ABSTRACT
In South Asia's long history, war and political violence have been more the norm than exception. Any hope that communities would make peace with each other and coexist after the political and territorial divisions had been mapped, were dashed in the immediate aftermath of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The politics of memory is deeply embedded in the construction of nation and group identity as in the cases of Kashmir and Sri Lanka. Political identities of community and nation are constructed in ways that include privileging of a dominant narrative and mythmaking. The memorialisation and discourse around sacrifice is significant in both these armed conflicts, in Kashmir and in Sri Lanka, with the widely held belief that freedom is not achieved and nations are not born without the emotional and physical transaction of giving and receiving. However, the very nature of this discourse around sacrifice is gendered.
