Living Zulm, Navigating Rasookh in Kashmir: Informal institutions in a militarised authoritarian regime

Mir, Touseef (2022) Living Zulm, Navigating Rasookh in Kashmir: Informal institutions in a militarised authoritarian regime. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

The thesis explores the role that informal institutions come to play in navigating the repressive constraints of militarised authoritarian regimes. The conceptual focus of this thesis is on the role of informal institutions, here defined as ordered patterns of behaviour, drawing from a neo-institutionalist lens. A particular concern with how these informal institutions explain the way different residents make sense of the generalised condition of what they term zulm. Zulm refers to the experience of living with, enduring and engaging with the administration of the militarised authoritarian Indian state. The thesis portrays how as a means of navigating the repressive constraints of zulm, many residents employ the informal institutions of (direct and indirect) rasookh. Rasookh is argued in the thesis as the maintenance and utilisation of connections (familial, social or professional) with the agents of formal institutions. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis highlights how differently situated residents in downtown are able to access and employ these informal institutions significantly informed by their social situation, including the perception of their political attitudes by the concerned formal institutions. The thesis argues that although rasookh gets employed to navigate the repressive constraints of formal institutions, but by virtue of participating with the formal institutions, it reifies them and consequently reinforces their structural violence.

The thesis principally makes a contribution to the neo- institutionalist debate within conflict studies where the dynamics of informal political institutions remain underexplored. Put differently, although new institutionalist literature emphasises the relevance of informal institutions as well as the interaction effects between state and society, most of this literature continues to focus on formal political institutions and does not tend to explore the ‘society’ aspect of state-society relationships in much detail. Hence, this thesis provides original contributions, as it foregrounds the analysis of an informal institution and highlights the everyday, societal dynamics that underpin it.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	15 Jul 2026 13:12
Last Modified:	15 Jul 2026 13:12
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103852
DOI:

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