The woman living in the Occupied Kashmir valley is currently the most vulnerable in the world. India’s move to change the constitutional status of Kashmir on August 5, 2019, has left Kashmiri women at the mercy of the Indian Army. After the abrogation of this Article 370, all the laws in force in Kashmir have ended and the law of India has come into force there i.e., Article 360 of the Indian Constitution has been applied to Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Apart from this, Article 35A, which gave special citizenship rights to Kashmiris, has lapsed. Under this, non-Kashmiri (Hindus) have been authorized to buy property, hold government jobs and take up permanent residence in Jammu and Kashmir.
After this move by India, Kashmiri women are the most insecure and vulnerable at this time due to the unrestrained Indian army. Not only their innocence is insecure, but due to the martyrdoms and disappearances of their husbands, brothers, and young sons, the entire burden of raising children and supporting their families is also on their delicate shoulders. Currently, not thousands but millions of Kashmiris have disappeared, so it will not be wrong to say that today the entire burden of the Kashmiri Azadi Movement is also on Kashmiri women.
Be it Asia Andrabi, Fahmida Sufi, or Nahida Nasreen, hundreds of women are associated with the freedom movement and are enduring the hardships of imprisonment and imprisonment due to this association. Tired of Indian atrocities, women have also been forced to come out of their homes and are becoming part of the regular movement. Despite the horrific incidents of sexual harassment, she is not only supporting the family but also strengthening the freedom movement. This is the reason why today Kashmiri girls are seen pelting stones at the occupying Indian army and are being targeted by the pellet guns of the cowardly army. More than 70 girls and boys, including Insha Mushtaq and Afra Shkoor, have lost their sight due to pellet guns.
Kashmiri women, who are half of the population of Kashmir, are living under the de facto custody of nine lakhs occupying the Indian Army. According to the Vienna Declaration, “Women’s rights are an inalienable and indivisible part of universal human rights.” One wonders why the international community has not yet taken any action against the state-sponsored humanitarian violence against Kashmiri women. Under the Universal Bill of Rights for Women (CEDAW) passed by the United Nations General Assembly, women have basic rights and freedom in every sphere of social, political, and life, but the case of Kashmiri women is the opposite. The main reason for all this cruelty is India’s refusal to recognize the right of self-determination of Kashmiris, which was promised by the United Nations to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This inaction of the United Nations has disappointed the world. Hope also has a limit. It is the indifference of the United Nations and the Muslim world that has shown the path of brutality to the occupying Indian army.
The tragedy of the Islamic world is that it has never used its full resources for Kashmir and Palestine. Muslim countries have the resources to jam the machinery of Europe if they want, but due to their interests and mutual differences, they have never made any serious effort with one voice for either Palestine or Kashmir. Their inattention can only be read as a lamentation.
According to a report by Kashmir Media Service, from January 1989 to June 30, 2022, 23 thousand 234 Kashmiri women have become widows because their husbands were brutally martyred by Indian occupying soldiers, policemen, and paramilitary for the crime of self-determination. And only since January 2001, at least 681 women have been humiliated and martyred. Since 1989, 95 thousand 747 Kashmiris have been martyred, while more than 12 thousand 121 women have been desecrated. The report states that from 1989 to 2022, more than 8 thousand people have been arrested and disappeared. These are the persons whose women are called semi-widows and on whom the responsibility of supporting the house has also fallen.
The actual number of incidents of martyrdom, rape, and sexual violence in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir is much higher than the figures that come to light. These incidents have created an atmosphere of panic in the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir. This is the reason that 70 out of every 100 women in Occupied Kashmir are suffering from psychological problems. Apart from this, due to this insecurity, the trend of suicides has also been seen among women. According to the records in the ‘Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar, the capital of Occupied Kashmir, 515 suicide incidents were reported in Occupied Kashmir from April 2020 to March 2021 due to fear, shock, and economic crisis, of which 343 were women.
Incidents like the gang-rape of 100 women by Indian soldiers in Kannapura, the gang-rape and double murder of women in Shopian, and the gang-rape and murder of a young girl in Khatoa reflect the cruel and disgusting face of Indian forces. Due to this women are suffering from fear and trauma. The incident of the mass rape of 9-year-old Asifa by extremist Hindus in the temple in the Khatoa area of Occupied Kashmir is extremely painful. For 6 days, the innocent girl was raped by several people, even before being killed. Then little Asifa was killed by stones on her head and strangulation. Asifa was kidnapped and kept in the “Devi Asthan” temple. After the murder, the body of the girl was thrown in the garbage heap. The police officers took four lakh rupees from Sanji Ram, the criminal of brutality, and destroyed the important evidence of the murder and rape.
In one of its reports, the New York Times severely criticized Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and wrote that Narendra Modi, who is active on Twitter, remained silent on the mass rape of innocent girls including Asifa in Kashmir, but when the world But when there was a protest, Narendra Modi only condemned these events in weak words while doing the paperwork, while the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party also gave statements in favor of the criminals of Asifa and also took out processions.
Not only this, 60-year-old women are among the victims of mass rape by the Indian occupying forces in Occupied Kashmir. Mothers are brutalized in front of their children. There have also been reports in the international media that a newlywed bride was raped in front of the whole procession. Similarly, during the search operation in the valley, the newly wedded brides were raped.
In the 52nd United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Professor William Baker reported that rape in Kashmir is not just an incident, but the occupying Indian security forces are using rape as a weapon against the Kashmiri population terrifyingly and actively. Is. This problem has been repeatedly put before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that “India is using rape as a weapon of war to suppress the freedom struggle of Kashmiris”. There is desire, but the opposite is happening in Kashmir at the moment. According to a report by ‘The Independent’, Kashmiri women try to make themselves look ugly when they go out to avoid being brutalized by the soldiers.
When a society is in a state of war, then the law of the jungle is not the law of the state, and when the law of the state is the law of the jungle, then it is like what the world is seeing in Occupied Kashmir, but despite all this, the valley Dances of fear and death in Kashmir have made women, especially mothers, bold. The daily bloodshed has not only changed the lives of Kashmiri women but also changed their social and religious priorities for them.
Now mothers lead the procession of their martyred sons, attend the funeral and go to the graveyard. An example of which is Dr. Burhan’s sixty-year-old mother. Dr. Burhan’s mother, when she saw her son’s dead body eleven months after his disappearance, addressed a large gathering of mourners and said, “No one will mourn his martyrdom.” Burhan remained steadfast on the path to heaven that he had chosen for himself. If he has unknowingly hurt someone, forgive him for the sake of Allah.” Although this sad mother had dreamed of becoming a doctor for her son who suddenly disappeared after getting his degree only to be found with a bullet-riddled corpse.
My question is whether the people of the world do not see the suffering of Kashmiri mothers. Or are they deliberately unaware of their pain? Does the world not see the tears of these mothers??? Why doesn’t anyone feel sorry to see their laps?
Kashmiri women represent half of the valley’s total population, who die now and then in the shadow of the gun and come back to life, lamenting the emptying of their bosoms, then curling up. These problems of Kashmiri women have continued continuously for the past seven decades.
Now that in the 21st century, the world has expressed its determination to bring major changes for women in the political, economic, and cultural conditions and has declared violence against women as a major obstacle to their development and progress, women in war-torn areas, especially Kashmir. Violation of the rights of women is a great tragedy and challenge for the world. The question is why the women of Kashmir are not seen by the leading countries and international organizations of human rights in the whole world, especially women’s rights. Why are they not seeing the worst oppression and oppression, their problems, their psychological problems? At least the women of the West should think about this question
Written by Shabana Ayaz*