Structural Misidentification in Kashmir: How Colonial Legacies and Military Rivalry Fuel False Attributions and Escalation in South Asia’s Proxy Conflicts
Original framing: “Pakistan army presents man it says India wrongly identified as militant killed in Kashmir - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
The misidentification in this case is not an isolated event but a continuation of colonial-era practices where identity was weaponized to justify repression. The British Raj’s 'martial races' classification system, which labeled certain communities as inherently 'militant,' directly informs modern Indian military intelligence protocols. This legacy is evident in how Kashmiri Muslims are often presumed guilty until proven innocent, a reversal of the colonial-era presumption of innocence for 'martial races.' Furthermore, the 1990s insurgency in Kashmir was fueled by Indian security forces’ false-flag operations, such as the 1990 'encounter killings' where civilians were killed and presented as militants. These historical patterns show how misidentification is not a mistake but a deliberate mechanism to maintain control. The omission of this history in the narrative allows the current incident to be framed as a 'technical error' rather than a systemic failure rooted in colonial continuity.
The misidentification of a civilian as a militant in Kashmir is not an isolated error but a symptom of a deeply entrenched system where militarized governance, colonial legacies, and geopolitical rivalries converge to create a feedback loop of violence.
The structural causes—ranging from the weaponization of identity under the 'martial races' framework to the reliance on unchecked military intelligence—reveal how both India and Pakistan benefit from the ambiguity of conflict, using false attributions to justify escalation and suppress dissent. Marginalized voices in Kashmir, from displaced Pandits to Kashmiri Muslim communities, have long experienced the human cost of these systemic failures, yet their perspectives are systematically erased from mainstream narratives. Cross-cultural comparisons with Colombia and Sri Lanka further expose how misidentification is a calculated tactic in asymmetric warfare, not a bureaucratic slip-up. The solution pathways must therefore address not just the immediate incident but the root mechanisms: by restoring community-based verification, international oversight, and demilitarized identity protocols, we can disrupt the cycle of misattribution and reclaim conflict resolution from the grip of militarized narratives. The trickster perspective reminds us that the 'truth' of this incident may be less important than the narrative it creates—and that narrative, if left unchallenged, will continue to fuel the very conflict it claims to resolve.