Walter Benjamin, a German philosopher, died in 1940 while fleeing Nazi-controlled Europe. Documents, intellectual fame and a life founded upon ideas could not shield him from the wheels of exclusion and fear. The dehumanization and desensitization of his death revealed what the true nature of the law is if it does not represent justice. Identity can be provisional, and violence can be even natural and accepted.[1] Today, Kashmir is repeating this admonition only on a new scale and in a new context. The crisis that this region has been going through is not merely a political struggle but also psychological and philosophical. Erosion of democracy, normalized fear and the instrumentalization of the law are destructing the daily life of the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). To make sense of Jammu and Kashmir, one has to transcend territories and armies to concentrate on the human predicament.
Ever since the partitioning of the subcontinent in 1947, the status of Jammu and Kashmir has been disputed. There was an element of hope and fear with promises of accession and a plebiscite being held with the help of the United Nations, but instability continued.[2] A high level of militarization and living under the state of emergency transformed this political uncertainty into a permanent state of mind. Kashmiris experience the intergenerational transmission of trauma within their families, children grew up with checkpoints and curfews, and their daily routines are constantly disrupted by the threat of arbitrary detentions.[3] This is indicative of existential load that Dostoevsky talks about in Crime and Punishment: silent pain that kills conscience and agency.[4] No one is sure in IIOJK, entire communities are in daily indoctrination with fear, they are accustomed to carry what they are unable to change.
