Violence against Women in Kashmir: Personal and Political

This thesis highlights the subversion and silencing of interpersonal violence against women in Kashmir due to a larger focus on political violence, both within the community and in academia, as well. A detailed examination of various forms of violence(s) faced by women has been carried out throughout the thesis, some of which has not even been recognized and documented as violence in the existing literature. It has been accomplished through an in- depth ethnographic field research study spanning the years 2017-2019, drawing on qualitative interviews with 68 women in addition to other informants and extensive field observation in Kashmir and is also complemented by my auto-ethnographic reflections in form of 'vignettes'. The thesis also gives an insight into the role and functions played by the state and the non-state institutions in reinforcing, and exacerbating violence rather than mitigating it, given that the violence is addressed superficially without using gender as a tool of analysis, which is challenged throughout the thesis along with demonstrating the advantage and scope of gender analysis of violence.

The overarching purpose of this research inquiry is to recognize intersectional politics of multiple violence(s) of ‗community and the state‘ survived by Kashmiri women akin to violence of ‗sexism and racism‘ in the US explored and challenged during Black Feminist movement (Crenshaw, 1991). Such work was not possible without delineating various forms of violence faced by women in Kashmir. Therefore, this thesis comprises of three overarching themes, one emphasizes on establishing everyday violence against women in the earlier two chapters in greater detail through narrative form wherein the violence is broadly but not rigidly categorized as ‗in-community violence‘ (everyday violence generated by the community and family largely, buttressing in religious practices and cultural norms) using a sociological and gender lens. This is followed by a detailed analysis of violence generated by political conflict against women in the second part (the next two chapters) through a conceptual analysis based in Feminist IR, categorizing violence as ‗out-community violence‘ (violence generated by political conflict). It is followed by the third theme, an intersection and co-constitution of the two throughout these chapters and particularly in the conclusion part of the thesis. To this end, each of these three sections utilizes various theories like the Theory of Corporeality to discuss both in-community violence (like murders, domestic abuse, honour killings) and out-community violence (rapes by armed forces, exclusive electoral and separatist politics), as well as Standpoint theory (exploring lived experience as a basis of new knowledge). A key strength, and yet also a limitation, of this thesis is that the concept of violence has been broadly defined to include invisible epistemic discriminations on one side and male centric attitudes of mohalla committees on the other hand, in addition to various visible forms of physical violence, hence understanding violence as a ―spectrum rather than a monolith‖ (Kelly 1998, Enloe 2000). In fact, this is the first thesis that examines and ethnographically highlights the forms of violence like honour killings, murders due to DV masked as suicides, financial exclusion in form of local custom like Azal, and lack of property inheritance by women in Kashmir. In examining different forms of violence expressed through women's narratives, an intersectional politics of violence is explored that is rooted in the questions of who perpetrates violence, who survives it, and who gets to define it. The thesis further prompts the regional politics in political conflict of Kashmir to look away from binary of electoral or separatist politics, and to rather introduce the ethics and praxis of ―politics of care‖ which feminists argue are ―easily forgotten or willfully dismissed‖ (Hoover, 2019). This lack has indeed been exemplified by way of case studies, ethnographic observations, and interviews with the activist women making a case for examining violence as a spectrum, exploring grey areas and challenging dualities often used in understanding violence against women.

This thesis thus departs from understanding violence only as 'an act of the perpetrator of violence‘ and fills the gap by understanding ‗violence as an experience of the survivor of violence.‘ It also takes a departure from understanding conflict through dominant discourses of security, nationalism, regional politics and traditional IR because as observed in the existing literature, such an enquiry understands politics only in terms of state and its policies leaving behind the power relations beyond state, such as in families, cultural practices, etc. For this thesis, the term ‗Violence against Women (VaW)‘ is preferred over IPV or GBV as the violence under discussion is neither limited to violence in marriages by intimate partner nor has it covered violence against LGBTQI or other genders.

The thesis adopts a unique methodology of Participatory Action Research (PAR) which has been used by feminist social work researchers. The model, although not straitjacketed, has five main underlying principles (Renzetti, 1995; Reinhar 1992 in Mark, 1996: 71-72). First; analysis of gender is central to a research plan, in which male responses are not treated as a standard norm. Second; it gives voice to women‘s everyday experiences. Third; an orientation towards action research, that aims at problem solving. Fourth; no claims to absolute objectivity are made, instead reflexivity is practiced. Fifth; collaborator techniques are utilized in which the respondents are considered as partners and co-creators of knowledge in place of a mere interviewed population.

The thesis thus contributes to academia by drawing out aspects of violence that blur the lines between binaries of personal-political, home-outside, peacetime-wartime, as well as other dualities such as victim-agent. As argued in various feminist studies about women in different global conflict zones, there is one common thing that connects the people of conflict zones across the world, namely the lived experiences of violence. This thesis hence builds on various experiences of violence survived by Kashmiri women that challenge us to define violence in a conflict region broadly and at the same time use gender as a tool of analysis in understanding and mitigating violence against women.