STRUCTURES OF VIOLENCE

3
| Structures of Violence
Context
UNDERSTANDING THE REPORT
Prepared over two years, this report is a part of the
continuing work to understand and analyze the role of
the Indian State in Jammu and Kashmir, an occupied
territory internationally recognized as a disputed
territory between India and Pakistan, that has resulted
in widespread and systematic violence including the
disappearance of 8000+ persons, 70,000+ deaths,
6000+ unknown, unmarked and mass graves, and
countless cases of torture and sexual violence.
Human rights groups, activists, journalists,
lmmakers, lawyers and civil society groups have
written, lmed, documented, litigated, brought
attention to, and reproduced material that has
repeatedly highlighted the violence and politics of the
Indian State and the everyday militarized reality of
Jammu and Kashmir. The past work of IPTK and
APDP, constituents of JKCCS, has been a part of this
wider campaign and effort. Through this journey,
patterns have been identied, individual State actors
have been named, phenomenon such as unmarked
graves, enforced disappearances and government
gunmen such as the Ikhwan have been brought to
light, and consistently, the Indian State has been
indicted.
This report, while continuing the above efforts, and
illustrating the patterns of violence through individual
case studies, is directly concerned with identifying the
structure, forms and tactics of violence of the Indian
State in Jammu and Kashmir. How did/does the Indian
State perpetrate this violence? What precisely is the
structure, physical and institutional, through which
weapons, ammunition, soldiers, ofcers, camps and
battalions inict violence on the people of Jammu and
Kashmir? Where is the control? The driving motivation
of this exercise is, as has always been: Responsibility.
Who do we hold responsible for the individual and
collected acts of violence?
Documentation work such as the 2012 IPTK/APDP
report Alleged Perpetrators identied 500 named
alleged perpetrators responsible for 214 cases of
human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.
Numerous other reports, including by IPTK/APDP,
have held the Indian State, Indian army, Paramilitary
units such as the Border Security Force [BSF], Central
Reserve Police Force [CRPF], Jammu and Kashmir
Police and government gunmen such as the Ikhwan,
responsible. The 2009 IPTK/APDP report Buried
Evidence investigated the phenomenon of unmarked
and mass graves in North Kashmir. All this work goes
towards assigning culpability of the forces involved.
But, it is either very specic in its analysis [an individual
soldier responsible for an individual crime] or too
general – the armed forces being held responsible for
a collection of crimes. But, in each and every case,
there is a connection between different parts of the
larger apparatus – what we call the “structure” - and
the individual victim/crime. The torture of a civilian in a
camp by army personnel is not disconnected from the
army hierarchy, and nor is it disconnected from the
other forces and agencies operating in the area. Past
work has been unable to comprehensively capture the
various actors connected to the crime. It has been
unable to present the web of actors that work together,
with clear lines of command, to inict violence in an
individual case. This reports seeks to actually bring in
focus the patterns, scale and structure of violence.
This report is a beginning of an effort to understand this
structure and how it operates.
The question of assigning responsibility to State actors
within this structure is important in a context where
there have been no trials of the armed forces for
human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. In the
larger quest for political control, the land and people of
Jammu and Kashmir have been subjugated at all costs
and with absolute impunity. Past reports have
provided evidence, through case studies, that there is
no will to provide justice even though the system exists
in theory – a judiciary headed by the Supreme Court of
India and a police force capable of carrying out
investigations. The institutions and procedures of rule
of law in Jammu and Kashmir have been subverted to
function within the larger culture of institutionalized
impunity and violence. It is this state of affairs that
makes it incumbent on civil society to document
crimes and assign responsibility. The passage of time
has resulted in the loss of evidence, whether sites of
violence [graveyards, interrogation centers] or
persons [witnesses]. Memory fades. Family members
of victims die and as a result the repository of the truth
of the violence the victim faced is also lost. Most
crucially perhaps, as time passes, the accused either
die or nd ways to assimilate into new communities
and are forever lost to the investigative gaze. The
State has been responsible for both the iniction of
violence and denial of remedies to the victims. The
unwillingness of the State to investigate immediately
shifts the responsibility onto civil society.
Further, the continuing denial of justice from the Indian
State is a reason for appealing to the international
community and justice mechanisms as domestic
remedies have conclusively failed the people of
Jammu and Kashmir. As recommended by this report,
the international community must respond to the
evidence presented in this report. Case studies,
supported by ofcial record or testimonies, of enforced
disappearances, extra-judicial killing, sexual violence
and torture must not be ignored. To ignore this
evidence is to endorse the violence of the Indian State.
There must be an immediate initiation of processes
that collect and analyze this information to be used as
a part of a formal procedure that records the truth and
assigns responsibility.
The cases documented in this report may constitute
crimes of Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and
War Crimes under international law. The relevance
of this documentation is to therefore begin collecting