Healing Under Surveillance: Institutional Targeting, Medical Neutrality, and Security Narratives in Kashmir

Hospitals are supposed to be havens in areas of conflict, where the political lines are blurred by human frailty and where the moral imperative to heal overrides ideology. In Indian-occupied Kashmir, even these sanctuaries have been placed under suspicion, surveillance and coercive control. The Valley-wide raids on doctors’ lockers, hospitals and other related institutions after the supposed recovery of an AK-47 rifle in a locker at the Government Medical College (GMC) Anantnag are an ominous development in the Indian state’s repressive mode of governing Kashmir. They are being rationalized under the time-worn banner of “anti-national activity” but the bigger picture here is that of a systematic undermining of professional autonomy, civil trust, and humanitarian space in the area.

This episode cannot be considered separately. It has to be placed within the prolonged path of militarized rule in Kashmir where extraordinary security measures are gradually becoming the norm and where state authority is executed on the basis of distrust and not responsibility. Attacks on medical practitioners and hospitals are a worrying development of this reasoning- the reasoning where even medical care is rebranded as a potential source of security risk.

The Triggering Event and Its Immediate Fallout

The present crackdown, according to the official versions, was prompted by the discovery of an AK-47 rifle in a locker that supposedly belonged to a doctor in GMC Anantnag. This finding was immediately packaged as an indication of a terror unit that had been functioning in the hospital premises, hence justifying a spurt of surprise checks and raids on the healthcare facilities in the Valley. These operations were extended by the police and the security agencies to GMC Handwara and hospitals in Pulwama, Srinagar, Kupwara, and other districts, exposing the doctors, paramedics, and staff to invasive searches.

Health departments consequently issued advisories to all Government Medical Colleges to make inspections, labeling, and verifying lockers and any lockers which were unclaimed or improperly labeled were to be marked suspicious. Although the officials maintain that such measures are precautionary and procedural, the fact that they are being carried out in secrecy, lacking any transparency, due process and institutional consultations is a major concern that questions the motive and reasonableness of these measures.

Whether or not illegal weapons should be investigated is not the main question; no serious society will claim that it should not. What is concerning is that one as yet unsubstantiated claim has been used to reinforce the collective suspicion on an entire profession.

Securitization of Civilian Spaces in Kashmir

The gradual militarization of practically all domains of civic life in Kashmir over the last 3 decades has been observed. Schools, religious schools, charitable organizations, and currently even hospitals have been incorporated into the security grid. Every new crackdown is played in the same manner: There is a catalyst, a mass raid, and generalized accusations of misuse, and no one is held to account when the media cycle fades away.

Hospitals, especially, have become more and more controversial environments. They are no longer expected to be neutral areas under the medical ethics, but rather come under the surveillance regimes that are more typical of the police stations or military bases. The locker raids are not just administrative inspections, but they represent an extension of the security state into the most personal professional areas of doctors and hospital employees.

To health care providers in Kashmir, this climate has a two-fold implication. On the one hand, they work with a lot of pressure because of facilities being understaffed, injuries caused by conflicts, and patients being traumatized psychologically. On the contrary, they must operate with incessant suspicion, their homes and their workplaces can be inspected without warning or recourse.

Criminalizing the Medical Profession

These raids have the far-reaching implication of implicitly criminalizing doctors. Medicine is a profession that is created on trust- Doctor/patient, and institutions/society. By publicly linking doctors to militancy on unvindicated or solitary allegations by the state, it damages such faith permanently.

Doctors in Kashmir have traditionally been very instrumental in the delivery of healthcare services, reporting on human rights abuses, healing the abused, and upholding professional conduct during wartime. Doctors have played a critical role during years of instability and military operations that have left countless civilians injured, maimed, blinded, or subjected to severe physical trauma. The state in effect delegitimizes this role by framing the hospitals as, potentially, the center of “anti-national activity” and therefore discourages ethical medical practices. Besides, joint inspections and raids are contraventions of fundamental principles of individual culpability. The Indian Occupation has opted to use the blanket strategy instead of arriving at a focused and evidence-based investigation into a given allegation. This strategy is less supportive of the rule of law and more so with counterinsurgency principles that regard whole groups of people as suspects.

Made-Up Excuses and Manufactured Consent

The terminology of justification of such raids: misuse of hospital infrastructure, “anti-national” elements, preventive security is of a deliberately vague nature. This language has been a staple of Indian state rhetoric in Kashmir, which made it possible to take extraordinary measures without any substantive examination. Lack of independent checking, court control or clear communication centers the perception that such actions are premised on a fabricated or exaggerated excuse as opposed to a real threat. Also alarming is the selective media amplification.

The Indian media has blindly parroted the official assertions with sections of the media playing up the narrative that militants are infiltrating hospitals. By doing so, they play a large role in the manufacturing of public consent to acts which would be unacceptable in other regions of the country. The outcome is a harmful normalization of rights violations in the name of “national security”.

Impact on Healthcare Delivery

In addition to the legal and ethical aspects, there are significant implications on the practical considerations of public health. Both the providers and patients can be intimidated by fear, surveillance and invasions of the state over the healthcare facilities. When the medical professionals feel that they are possible subjects of “security” activities, then their efficiency in carrying out their jobs without feeling undue pressure or having the fear of reprisal is impaired. This may cause reluctance to give holistic care, fracture of doctor patient relationship, and shunning of formal health institutions by vulnerable groups.

This not only affects the care of injury related to conflict, but also affects the wider population’s health, such as maternal health, management of chronic diseases, and emergency services.

The targeting of hospitals in Kashmir is to be viewed within the framework of other arenas: educational institutions, media houses, religious institutions – where overbearing security practices have been implemented in the name of national interest. The overall impact of such practices is that civic space is narrowed down, whereby state power is more engrained into the daily governance of institutions and autonomy is absorbed into “security” considerations.

The so called security rationales take the center stage in situations of long-lasting occupation and militarization, to the point that alternative frameworks, based on human rights, institutional independence, and developmental government, become useless. The emergence of security discourses in the state activity in relation to the civilian institutions gives non-proportional, non-standard-evidence, and non-procedural structural incentives to preemption.

A Broader Pattern of Institutional Targeting

The hospital raids should also be accompanied by the fact that the Indian state is targeting the institutions in Kashmir on a larger scale. The same has been done to religious seminaries, centers of learning, and through the civil society bodies; most of the time on just as weak grounds. The net result is that institutional life in the Valley is being hollowed out, and communities are becoming atomized, which relies on a concocted narrative of “security” apparatus that exerts control over justice.Such an approach corresponds to what conflict governance researchers term as institutional decapacitation, or the calculated undermining of social institutions that might be able to develop resilience, group identity or subversion. The state keeps the institutions in a state of continuous threat, which makes the institutions comply and prevents peaceful political resources.

International Humanitarian Norms and Legal Concerns

In the eyes of international humanitarian and human rights law, the targeting of medical facilities is a big cause of concern. The concept of medical neutrality is already well established; it is guaranteed in the Geneva conventions and in customary international law. Even though states reserve a right to explore criminal activity, their actions should be balanced, fact-centered, and humanitarian. The fact that the present raids are sweeping and nothing is disclosed raises an indication that these norms have been left behind. During a state of military occupation, the occupying powers have further duties to preserve the civilian institutions and ensure that the welfare of the people is upheld. The events taking place in Kashmir seem to be heading on the contrary side.

Defending the Right to Heal

The Valley-wide attacks on doctors, lockers and hospitals in Kashmir are not merely an operation of security but are a symbol of a type of governance that the occupying state bases on suspicion, coercion and control of narratives. The Indian state is still unclear on whether security is being sought or repression practiced by using fabricated or unsubstantiated reasons to act in an intrusive manner.

The hospitals are not safe anymore, the doctors themselves are considered as suspects, and civilian life for everyday Kashmiris continues to be miserable. The process of healing turns into a form of resistance and survival becomes politicized.

With the world watching such developments, silence is not neutrality but complicity as human rights groups and medical associations look at such developments. Medical neutrality and institutional integrity in Kashmir is not just a local issue; it is a global challenge of adherence to humanitarian values in conflict areas and everyone has to stand for Kashmiris now.

During the period when the world is reflecting upon the subject of human rights and dignity, Kashmir is, once again, acting as a reminder that occupation and militarization is not only taking lives on the battlefield, but is also choking the sanctuaries that save human life.