Kashmir is in a situation of protracted conflict. This paper offers an examination of urban life in the downtown of Srinagar, the region capital. The conceptual focus is on the role of informal institutions, here defined as ordered patterns of behaviour, in this setting. A particular concern with how these informal institutions explain how Kashmiris make sense of the generalised condition of what they term zulm. Zulm refers to the experience of living with, enduring and engaging with the administration of the Indian state, and can be disaggregated into a series of informal institutions deployed by citizens of downtown Srinagar. In my ethnographic work I look at how differently situated individuals use these institutions – often in the form of networks, economic relationships, connections – to challenge and sustain relations with state structures. This paper makes a contribution to the literature on cities in conflict by drawing on political science work on informal institutions and to the regional studies literature on South Asia by documenting at close quarters the experience of protracted conflict in Kashmir.
