In Kashmir, Women’s Mobilizations in Reaction to the Consequences of Conflict 1/2

12/03/2024

Written by: Mathilde Pichot

Translated by: Zoé Llacer 

Since the partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947, Kashmir, a disputed land between India and Pakistan, has been the scene of three open wars between the two former states (1947-48, 1965 and 1971). More than 45 000 persons allegedly died during this conflict since the 1989’s insurrection, where the separatist movements rebelled against the Indian presence, with support of Pakistan^[1]Da Lage, O. (2022) L’Inde, ce géant fragile, Eyrolles.. Nowadays, strong tensions perpetuate and around 700,000 soldiers are still present in the zone. This impacts the human’s rights situation, particularly women as they are among the first victims of the conflict. Since the 1947 partition, 75,000 of them have been raped or abducted^[2]Dutoya, V. (2013) La bru du Pakistan, Raisons Politiques, n° 49(1), 2541. https://doi.org/10.3917/rai.049.0025. Still nowadays, gender-based violence is exacerbated by the nationalist context and the weight of traditions and religion.

As such, beyond territorial dispute, a cultural and identity battle is at play in Kashmir. In Pakistan, the Kashmiri question is a symbol since the creation of the state. The goal of Islamabad is to gather the Muslims of this territory under the Pakistanis flag in order to free them from the “Indian yoke”^[3]Naudet, J. (2 septembre 2022) Le nationalisme sans nation du Pakistan. Entretien avec Julien Levesque, La vie des idées. https://booksandideas.net/Le-nationalisme-sans-nation-du-Pakistan.html. On the other side, the Bharitiya Janata Party (BJP), ruling nationalist party in India, aims for the complete integration of Kashmir to the country. Relying on the Hindutva principle, the Indian nationalists argue for an ethnic conception of citizenship, according to which solely Hindu people are recognized as legitimate citizens^[4]Thomas, C. (7 août 2019). L’intégration pleine du Cachemire est au cœur de l’ADN indien depuis 1947, France Inter.. As the only Indian territory with a Muslim majority, Jammu and Kashmir is a key issue for the BJP, which wants to establish political control there.

It is in this very context that, in August 2019, the Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government voted for the abrogation of the articles 370 and 351 present in the Indian Constitution, that gave to Jammu and Kashmir a special status of autonomy. This decision came along with the repression’s intensification and the suppression of multiple local commissions, among which the one concerning the protection of the women and children’s rights.

In this deeply patriarchal society, Kashmiri women are generally reduced to their marital status. The conflict placed them in a vulnerable situation with strong economical precarity. Yet, their implication in resistance movements is far from recent, and their role among the civil society is largely underestimated. Before delving into the various engagement forms of these women in the region, this first article tackles the stakes related to the recognition of violations of their rights, as well as the socio-economic issues that concerns them. To which extent the women’s engagement in Kashmir is a demonstration of the diversity of issues they face?

Women’s vulnerability in the context of military occupation

India, “the world’s biggest democracy”, is regularly accused of being among the most dangerous countries for women^[5]L’Inde, pays le plus dangereux du monde pour les femmes. (6 août 2018). Courrier international. https://www.courrierinternational.com. In Kashmiri region, the context of military occupation directly impacts their everyday lives. Starting from the 1990s, cases of rapes committed by Indian soldiers in the Jammu and Kashmir state are reported by numerous NGOs, such as Human Right Watch and Physicians for Human Rights. Rape is used by Indian security forces with aim to humiliate the civilian women that are accused to be sympathizer with the separatist movements and to have provided them with logistical support^[6]Rape in Kashmir, a crime of war. (1993) Asia Watch & Physicians for Human Rights. In their report, the NGOs also list many cases of rapes committed by separatist groups against Hindu women, or Muslim women suspected of not supporting the secessionist cause. More than 40,000 women would thus have been raped between 1990 and 1994^[7]Lavoie, D. (2012) Défis et opportunités pour l’Empowerment et la mobilisation des femmes : le cas du conflit armé au Cachemire, Ecole Nationale d’Administration publique, Québec. … Continue reading. This use of rape is frequent in the Indian subcontinent, notably since the 1947 partition. The military forces and separationist movements regularly used women’s bodies to harm and dishonour the entirety of the rival community. In this vein, the term “sexual nationalism” is evoked to qualify the competition between India and Pakistan for the “conquest” of opposite camp women^[8]Dutoya, V. (2013) La bru du Pakistan, Raisons Politiques, n° 49(1), 2541. https://doi.org/10.3917/rai.049.0025.

According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau, the year 2022 has been marked by a raise of 15% of crimes against women in Jammu and Kashmir. Between 2020 and 2022, 11,000 cases of violence have been listed^[9]Bashir, R. (4 décembre 2023). J&K witnesses rise in crimes against women, Greater Kashmir. https://www.greaterkashmir.com. However, it is important to note that a vast majority of these cases are not documented. In 2013, the Indian Amnesty International required to the Jammu and Kashmir authority to investigate upon the rapes committed by Indian soldiers in 1991^[10]Inde, la police doit enquêter sur les allégations de viol par des militaires dans l’État de Jammu-et-Cachemire. (23 juillet 2013) Amnesty International. https://www.amensty.org/fr, stating by the same occasion that few human rights cases had been the subject of investigations or prosecutions against the alleged attackers. Furthermore, the documentation of these cases of violence is complex given the women’s apprehension to testify to the local authorities. A big majority of them generally stay silent by fear of retaliation or given the fact that rape culture is strongly rooted in this society^[11]La résistance des femmes au cachemire. (22 février 2017). AWID. https://www.awid.org/fr/nouvelles-et-analyse/la-resistance-des-femmes-au-cachemire. In the private sphere, rape victims suffer a double punishment. They are often stigmatised by their families and husbands and become symbols of “collective humiliation”. This partly explains the increase in domestic violence^[12]Lavoie, D. (2012) Défis et opportunités pour l’Empowerment et la mobilisation des femmes : le cas du conflit armé au Cachemire, Ecole Nationale d’Administration publique, Québec. … Continue reading.

These last years, numerous women turned to Commission on the Protection of the Rights of Women and Children to solicit financial aid or demand reparation following cases of violence^[13]Bashir, R. (4 décembre 2023). J&K witnesses rise in crimes against women, Greater Kashmir. https://www.greaterkashmir.com. Since 2019, its dissolution leaves Kashmiri women without an institution representative of their rights, weakening further their capacity to testify.

Social and economic precarity reinforced by the conflict

In traditional Kashmiri society, men represent the main source of household income. Women are most often assigned to a domestical part and are financially dependent of their husbands. The conflict having caused the disappearance or deaths of thousands of men, their wife are left in a situation of strong economic precarity. To ensure the survival of their household, they had to enter the labour market. However, mainly in rural areas, women are penalized by a low rate of alphabetisation, and mostly enter unskilled manual jobs that are poorly remunerated. These women mostly work in traditional occupations such as handicrafts (weaving, embroidery) or agriculture^[14]Lavoie, D. (2012) Défis et opportunités pour l’Empowerment et la mobilisation des femmes : le cas du conflit armé au Cachemire, Ecole Nationale d’Administration publique, Québec. … Continue reading. A program of financial aids has been put in place by the Jammu-and-Kashmir government to help widows and favour women’s access to employment. However, very few of them actually have access to this money (only around 2,000 to 3,000 of them) due to lack of information concerning their rights. Some activists also question the political will of the Indian government, since providing aid to widows and wives of missing persons would be tantamount to recognising the killings and disappearances committed by its army^[15]Lavoie, D. (2012) Défis et opportunités pour l’Empowerment et la mobilisation des femmes : le cas du conflit armé au Cachemire, Ecole Nationale d’Administration publique, Québec. … Continue reading.

The conflict in Kashmir is also incidental on girls’ education. Although having rose in the 2000s following investments from the local government, still the alphabetisation rate of women remains very low. According to the last official numbers, it would be of 58.01% versus 78.26% for men^[16]Rashid, A. (Avril-Juin 2020). Gender and livelihoods in rural kashmir : a study in Baramulla and Bandipora districts in north Kashmir, Journal of Indian Research, 8(2).. In addition, a drop in school attendance is noticeable whenever tensions flare up. Between 2016 and 2017, 11.3% of girls would have left schools after news clashes between separatist militants and Indian soldiers, families fearing for their safety^[17]Jourdan, C. (27 mai 2018) De plus en plus de jeunes filles abandonnent l’école au Cachemire, Slate.fr. https://www.slate.fr/story/162285/jeunes-filles-abandonnent-ecole-cachemire.

Concerning their access to healthcare, the situation since the 1990s have been particularly critical. Many doctors have migrated to safer areas, leading to a shortage of medical staff in rural Kashmir. As for the rest of the country, the private healthcare system strongly developed, thus weakening the access to care for persons that do not having important funds, principally women^[18]Parvaiz, S. (20 août 2023). Healthcare disparities in Jammu and Kashmir: Challenges and systemic inefficiencies. JK Policy Institute. … Continue reading. Private antenatal care services have been set up to deal with the large number of deaths among pregnant women on their way to maternity wards in the cities^[19]Impact of armed conflict on reproductive health of women in Kashmir-India. (2009). UIESP. https://ipc2009.popconf.org/papers/91185. The most disadvantaged women, for their part, were forced to turn to “traditional” practitioners, who subsequently suffered numerous complications. Pressure from fundamentalist groups in the region to prevent women’s access to contraception has also led to a sharp increase in the number of illegal abortion centres in the region^[20]Impact of armed conflict on reproductive health of women in Kashmir-India. (2009). UIESP. https://ipc2009.popconf.org/papers/91185. Despite plans launched by the Indian central government, including the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), launched in 2005 to combat the country’s high infant mortality rate, Kashmiri women are still particularly vulnerable when it comes to accessing healthcare.

The case of “half-widows”: an unofficial status that makes the wives of missing persons vulnerable

The case of ‘half-widows’ is a phenomenon peculiar to the Kashmir region, an indirect consequence of the conflict. With their husbands missing, sometimes for several years, these women are unable to obtain legal widow status since they have no proof of death. According to one estimate, 20,000 women would be affected by this status^[21]Qaroom, F. (20 janvier 2014). Women and Armed Conflit: Widows in Kashmir, International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 6(5), p.161-168. … Continue reading. In a traditional system where the family is central, and the role of head of the household attributed to the husband, they are very often stigmatised and find themselves excluded from society. They bear the sole burden of bringing up their children and are obliged to provide for their families in an economic climate that is unfavourable to them^[22]Mir, R. (20 février 2020). Women and Violence: A Comprehensive Study on the Socio-economic and Political Status of Half-widows in Kashmir, South Asia Journal, Issue 17. According to Islamic tradition, half-widows are generally forced to return to live with their parents. In some cases, they are forced to live with their in-laws, who try to take away their rights of ownership of their home. Because of the legal difficulties of their status, they can generally only face their legal difficulties if a lawyer agrees to represent them free of charge^[23]Mir, R. (20 février 2020). Women and Violence: A Comprehensive Study on the Socio-economic and Political Status of Half-widows in Kashmir, South Asia Journal, Issue 17. An offer of financial compensation has been put in place for these women by the Indian government, but it is difficult to obtain and generally creates tensions with the in-laws, who claim the right to dispose of this money.

Faced with this situation, many cases of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder have been documented among the Kashmiri widows^[24]Qaroom, F. (20 janvier 2014). Women and Armed Conflit: Widows in Kashmir, International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 6(5), p.161-168. … Continue reading. These mental health problems are particularly noticeable among women in the region as a whole. In 2022, the Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience in the city of Srinagar launched the Tele Mental Health Assistance and Networking across states (tele-MANAS) call centre. According to the platform’s data, 70% of calls came from women in distress^[25]Bashir, R. (4 décembre 2023). J&K witnesses rise in crimes against women, Greater Kashmir. https://www.greaterkashmir.com. This conflict, which has been going on for over 70 years, is having a major impact on women’s mental health.

What can be done to tackle the problems faced by women from Kashmir?

Recognition of violence against women and the socio-economic problems they face are major issues in the Kashmir conflict. In order to encourage women to speak out about the violence they have suffered, it is vital that the Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Women and Children is reactivated. They should also have easier access to information on the economic aid available to widows and wives of missing persons. Promoting girls’ education will also help them to become emancipated and enter the job market. It is necessary to secure access to schools and encourage families to send girls to school, particularly in rural areas.

Faced with the impasse in the peace process between India and Pakistan and the repression carried out by the central Indian government, a number of women’s movements have emerged in Kashmir. They have a wide range of demands, and sometimes use radically opposed means. These organisations are analysed in the second part of this article.