Description
This paper examines the activism of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), an organisation led by women seeking justice for their relatives who were forcibly disappeared by the Indian state after the 1989 anti-India armed uprising in Kashmir. It discusses how the organisation transforms the exhaustion from prolonged waiting into a source of hope and resistance against state-enforced disappearances. Through the concept of "thakawath," a Koshur term for the state of exhaustion and anxiety associated with a desire for change, the research focuses on how APDP members transform their individual grief and seemingly endless waiting into collective action and sustained hope for justice. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 23 APDP members within six months of fieldwork in Kashmir, the research demonstrates how the organisation strategically channels exhaustion into forms of political action that nurture hope amid seemingly significant challenges. Despite facing severe state repression and the emotional toll of searching for disappeared loved ones, APDP activists refuse to succumb to hopeless waiting. Instead, they transform their thakawath into "radical patience," maintaining hope through continuous documentation of human rights violations, community building, and intergenerational resistance. The paper contributes to discussions on waiting as resistance by introducing thakawath as a theoretical framework that illuminates how exhaustion can be reimagined as a catalyst for hope and political agency. The findings suggest that APDP's approach to transforming waiting into active hope offers valuable insights for other movements confronting state violence and enforced disappearances globally.
