SUSPENDED LIVES: INDEFINITE DETENSION AND LEGAL MANIPULATION IN CONTEMPORARY ANGLOPHONE FICTION

Abstract

This paper uses Judith Butler's idea of "indefinite detention" to analyze the legal manipulation used by brutal regimes in Palestine and Kashmir. Butler contends that indefinite detention is a bio-political tactic that revokes people's legal rights, leaving them permanently exposed to state authority without a trial or access to justice. Palestine and Kashmir are prime examples of situations in which the rule of law serves as a tool of dominance rather than protection: emergency laws, military orders, and anti-terrorism policies establish an ongoing "state of exception" that permits arbitrary detentions, monitoring, and extrajudicial actions. In order to examine how military tribunals, bureaucratic opacity, and enforced disappearances prolong cycles of indefinite waiting and suffering for families—especially mothers, widows, and children—the study examines Shahnaz Bashir's The Half-Mother and Mirza Waheed's The Collaborator, as well as Mahmoud Darwish's poetic elegies State of Siege and Memory of Forgetfulness and Ghassan Kanafani's narrative Men in the Sun and Returning to Haifa, depictions of displacement. By contrasting these situations, the study makes the case that indefinite detention serves as a means of destroying community resilience, and erasing histories in addition to being a political weapon of control. The intersection of Palestinian and Kashmiri narratives reveals a shared language of pain, defiance, and perseverance, establishing literature as an essential repository of state brutality and the ability of people to bear testimony in the face of systemic silence. The paper illustrates how extended imprisonment blurs the line between legality and criminality, normalizing institutional repression by examining the intersection of law and violence.