Description
I seek to address the role of feminist discourses in legitimising nationalist imaginations in Kashmir. I employ a feminist-informed discourse analysis to identify the construction of gender identities in postcolonial nation States. The Kashmir conflict results from competing nationalist identities manifested as dominant/subversive hegemonic constructions constituted within feminist discourse. I employ a Gramscian framework of hegemony and argue that contesting ideologies of Kashmiri and Indian Nationalism are built on consensus in Kashmir’s civil society using women’s mobilisation and representation. By looking at the period after the abrogation of Kashmir’s special constitutional status, I argue that women’s participation in social-political movements aimed to 1. assert India’s claim on Kashmir 2. support Kashmir’s autonomy 3. politicised issues as citizenship reinforcing contesting nationalist ideologies (Indian and Kashmir). A key claim of this paper is that feminist politics is not always antagonistic to nationalist projects but can legitimise them using the case of Kashmir. The postcolonial dimension of the Kashmir conflict originates from the coloniser's epistemological dominance and India’s assertion of national identity results in militarised colonial projects, failing to account for Kashmiri women’s histories and experiences. I address this silencing of women’s voices by using narratology, focusing on verbal discourses where lived experiences of Kashmiri women challenge colonial historiography. I focus on women-led organizations Zanaan Wanaan and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons that support women impacted by conflict and targeted by India, an issue insufficiently covered in International and National Media. The UN 2000 Women's Peace and Security Agenda in India is informed by hegemonic constructions of Indian Nationalism and focuses on reducing conflict-related sexual violence and adding more women to the Armed forces. It fails to address the vulnerability of Kashmiri women. By foregrounding feminist discourse as a basis for contesting nationalist imaginaries - I offer alternatives to such securitisation.
