Muslim Women, Agency and Resistance Politics, 1st ed. 2019 The Case of Kashmir

This book investigates agency in the historical resistance movement in Kashmir by initiating a fresh conversation about Muslim Kashmiri women. It exhibits Muslim women not merely as accidental victims but conscientious agents who choose to operate within the struggles of self-determination. The experience of victimization stimulates women to take control of their lives and press for change. Despite experiencing isolating political conditions, Kashmiri women do not internalize their supposed inferiority. The author shows that women?s struggles against patriarchy are at the heart of a very complex historical resistance to the Indian rule.

Inshah Malik is a Political Theorist and Gender Studies scholar. She is a former Fox International Fellow at Yale University, USA. 

Demonstrates that feminist notions of ‘agency’ and ‘victimhood’ are problematic and inadequate to understand women’s political action and inter-subjectivity Reveals the presence of agential political power in Muslim women, often portrayed as 'weak' Discusses women’s rights at large with a specific focus on how Kashmiri Muslim women found creative and often subversive ways to assert their rights through militarization