The mid of 2016 witnessed massive protests across Kashmir Valley which started against the killing of a young resistance leader by Indian military forces. About hundred people lost their lives and more than four thousand were injured. The use of ‘non-lethal weapon’ – pellet Guns – by Indian armed forces led to loss of eye-sight for the people across age and gender. The show-case of a strong Indian State by the ruling right-wing regime (which is also part of coalition government in Kashmir) is said to be raison d’être for this indiscriminate violence. But the coercive apparatus adopted by the Indian State to suppress the resistance is not new; it has always acted a State of Exception visa-a-via Kashmir by enforcing its legitimacy and hegemony through ‘special’ laws and discourses. The short period of ‘calmness’ are being called as end of resistance and return of peace in Kashmir to create dichotomy of resistance (violent, bad, sadness) against India (peace, good, happy). Against this strong and hegemonic State, there has been a persistent resistance which has taken different forms over the years. The recent protests of 2016 and the years before that cannot be seen merely as immediate ‘reactions’ rather there is a continuity. This interaction of a strong State and persistent resistance can be looked from the larger frame of postcolonial nation-building project(s) in South Asia where marginalised nationalities were asked to imagine themselves as one territorial map.

Brief Bio

Dr. Khalid Wasim Hassan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Politics and Governance of Central University of Kashmir. Previously he was working as Assistant Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (2013-16). He has also taught at the P.G Department of Political Science of St.Josephs College, Bangalore (2012-13) and School of Undergraduate Studies of Ambekar University Delhi. He has also taught a short-term course at University of Muenster, Germany under DAAD exchange programme. He completed his PhD from Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in which he worked on the Islamist and Secular Discourses in post 1988 Self-determination Movement in Kashmir. He has also been working on emergence of Multiple Public Spheres in a conflict zone like Kashmir. In a collaborative research of Tata Institute of Social Sciences and London School of Economics on Violence against Women (VAW), he contributed his research onState Violence against women in Armed Conflict of Kashmir.His research area includes: Post-colonial Theory, Ethnic and nationalist movements in South Asia and Human Rights. He has been teaching the courses on Political Theory, International Politics and Indian Politics at graduate and post-graduate level. Presently he is Charles Wallace Fellow at SOAS, University of London.

There will be an opportunity for a Q&A session with Protest Musician MC Kash after the lecture.

Dr Virinder Kalra

Professor of Sociology

Warwick University