Introduction: Disappearances in Kashmir

This book is a collection of testimonies from the families of the disappeared in Kashmir. Inspired by their long quest for the truth about their missing relatives, it is based on the idea that preserving memory is central to the struggle for justice and to someday rebuilding the society shattered by two decades of armed conflict. Based on extensive fieldwork in collaboration with the families, it weaves together “insider” and “outsider” narratives to produce an understanding of life and struggle under two decades of military rule. The collaboration between insider and outsider voices enables us to see disappearances as human rights violations which fall under the legal definition of crimes against humanity, and also as a continuing story of loss and struggle in a society which is bound together by suffering and resistance. The loss of a relative—a son, a father, a husband, a brother—ripples through the web of social relationships of kin and community, and through time, creates its own webs of connectedness with strangers who share the same sorrow.