http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/07/2010717104528693707.html
UPDATED ON:
Saturday, July 17, 2010
16:24 Mecca time, 13:24 GMT
Kashmiri women united by loss
By Aya Batrawy in Srinagar, Kashmir
Women are playing a leading role in political and humanitarian movements
in Kashmir [EPA]
Parvina Hangar's son was just 16 years old when she says he was abducted by
Indian forces. That was almost 20 years ago, and Hangar, a simple woman with an
elementary school education, did not know what to do or who to turn to. The
pain of losing her son left her unable to get out of bed for months.
Today Hangar strikes a very different figure. She proudly displays the plaque
she was awarded as one of 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in
2005.
But of much greater value to her is an aging photograph she carries of her
missing son Javed Ahmed.
Speaking in Kashmiri, Hangar explains: "The pain of separation is what keeps me
going. Until my son returns home, I will not sit idle. I will not give up. I
will continue to fight."
She is far from a political figure but has twice seen the inside of a jail
after being arrested during protests.
Through her efforts to search prisons across India for her son, Hangar has
brought together 450 families of missing persons and forced the Indian
government to admit that at least 4,000 people have been abducted in the
Kashmir conflict. Human rights groups say the figure is closer to 9,000.
Politicised terrain
Indian policewomen watch a rally against Indian rule in Srinagar [EPA]
Hangar's organisation, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons,
represents a grassroots effort by Kashmiri women to enter a highly politicised
terrain from a humanitarian perspective.
"Women have a key role in this conflict," Hangar says.
Many Kashmiri women have been forced to take on the role of sole breadwinner
after their men were killed or arrested.
Asiya Andrawi is one such woman. She is one of the most prominent Islamist
separatist leaders in Kashmir. Her husband is currently under arrest, facing
life in prison, and she is in hiding.
Nahide Nasrean, Andrawi's second-in-command, explains: "What she teaches is
from Quran or Hadith so we think that if we obey her that it will be better for
our life in this world and in the life hereafter.
"We will continue our fight until we get our freedom. If we do not get it, we
will transfer our movement to our next generation."
Sexual violence
As in most conflict zones, Kashmiri women have been subjected to violence.
According to a study by Medecins Sans Frontieres, Kashmiri women suffer some of
the highest rates of sexual violence in the world.
"Sexual violence has been routinely perpetrated on Kashmiri women, with 11.6
per cent of respondents saying they were victims of sexual abuse," a 2005 study
reported.
Nasrean says: "We feel if militants are not here, our chastity is not safe."
While not all women share the ideology of Andrawi and her followers, most agree
that this conflict has made women stronger.
"This occupation has made us very strong as well. The mother has lost her son.
The sister has lost her brother, so I think it has made us strong," says
Mehbooba Mufti.
Mufti is the daughter of former home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and the
leader of the People's Democratic Party.
Her party supports the Indian-drawn borders and while her position is strongly
opposed in many quarters of Kashmir, what she shares with women here are the
personal losses that seem to come with the territory.
"I can feel the pain and think that's where you connect with each other and
that's where women were able to connect with me because of their pain and we
could relate to each other," Mufti says.
Her family's position on Kashmir came at a heavy cost when in 1989 Kashmiri
militants kidnapped her sister, later returning her in exchange for militants
who had been detained.
Mufti says her children have also suffered as a result of her activism.
"I am a single parent and I was not there for them at certain points in time
when I should have been there and that's something you have to live with," she
explains.
Suffering
Kashmiris have protested against a
spree of shootings [EPA]
Nighat Shafi is the founder and chairperson of Human Effort for Love and Peace
and was one of the first people to go out into the villages of Kashmir to build
centres, which she calls homes, for widows and victims of rape.
The wife of a well-to-do Indian government bureaucrat, Shafi has sought to
bring some sense of normalcy and relief to the thousands of women and children
affected by the conflict.
"There is a fight for survival," she says. "I'm trying to do whatever little I
can do. I am trying to help in whatever little way I can."
She too was one of 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
"We have been suffering for a long, long time. We want peace with dignity. We
want our girls to walk the streets without any fear, not being exploited,"
Shafi says.
But this summer, violence has flared up again. At least 11 young people were
shot dead during protests and funeral processions. This has led to more
protests, stone throwing by protesters and army-wide curfews in many parts of
the Kashmir Valley.
Shafi is not easily shaken, but when asked about the recent upsurge in
killings, she cannot hide her pain.
Tearfully, she says: "Even if there is firing they have to hit at the legs, not
at the heart. How they can hit us on our heads?"
A 'people's movement'
While the women here express very different opinions on the conflict and its
effects, their shared pain creates some common ground. There is also a sense
that the most urgent need of Kashmiri women today is the restoration of peace
and security.
They may not agree with one another on how peace should be achieved, but in
this close-knit society the most active women know of one another and are
working simultaneously on different fronts.
The women here express a sense of determination that Kashmir's sacrifices
should not be in vain.
That is especially true for Zarmooda Habib, a founding member of the United
Hurriyat Conference, the leading separatist movement. Habib has spent the last
16 days in hiding, returning home for less than a day to check on her ailing
mother.
She does not believe in a Kashmiri women's movement, but a people's movement.
"If women's political activism is not given space and if it is not increased
then we cannot say this is a people's movement, then we say it is a men's
movement," she says.
Married only to the cause and having spent the last six years in a New Delhi
prison, Habib says she will never give up on the cause of an independent
Kashmir.
She asks: "If we will not have freedom, then what are we doing?"
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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