Camera as weapon: ways of seeing in Kashmir

ABSTRACT

This article considers amateur images that came out of Indian occupied Kashmir during the summer of 2016. These pictures, circulated on Facebook and Twitter, documented the human cost of India’s use of pellet guns for anti-protest crowd dispersal, a decision that led to the gruesome blindings and wounding of Kashmiris. Pictures of pellet gun victims sparked outrage online as they spread across a social media already saturated with several competing visions of Kashmir’s past, present, and future. Countless images of maimed Kashmiris entered a visual field structured by the Indian state’s pervasive surveillance of Kashmiri aspirations for azaadi. Writing in the wake of Third Cinema’s vision of the camera as a weapon, this piece considers the relationship between the insurgent’s right to look and right to maim summoned by the liberal state. Reflecting on the significance of particular networks of circulation, registers of representation, and forms of enunciation, I offer a rethinking of documentation, documentary images, and ways of seeing in Kashmir.

KEYWORDS:

• Kashmir
• media
• witnessing

Acknowledgements

This article would not have been possible without the feedback of Ather Zia, Samhita Sunya and Esmat Elhalaby. Robert Edward Moeller provided me with research assistance at key moments. The anonymous peer reviewers pushed this piece forward with their thoughtful and engaged readings of this manuscript. Thank you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Kashmir Valley is often referred to as simply ‘the valley,’ in South Asia. Keeping with this usage, I will be using ‘the valley’ interchangeably with ‘Kashmir,’ to signify Indian-Occupied Kashmir.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anjali Nath

Anjali Nath is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis.