REPORT OF THE NORTH EAST KASHMIR DIALOGUE ORGANIZED BY THE WOMEN AND CONFLICT AND PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF CONFLICT SUBPROJECTS OF OXFAM INDIA'S VIOLENCE MITIGATION AND AMELIORATION PROJECT, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NORTH EAST NETWORK. DELHI 9 AND 10 APRIL 2001
Prepared by: Urvashi Butalia and Sahba Husain

 

A total of 22 participants from Kashmir and the North East, along with some 50 local invitees, took part in the dialogue which was held at Anandgram, a quiet, secluded place on the outskirts of Delhi. Given below is a summary of the discussions.

 

The sessions began with a discussion on personal experiences of conflict. Various women spoke of their direct and indirect experiences of living with conflict and the following points emerged:

• There was a remarkable similarity in the kinds of experiences women had had to live through, although there were also many differences, particularly of a cultural, economic and political nature.

• Women have had to face attacks at the hands of both militants and security forces.

• In addition, a dimension that is seldom talked about is that they have had to face attacks and criticism from their own families and communities.

• The atmosphere of fear and suspicion has led to a lack of trust even among people who have been friends and relatives.

• The general atmosphere of fear makes it very difficult to function in any normal way.

• The conflict has meant an increased burden on women - for example the burden of running the home, of looking after families and, more recently, the burden of becoming protectors of their men while traditionally they are the ones who have been protected.

• The conflict has impacted negatively on children: education has been badly affected, child labour has increased, thousands of children have been orphaned.

• There is a complete suspension of law and order and it is virtually impossible for people to assert or claim any rights, even to claim any compensation that may be due to you.

• Women are severely lacking in knowledge about their rights or information about how to assert them. This is compounded by the fact that there is no real machinery to access rights.

• Whole new generations of children are growing up with violence as a norm.

• The conflict affects people both directly and indirectly. For example, communities who relied on tourism are severely affected.

• Enforced disappearances and extra judicial killings are a major problem.

• No one has as yet paid any attention to the long term impact of trauma, when it is transferred from one generation to the next. Yet this is a crucial aspect of the conflict in both places.

• Apart from the security forces, there is also a danger from militants.

• Rape continues to be used as a weapon against men, and a way of targeting women.

• The Armed Forces Special Powers Act needs to be repealed.

• Conflict has a strong impact on the economy and women are left to put things together again.

• Equally conflict affects the health of women and children very adversely. Not only do they have to face trauma, but health services become even more difficult to access.

• There is an increase in domestic violence. Relations within families now become very troubled because no one is at peace.

• There is an increase in the numbers of orphans and widows.

 

In the second session women discussed both individual and institutional strategies for coping.

Individual women described their attempts to fight for redressal, as well as to learn new skills which can give them a way of getting over their feelings of victimhood. Some women talked of setting up farming cooperatives, of setting up homes for widows. Activists from the North East Network described the strategies they had developed of working with the community, creating human rights awareness, sensitizing human rights activists to gender, setting up health collectives, networking, sharing experiences and building on the strengths of existing groups. These strategies can be common to both regions despite their cultural, social and economic differences. Women from Kashmir pointed to some of the difficulties in their situation and how, while there was a desire to work together, much of the work that was taking place was at an individual, isolated level because people were so fearful of being attacked if they got together.

 

The third session focused on future plans and networking. It was agreed that such dialogues were a good idea and that all participants had gained from them, individually and collectively. The stories they had heard were both inspiring and made them realize that they were not alone, that others were fighting in even more difficult circumstances. The importance of sharing experiences and working together was stressed. This had helped the women to gain inspiration from others. The need to set up women's groups on the ground if they did not already exist was stressed. Women from Kashmir felt they needed the support and knowledge and experience of women from the North East to learn about counseling, to hold human rights awareness workshops, to work towards a more positive outlook and to focus on self reliance. There was a suggestion that the next meeting be held in Kashmir and women from the North East be invited to attend it. It was agreed that while one should not minimize the difficulties women were living through, it was also true that women had many strengths and such dialogues helped to build on these.

 

While these were the major issues that were discussed, there were many side debates and discussions that took place which made the dialogue particularly rich and worthwhile.

 

In April 2001 two subprojects (Women and Conflict and the Psychological Impact of Conflict) of the VMAP programme of Oxfam India collaborated with the North East Network, a women's organization working in different states in the North East to organize a dialogue between women from the North East and Kashmir. This was the first time such a dialogue was being organized. The rationale for organizing it was as follows: Both regions have been in the grip of political conflict for the last several years but most discussions and coverage of the conflict tends to ignore the impact of such conflict on the more vulnerable sections of society, particularly women. Oxfam India's initiative in this direction was an attempt to bring women together in a dialogue where they could share experiences and coping strategies and learn from each other, as well as bring their issues to public attention. It was also felt that such a dialogue could pave the way towards helping women to form networks, make links and devise ways of staying in touch with each other.

The dialogue came about as a result of detailed discussions between the two lead persons of the VMAP projects and the directors of the North East Network (NEN). NEN helped to identify participants in the North East and VMAP lead person Sahba Husain helped identify participants in Kashmir. A joint decision was taken that because of the sensitive nature of the issues they were discussing, and the vulnerability of the women in their home situations, the dialogue would be a closed one, with only a select list of invited participants. However, recognizing the need to take the issues that concerned the participants to a broader arena, it was decided that the dialogue would be followed by a press conference and public meeting, but that only those of the participants who wished to speak publicly would be asked to do so.

 

In all, 19 participants attended the meeting: 11 of these were from the North East and included two resource persons from NEN (see list of participants attached). The others were from Kashmir. They came from different organizations such as the Naga Mothers Association (from Nagaland and Manipur), government orphanages, the Save the Children Fund (Srinagar) and the Association of the Parents of the Disappeared from Kashmir. They included women who had been directly or indirectly affected by conflict, as well as those who had worked with victims of conflict and those who had been (and continue to be) involved in negotiations for peace. The age group ranged from 25 to 65 years: among the older women was one whose husband is among the list of the disappeared in Kashmir (he has been missing for ten years). She was accompanied by her daughter; as both have been involved in the search for him.

 

Anandgram, a quiet, secluded place some distance away from Delhi was selected as the venue for the dialogue. About 30 people were invited to listen in to the discussions, and a structure was worked out which was as follows:

 

• Introduction and background to the dialogue

• Self Introduction by participants

• Experiences of Conflict: presentations by participants

• Coping Strategies: open discussion including presentations by participants

• Questions from the floor

• The Struggle for Justice and Peace Processes

• Networking; the need or otherwise for outside interventions; plans for the future

• Conclusion and summing up

• Press Conference and Public Meeting

 

Although the meeting began on the 9^th of April, most of the participants arrived a day early and were thus able to get to know each other a bit. For most of them it came as something of a surprise to discover that their experience of conflict was not unique and that others had had to face similar situations. Despite the many cultural differences between them, the fact of having to cope with ongoing situations of conflict made for a commonality of experience which made it possible to talk across these cultural differences. This brief pre-meeting time therefore helped a great deal in creating an open atmosphere for the dialogue to take place.

 

The meeting began with a brief introduction to the VMAP project. Participants then described the current situation in both places and also provided a historical and social context for this. A number of common points emerged from these introductory statements:

 

• The conflict had resulted in an increase in the number of widows and orphans

• In both places there is much talk of compensation but overall the system is so corrupt that compensation is extremely difficult to access

• The atmosphere of fear, threat, suspicion and a lack of trust makes it very difficult to cope. Many women described how, when they left home in the morning, they had no idea whether they would return home that evening or not.

• The trauma and stress women go through makes it hard for them to cope with bringing up families; equally it makes it difficult to involve women in income generating activities

• Educational institutions have been adversely affected

• Young people are growing up in an atmosphere of violence and even the toys they play with are created out of situations of war and conflict

• There seems to be an increase in domestic violence

• Often the burden of providing for the family falls on young children

• The conflict has led to an increase in the number of cases of depression, particularly among young people

• There seems to be no end in sight

• The media do not seem to be interested in reporting any of these things.

 

Individual participants then spoke of their own experiences of conflict. These are detailed below without the names of the participants since this report may be seen as a public document.

 

MANIPUR

The army has had a presence in certain pockets of Manipur since the early seventies and everywhere, in both rural and urban areas, since the eighties. This has led to an increase in fear, rather than security as promised when the army stepped in. During the army's patrolling and combing operations, women are especially targeted and much of the time, they are not handed over to the police but taken away to army camps for questioning. Women are routinely accused of being sympathisers to the militants. Army personnel stationed in different places pass lewd, rude and insulting remarks whenever women walk past, this continued use of sexual innuendo is very demoralising and demeaning for women.

In addition, the women have had to cope with enforced disappearances. Much of the time those who have been made to disappear are men or young boys. Many families do not know what to do in such cases: how to exercise their rights, how to find their family members, whether or not to assume them dead and perform death ceremonies, what to do to prevent younger men and boys from turning to militancy, how to cope with the loss of income that this brings.

 

NAGALAND

For the last 50 years the Nagas have struggled for the right to self determination. Because of the ways in which this struggle has been repressed women have suffered most. In the past, when people were hunters, women ran the home and men hunted and the women were protected. In Nagaland, since the late fifties, women have had to come out to protect their men. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act has given the army the power to kill and torture, a power they use with impunity. Today, as a result of this, almost every village, every family, has a tragic story to tell. There are large numbers of missing people. Random killings are common. Army personnel routinely rape women, both as a statement of power and in revenge for attacks on them. Some years ago, there was an attack on a CRPF camp. The Army personnel then undertook a combing operation and raped the daughter-in-law of the chief of the village. Similarly, in February of 2001 there was a bomb blast in Imphal. The police arrested a Naga boy even though the incident took place in a valley where there are not many Nagas. This boy was released after a week and was accused of having links with the militants even though he was just a student. This kind of accusation often turns young people into militants. In another incident, a jat regiment killed a number of people in a particular village and then forced the women to carry their dead bodies. Customarily, women do not carry bodies but this was clearly a way of humiliating them.

 

The story of a village in Manipur

This is the story of a carpenter in Ramtaeguli village in Manipur. One day, this man was suddenly arrested. His wife asked the security personnel arresting him for an arrest order. They refused to give it. She did not know what else to do. Her husband was arrested and then tortured and then released after he was made to sign a blank piece of paper. The woman activist who tried to help went to his house after his release but was told not to ask about anything. The man said he would now go and join the militants. The activist asked him to consider his wife and child, she offered to help file a case but realised even as she said this that she did not know how and where to file a case if she needed to. This incident made her realise the need for more knowledge and information. Her own experience of conflict, as well as her experience of trying to intervene, led her to set up a widow welfare society where widows could farm on village land (for which she managed to get permission from the village elders) or on their own land, in order to work towards being self sufficient. She described how, when widows run from pillar to post in search of justice, they are often chastized by their own community and labelled immoral. Also when women of different groups, such as the Kuki and Naga, try to support each other, their communities accuse them of being disloyal to the community. All these things exacerbate the problems created by the presence of security forces and the general atmosphere of uncertainty and fear.

 

A key problem is the lack of knowledge. Very few women know that they can ask for arrest memos when the army comes into their homes to arrest anyone. Very few parents of children who join militants believe that those children or young people have any rights at all - once they have joined the militants they think they have given up any claim to right. The ongoing conflict has also had a very negative effect on women's health - apart from the trauma and stress they have to cope with, now that the conflict has been ongoing for so long, the impact can be felt through generations of women, and in recent years, it has also meant an increase in the number of AIDS cases.

 

KASHMIR

The eleven years of conflict in Kashmir have been years of increasing difficulty for women. The burden of running the family has fallen almost wholly on women. In Kashmir, traditionally, women did not work to earn, but they worked in the fields. Now, because so many of their men have been killed, they have been forced to go in for jobs, and this brings its own problems. Education has been adversely affected: schools have closed down, there are no teachers left, children are afraid to go to school and parents do not want to send them for fear that they may be arrested by the security forces or get attracted to the militants. All normal activities are at a standstill: weddings, for example, often turn into funerals. When there are crackdowns, people are so frightened, that they cannot move and they cannot go to the help of those who may be wounded or dying. Eight years ago, the speaker's home area was the scene of a crackdown. Everybody hid inside their houses but there were two children visiting from elsewhere, who did not know this routine, so they were outside. They were killed and their aunt, with whom they were staying, came home to find them dead. Often buses are stopped for hours and even if this means that those travelling in them are delayed for hours they cannot, they dare not say anything. There are no possibilities for organizing because there are such strict regulations against any kind of gathering or mobilizing. Widows often have to shoulder the blame for being widows and they come under attack from their own communities as well - every time a widow steps out of her home, it is assumed that she is turning into a ‘loose' woman.

 

As a result of the conflict a large number of women are suffering from stress and depression and there is a serious lack of counselling centres or psychiatric help. Child rights too are being violated and increasing numbers of children are being thrown into child labour. Inside families, there seems to be an increase in cases of domestic violence but women dare not speak about these for fear of a backlash from within their families. The sources of income have dried up, and when organizations have tried to implement income generating programmes, they have come in for a lot of suspicion. One of the women described how, when she tried to get a pashmina spinning programme off the ground, she had to face a lot of suspicion from dealers who accused her of being with the Income Tax Department and refused to believe that she was working for widows. This is symptomatic of the atmosphere of suspicion and distrust in Kashmir where it is impossible now to feel confident that you can trust anyone, even people within your own family. The lack of social respect for women, and particularly for widows, acts as a tremendous barrier to women going in for income-earning activities. Whenever women have been able to claim compensation or ex-gratia payments, these have been taken away by unscrupulous relatives and used for constructing houses or to marry daughters, leaving the women without anything. There is a constant fear of rape; abortion has been declared illegal so those women who become pregnant from rapes have to go to quacks which is often very bad for their health.

 

 

INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES OF CONFLICT

 

This is the story of a woman from the North East who defined herself as a widow and a mother. She is not a direct victim of conflict, but her story illustrates vividly how conflict can touch the lives of women in different ways.

 

‘I have been running around for justice for the last three years. Every time I try to tell my story in my search for justice, every time I point a finger at someone, four fingers are pointed back at you. After my marriage, I had several children - I had to keep on having them, there was really no choice. My husband was killed in an accident. He was drunk and he bled to death. My brother-in-law said that if I filed a case and said he was killed by militants I would be able to claim the compensation money. I did not do anything but they filed a case saying he had died of bullet wounds. Meanwhile I claimed and received his insurance money. My in-laws, especially my brother-in-law, were furious with me for this and he began threatening me. I had to take the money - I had children to look after and my husband had left behind a lot of debts. A week after this event I was picked up by the police. They came to my home and asked me to come with them for questioning, saying they would bring me back in an hour. My in-laws are very powerful politically and they had arranged this - I found this out later. My children were alone at home with a little girl, my little one was in my arms, I begged them to let me feed the children, lock the house, but they insisted. I thought perhaps they would take me only a short distance away but instead they took me to Imphal. Here, they had a document ready for me to sign which said that I had links with the militants and that my husband was a militant. I begged them to let me off. I was beside myself with worry about my children. But I was kept in the lockup. It was November, very cold, my child had no socks, no warm clothes. They interrogated me for five days. During this time my child became ill. I learnt later that my children were told I had gone off with some boys.

 

At last I managed to get out on bail. When I got home I found my house locked up. My in-laws had taken my children. Next day they came again and insisted that the baby I had with me was theirs - they claimed that because I had gone to my father's house (because my own house was locked up) they had the right to take my baby away. My father advised me to give the child up. He said they were very influential people and it was better for the child if we gave her up. I then fell into a state of deep depression.

 

I have a relative in Hyderabad who was planning to open a widows' home at the time. I went there, and met Balagopal of the Human Rights Forum. I went back home after a year and started filing applications for my husband's pension. So my in-laws started chasing me around and threatening me and I had to hide, to keep going from place to place. They even chased me into my lawyer's chamber.

 

All the time I was fighting, there were accusations about my being a loose woman. In sheer frustration I came to Delhi and stayed in the women's shelter, Shakti Shalini. During that time I met with the National Commission of Women and the National Human Rights Commission. They advised me to file for custody of my children. But when I met my children I found they had been brainwashed, they were made to say they did not want to stay with a woman who had killed her husband. My seven-year old child said I had married the militant I had got to kill my husband. In some ways I am caught in an impossible situation: I keep being told I will not be allowed to meet my children because they are very disturbed and meeting with me makes this worse. So then I stay away. But if I stay away, my in-laws use this to ‘prove' to my children that I do not care for them. My in-laws are really influential and they can do anything. They were the ones who had a report printed in the papers which said I had got a militant to kill my husband.

 

Last year I went to a media and human rights conference in Panchgani Maharashtra. From there I went to Vellore, where I did a course in counselling. I am determined to fight for my rights, to fight for justice. I have been hugely demoralised at times, but I realise that while my husband's pension is one thing, and I will continue to fight for it, it is just as important to try and do something for other women who might be suffering like me. May people have been very supportive of my struggle and sometimes they have had to suffer for it. A friend wrote about me in the papers and was hauled up by my in-laws for doing so. It is a strange thing: whenever I go to the police, they say I am a loose woman. They call me a prostitute. They tell me not to go to them with complaints. Our tribal society is supposed to be so progressive, and look at this. I have been thrown out of my community. Once, a Guwahati court sanctioned some money for me, but my brother-in-law managed to get a stay on this.

 

But I am determined to continue to fight. I tell you my story because underlying all this is my hope that people will find something that might help them to cope through my story. In my struggle I have had enormous support from a friend in NEN and she herself - she is a kuki - has had to face criticism from her community for supporting a Naga woman.

 

This story raised a discussion and a number of responses. These are reproduced below:

 

I AM VERY MOVED by your story and your courage. You are in this state. Look at our women in Kashmir - they don't know when they might lose their husbands. No one comes forward to help them. All sorts of allegations are cast on them. And for the men who die, there is not even a place in the graveyard. What was the fault of that poor man that he should not even merit a decent burial ? Today in Kashmir our homes are locked up. There was a time they used to resound with the sound of children's laughter. Today the houses are silent. No laughter rings out of the corners. We have no explanation for this phenomenon. And the women who are affected, they will not speak out for fear of reprisals. So many people have died - I cannot even begin to count them. I will not begin to count them. But listening to your story I think we should call these women and show them how to confront such problems. These women who have been fashioned out of the scent of roses and the richness of milk, look at their lives now. Their in-laws throw them out because they fear they will become too independent. We are so full of fear, fear not only of the security forces but also of our own people. The counselling workshops organized for us have been very useful. They have shown us how to cope and how to fight. The tragedy is that we are unable to bear our situation, but we do not have the words to describe it. Earlier we used to go searching for widows so that we could help them. Today we do not need to search, there are so many widows, they come to us.

 

I HAVE A STORY TO TELL. It's the story of a village that is populated only by widows. These women have no help or cooperation from neighbouring villages. This is because the rumour has been spread that their husbands were suspected of being renegades. The fear of the gun is so pervasive here that truth is the first casualty. So afraid are people that they hesitate even to pick up bodies of dead people - not only because they fear the security forces but also because they fear the militants.

 

MY STORY IS ABOUT FEAR TOO, how fear is passed on from generation to generation. As a small child I remember my mother pulling me away from the army each time we saw a soldier. I would ask her why. She told me how in the sixties she was taken along with other women, and put in a house without food. The house was very crowded. She was pregnant with my brother at the time and she developed health problems as well as a phobia of such places and a fear of the army.

 

In 1998, while I was in school - I was teaching there - one day there was firing in the village just before the school day began. We were all very scared. I went back home. My mother was alone in the house with my sisters, she was ill, all the men were away. She insisted we run away and hide and I insisted we stay inside the house. After a short while we heard loud banging on the door. My mother was very frightened. I opened the door, the security officers began to scream at me in Hindi, asking me if I had heard the firing. I could not understand them very well, they were shouting in Hindi and I do not know Hindi. They asked my mother to go outside and ordered me to show them the house. I took the officer around, once we were deep inside the house, he tried to molest me. I fell down on the ground, he was standing above me, very threatening. Then another man came and pointed his gun at me. I was so frightened. I tried to speak to them in my own language. He told me to remove my shawl. I was shouting although there was no one to hear me. He said, you are shouting, you must have links with the militants. He refused to listen to me, he dragged me to another part of the house and kept throwing questions at me which I could not understand. Finally, I shouted at him in English - perhaps it was that that frightened him, I don't know, but he suddenly left. You see, no place is safe any more. Even our homes have become unsafe.

 

I've told you this story because I want to bring some things to your attention about what is happening to us as a result of this conflict. Look at the effect on women's health - my mother example shows this. The experience of forty years ago is still with her, her fear has now been passed on to me. How will small children grow up in such a situation? What will happen to the next generation ? Then in our village, the fields could not be tilled for a few days after the firing because of fear. One incident of firing kept nearly a thousand people out of work. What will this do to our economy ?

 

THERE ARE SO MANY stories to tell. Mine has to do with two small girls, my nieces. I had planned to adopt one of them. They were both killed by the Indian army in 1997. Around 1 or 2 in the morning they surrounded their house and asked for the man of the house. His wife said he was not at home. They banged loudly on the door and then began firing indiscriminately. The children and wife were sleeping inside the house and the two small girls got killed. I had planned to adopt the younger girl. I cannot forget - I keep feeling that if I had taken her away, she would have been alive today. When I got there, I was not allowed to go in but I pushed my way in and saw the two children lying dead. Even if their father had been a militant, they had no right to kill the little girls. I wrote to human rights groups but nothing happened, and the army has now cooked up a story that the man fired first and they just retaliated. This is a lie.

 

I HAVE SEEN INCIDENTS involving militants. There was a time when a group of militants left a sackful of money with a family and whenever they wanted money they would come and get it. Then they got killed in an encounter and another boy came to the family and took the money away. The family did not know anything and they had no way of knowing that this boy did not belong to the earlier group. Then some others came and demanded their money and when the family said it had already gone, they insisted that it was theirs, threatened the family and said they did not care where it came from but the family had to get money for them. They did manage to get a little but it was not enough. After this they said they wanted a face to face conversation with the son of the family who was living elsewhere, so he was asked to come back. His sister was very excited that her brother was coming and she cooked a big meal for him. The plan was that they would eat and then he would meet with the militants. As they were sitting down to eat the militants came and asked him to come out with them. He never came back. In the morning they found his body in the backyard. The family was so badly affected by this, they left the village and went away.

 

For me this incident points to a terrible thing: the commercialization of militancy. We can do little about this. I am also concerned at a few other things that I would like to mention in this meeting: often when the army and the militants clash, people are confused. No one knows who is the victim, who the aggressor. They do not know who to sympathize with. It's important to know that people who are in conflict affected areas have to be listened to, their needs have to be understood, their confusions have to be sympathized with. And in the middle of all this we have to deal with another phenomenon: NGOs and researchers come in to make their studies. They do not realize what a difficult position they place us in, they do not realize that they are helping to make victims of people again.

 

I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU my story. Some years ago my husband (we both worked with an NGO) was taken away - or he went with them - by militants. He did not return. I think it is important to share experiences but it is also important to move away from them. This incident happened to me four years ago. Initially I ran from pillar to post trying to find him. Very soon I fell into what I call the victim syndrome, and I realized, after a while that it sometimes becomes very convenient to become and remain a victim. During the time that we have been talking here, everyone has spoken of women who have lost their husbands as widows. I find this word very disturbing. In fact I find that even the language we use is sometimes very unfortunate. It is convenient for people who are working with victims to keep them as victims. If we are to cope with conflict, and what it does to our lives, it is necessary to get out of negative feelings and to stop feeling like a victim. Ultimately you only harm yourself by doing this.

 

 

MY HUSBAND died six years ago. Since then I have been able to earn a bit of money on and off by doing some work - I spin pashmina, but that work is very irregular. Most of the time I was utensils and clothes in people's houses and that is how I make ends meet. I also have to face the taunts and barbs of people a lot of the time. I would really like to learn how to have your sort of courage.

 

I LOST MY HUSBAND - he ahs been missing for more than 10 years. I have looked everywhere. The CRP (Central Reserve Police) took him away. The case is in court now but I don't have much hope. I have had a lot of difficulty in life: I have seven daughters and one son. I am illiterate and it is really difficult to manage. I manage on money given by others. I came to know about the Association of the Parents of the Disappeared and they have given me a little money to live on. When I heard that this meeting was to be in Delhi I did not even know what Delhi was or where it was. I have learnt from the lawyer Parvez of the APDP that more than 2000 people have disappeared, he took up our case also.

 

MINE IS A MINORITY VIEW. I am a Muslim and I come from the North East. The army in our area uses its own language and often we do not understand what they are saying and so we do not know how to respond. Given that we have this problem of language, and also that as women we are supposed to stay silent anyway, my question is: how do our voices reach beyond our villages and homes? How can we make people aware of what is happening to us? When we are in our own areas we can collect people and talk to them but how do we go beyond this?

 

I WANT TO ASK why it is that our menfolk are not given a chance to be tried by law. If they are guilty they can be tried. Why should the army have the right to pronounce them guilty or innocent. We have a duty to protect our men.

 

OUR COMMUNITY, the Mishings, have traditonally been left out of the development process and this makes it extremely difficult to deal with the outside world. The army often targets our boys and it becomes extremely difficult for us to cope with them.

 

ONE DAY I WAS RETURNING from church. A battalion of army came to our village and demanded that the elders give them women. The village elders said this was not possible but the army insisted. Most of the women were in the church at the time. The elders came to the church and quietly opened the side door and told the women to run away. We all ran and hid in the jungle. This was then, but now when forces come to our village, we are able to confront them and sometimes we have even been able to have our boys released. We have formed a human rights group called the Kuki Human Rights Group. Nagas and Kukis are able to live in peace now. I wish the same sort of peace for Kashmir.

 

IN MANIPUR there is a young woman who has been on fast for 150 days. She will surely die. She is fasting against the killing of innocent people by the army and the removal of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act which we all want to be withdrawn. She has been charged with an attempt to commit suicide and also arrested. They did set up a high powered committee to look at the Act but it had many government people on it so nothing could be finalised. The army has been there for so long. But now we have developed some strategies for combating them. We go on relay hunger strikes, we hold mass rallies, we protest by wearing funereal clothes, we try to keep the memory of the suffering of victims and their families alive. They suffer so much but those who have not lived through this suffering forget, while for those who have had to suffer, it never goes away. These are some of our strategies.

 

COPING STRATEGIES

This session began with a recap by the North East Network of their work in the North East and the kinds of strategies they had developed. According to the coordinators of NEN, they have adopted different strategies because the kinds of situations women are in are not always the same and often their reasons/causes are different. When they began work in the North East in 1995, they knew that armed conflict was a reality in the region but despite this they looked only at the practical things such as how to set up women's groups, how to initiate income-generating activities and so on. But they realized soon enough that they had to address conflict directly. As a first step they decided to look at what women's groups on the ground had done.

 

They found that in the North East there is a very strong tradition of women's groups who have been around for a long time. Many of them have worked on violence against women - whether because of militancy or militants, or the presence of the security forces - and have looked at the impact of this on women's lives, as well as the increase in domestic violence. NEN realized that one way to address the question of increasing violence in the lives of women would be to work directly with victims of violence, to look at how and why they are targeted and to work through building on the strengths of existing women's groups.

 

For this it was important that women have an awareness of their rights. For example an important question of ask is where are women placed in the struggle; if the struggle leads to a conflict between women's rights and the rights of the community, do women's rights get precedence or do they get sacrificed; when there are negotiations for peace, are women's rights kept in mind ?

 

If such questions were to be raised, the group would have to work with human rights groups and make them aware of gender. Most groups and individuals engaged in human rights work in India have not had much experience of dealing with long term conflict. One of the things that need to be kept in mind in such situations for example, is that the fallout of violence, its impact, continues for several years. In some cases in the North East even for 40 years or more. The trauma remains, and it needs to be expressed. People who have lived through it, and particularly women who have lived through such trauma, have probably never been able to express it, they have never had help to deal with it. Human rights groups need to be aware of this reality if they are to make any difference.

 

It was with this in mind that NEN organized a team of women drawn from conflict areas to make a group of trauma counsellors. They have also set up violence intervention centres.

 

The group realized that in times of conflict certain patriarchal values get reinforced, and the conflict often becomes an excuse to reassert these. So, for example, women are told they cannot move out of the house for fear that they will be labelled ‘loose' women. On their part women find it increasingly difficult to cope - in many cases for example, the fields have been burnt, there is no source of income. Any intervention in such situations has to deal with these complex realities.

 

NEN's strategy in the North East has been to focus on the concerns of the region and build on existing strengths. It was with this in mind that they organized a workshop on livelihoods and resources in which 100 women participated. Workshops were also organized on health, both mental and physical, as well as reproductive health. The normally poor health infrastructure that exists in many parts of the country is almost completely destroyed in times of conflict. The workshops organized by NEN led to the setting up of health collectives in different areas.

 

Another strategy has been to support women who are involved in peace negotiations. In the North East many groups are involved in such negotiations, and much of this has been at their own initiative. Women have walked for days, hours, miles, to meet with different groups and see what they can do to help the peace process. No one has asked them to do this, they have done it on their own, and often they have gone to young militants and have spoken to them as mothers, about the need for peace.

 

The key strategy adopted by NEN as a group has been to build on existing strengths and to work with women's groups on the ground as well as with the community, so that women have some support in their local environment.

 

DISCUSSION ON COPING STRATEGIES

 

Although NEN's was the only formal presentation on coping strategies, most participants felt that each intervention had addressed the question of how women cope with such situations, both at an individual and an institutional level. The discussion that followed is summarized below:

 

• Given what you have described, what would you suggest we do as Kashmiri women? In Kashmir we do not have the kind of tradition of women's groups on the ground that you are talking about. Perhaps we should think of starting some.

• One important strategy is to involve ourselves in community work, we need to realize that it is essential we have the support of the community if we are to move forward.

• NEN's strategy has been to help groups to organize. The existing groups are informal, and we have worked with them to help strengthen them.

• Community work is definitely important and we need to set up training in community participation so that we can count on support.

• The health centres and collectives that have been set up have been very useful. They help women to cope.

• Apart from these, we are also doing income generating activities such as weaving and kitchen gardens. These are particularly important because we have tried to involve young people, both boys and girls. This keeps them away from the conflict.

• Networking is also important. The groups that NEN has worked with now work on their own with other villages, thus helping to spread the work.

• It is not easy to make such interventions. If you are not from the area in which you are working, you are often faced with questions about your motives, why you are doing what you are doing, and it takes a while to build up trust and remove suspicion. If such initiatives can grow from within, that is the best way to do things.

• Whatever training methodolgy is used, it must help to build the confidence of people and draw on their ideas. After all, they are the ones who know what is best for their village and area.

• We need to adopt some of these sorts of methods in Kashmir. It is not as if people are not working there, but much of the work is in isolation. Partly this is because there is no community spirit left, no one trusts anyone else.

• It is important to involve boys in such training and any projects on the ground. Young boys are the first targets of both the militants and security forces and they are the ones who are most vulnerable to the influence of violence and the power that it brings. This strategy is important for both our regions.

• I am a counsellor who works in a family counselling centre in Kashmir. I also do some training and I have found that some of the kinds of things people are looking to be trained in are television repair, etc.

• It is also important, as was pointed out earlier, to get out of the victim syndrome. We must learn to forgive and forget if we are to move forward. I have often asked myself this question: I studied to become a counsellor after I was widowed. Do I see myself as a widow, or is it time that I started to look upon myself as an individual, with needs and desires of my own ? I feel the second approach is more helpful.

• One of the problems we face in Kashmir in organizing things like this is that we cannot even get together in a small group. The moment we do this, we come under scrutiny and often attack by the security forces and may even face firing. And if something like this does happen, the media will say the women something like the women were killed on their way out of the office. It is very demoralising.

• Sharing experiences like this is also an important strategy. In this way we can get inspiration and support from each other. It is true that everything will not be the same for us as we come from two very different areas, but even so we can share a lot and benefit from it.

 

NETWORKING AND FUTURE PLANS

The third session of the dialogue looked at possibilities for the future. While it was recognized that the North East and Kashmir were very different, culturally, politically, economically, it was also clear from the discussions of the previous days that where women were concerned, there were a number of common points that related to the ongoing conflict in both these states. All women spoke about a continuing sense of fear, a lack of trust, a fear for their children, the loss of their men, the loss of livelihoods, the increase in violence, both domestic and otherwise. They addressed the question of the violation of human rights, the commercialization of conflict (eg the sale and purchase of arms, the trafficking in drugs etc); they asked how do you appeal to the State for the restoration of your human rights when the State itself is the greatest violator of such rights ?

 

However, there were differences as well. A journalist who has been working in Kashmir for a while pointed out that, unlike the North East, Kashmir had no real tradition of women's groups on the ground. Instead, she said, the attitude was much more of a welfare attitude. The way organizations have functioned so far in Kashmir, according to her, is that some of them give out money to widows and orphans and this creates a kind of dependency. Her feeling was that it was necessary to proceed slowly and with caution in Kashmir. One possibility could be to start with the women who were present at this dialogue, take them to the North East and show them how NGOs and women's groups are working there.

She suggested that it was also important to work with families and bring home to them the need for working with women and children and people traumatised by conflict. While in Kashmir recently she had met a young woman who was keen to work for women in Kashmir. She had suggested to her that she come to Delhi and meet with some women's groups but the proposal was vetoed by her mother who said the priority for her daughter was marriage not work.

A student from Nagaland suggested that it was important to look at the history of the struggles in the North East and how they had turned from being peaceful struggles into armed struggles. Where have the arms come from ? Do we support the arming of these young militants ? We need to ask ourselves if we are willing to take up arms ? There is also a link between arms and drugs and this is something that we need to examine.

 

An activist who has been working in Punjab with women who have lived through the conflict there, spoke of working on the common themes of fear and loss and the need to move ahead from there into more positive areas. They have now begun to expand their work in Kashmir as well and they are hoping that the experience of working in Punjab will help them to do this.

 

Kashmiri women were keen that women from the North East and elsewhere come and help them to organize the setting up of women's groups. They also identified one of the key needs as that of information and knowledge. Much of the time women who had lost family members had no idea of what their rights were, how they could seek recourse, how to file an FIR, where to go. They asked if women from the North East could come and do workshops with them in human rights and counselling. There was general agreement that this was an important step to take, but also that it needed to be approached with caution since both the army and the State machinery in Kashmir would clearly not be very keen to allow people to assert their human rights.

 

There was general agreement however that a great deal had been gained from the dialogue. Not only did the women feel a sense of not being alone, but also they had learnt from the strength of others who had confronted their situations either individually or through groups and institutions. They agreed that the stories of such supportive institutions such as the ones working in both places, needed to be made public, even if the approach of the institutions was very different. One of the key strengths visible among women in the two-day dialogue, everyone agreed, was the desire to do something. This was a good base to build upon. One participant who has been working with children pointed out that they had held a number of workshops for children in Kashmir, but not many for women. She had found, however, that there was very little awareness of their rights among women, and very few people know how to deal with the army because army personnel are very aggressive. She pointed out that there is a need for rights training for women. She also suggested that the follow up of this workshop should be in Kashmir. Another suggestion was that a committee should be formed which can go to different places, and do something about providing counselling. Another idea was that they could focus on mothers, through their children.

 

 

 

 

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