Asia Times: Women lift the veil on Kashmir struggle


	March 7, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Women lift the veil on Kashmir struggle
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - Meet Asiyah Andrabi, founder and leader of South Asia's only all-woman separatist group - the Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Faith).

Asiyah hardly fits the stereotypical image of a militant. She does not wear battle fatigues but a burqa (veil). There is no Kalashnikov slung across her shoulder, no grenade in her hands. Instead, she cradles her two children in her arms.

Asiyah has served time in Indian jails (arrested in 1993 under the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities - TADA - Act) and now lives in Srinagar, under the watchful eye of the Indian security forces.

Asiyah is a contradiction. She spews venom against India and its secularism and the most hate-filled rhetoric against the Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus). She says that India should "get out of Kashmir". And yet, she is the perfect host, serving her guests tea and pastries.

Asiyah, however, is perhaps typical of the Kashmiri woman militant. She might not be involved in combat operations, but she enables it. Her role in the militancy is an extension of her traditional role in Kashmiri society as mother and wife - that of a caregiver, a provider of shelter and of food and other essential supplies.

Vociferous in her support for the militants and for Kashmir's accession to Pakistan, she maintains that she is not involved in the "practical militancy". "I have never held a gun," she told this correspondent at her home in Srinagar, adding that she gives only "moral support to the mujahideen".

But more significant than the moral backing is the logistical support that Asiyah and the Dukhtaran-e-Millat's burqa-clad members give the militants. They are said to be involved in gun-running. "They use the anonymity provided by the burqa to hide weapons and manage to move it unchecked past the Indian security forces," says a woman officer in the counterinsurgency unit of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police.

Significantly, the Dukhtaran-e-Millat has been at the forefront of the campaign to impose the burqa on Kashmiri women. Its members threw acid and paint on the faces of women who dared to defy its diktat in the early 1990s. Last year, when a little-known militant group ordered Kashmiri women to wear the burqa, the Dukhtaran-e-Millat backed and helped enforce the immensely unpopular campaign.

While Asiyah defends the imposition of the burqa on the grounds that "women are precious and should be protected behind a burqa", it is more likely that strategic and logistic considerations were behind the move. The veiled strategy is highly effective as it has been almost impossible for the Indian security forces to monitor who is behind the burqa or what she (or perhaps even he) is carrying.

So much anonymity has the burqa provided the women militants and their activities that most of the women who have actively supported the militants are not known by name or face.

Asiyah, though, loves figuring in the media and is most prompt in calling journalists with statements on issues. But she is elusive and plays hard to get. She refuses to be photographed without the veil covering her face, but is not unwilling to be seen by women interviewers, such as this correspondent. She is referred to as "The Voice".

The other well-known woman involved in the militancy is Farida. "Farida bahenji [sister] used to coordinate the activities of various militant groups," says a member of the separatist umbrella organization, the Hurriyat Conference. The sister of Bilal Ahmed Beg, the leader of the J&K Islamic Front, Farida was arrested under TADA in 1995 following a series of bomb blasts in Delhi, and was only released in 2000.

The role of women in political and public life in Kashmir has been limited, more so over the past decade. During the early years of the militancy (1989-91) when it was more of a popular uprising, women were often seen at the forefront of the mass protests and agitations, challenging the Indian forces on the streets of Srinagar. When the boys returned from training in Pakistan and launched their armed struggle against the Indian security forces, the women provided them food and shelter, even took care of the injured.

"Some of us helped the militants because we had brothers in the militant groups. But most of us helped because we were excited about azadi [freedom]," says Anjum, who works in an apple orchard 50 kilometers from Srinagar.

But as the movement went underground and then assumed a fundamentalist-extremist color, the participation of women declined. Besides, the militant groups were all-male fighting units. According to former militants of Hizbul Mujahideen, the Hezbollah and al-Jehad, there are no women in the militant groups. Women were not among those trained in Pakistan, they say.

Why the exclusion of women? "Because they cannot fight," says an al-Jehad fighter. "Who will look after the home if they go underground?" asks his comrade.

"The basic reason for not allowing women to participate in the armed struggle as combatants is because they are not seen as equals," points out a teacher in the Kashmir University in Srinagar.

But grudgingly the fighters admit that but for the support from women, the combat operations would have suffered. Not only have women acted as couriers of messages and weapons and providers of shelter to the militants, at great risk to their lives, they have also allowed themselves to be used by the separatists' propaganda machinery. "Women, often under pressure from the militants, are known to have come out in public and accused the security forces of rape, even if it means they have to suffer the social ostracism that comes with being a raped woman," points out a lawyer in Srinagar.

The attitude of women to the militancy and the militants has undergone substantial change over the years. If in the early 1990s, women welcomed the militants into their homes and provided them food and shelter willingly; today they prefer not to answer their knock on the door.

"In the early years women would hide the militants in their homes during cordon-and-search operations, today several women are turning in the boys to the security forces," a resident of Handwara, a town near the Line of Control, told this correspondent.

The change has come about because of war-weariness and the growing indiscipline within the militant ranks. The boys are not the heroes they once were.

"We opened our doors because we had no option," says a widow in Badhgam, near Srinagar. "We still don't have an option," she says. "What can we do? The boys are armed and we aren't. Besides, we hate the security forces so much."

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