[Reader-list] Independent Fellowship Posting III

[Shafia Wani]

Dear Vivek,

Am sending my third posting for the SARAI Independent Fellowship. Please
excuse the delay. Have had trouble with internet connectivity since
yesterday.Have been able to connect only now.Will make sure that the next
post is sent well before the deadline so that the likelihood of last
minute delays is avoided.

SARAI, Third Posting.Independent Fellowship Programme.

The society in Kashmir has always had a conservative patriarchal ethos,
one that prescribes the domain that a woman can create for herself, but
this domain does not entirely limit the role of the woman to that of the
mother and therefore to the household. It has a space within itself that
allows for a much wider space for a woman. It accepts that women can and
have to be productive in ways that are economic and creative as well.

These roles though are integrated within the larger role the woman is
expected to play in the family. The other roles can be articulated but not
in contradiction to the central one of the mother and householder. These
roles therefore have to be molded and articulated accordingly. This is
then the space within which many women in Kashmir have demonstrated their
productive and creative spirit.

There are therefore that many examples of the grit and determination which
women have shown in the past many years. A determination against all odds
to reach out to others who are in need. An example of how this
determination can lead over years of effort into the development of an
institutional initiative is that of Nighat Shafi Pandit, Nighat born in
1961 belongs to a well to do traditional family of Kashmir. Seeing the
conditions of the Valley over the years made her feel the need to reach
out to people in the Valley, especially those young children who had borne
the brunt of the violence with the loss of their mothers and fathers to
bear.

Nighat Shafi founded the HELP (Human Effort for Love and Peace) foundation
in 1997 along with a few other like minded persons. This year was when the
violence in the state was at its worst. Protracted violence of the past 9
years had created serious consequences in society. A large number of
people had died in the violence, most of them were male in the age groups
of 20 -50. This meant in turn that there were a significant number of
widows and orphans as a result.

An embattled society was at the time at a loss to address these emerging
consequences of this violence. It was within this scenario that Nighat
Shafi decided that something needed to be done and that an effort should
be set up specifically to address this situation.

With this in view she first set up an orphanage called the “Shehjar” in
Srinagar which translates as ‘shade’ in English. This institution offers
residential and educational facilities to these orphans of the conflict.
In addition HELP foundation works for rehabilitating widows of the
conflict as well. The foundation works in both the Kashmir and the Jammu
regions of the state in an effort as well to promote peace initiatives and
inter communal harmony.

Pandit makes visits to violence affected areas to try and understand
better the context of the people that she strives to work for. In view of
trying to address the needs of the women in Kashmir she has tried to
establish advisory and financial services for women widowed in the Kashmir
conflict, in this regard income generating ventures that will help
economically weak women especially widows to raise their capacity and
better their economic standing in a manner that is dignified and
sustainable have been set up by the foundation.

The HELP foundation raises funds through door to door collections in the
Valley and in the rest of the country.

In 2005 Nighat Shafi was one among the 1000 women nominated for Nobel
Peace Prize 2005”- an organization supported by the Swiss government,
UNIFEM and the UNDP for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

This is just one of the examples among many where women have decided that
they have a greater role to play in the society and have carved out a
space for themselves that is widely recognized and appreciated.

This space is one that has always existed in the cultural realm of Kashmir
and has meant that over the ages there have been many examples where women
have articulated their concerns and position in the idiom that the culture
affords at that time. At one instance this can be a creative idiom, one of
poetry or art, in another instance it can be an idiom of economic
productivity, in yet another the idiom might be one of social service or
activism.

The examples and the narratives that are being collected and presented
will ultimately consist of a range of idioms which will demonstrate an
active agency that women have in this cultural context. That it is not
true that women are mere sufferers especially because of the violence of
the past years. Women in Kashmir have demonstrated their capacity to work
and the will to be productive and creative even against heavy odds. This
is a characterization that has failed to make it to the wider world, what
usually gets out is the image of the oppressed and the quite suffering
women of Kashmir who are mere objects in a situation over which they have
no control. This in turn breeds a patronizing attitude towards them that
turns them into mere objects of suffering who can be then showcased for
particular purposes at particular times.

This is not to say that there are no instances where women are not
constrained by the cultural space that they inhabit. There actually are
many instances of this kind that can be pointed out.

Mr Deen Khan, who has been associated with the developmental efforts in
the state of Jammu and Kashmir for the past over 30 years, thinks that in
addition to state intervention cultural factors play a very important role
in the space that women can create for themselves.

Over his many years of grassroots experience in the Ladakh region he found
that the Leh region showed greater improvement on issues relating to the
empowerment of women but that in the Kargil region these interventions is
only now beginning to bear fruit. One factor for this might be the fact
that the population in Kargil is predominantly Shia Muslim and for many
years the Shia clergy of Kargil had opposed the creation of alternate
spaces for women including the space of the school.

Instances like this abound but to harp on this is to limit one’s
imagination and thereby miss out on the negotiations and the maneuver that
women of the region have achieved, while yet being a part of their
cultural space. The stark distinction of modernity and tradition that has
been the staple of academic discourse for years is something that does not
hold when instances of these continuous negotiations and maneuver are
coming to the fore.

This only goes to show as we have said that there are limitations on the
space within which the women of the region can articulate their concerns
and develop their efforts.

Mr Tareak Ahmad, lecturer at the University in Srinagar says that despite
the fact that the situation in the region has been volatile since many
years, the women of the region have shown great resilience in adapting to
the situation and have not only adapted to but have become part of
initiatives that are promotive and creative as well.

This is to be seen in the context of a situation where there initially
were very few opportunities for productive association but over the year’s
initiatives that women of the region have been engaged in has created the
possibility of  work that reaches out to wider audiences and is
appreciated not only locally but globally as well.

As a result of these engagements of the past years women in different
spheres are contributing actively and are engaging in diverse actions
ranging from activism on human rights, social work and the arts. These set
of actions are alternate and are not necessarily engaged in as a
profession but rather as something extra that women increasingly seek to
do. These engagements fulfill a creative and productive urge that goes
beyond the questions of earning a living.

It is this kind of work that constitutes increasingly the range of work or
engagement that women in the region are exploring.

This activity and interaction has redefined the space of the local and the
global for these women; this no doubt is facilitated by the opening up of
communications here as elsewhere. In a paradoxical manner this region
which traditionally remains cut off from the rest of the world and the
events that happen there, is only now beginning to engage with the new
initiatives that have started up elsewhere in the world.

It is these initiatives in the field of human rights activism, social work
and the applied and creative arts that the women of these regions are
associating with. In this process they are creating an agency for
themselves that is varied, dynamic while yet drawing its idiom from the
cultural moorings of this place.

Ends

Will be including in depth and detailed analyses of interviews taken in
the next post.

Warm Regards,
Shafia Wani