Binish Ahmed1 provides clarity into the ways racism functions to dehumanize, discriminate against, and erase Kashmiris and their narratives.
Anti-Kashmiri racism is a form of anti-Indigenous and anti-Asian racism that stereotypes, discriminates against, dehumanizes, marginalizes, represses, and erases Kashmiris and their narratives.
Anti-Kashmiri racism is systemic, cultural, and institutional. It has the effect of producing ongoing systemic inequities, hate and violences towards Kashmiris.
Anti-Kashmiri racism consists of the denial of the plurality of spiritual faith groups of Kashmir, which has historically been known to consist of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and more.
Given this plurality within Kashmir, anti-Kashmiri racism is interlocking with other systems of power and oppression. At times, anti-Kashmiri racism is also intertwined with anti-Muslim racism, where it manifests as Kashmiri Muslims being stereotyped, demonized, and defamed as ‘terrorists,’ ‘militants,’ ‘rebels,’ etc. Native Kashmiri Muslims face racist framing as being ‘outsiders’ or ‘invaders’ by colonialists and are erased from the category of being native to Kashmir. Anti-Kashmiri racism and hate manifest in the stereotyping of Kashmiris, particularly Muslims and Sikhs, as inherently violent, backward, and barbaric, and portraying them as terrorists.
Structurally, anti-Kashmiri racism is bound up with genocidal settler-colonialism that overlays Kashmiri people’s territories. Whereas Kashmiri sovereignty has never been extinguished and predates the post-Westphalian imperial Eurocentric genocidal settler-colonial nation-state systems of India, Pakistan, and China, anti-Kashmiri racism functions by denying, erasing, and suppressing Kashmiri sovereignty, jurisdiction, self-determination, and self-government. It permits the theft and transfer of Kashmiri land to colonists, without the collective free, prior, and informed consent of the Kashmiri people.
Anti-Kashmiri racism casts the native Kashmiri resistance to the settler-colonial occupations of their territories as illegitimate. Conversely, it casts the occupation and control of Kashmiri people’s territories by settler-colonialists as legitimate.
Anti-Kashmiri racism consists of the normalization of Kashmiri land theft, resource theft, dispossession, and displacement of the natives. Additionally, it includes racist claims to Kashmiri lands by outsiders who ‘self-indigenize’ to replace or erase the natives, and aims to demographically alter the composition of the natives and genocidally benefit from land theft.
Anti-Kashmiri racism involves the legalization of systemic suppression and violation of fundamental human rights of the Kashmiri people through legislation, policies, and cultural practices. Anti-Kashmiri racism also includes the defamation and slandering of Kashmiris and their allies as ‘anti-Hindu,’ terrorist supporters and/or sympathizers, ‘dissidents,’ ‘separatists,’ ‘seditionists,’ and ‘anti-national.’
Anti-Kashmiri racism functions to dehumanize Kashmiris, portraying them as ‘incapable’ or ‘inadequate’ for self-governing their nation’s affairs and territory. This racist stereotype is often used to justify them as being ‘inherently’ in need of being controlled or colonized by occupying settler-colonial regimes. It casts Kashmiris as undeserving and unworthy of self-determination and self-governance over their own affairs and territories.
Racist anti-Kashmiri policies and laws work to assimilate and annihilate Kashmiris into mainstream settler-colonial regimes and cultures. Anti-Kashmiri racism consists of colonial cultural norms and policies that undermine Kashmiri cultural practices and ways of living. It encompasses a pattern of shaming Kashmiris for speaking the Kashmiri language, treating their culture and speaking of the language as ‘backward’ and ‘inferior.’
Anti-Kashmiri racism stereotypes the resistance of Kashmiri human rights and land defenders as anti-India, anti-Pakistan, anti-China ‘elements’ or ’actions’, and is frequently met with policies and legislations that systemically legalize the persecution of Kashmiris and their allies.
Anti-Kashmiri racist bias and discrimination manifests in workplaces, schools, places of worship, and all walks of life across Kashmir and for Kashmiris in the diaspora. For example, it has been documented that at airports, Kashmiris and their allies are excessively surveilled and scrutinized, and in some cases, their mobility in travel is restricted based on their support for Kashmiri freedoms and fundamental rights.
The denial, minimizing, and erasure of the experiences of Kashmiris and their allies when they face prejudice and discrimination are other forms of anti-Kashmiri racism.
Anti-Kashmiri racism includes the appropriation of Kashmiri culture, such as artisan arts (like embroidery works, traditional clothes, and jewelry), music (such as in corporate use by Bollywood in songs like ‘Bumbhroo, Bumbhroo’), foods (such as the salty ‘Kashmiri nun chai’ being popularly sold by colonialists as sweet ‘Kashmiri pink tea’) among other things. Cultural appropriation is pursued for financial gain, entertainment purposes, or other forms of profit. Frequently, it occurs without the collective free, prior, informed consent, and/or understanding of culturally appropriate uses and the historical/contextual significance to the Kashmiri people.
Anti-Kashmiri racism consists of negative and biased portrayals of Kashmiris in the media, as well as the erasure and suppression of Kashmiri perspectives and voices in mainstream and social media platforms.
Anti-Kashmiri racism manifests as the criminalization and profiling of Kashmiris as ‘security risks’ requiring surveillance. It includes excessive surveillance, doxxing, and profiling of Kashmiris by state and non-state actors (such as when passing through airports, workplaces, schools, and public spaces). It further manifests as physical violence, harassment, and threats against Kashmiris based on their identity.
Anti-Kashmiri racism operates to forcibly displace and dispossess Kashmiris of their homes and land through resource extraction and land acquisition by settler-colonialists, using colonial laws that violate the inherent Indigenous Kashmiri land rights.
Anti-Kashmiri racism consists of Kashmiris being forced to live under the colonizer’s laws that render them second-class subjects in their own territories. This includes carrying identity cards to pass through the colonizer’s checkpoints and being denied access to parts of their territories, resources (such as electricity and water), or infrastructure (like bridges) because these are prioritized for the use of the colonialists, while the natives are prevented from using them under apartheid conditions.
Anti-Kashmiri racism manifests in blaming Kashmiris for the problems they face as a result of colonial occupation, apartheid, and war against them. It also includes the colonizers’ funded infiltration of their communities, intended to divide and create distrust among Kashmiris.
Anti-Kashmiri racism manifests as groups or individuals tokenistically using Kashmir or Kashmiris for performative allyship while evading principled solidarity and accountability, often done to cover up harms they have committed against Kashmiris.
Author’s Acknowledgement: I have been contemplating such a definition since 2011, when I began my formal, focused studies in anti-racism and organizing around it. My understanding deepened while supporting Indigenous peoples during Idle No More, participating in the Black Lives Matter movement and the Indigenous movement for self-determination and self-government on Turtle Island; I am grateful to both movements and people for teaching me what I learnt. These experiences underscored the critical role of language in defining the mechanisms of racism and colonialism and their intersections. I am grateful to the Palestinian resistance, which has illuminated how defining anti-Palestinian racism can clarify power dynamics and highlight discriminatory practices against Palestinians. It is my hope that this definition will support scholarship that illuminates how racism functions to dehumanize and discriminate against Kashmiris.
Note: Originally published in Kashmir Gulposh’s Kashmir Papers series: Binish Ahmed, ‘Defining Anti-Kashmiri Racism’ (2024) 1:1 Kashmir Gulposh 1-5, https://shorturl.at/vYBw9. Art by Binish Ahmed. Republished under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.
- Binish Ahmed is a Muslim Kashmiri cis-woman who works as an artist, writer, and community connector/organizer. She also works as an educator in the community, facilitating workshops, and in post-secondary education, teaching on a range of topics including Indigenous rights, Kashmir, decolonization, anti-racism, and solidarity from anti-colonial and anti-racist perspectives. She is a PhD Candidate (ABD) at the Toronto Metropolitan University. She received her MA in Public Policy from Brock University and a BA Honors with a major in Political Science, & double minors in History & South Asian Studies from the University of Toronto. Her writings have appeared in the Indigenous Policy Journal, Critical Policy Studies Journal, Room Magazine, Feral Feminisms Journal, Rabble, UppingTheAnti, The Conversation, and more. She is an organizer with Kashmir Gulposh and Justicia for Migrant Workers. Twitter/X @binishahmed Instagram @binishahmedart. Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, she currently lives and works in Tkaronto, the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt treaty territory.