ABSTRACT
Public health systems, medical professionals and patients alike in Kashmir have been subjected to a range of harms – from direct, physical assaults to more insidious fears and anxieties – as a result of militarization and state violence. In this chapter, I interrogate the limits of the human rights and humanitarian concept of “medical neutrality” by showing how it brings to light only certain kinds of violence and harm. I develop the concept of social impunity to show how Kashmiris themselves theorize a broader sense of dysfunction, disorder and harm in the public health system that were tied to the politics of Indian state occupation. This example shows how impunity is not merely restricted to the realm of law but was felt as permeating all aspects of social life, including medicine.
