In the initial years of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s, the political violence often divided villages – and their inhabitants – into several fratricidal factions. The legacy of this persisted even after active armed combat waned by the early 2000s, making it difficult for those women whose husbands, sons and brothers had belonged to different militant factions to explore possibilities of common action. Far from creating an empathetic bond, the common experience of militancy-related widowhood had served to increase levels of distrust and personal animosity among the women.
Last March, along the verdant banks of the river Tawi in Jammu, a group of peace-builders from Jammu & Kashmir met for a reflective exercise. They sought to take stock of their activities, the road they had travelled and the challenges they had faced over the previous six years. Starting off as a modest listening project in 2001, the Athwaas initiative had along the way transmuted into a peace-building project, focusing on the interface between education, reconciliation and development. Members of Athwaas – a Kashmiri word that means a warm handshake – include Muslim, Hindu and Sikh women from Kashmir, each of whom had taken it upon themselves to set up spaces called samanbals – areas meant for healing, reconciliation and, subsequently, social activism, in some districts of J & K.
Undoubtedly one of the most challenging of these efforts has been the one set in Dardpora, which can rightly be called the village of the widows. Located in Kupwara District, Dardpora is very close to the Line of Control. For months prior to the March meeting, two members of Athwaas visited the village in an attempt to motivate a small number of Gujjar and Kashmiri women to form a group to initiate collective action on issues related to health and livelihood. For multiple reasons, this had turned out to be an arduous task.
Besides the schisms among the communities, the inhospitable terrain served as an obstacle in the path of rehabilitation and reconstruction. Only subsistence-level cultivation is possible here, and maize is virtually the staple food. The lack of grass and fodder in these rugged heights make it difficult to support animal husbandry, and the constant struggle for survival leaves little time to build social bonds. Previously, several groups had been to the Dardpora area to distribute money and offer a variety of short-term relief measures, but only as one-time gestures. As a result, the very concept of long-term economic independence was not just new but alienating for the women of the village, and was met with some hostility and suspicion. It was difficult to garner a response to any initiative where the payoffs were not immediately visible.