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Abstract
Bodies not only are territory but also make territory. Recent scholarship interrogates the utility of hierarchical scale, attends to everyday practice and geopolitical strategy, and thinks through geographies of religion in terms of intersectionality and embodiedness. I build on these developments by reading them through the lens of territory and territoriality to explore how babies and reproductive bodies are caught up in geopolitical projects and religious narratives in the Leh district of India's contested Jammu and Kashmir State (J&K). J&K's Ladakh region has experienced the politicization of religious identity over the course of the twentieth century, culminating in the Buddhist majority's social boycott of Ladakhi Muslims and the subsequent territorialization of marriage and reproduction as sites of geopolitical possibility. This research explores the territorial logic manifest in a pronatal campaign and a ban on religious intermarriage, as well as the ways that people respond to this logic. The research draws on seventeen months of fieldwork conducted between 2004 and 2010, including a survey and interviews, as well as two oral history and photography projects with Ladakhi youth.
Los cuerpos no solamente son territorio sino también hacen territorio. La erudición reciente se pregunta sobre la utilidad de la escala jerárquica, atiende a la práctica cotidiana y la estrategia geopolítica y a través de las geografías de la religión piensa en términos de interseccionalidad e incorporeidad. Mi contribución respecto a estos desarrollos la hago leyéndolos a través de la lente del territorio y la territorialidad, para explorar cómo los bebés y los cuerpos reproductivos se ven atrapados en proyectos geopolíticos y narrativas religiosas del distrito Leh, en el disputado estado Jammu y Cachemira (J&K) de la India. La región Ladakhi de J&K ha experimentado la politización de la identidad religiosa durante el curso del siglo XX, culminando en el saboteo social promovido por la mayoría budista de los musulmanes Ladakhi y la subsiguiente territorialización del matrimonio y la reproducción como sitios de posibilidad geopolítica. Esta investigación explora la lógica territorial manifiesta en una campaña pro nacimientos y un veto al matrimonio entre contrayentes de diferente religión, lo mismo que la manera como la gente responde a esta lógica. La investigación se desarrolló a través de diecisiete meses de trabajo de campo en 2004 y 2010, incluyendo estudios en la región y entrevistas, lo mismo que dos proyectos de historia oral y fotografía con jóvenes ladakhies.
Acknowledgments
This article has benefited tremendously from helpful suggestions by Stanzin Tonyot, Sallie Marston, Jocelyn Chua, Banu Gökariksel, Nina Martin, Paul Robbins, John Paul Jones III, Richard Eaton, and Mark Nichter. None of this research would have been possible without the incredible generosity of the people who not only gave their time to answer my uncomfortable questions but did so with grace, hospitality, and striking openness. Research assistance and support was provided by Hasina Bano (Maski) and Dolma Tsering (Kagapa). Thanks to Timothy Stallmann for producing the map. The fieldwork for this research was supported by the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program, the Society of Women Geographers, the International Dissertation Research Fellowship Program of the Social Science Research Council with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Arizona Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, the Association of American Geographers Political Geography Specialty Group, and the Association of American Geographers Qualitative Research Specialty Group.
Notes
1. These are pseudonyms and identifying details have been omitted or changed to protect their identities.
2. An independent kingdom until the mid-nineteenth century, Ladakh was incorporated into India in 1947 as part of J&K. It was split into Buddhist majority Leh district and Shia majority Kargil district in 1979. In the 2001 Indian census, Ladakh's population was 236,539, approximately 47 percent Muslim (majority Shia) and 46 percent Buddhist, with minority Hindu, Christian, and Sikh populations (Census of India 2001). Kargil's population is approximately 80 percent Muslim and 15 percent Buddhist, and Leh's population is approximately 77 percent Buddhist and 15 percent Muslim. Leh district's population according to the 2001 census is 117,637.
3. For more on these events see Aengst (Citation2008), Gutschow (2006), and S. Smith (Citation2008, 2009).
4. The decision to speak primarily with women was not made lightly and is not intended to suggest that family planning and parenthood are “women's issues.” The decision was primarily a methodological one due to the difficulty of doing research on sexual practices and contraception as a young woman.
5. I appreciate the anonymous reviewer who called my attention to the need to clarify these points.
6. A discussion of these techniques and the colonial trajectory is far beyond the scope of this article, but a good starting place is Pandey (Citation2006).
7. Space constraints preclude anything but the most superficial gloss of this complicated history. For excellent analyses see the work of Aggarwal (Citation2004), van Beek (Citation2000, 2001), Bertelsen (Citation1996), Bhan (Citation2006), Gutschow (2006), Pinault (Citation2001), and Srinivas (Citation1998). For an insightful account placing events in Ladakh into the Jammu and Kashmir context, see Behera (Citation2000), and for historical context see Rizvi (Citation1996, 1999) and Fewkes (Citation2008).
8. I am translating from Kachul and Kachulpa, the Ladakhi words for Kashmir and Kashmiri.
9. A rinpoche is a high monk, most often the reincarnated spiritual leader of a particular monastery.
10. Chipa, in this context, means Muslim. The terms insider and outsider, nangpa and chipa, are often used to refer to Buddhists and Muslims. This is mainly a Buddhist usage—Muslims are more likely to identify as Mussalman. Gutschow (2006) made the same observation, and Aggarwal (Citation2004) suggested that the nangpa/chipa language became more common after the social boycott.
11. Diskit used the word Kache to refer to Sunni Muslims. The terms Balti and Kache are frequently used to distinguish between Shia and Sunni Muslims. These terms are misleading as they are geographic markers—Balti means a person from Baltistan and Kache means Kashmiri. These terms are regularly applied to Ladakhis to denote their religious identity, but I have found that it is more common for Buddhists to deploy these words and that Muslims more often differentiate using the terms Shia and Sunni. In interview excerpts I have translated Balti and Kache as Shia and Sunni; however, I have bracketed the term to indicate this substitution.
12. I’m translating from gonpa soma—literally “new monastery,” which is the Buddhist temple built in the center of Leh town after 1956. The LBA has its office in the temple courtyard, and the site has become as political as it is religious (some would argue the same for the main Shia and Sunni mosques).
13. I do not claim that these figures can be generalized: Due to the sensitive nature of the topic and my determination not to compromise my rapport and opportunities for future research and collaboration in Ladakh, I relied on opportunistic rather than random sampling. To complete the survey, my research assistant, Hasina Bano, and I began in each neighborhood with one person whom we knew and proceeded to ask each neighbor or woman that we encountered in the neighborhood or village to speak to us. We visited a range of neighborhoods in Leh, as well as the neighboring villages of Chushot, Choglamsar, Thikse, Shey, and Phyang.
14. One Buddhist woman gave the example of another Buddhist woman with four children, whom she had heard avoided family planning for religious reasons.
15. For married women, not having children is an unlikely decision. Of 192 women, I met only one who had never conceived. She and her husband had adopted a child from relatives. Infertility arose as a topic of concern in stories about relatives who had been unable to conceive, or about divorces that had occurred due to failure to conceive. The two women in their late thirties who had decided never to marry or have children told me they saw no appeal in marriage because they enjoyed their independence too much.
16. For an excellent description of the varied motivations for joining monastic life see Gutschow (Citation2004).
17. I am translating bar borches as spacing, or “putting a gap.” In Leh, bar borches almost exclusively refers to the use of IUDs to put two or more years between births.
18. Chocho is the equivalent of “sweetie,” or “honey.” Its more literal meaning is the honorific term for younger sister.
19. Mohammed, like many Ladakhi Muslims, uses a phrase that appends a Buddhist religious term, konjok, onto the Urdu term for God, khuda. Konjok refers to the Buddhist “triple gem,” the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings), and the Sangha (the community of followers).