They shut me up in prose-as when a little girl
They put me in the closet
Because they liked me “still”
Emily Dickinson
This refers to the article Women’s place published in Greater Kashmir on June 16. The author has started with an argument about the stereotyping of Kashmiri women but she seems to have failed to take it to a logical end. What the author seems to conclude is that she is no more oppressed than her counterparts in the rest of India. Nevertheless, the oppressed she certainly is but the argument has been made in such a way as to overshadow this fact. Because a man has written to undermine the stereotyping of Kashmiri woman, it is itself a reflexive of the women’s place in Kashmir. While debating that Kashmiri woman is looked at through certain prism, the author himself looks at her through patriarchal prism. The author writes “is she more or less oppressed, more discriminated against or, of course, more prone to honour killing? The fact is that she isn’t? In fact one can certainly GRANT (emphasis my own) her a DEGREE (emphasis my own) of emancipation that a large number of Muslim counterparts in the rest of India will take time to catch up with” This statement made by the author is itself an implication of the degree to which she is oppressed. Why does she, in first place, need emancipation to be Granted by one and who is this Saviour One? Of course, The Patriarchal man! This emancipation itself is to be defined and decided by patriarchal society and then presented to women as a processed product from man’s benevolent factory. Why cannot emancipation come to women as naturally as it comes to man.?
The author writes “There is no body of research that could help understand her condition or create some sort of an image or identity for her”. He further writes “of course, she has an image, identity, location, geography, culture and history of her own.” The author here appears self-contradictory. On the one hand, he says that some sort of identity needs to be created for her and on the other, he asserts that she has an identity of her own. Moreover, the question is that why and what has made woman a “Researchable Object”, why does her circumstances need to be researched into? Why does her identity need to be created for her? Does it not reveal that Kashmiri woman is oppressed to the extent that her identity needs to be created? The author himself has brought out her identity crisis and then suggests that she is more privileged than her counterparts are in the rest of India.
Referring to domestic violence, discrimination against girl child in families, and so on, the author writes “…things nevertheless appear a lot more hunky dory on this front” The fact is that things are not hunky dory as author leads us to believe. Domestic violence is rampant particularly in the lower class of the society. We have everyday news about women being killed by their husbands and harassed on one pretext or the other. The author writes that “...More than the personal preferences, discrimination in our society is borne out of the cultural factors which have traditionally assigned separate roles for men and women”. The statement does not make Kashmiri women more privileged than women in the rest of the world. Discrimination in every society is borne out of the cultural factors. Men and women are traditionally assigned separate roles in every society but the question is who decides the roles and who constructs a culture. It’s all patriarchy.
Rather than holding women in India or elsewhere as the measuring rod, we have to address the issues pertaining to women in Kashmir. Kashmiri women are certainly oppressed psychologically, economically, socially, and politically as well. Physical violence is not the only violence against women that should be our concern; what is more dangerous and subtle is the psychological violence that is perpetrated against women. Even though parents are generally even-handed in their treatment of their sons and daughters but what is important is how the girl child is brought up in our society. She is ideologically so very conditioned right from her childhood that she doesn’t ever realize it. The irony is that it is done under the garb of love and care. Providing girls opportunities to become doctors, engineers, executives and so on does not necessarily mean that there exists no bias against girls. The oppression of women starts right from their families. Girls are made to believe that the “Honour” of the family lies with them. So whatever they do, they have to carry this flag of honour with them and at the same time keep it high and unfurled. They rather perceive themselves in terms of this so called “honour”.  This is the biggest hurdle for their healthy self-realization. If a girl is harassed, she usually does not fight back. Not because she is weak but she has to think about the honour of her family. Nobody should come to know that she’s been harassed because that will be detrimental to her family’s honour. When girls are asked why they tolerate eve-teasing, elbowing and so on in public places, most of the girls’ reply is “what people around will think. They may think that we ourselves have no character”. What makes women feel like this? This is to be understood.
When we talk about self-development, it necessarily includes the ability to decide wisely and rightly for oneself. But how many women in Kashmir take decisions for themselves. Hardly a few! The biggest decision (marriage) that decides the course of much of a woman’s life is not taken by her. Either she is not allowed to make it or she does not feel herself worth taking it. If she is not allowed, why isn’t she? And if she cannot take it, why can’t she? These are the issues that need to be addressed when we talk about emancipation of women.
Let’s take Hijab that has become so much integral to woman’s identity in Muslim society anywhere. Why is it made exaggeratedly related to only woman? In Islam, hijab or purdah is as important for man as it is for woman but why do we hear it only in her relation? Haven’t men been directed by Allah in Holy Quran that they should keep their eyes lowered? How many Muslim men know this and more importantly, how many of them practice it? Why hasn’t the hijab of man ever become an issue to be debated by Muslims or non-Muslims.? It clearly reveals that man propounds only that much of knowledge that helps him to subjugate woman. If this is not oppression, what else should we call it?
We see that on Fridays in Kashmir, our Molvi sahibs preach ethics and proper behaviour to men in the mosques and thanks to loudspeakers, we women too hear them. What is more noticeable in such sermons is the concern of preachers for the Kashmiri society going astray. And one of the main reasons for it, according to them, is parents’ lesser control on their daughters or women folk in general. I haven’t ever heard these preachers tell our men that they shouldn’t urinate on roadsides, they should behave properly in public places like buses, they should observe hijab rather than keep staring at women folk, that they should teach their sons proper behavior but what is almost always more noticeable in such sermons is that they (men) should control their daughters. They are instructed how to brought up their daughters. Much of the moral degradation in society as they perceive it is attributed to women.
If we have to get a glimpse of Kashmiri women’s economic exploitation, we just have to have a cursory look at “Private School industry” thriving in Kashmir. Almost all private schools depend upon cheap labour provided by female teachers. Walnut industry is yet another example.
What is even more important is that most of the Kashmiri women are intellectually impoverished rather they are kept so. That’s one of the significant reasons why she is stereotyped within and without Kashmir. The author further writes “our idea of an emancipated woman operates in a conceptual framework of its own. For us it is fundamentally a moral idea as against an intellectual concept in the west”. Even if we take our idea of emancipation as a moral one, how can it be separate from intellectuality? This is exactly where we are in error. Moral choice can not be made and cannot be effective unless and until it has an intellectual background. We cannot and we don’t choose morals in vacuum. They are integrally related to social, political, economical and ideological aspects of a society. How many Muslim women in Kashmir, for instance, have the first hand knowledge of Islam? How many of them are well aware of their rights and responsibilities even though from an Islamic perspective? The fact is that even this knowledge has come to them through a filter, that is, man. They know what man has chosen for them to know. This is the front where women have to equip themselves. They have to know for themselves. Men, howsoever well-meaning, cannot fight the stereotypes propagated against Kashmiri women. It’s the Kashmiri women themselves who can dismantle these stereotypes. For this, they have to understand the mechanism through which they are stereotyped. They cannot do this unless they are intellectually compatible with those who stereotype them.
I agree with the author when he says “…there is still a long way to go before all Kashmiri women… approximate a common minimum description of emancipation: as somebody who is educated, knows him or herself, understands the world around him and has mature opinion about the issues” But what is more important is that Kashmiri woman has to make herself competent enough to work out her own definitions of her emancipation rather than let men set frames for her mind and body.

 (Feedback at ishbashir@gmail.com)

Lastupdate on : Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST