From a Distant Shore to the War at Home: 9/11 and Kashmir

Abstract

This essay reflects on how the dominant US framing of the events of 9/11 was appropriated by dominant states to repress struggles for freedom and justice in the name of “global war on terror.” Focusing on India's counterinsurgency war in Kashmir, the essay argues that the India government, led by the rightwing BJP, systematically used the “global war on terror” to advance its anti-Muslim rhetoric, crushing of dissent, and settler-colonial policies in Kashmir.

Keywords:

• Kashmir
• 9/11
• counterinsurgency
• global war on terror
• human rights

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Interview took place in October 2001.

2 Gray argues that – despite their scale and the role of a global network behind them – 9/11 events were neither unprecedented nor did they mark a “step-change in history.” It was a “further development of earlier types of unconventional warfare rather than a qualitative change in the nature of conflict.” Black Mass, p. 180-181.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohamad Junaid

Mohamad Junaid is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. He has a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, CUNY, with research on violence, youth activists, and political subjectivity in Kashmir. His work on military occupation, history writing, space, and memory has appeared in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Identities, The Funambulist, and several edited volumes and anthologies.