“THE STRATEGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF RESISTANCE IN A CONTEMPORARY KASHMIRI NOVEL IN URDU”

Abstract

The sociopolitical milieu of post-1989 Kashmir heavily influenced the creative imagination. Multiple literary narratives have recounted the everyday life in Kashmir which is often seen as South Asia’s nuclear flash point.Severalliterary works have also been brought out in the Urdu language. In this paper, drawing uponBarbara Harlow’s framework of resistance literature and Jeanette Lawrence and Agnes Dodds’s theorization of the psychology of resistance, we argue that Nayeema Ahmad Mehoor’s Urdu novelDahshat Zadiis an example of Kashmiri resistance literature.Thepaper is also an attempt to understand how the contemporary Kashmiri writing in Urdu is linked with the broader resistance movement in Kashmir. Reconciling the representative strategy of resistance literature, as proposed by Harlow and others, with those employed by a Kashmiri writer, the study suggests that the patterns and purposes of resistance are often similar across the linguistic and geographical divides.