The limits of recovery: coming of age, aspirations and (im)mobility among displaced Pandit youth in Jammu

Abstract

ABSTRACT How do the displaced recover tangible and intangible losses incurred in displacement? What does the process of recovery involve, especially for members of displaced families who come of age after displacement and face the burden of recovery? This paper engages with these questions in relation to the Hindu minority of the Kashmir valley, better known as the Kashmiri Pandits. Following the outbreak of conflict, the vast majority of this community fled the Kashmir valley in 1990. The paper will explore the biographies of two Kashmiri Pandit men who were children at the time of displacement and came of age in exile. By drawing on their experiences, set in the context of ethnographic research in the city of Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir, this paper examines the process of ‘growing up’ in a non-metropolitan urban area and balancing the recovery of loss alongside the aspirations of the youth. While existing scholarship on societies affected by violence discusses how recovery takes place in engaging with ordinary life, this process has to contend with the limits of ordinary life. The paper argues that the displaced are forced to come to terms with the limits of recovery and confront the dead-endedness of ordinary life.