Rethinking Sovereign Power: Resistance and Resilience in State of Exception of Kashmir

This paper examines the dynamics of sovereign power in Kashmir, India’s northern Muslim-majority region bordering Pakistan, through Agamben’s theoretical lens of state of exception. According to Agamben, individuals are reduced to homo sacer, or bare life, stripped of political and legal rights and subjected to unchecked sovereign violence in a state of exception. During the peak of the insurgency in the 1990s, the Indian state designated Kashmir a ‘troubled zone’ and enforced the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, granting military personnel immunity from prosecution and suspending legal protections for residents. Through brutal legal and political measures, the Indian state sought to establish complete control over the region.

This paper contends that while sovereign power seeks to reduce the local population to bare life, its domination is not absolute, even in spaces of exception like Kashmir. Through an ethnographic exploration of the lived experiences of the people, this study demonstrates how the power of life, to use Deleuze’s term, undermines the sovereign’s attempt at total control, revealing the limits of sovereign power. While Agamben provides valuable insights into the nature of sovereign power, his framework, the paper argues, leaves little room for the possibility of resistance within a state of exception. In contrast, this study illustrates how life in such spaces gives rise to diverse forms of resistance and resilience that challenge the sovereign’s power.

Thus, the study raises critical questions about Arendt’s concept of total domination in totalitarian states, and Agamben’s notion of homo sacer in modern politics. The paper stresses the need to examine sovereignty and biopolitics in conflict zones through the people’s lived experiences, showing how they challenge and negotiate sovereign power, and struggle for a politics that upholds freedom, identity, and justice. This study contributes to broader debates on sovereign violence, biopolitics, and the state of exception.