karakoram mountain ranges. 6 A range of states in Global South (including India) replicated dominant ideas of military security to reinforce the global trend towards militarisation for external defence. Militarisation for external defence, as Keith Krause notes, is “ systemic, in the sense that it serves to reinforce militarisation at a systemic (international) level where both “Northern and Southern states participate in [a] ‘global military order’” (Krause 1996, 174). Critiques of militarisation - particularly during the Cold War decades - focused on its (external) military-strategic dimensions to underline