The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir

by Saiba Varma

In The Occupied Clinic, Saiba Varma explores the psychological, ontological, and political entanglements between medicine and violence in Indian-controlled Kashmir—the world's most densely militarized place. Into a long history of occupations, insurgencies, suppressions, natural disasters, and a crisis of public health infrastructure come interventions in human distress, especially those of doctors and humanitarians, who struggle against an epidemic: more than sixty percent of the civilian population suffers from depression, anxiety, PTSD, or acute stress.

Drawing on encounters between medical providers and patients in an array of settings, Varma reveals how colonization is embodied and how overlapping state practices of care and violence create disorienting worlds for doctors and patients alike. Varma shows how occupation creates worlds of disrupted meaning in which clinical life is connected to political disorder, subverting biomedical neutrality, ethics, and processes of care in profound ways. By highlighting the imbrications between humanitarianism and militarism and between care and violence, Varma theorizes care not as a redemptive practice, but as a fraught sphere of action that is never quite what it seems.

304 pages, Paperback

Published October 2, 2020

Reviews

[Nishu Thakur]

This Saiba Varma controversy is such an anthropological treat. To watch the left cannibalize its own is what the world is coming to. Even though she was hypercritical of India in her book and used the word "occupied" for Kashmir she was cancelled.

[Basheer Ahmad]

The book did not meet my expectations. I started reading with intention to understand the dilemma of human tragedy that has unfolded in Kashmir for last several decades from an unbiased and neutral perspective. But I can see that the author has tried to push a subtle narrative of creating false equivalence between predator and prey. She has used her WILD imagination to create horror without any evidence.

BEST TO AVOID READING THIS BOOK

[Sanjay Banerjee]

Based on the research undertaken (over 10 years) by San Diego-based author, the book unraveled the complex overlap between care and militarism and between compassion and terror. As an outcome of engagement with men and women passing through hospitals and clinics and addressing the issue of mental health arising out of long-drawn out situation in Kashmir, the book provides yet another insight quite different from conventional ones on Kashmir.

[Elisa]

3.5
(I read this book quite a long time ago but I forgot to write a review, so it's going to be vague and short now lol)

I found the book easy to read and very interesting as it deals with a topic I did not know much of. The ethnographic vignettes add on a lot to the more theoretical parts, making it a balanced and easy to follow story of arguments. I also found the pictures a nice and important touch as it allowed us to also see what is going on, not just read.
I have heard that there are critiques of the book and the author because of her positionality, but I have not yet delved into these problematics. Once I do so I will update this review if necessary.

[Dipali]

So good! I want to write like this!