Kashmiri Women: Between Tradition and Torment

Afsana Rashid


Afsana Rashid meets Kashmiri widows to reflect their pain and torment neglect and local traditions that are adding to their unending suffering.


Thirty- eight year old Gulshan Ara, a widow from Trehgam in border district of Kupwara lost her husband in 1991. Left with six children she found it unattainable to feed them. Living in poverty of pains and hunger her quandaries never receded. “They kept piling up and none lent a genuine helping hand. I was left on my own’, says Gulshan with the mourns of a widow.

Consequently, Gulshan was forced to do menial jobs in the neighboring houses but that did not make a sustainable earning for her. “I worked as a labourer but for a meagre amount. The day’s labour could not, at times fetch me an amount in double figures and many a time, we had nothing to eat but to satisfy our belly with water”, said the mother of six children in an awful tone with tears rolling down her cheeks.

After undertaking body scraping labour and soul bleeding exhaustion, for about four years, her own health deteriorated and on medical ground she had to get one of her kidneys removed. Ailing Gulshan finally resorted to marriage, again. “No one objected to this decision and why should they? None comes forward once you are in need, then why to pay heed to them if they interfere”, she stated.

Majority of the Kashmiri widows are illiterate and unemployed. After the death of their husband, suddenly a situation arises where the entire liability of the family slides, almost like a ghost, onto their enfeebled and bereaved shoulders.

“They are caught in the dual responsibility of managing and maintaining the family and in the process they neglect themselves and fall prey to various diseases, some curable, some not”, observed Dr. Rukhsana Khan, a general practitioner.

Emotionally, economically and psychologically a woman feels detached, her status in the society changes the moment she looses her husband. According to Sheema a woman activist, widows are faced with a vacuum, denying responsible connection with engrained within the jeopardy of isolated struggle a grim beacon for an ocean of desolated widowhood she juggles between abandonment, indifference and lack of a shore to harbor her worries on!

Dr. Rouf Mohi-ud-Din, a social activist avers the non-existence of social cooperation, let alone a proactive stance. “Local support system is lacking. It is hard to convince families for her (our widow’s) marriage, especially her in-laws and in certain cases they themselves are not willing to re-marry. However, in case of natural deaths of husbands, widows remarry. Working  omen (read widow) also go for second marriage.

On the whole, society dislikes such practices especially in present situation. Transfer of property does not take place in most of the cases and that too creates additional problems”, explained Dr. Rouf. He insists that the survival of 15-25,000 young widows is not only lurking but it is a grave issue that needs to be addressed with immediacy and effect.

The sufferings of these neglected daily 9/11’s even locally go unseen, forget about international publicity! Failing to meet their mundane needs and rations, re-marriage could have been an alternative available to them, anti-suicide, if there is such a thing. But social stigma and other compulsions crowd in between.

Sometimes their circumstances leave them with minimal volition and they get captured between the ravages of time and conflict. Sophiya, an advocate in J&K High Court considers remarriage of widows as the best option. Though, remarriage is acceptable in Islam, it is generally not accepted openly. Sophiya, finds no reason why people should thwart it. She finds her being re-married as a sagacious decision.

“This can help her to start life afresh and above all she finds financial support and security. In case her ex-husband is alive the children will go to him under the Muslim Personal Law especially the male child or to the grandparents”, she said. ‘But if economically she is sound she does not need to remarry if she has children and she does not want to’, Sophiya opined but at the same time she believed that ‘children should not be made an excuse, her feelings should also be looked into. For children she can look for other alternatives like sending them to boarding schools’.
Referring to local traditions where in many cases widows have been remarried to their brother-in-laws, Sophiya feels that under such circumstances both widow and her children are ‘safe and secure’. “NGO’s have a role to play here. Not only can they help them to sustain but they can provide them with proper counselling that would help these widows in the long run”, she suggested.

Widows suffer on all fronts, she admitted. Financially, they are dependent. They have to support their children and have to look after their own security as well. “Society is not that much supportive. Sympathy is shown but that is timely. Assistance in real sense is hardly provided and sometimes they even get exploited”, Sophiya admitted.

Either shelter homes, where both mother and child could live should be provided or they should be assisted on financially, by providing them with self-employment units, so to an extent they become self productive. Economic independence should be taken care of, she insisted.

Society is not always believed to have encouraged these “silent victims” to go for second marriage. Consequently, there are various examples where women do menial jobs to keep the pot boiling. Yet the void remains, and expands with the preparation of each unwarranted coffin.

Shabnam Banu, another widow, in her early thirties was suggested by her acquaintance to re-marry as she had no source of income. She however, played deaf for the sorry traditional blackmailing fact that her in-laws, in such a situation, wanted her to surrender her two female kids.

In her words, “How is it possible that I leave my two kids and that too in a situation where they (in-laws) have already driven us out of their house”, Shabnam argued. Caught in this unnecessary and emendable torment, Shabnam is putting two day’s labour in one to earn a morsel for her siblings.

Parvez Imroz, patron J&K Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS) submitted that under normal conditions, widow remarriage is not opposed and it is their legal right under Muslim Law. But in the prevailing situation society does not willingly support these marriages.

“JKCCS adopts those families who have no other source of income and in the preference  kit are those who have discontinued their studies. This is not the absolute answer to their problems but unquestionably it makes a difference”, stated Parvez Imroz. Afroza Qadir, National Secretary Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), a pro-Indian political party, emphasizes a special reservation be given to widows in all the fields. “Not only orphanages but widowages should be there and personally I am after that. I am also trying to establish small units for women especially widows so that they are financially secure”, she stressed.

Abdul Rashid Bhat, Assistant Professor Shah-I-Hamadan Institute, Faculty of Social Science, University of Kashmir says that while some local NGOs are doing good job, still more needs to be done. “As far as the society is concerned, I feel people are more self-centered. The issue needs to be addressed”, he emphasized .

Jammu & Kashmir Yateem Foundation, a local NGO finds re-marriage of the widow and care of orphan by his/her relatives as the best solution to the crisis of widows and orphans. However, Muneer Ahmad, chairman of the organization says that they can not reach every sufferer for want of financial resources and they sufferings of thousands of women continue and their woes are drowned in the political rhetoric of ‘leaders’ who do not have time or will to help or support the suffering women.


Afsana Rashid is a Srinagar based journalist writing for leading Kashmiri English daily Kashmir Times. She has also made television programmes and produced documentaries. She was recently in London on a Chevening Scholarship.

Editor: Murtaza Shibli