Kashmir Elections

KASHMIR ELECTION - WOMEN PUSH FOR POLITICAL CHANGE

Elections begin in Kashmir next week and will run throughout November in seven phases across more than 8,000 polling stations. The polls are widely regarded as a test of the political temperature ahead of India’s general election early next year. The elections will also be an indicator of the growing political confidence of Kashmiri women who’ve been fighting to be heard on a number of issues, including domestic violence.

Ashima Kaul has been at the forefront of organising women’s groups in Kashmir through the Athwaas project which is supported by Peace Direct. Simply setting up safe meeting places or Samanbals for women, is creating political change .

This is Ashima’s report; her words ;

“ Since November 2007, we have set up 6 new Samanbals. We wanted to create safe and secure spaces for women to come together and share, articulate and express themselves so as to make the shift from being victims to possible changemakers. The Samanbals are diverse; we have widows in Dardpora, teachers in Badgam, young women in Bijbehar, migrant group (IDPs) Purkha and Muthee small scale traders in Leh. Each Samanbal pursues a common advocacy strategy and chooses an activity, which is often income generating due to the high poverty levels in the region.

In Purkha migrant camp 20 women who have been displaced from different villages in the valley came together to form a Samanbal. The camp is made up of displaced Kashmir Pandits. The Samanbal provides a context for the women to share a common space for reflection and listening. They taken up tailoring so as to step beyond the cramped conditions of the camp dominated by hate, revenge and chest thumping. The basic principle in the Samanbal is to share information/experience, start the healing process, and acquire financial independence. They are then empowered to tackle the big issues affecting the region, the conflict in Kashmir.

We have mobilised our Samanbals to advocate for the enactment of gender act in the local assembly. Most states in India have enacted the act, but Kashmir has been left out due to the strong opposition to anything that comes from outside. On the strategic level, we picked on this issues in order to prepare the women for the bigger fight, how to assert their voices within the circles of power. We believe if we win this battle of enacting the gender law, then the women in the Samanbal will have faith in the power of their movement and also learn immensely from the experience. We also picked on the issue of gender because it was crosscutting in all the Samanbals. They all have had a problem of domestic violence which can be related directly to the conflict and what society has now become in Kashmir.

We had stiff resistance from the media, other civil society and even some women’s groups who strongly disputed the existence of domestic violence in Kashmir. There was fear that our idea might have come from ‘outside’ and we might break up the family unit in Kashmir. But using multi media evidence, testimonies and street theatre about forms of gender violence were are able to gain the upper hand in public opinion and forced a debate in assembly. Now the assembly is conducting a wide consultation on the draft bill and Samanbal members have been at the forefront to ensure that women are represented. We are optimistic that the bill will be enacted.

From this experience, we have decided to now form a women’s political caucus to position ourselves for the regional elections in November. We strongly believe from our experiences that women bring a different perspective and understanding to the table and that if we get our foot through the door we would transform and redefine the political agenda on the Kashmir conflict and certainly work towards a realistic resolution, which is out ultimate goal.

In the meantime, to keep the momentum on our political activism, we have embarked on a campaign to ensure that the ‘right to information’ bill is enacted in Kashmir. This is very useful for the Samanbal members in finding out some truth on what happened to their sons, families and properties. We know it would be a tough struggle, but other states in India have passed the bill and we believe will at least get some audience.

Our strategy is still to work on the three levels, 1) mobilize the grassroots, i.e. Samanbals, 2) form civil society alliances and 3) change/engage the politics. Our goal is to find a resolution without the use of force. The strategy is currently being implemented on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) but we are working on getting a parallel movement on the Pakistan side. We have established links with grassroots women along the LoC in Pakistan and Athwaas members from Delhi have made contact with women in Islamabad.”

‘We no longer sit around as victims of the Kashmir conflict, we shall stop it’