This proposed research examines the issue of ‘missing persons’ in varied contexts of India focusing on enforced disappearances in the Indian-administered regions of Jammu and Kashmir (Kashmir) and Punjab. The histories of both places are intertwined with how the Indian state responded to armed conflicts in both Punjab and Kashmir since the early 1980s. The state response has resulted in grave human rights violations, including torture, and enforced disappearances. 

Both Punjab and Kashmir have reported more than eight thousand disappearances each during these insurgencies. The families of disappeared persons have continued their struggle to pursue ‘justice’ and trace the remains of their missing family members. Scholarship on the enduring impact of enforced disappearances and the struggles for justice among affected families remains limited in the Indian context. More understanding is needed about how families use different strategies to pursue justice including collaborating with civil society/human rights activists and advocates, and engaging with diasporic networks, while negotiating with the state through and beyond courtrooms. 

Asaf will examine the practices and strategies used by families of missing persons as they navigate complex processes of justice, focusing on how these families engage with legal, social, and political mechanisms to assert their rights, challenge state narratives, and demand accountability. The aim is to develop an understanding of justice as a response to state impunity by exploring its different meanings, contexts and articulations as families engage with different actors and institutions. This study contributes to present new empirics on the strategies and practices of families seeking justice as the status of missing member remains ambiguous.

About the speaker

Asaf Ali Lone is a PhD candidate at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. His research looks at the intersections of peacebuilding, justice, reconciliation, accountability, and reparations in South Asia and its diasporic communities. He is further exploring creative ways of documenting different dimensions of life in a conflict through collaborative practices of art, poetry, creative writing, visual practices and engaging with different ethnographic explorations. His research engages with the practices that can help build politics of hope to engage with the question of justice.

This seminar is Asaf's Confirmation of Candidature milestone presentation. As such, the presentation is a closed event for RegNet staff, visitors and students only.

COVID protocols

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This seminar presentation is in-person only. Registration is not required for in-person attendance as neither the ANU nor ACT Health conduct contact tracing any longer.

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please email regnet.communications@anu.edu.au.

Image credit: Obscure image of an Indian army jawan (infantryman) standing against the Himalayan backdrop in Nubra valley, Ladakh, by Rahul Venkatram on flickr, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence.