Between Democracy and Nation: Gender and Militarisation in Kashmir

Drawing on women’s subjective experience of militarisation, Between Democracy and Nation examines the relationship between state military processes at the ‘national’ level and social transformations at the local/societal level.

Seema Kazmi maintains that Kashmir’s humanitarian tragedy, exemplified by its gender dimensions, underlines why militarisation has failed to ensure either ‘security’ for the state or security and justice for Kashmiris.

A decentralised, democratic state with a plural concept of nation and identity, she believes, is the best safeguard against using the military for domestic repression within, and extraordinary military and nuclear consolidation of the Indian state, without.