Finding. Funding.Promoting.

It has been a diffcult summer for Ashima with demonstrations and curfews across the Kashmir Valley. Since June 11 Indian police and paramilitary forces have been accused of killing 15 civilians – 4 of them women. The curfew has bought the valley to a standstill, and for Ashima this means not only heightened insecurity but also that she is unable to push ahead with plans to expand the samanbals.

However as Ashima talks about the samanbals and particularly about some of the individual women her passion and belief that women can and will be the change-makers in the peacebuilding process comes across stronger than ever.

“When the woman in the family is not healthy, when she can only feel fear, then how can you expect the family, the community to be happy. The samanbals provide women with these small islands of peace so that they can build their own life. It may just be minute dots on the peacebuilders map, but they mean so much to the individual women.”

It has been 8 years since Ashima established the frst samanbal in the Kashmir valley. There is now one in each division of Kashmir, and the women come daily. Each samanbal provides the women with a space they can call their own, where they can learn income generating activities to provide for their children, gain respect from their families and which together builds the political conscience of the women.

I can sense Ashima smile as she tells me about 23-year-old Abida, a young woman who when Ashima met her ‘did not dare to open her mouth for fear of being heard.’ Affra is now teaching computer workshops at the Samanbal in the Kashmir Valley. She has told Ashima, “Now I am like a man of the house, I am treated equally as my brother.”

And the samanbals are beginning to spread. In the far corner of Jammu along the line of control – too far for Ashima to visit regularly – a group of women has set up their own samanbal. Ashima has helped the women to forge links with other organisations that will help to sustain them, and is now watching them grow. Before the curfew bought the valley to a standstill, Ashima had begun talks with the Women’s Development Co-operation about fnding sources of funding for this and other satellite samanbals.

This year has seen the Domestic Violence Act passed in Kashmir, and it is now, at its nascent stage that there is opportunity for the women of the samanbals to make their mark on the bill – to ensure that it refects the needs of women from all regions.

This is where Ashima’s vision for the samanbals become clear, where rather than small islands, she sees these spaces as a network that brings women together across ethnic, religious and political divides and she is so eager for the curfew to end so that they can continue to spread. She wants to strengthen the existing samanbals – to create leadership at the community level, and make this collective of women an agency for change. And ultimately she wants the government to adopt the samanbals, so that all women are able to access a space they can call their own.

“The future is very difcult, but hope lies in women and youth – if change is possible it will come through them.”

Srinagar, October 27

The Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh has invited all the political parties and groups including the separatist leaders to begin exploring a joint solution for peace in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the Prime Minster has once again excluded the voices of 50 percent of the population in the process.

We, the Athwaas members- an alliance of women from Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh welcome and support the initiative, but we strongly urge the Honorable Prime Minister to include women’s perspectives, insights and understanding in the dialogue process to ensure a long lasting, creative and sustainable solution. In the last twenty years of political unrest and continued violence, it has been the women who have held the fabric of the society, their families and communities together. They have rejected violence as a means to achieve political goals and reached out to adversaries for rebuilding human relationships.

Athwaas will be submitting a memorandum to the Honorable Prime Minister during his two day visit to Kashmir regarding the inclusion of women in the dialogue process.

Athwaas has been working at the grassroots and with civil society groups since the year 2000. We have been working  for women’s solidarity across regional, religious and ethnic divisions by creating safe places for women to come together. Athwaas continues to reach out and partner with men in search for sustainable peace in the region.

Ashima Kaul
Co-ordinator
Athwaas

‘It’s so easy to be a Muslim or a Hindu in Kashmir but it’s so hard to be Kashmiri.’

Athwaas came into being when there was no space for dialogue, no civil society initiatives. A group of women dared to travel to each other and create common ground. People who have had different experiences of conflict showed they can come together.

But there are some internal divisions within Athwaas, particularly over when and how to start work on the Pakistan side. Lack of progress at the political level can be demoralising – there was immense voter turnout for last year’s elections and people had high hopes of the new 39 year old Chief Minister, who got 60% of the votes. But now they feel he has spent too much time in New Delhi (20 trips in six months) at the expense of rallying people in Kashmir. Some in Athwaas think they should not engage with the state because they want to challenge its very right to rule. 

However the samabals (centres for reconciliation) supported by Athwaas have been gaining momentum, and it is  rural and less educated women who are taking these forward, and who have so much to gain and whose input will inform the Domestic Violence Act. Domestic violence is the common concern and workshops are planned over the coming week. Samanbal spaces have enabled women to speak out about their trauma and abuse within homes and families. Samanbal spaces have acquired special energies, visibly transforming women to assert their agency of compassion, unity, inclusivity and co-existence

Women’s narratives during the Samanbal workshops tell the real story of domestic violence. Their testimony will help the Draft Committee formulate a holistic Domestic Violence Act and challenge those who deny the existence of domestic violence.

Reconciliation is becoming more difficult because of the political situation. Every day there is a complete shut down in the Valley – the local paper even publishes a calendar of when stoppages are being called. Then everyone has to obey. However the domestic violence workshop will go on, but has been moved to Jammu.

Ashima Kaul

Athwaas

“Greetings!

I went to Kashmir last month for our Samanbal workshop. I will go again on 27th May. This is going to a historic workshop bringing together grassroots women who do not even understand each other’s language and are from different regions and cultures of the State- Ladakh , Kashmir and Jammu to deliberate on a common social and human rights issue- domestic violence. I am feeling enthusiastic about it, because this is what I had been working towards for so many years. To take on a more political role and by drafting a bill for domestic violence act we will be initiating and addressing structural forms of violence which remain invisible and embedded in the social-political system.

My son Agastya accompanied me on this visit and participated in the workshop and in fact after a voting procedure, the group chose a name of the Samanbal which Agastya had selected. Its called Navaasha ( Nav- means New and Aasha -means Hope. So it is New hope).

Love,

Ashima”

“Assembly elections have taken place in Jammy and Kashmir and for the last four months we have been organising women’s groups across the region who’ve been fighting to be heard on a number of issues, including domestic violence. The elections were a long extended process, stretching over 7 phases! It has taken three months to collect all the results and form the new government.

The entire period of the last four months running up to the polling and results were extremely challenging with curfews, shutdowns and protests. But in spite of the boycott call given by the separatists with their intimidating methods of coercing people to boycott, almost 64 percent (on an average) came out to vote. This gives hope, encouragement and inspiration to people like us who are working at the grassroots for building spaces for dialogue, democracy, pluralism and reconciliation. The chaos, violence and insecurity during elections have completely shrunk spaces for people to express and articulate themselves , especially women. In fact normal routine, with offices, educational institutions and markets frequently closed made it extremely difficult for people to carry on any kind of work. Now with the democratic government in place, hopefully voices of the voiceless will be heard and people will get an opportunity to engage with issues of governance, development and security. As such our Samanbals have a crucial role to play. I am looking forward to energising the given spaces so as to continue in building a secure and stable region.”

The future

“Our work now is to concentrate on using the network we have built through the Samanbals to fight for political change, to become a unified, powerful voice for peace and to spread that voice across all regions of Kashmir, on both sides of the line of divide.

Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supports our work, it means so much to us. To have people the other side of the world support our initiative is incredible, reassuring and a lifeline of hope. Thank you so very much.”

Here Ashima gives her insight into the situation on the ground and her priorities for peace.

Why did you become a peacebuilder?

“I became a peacebuilder to rebuild relationships basically. I was deeply, deeply pained by the disintegration of communities which had previously coexisted with a sense of tolerance and acceptance of difference. We Kashmiri’s didn’t say we are all the same, we accepted the fact we were different and we co-lived. But that all snapped when the guns came. For me that was the most saddening part. This conflict is described as a freedom struggle, but in fighting, everyone has lost their freedom. We are so scared of each other, there is suspicion, terror, mistrust, so where is the freedom? To bring back real freedom, to open up spaces, for people and especially women to come out and voice their concerns, issues, experiences, I think that is why I became a peacebuilder.

In Kashmir people pursue their agenda from exclusive spaces. They do it based on their own sense of persecution, victimhood or injustice. I have always wanted to do things differently. I wanted to create inclusive agendas that brought together all voices.”

What drives you?

“What drives and motivates me is the process itself. It’s so fascinating and absorbing. It has a life in it and it’s the spirit of that process which motivates me. I’m curious to see it unfold, what lies ahead. Every time I feel pessimistic, defeated, it’s the curiosity of, ‘if we do this, then let’s see’ which keeps me going. And the whole mystery of people themselves. When you bring together people who are divided, who are hurt, who have anger, into a common space and in a couple of hours, couple of days, see how their relationship is transformed once given the space and time to share and cry. When they are done with their anger what unfolds is a beautiful relationship. This to me is so motivating and I believe all these little initiatives are crucial to the larger process of resolving the Kashmir issue.”

What difference have you made to the women in Kashmir?

“There’s so many ways you can see transformations happen in the women of the Samanbals, from their emotional empowerment to psychological healing. Just to be able to sit down with women and listen to them has had a tremendous effect. This is very important in regions of conflict, in experiences of displacements, where there is deep trauma, where there is deep pain, and hurt, when people don’t have platforms of avenues to voice out; to just listen to them has been one major contribution. But I know listening alone isn’t enough. You have to do more than that and so we use the Samanbals as places where women can learn skills to earn a livelihood.

One of the most significant differences we are making is the sense of freedom women experience when they come to the Samanbals. In situations of violence, or in confined camps, to have a public space where you can come together and claim it as your own and feel responsible towards that space is very empowering.

Kashmiri women are strong and resilient. They have contributed to peacebuilding in so many ways. Form coming out of their houses, voting, to this backyard culture where they’ve transformed their little backyards into peacebuilding initiatives by influencing their family in a way that people rejected violence and have supported the processes of dialogue.

What make women good at peacebuilding?

Women have an inherent force of healing, they reach out and explore alternative paths and seek solutions. For women peace is a personal endeavour, what is at stake is the future of their children. Most importantly women do not have clan/tribe loyalties like men so we can think about the welfare of all people.

What women have inspired you?

Two women from different Samanbals continue to inspire me so much. Shahzada in Dardpora lost her combatant husband in the early nineties and has struggled to keep her family together since. When we started the Samanbal in Dardpora she made sure the idea was accepted by women throughout the village. Many were widows who’d lost their husbands to fighting and their sons to militancy. There was lots of acrimony and intense competition over resources. Shahzada took the lead in taking charge of the Samanbal, arranging spinning training so the women could earn an income and she is now a trainer teaching other women to spin.

Similarly Anjali Suri who lives in Purkho camp, challenged the men who dominated camp politics to ensure the Samanbal could continue and motivated other women to join the group. When we decided to bring the displaced Hindi women from the camp back to their homeland Anjali played a pivotal role in convincing the community that it was important to meet the Muslim women.

Our grassroots initiatives would never have taken root without the resilience and support of women like Shahzada and Anjali. I admire their courage. In spite of personal tragedies, they have the strength to step out and build peace.

What can you share as a woman?

Very often I plan action to affect change at a policy level. However if it were known to people beforehand it could be perceived as a threat to those with different view points. There is less and less tolerance in our society so my actions would be thwarted. So I often pretend I am an ordinary woman doing ordinary women’s work and then nobody bothers me. I smile saying this as it’s actually fun to come across as a stupid woman when actually you are doing serious even ruthless work to implement your agenda!

What are you future priorities?

We’ve created a vast network of women across civil society. We have made singular voices plural, brought cohesion to the issues we face and our demands for the future. The task now is to take this critical mass and make it a force to impact policy, to bring our voice to the centre of the peace process. The Samanbals have laid the foundation; we now have a strong and vast network from which we will build a political movement for peace.

Domestic Violence

“In the last month, we have mobilised our Samanbal network to campaign for the enactment of a gender act in the local assembly. Most states in India have approved the Domestic Violence Act to protect women against violence but the Indian controlled side of Kashmir hasn’t as there is always resistance to law changes seen to come from ‘outside’.

We want the Samanbal network to campaign on this issue to teach the women how to assert their voices in the political arena and prepare them for the bigger fight. If we win this battle then the women will have faith in the power of their movement. The issue of gender violence crosscuts all the Samanbals.

The Domestic Violence Draft Committee of which I, along with other Athwaas members, are a part is facing tremendous resistance from several local groups and sections of the media who feel that the Act will ‘unnecessarily empower women.’ They fear this will lead to the break up of families and defer attention away from the ‘larger’ cause, being led by men, to resolve the Kashmir issue. These groups, including some women’s groups are claiming that there is ‘no violence within homes and those women who are articulating these are harming the interest of the Kashmiri society.’

We have experienced stiff resistance from the media, other civil society organisations and even some women groups who strongly dispute the existence of domestic violence in Kashmir. There is a fear that our idea has come from ‘outside’ and that we want to break up the family unit in Kashmir. With the use of multi media evidence, testimonies and street theatre we have been able to gain the upper hand in public opinion and forced a debate in the assembly.

Now the assembly is conducting a wide review on the draft bill and our Samanbal members are at the forefront of ensuring women’s voices are represented. We are so proud that the women can now recognise and articulate forms of domestic violence. We are optimistic that the bill will be enacted before the elections in November.”

Samanbal Workshops

“All our Samanbal members aren working on issues of women’s rights and domestic violence as these problems are a common link between women from the three regions of Kashmir – the Buddhist majority in Ladakh, the Muslim majority in Kashmir Valley and the Hindu majority. These women come from regions with different cultures which have all been impacted by the conflict in different ways, but the way they have experienced violence within their own communities is similar. To create common ground, domestic violence becomes the leitmotif through which they can be connected to prioritise their issues and agenda.

Narratives about domestic abuse were brought out of women from the Samanbals through role plays used during trauma counselling workshops. In Kashmir, political discourse completely overshadows private humiliation and assault on dignity. The voices of women are submerged in larger political interests. As such women bear the double burden of being victims of both political violence and of domestic violence as well.

Samanbal spaces have enabled women to speak out about their trauma and abuse within homes and families. Samanbal spaces have acquired special energies, visibly transforming women to assert their agency of compassion, unity, inclusivity and co-existence

Women’s narratives during the Samanbal workshops tell the real story of domestic violence. Their testimony will help the Draft Committee formulate a holistic Domestic Violence Act and challenge those who deny the existence of domestic violence.”

November elections

“From this experience, we have decided to form a women’s political caucus in preparation for the regional elections in November. All Athwaas members are meeting in Leh in August to discuss on how we can push our agenda into the heart of political decision making in Kashmir. We strongly believe from our experiences that women bring a uniquely different perspective/understanding to the table. If we can get our foot through the door we will transform/redefine the political agenda on the Kashmir conflict and certainly work towards a realistic resolution, which is out ultimate goal.

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

In the meantime, to keep the momentum of 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 the truth on what happened to their sons, families and properties. We know it will be a tough struggle, but other states in India have passed the bill and we believe that our campaign can capture the public’s imagination and create a will for change.”

We held a meeting between Kashmiri Pandit women from the Purkho refugee camp and the Muslim women living in the towns they’d been displaced from. For the Kashmiri Pandit women it was the first time they’d come back to the Valley where they once lived in 17 years. We knew this would be a very difficult meeting and trauma counselling workshops had been conducted previously to prepare the women for this collective workshop.

Initially the Kashmiri Pandit women found it very difficult to negotiate the pain, bitterness and anger they felt having been ‘forced’ to leave their homes in the Valley in 1990. They could not respond to the Muslim women’s ‘overt openness and warm welcome for them’. In fact when one of the Pandit women went and sat with the Muslim women, the other Pandit women passed sarcastic comments and shunned her. “Now you have joined those who had forced us out. We were their age when we were forced to leave. Our dreams were shattered” they told her.

Unable to bear the segregation between the two groups, one of the young Muslim girls quietly went to the room of the Kashmiri Pandit women who had taken the initiative to engage with Muslim women and borrowed her bindi (coloured dot often applied on the forehead by Hindu women) and applied it on her forehead. She then went to the group of Kashmiri Pandit, sat with them and said with a broad infectious smile: “I now look exactly like you. Now there is no difference between us. Whatever you have suffered as a woman, we have suffered the same pain as women too.” The Muslim girl’s gesture melted the heart of the Kashmir Pandit women and they hugged her with tears in their eyes.

For the next two days, all of the women shared their personal life stories and there was a visible change in attitude and behaviours as they discovered common experiences of suffering, pain and resilience. This intimacy allowed each of them the space to question the position and status of women within their respective communities. Our next step was to introduce wider political themes of patriarchy, socialisation processes and women’s and human rights.

“Since November 2007, we have set up 6 new Samanbals (Samanbal is a Kashmiri word, meaning ‘a meeting place’) Our vision is to create safe and secure spaces for women to come together, share, articulate and express themselves and make the shift from victims to changemakers.

These new Samanbals are still in their initial phase of formation but we are really excited by how diverse they are; we have widows in Dardpora, teachers in Badgam, young women in Bijbehar, internally displaced women in Purkha and Muthee and small scale traders in Leh. Within each Samanbal the women choose an activity to pursue together, this tends to be income generating due to the high poverty levels in the region. They also plan and implement an advocacy strategy for creating peace in their communities.

Purkhoo migrant camp

In Purkhoo migrant camp twenty women, displaced from different villages in the valley, have come together to form a Samanbal. Camp life is dominated by hate, revenge and male politics. The Samanbal has given these women a secure space in which to share experiences, reflect and listen to one another.

The women are sharing skills in knitting, cutting, drafting, sewing and gabbah embroidery. Their aim is to perfect the art of knitting and gabbah so they can start selling their products and become financially independent. The basic principle of each Samanbal is to share information/experience, start the healing process, and build financial independence. The women are then empowered to start tackling the big issues affecting the region and the broader conflict in Kashmir.

‘Barefoot’ counsellors

In the first three months of this Samanbal, twenty health workers were trained in counselling and trauma healing. The workers were selected from five villages of the district and will cater to the needs of their respective communities and also pass on counselling training. The final aim is to have a cadre of ‘barefoot’ counsellors to reach out to a maximum number of people throughout the district.”