Violence, Vulnerability, and Resilience in <i>Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora</i>

Abstract

Narratives that take shape against the backdrop of political flashpoints such as Kashmir, represent women occupying an ambivalent space where appropriation and resistance exist simultaneously. While their resistance against oppression evokes a sense of surprise and admiration, their passive appropriation within power hegemonies creates a sense of despondency and despair. A Kashmiri woman has shown great amount of resilience in fighting the atrocities in life. The brutal fate to which she is accustomed makes her stronger and more independent. Be it an individual political representative, a half widow, or a rape survivor, a Kashmiri woman who has attempted to give voice to her trauma through various media, has always been perceived as a victim. She bears the brunt of violence both from within and outside the state and becomes the site of violence and its absorption at the same time. This paper uses Suniya S. Luthar’s and Dante Cicchetti’s idea of “resilience as a two-dimensional construct concerning the exposure of adversity and the positive adjustment outcomes of that adversity” as a critical gaze to analyze Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora by Esrar Batool, Ifra Butt, et al. in order to foreground and deconstruct this double victimhood of Kashmiri woman. The paper attempts to find how a Kashmiri woman suffers and at the same time shows positive resilience in the face of adversity and loss.