Harkats committing a mistake 

By David Devadas

It is hardly surprising that the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami should try to prevent Kashmir’s women from working. Several Pakistan-based organisations run madarsas but the Harkat groups, including Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Ansar, have been spawned by the same set of madarsas that trained the Taliban in the early and mid-1990s. They have brought to Kashmir the same mindset from those conservative schools also imparted to the Taliban.

In trying to replicate what they did in Afghanistan here, however, they are making a mistake. They believe, of course, that there is only one correct way for all Muslim societies to conduct themselves but different ethnic groups have social mores as diverse as their environments, histories and cultures.

Former Kashmiri militants who did a stint in the Afghan “jihad” say they were amazed at the radically different mores they found there. Women in certain parts of that country were never seen and one could be killed for even glimpsing the women in a neighbour’s house by mistake. By contrast, Kashmiris do not by and large subscribe to such limiting notions of what makes for a good Islamic society. Kashmiris are apt to quote from the life of the Prophet to cite the high esteem and responsibilities he gave to women, even in his own family. Interaction between men and women is generally very open, not only within homes but outside too.

Kashmiri women have since time immemorial shared with men the responsibilities not only of raising families but also of running the household and the economy. This is particularly true of agriculture, which remains even today the largest sector of the Kashmiri economy. When the paddy crop is sown in May and June, women can be seen in the verdant terraced fields across the valley, and again when the time for harvest comes round in September. Through the summer, they can be seen striding to those fields to make sure there is just enough water.

Older Kashmiris talk of women working in the fields ever since they can remember and probably throughout history. In fact, they say, Pandit women remained sheltered at home more often than Muslim women, who participated in sowing and harvesting, standing shoulder to shoulder with men, and tended the cattle that many rural families kept. When I asked a rural Kashmiri whether older women used to wear burqas when he was a boy, he shook his head and said with a grin that nobody could afford one. It was not the custom either, he added. The local Pir- Kashmir being full of Sufi Pirs more so then than now - would keep a few burqas, which older women would sometimes borrow for a wedding or other such major occasion and then return.

In fact, contrary to what one might imagine, Srinagar’s women, particularly in the old town areas, are sometimes bound by more conservative social mores than rural ones. In more uptown areas of the city, of course, women participate in all kinds of economic activity. A young woman, head sedately covered by a scarf, can sometimes be seen driving a car alone on Srinagar’s streets.

Upmarket localities are dotted with beauty parlours and boutiques, which are not only patronised by women but also quite often owned by them. I was once driving with a friend when he stopped the car, saying he had to visit his sister. Up some stairs, I found that it was not her home but her workshop that we had come to. She owns a small boutique, employing tailors to make the dresses she designs. She was obviously proud of her work and showed me some of the dresses, which were modern without being provocative. There were tassels and shiny beads on some of them, but there are obviously buyers for such clothes, which are certainly not conservative. What I found remarkable was that she runs this business at the edge of the generally conservative old town.

Whenever I have met her father, he has been dressed in traditional clothes, with an Islamic skull cap on his head, but he obviously finds nothing objectionable about this. Women can quite often be seen sitting together in cafes and restaurants in Srinagar, particularly in the upmarket Regal Chowk area. At the botanical gardens, couples can be seen sitting close together in almost every shady corner on just about any pleasant afternoon.

To try and replicate what the Taliban imposed in Afghanistan in this kind of society can only create a reaction. Already, over the past 13 years, Kashmir’s women have several times defied diktats that they must wear burqas, even after acid was thrown at the faces of some. Under threat, women have donned burqas for a few days or weeks but they threw them off again each time. Now that their income and self-sufficiency is at stake, they could react with even more resolve.

Source: The Tribune

Previous

Index

Next