Heights of madness: diagnosis, suspicion & military discipline on the Siachen glacier

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Siachen Glacier was occupied by the Indian Army in 1984 and became the highest battlefield in the world. The Pakistan Army has been deployed in the surrounding regions and the continuation of the low intensity warfare between the two countries has led to many thousands of casualties on both sides. The Pakistan Army has developed an elaborate medical infrastructure for the management of casualties and high-altitude sicknesses including oedemas and mental health issues. The article explores how military discipline becomes entangled with medical surveillance in monitoring illnesses suffered by soldiers serving on the glacier. By drawing upon interviews with soldiers and officers from various cohorts, the article explores how soldiers learn to take care of each other’s unusual bodily experiences and report unusual changes to the medical staff. This entails that soldiers cultivate relations to attend to each other’s injuries but also relay judgements about the soldier-patient’s loyalty to serve for the Pakistan Army to military superiors. By showing how social networks through which diagnosis is formulated consists of an entanglement of professional evaluation, medical opinion and the hearsay of the soldier-patient’s comrades, the article considers the disciplinary networks which detect and suppress symptoms where self-expression of symptoms is treated as malingering.