LIFE UNDER SIEGE: UNRAVELLING THE GAMBITS OF COERCION IN FARAH BASHIR’S RUMOURS OF SPRING

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study examines Farah Bashir’s memoir Rumours of Spring:A Girlhood in Kashmir (2021) to explore representations of state coercion in Indian-held Kashmir during the 1990s, arguing that the coercive tactics, psychological in nature, obliterate subjectivities of ordinary Muslim Kashmiris. Focusing on the 'how' of coercion, this critical inquiry draws behavioral parallels between Albert Biderman's chart of coercion—derived from his analysis of Chinese treatment of American prisoners of war during the Korean War—and the Indian state's coercive mechanisms employed in the Indian-held Kashmir. In doing so, this paper investigates how protracted curfews, unwarranted interrogations, media censorship, and ubiquitous surveillance–all these strategies–damage self-image, curtail independent thinking, monopolize perception, foster degradation, and derange the equanimity of ordinary Muslim Kashmiris. The analysis of Bashir's autoethnographic narrative reveals that the ‘captive environment’ is created to silence dissent, enforce conformity, and submissiveness of Kashmiri subjects in a bid to solidify the Indian state’s hegemonic overreach in the region. While offering fresh insights in the interdisciplinary research paradigms, this study also helps in understanding variant strata of coercion in besieged zones. Taken together, it highlights the significance of life narratives in generating emancipatory discourses in South Asia and beyond.