Men on the Side, Please

Problems and prospects of women waging battles of the ballot in the Valley

- Toibah Kirmani

AS Nilofer Sajjad, an independent candidate for the Chadoora assembly seat in central Kashmir's Budgam district, distributes her leaflets bearing her election symbol, a pen nib with seven rays emanating from it as if from the sun, men at a nearby food cart exchange sarcastic glances. "As if men have done us enough favours and only women are left now," one of them quips, looking at the words on the leaflet: "Don't waste your vote. Vote for change." Indeed, it isn't easy for the 43-year-old homemaker taking her first steps in the very public sphere of electoral politics in Kashmir to evade the long shadow cast by decades of insurgency that made 'mainstream' almost a pejorative for many in the region.

"The stigma attached to mainstream politics makes it less appealing for women," says an analyst, adding that Kashmiri women have been at the forefront of popular protests such as in 2010 and 2016. In the separatist camp, however, there have been no women in leadership positions except Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Nation) founder Asiya Andrabi, who spearheaded a campaign against cinema halls and beauty parlours in the early 1990s and enforced diktats on purdah. She has been in Delhi's Tihar Jail since 2018 for allegedly waging war against India.