They are pushed aside by their in-laws, shunned by neighbors, exploited by employers and harassed by security officers. They are Kashmir’s ‘half-widows’, 2,000 women whose husbands never returned home after security forces took them away for questioning as suspected separatists.
Where are they?
Are their hearts still palpitating or have the white shroud enveloped them?
The disputed border region between India and Pakistan has witnessed infinite deaths. Many people have vanished, presumed killed or imprisoned without trial or record. And amongst these things, women have become ‘the sufferers’ who are subjected to pay a huge price as they are lost in the limbo between missing and confirmed death.
Every week women in the region gather in protest along with their lost husband’s photographs. The so-called ‘half- widows’ are not in a position to collect their due pensions or remarry without official statement that their husbands are dead.
It has been speculated that in the past decade, nearly, 10,000 people were subjected to forced disappearances by armed personnel and about 2000 to 2500 among them were married men.
Women are not able to remarry because of the lacking official statement about their husband and also their religion forbids them to do so.
According to Islam, women must wait for seven years before taking another husband.
Half widows are not in a position to have any relief at their disposal from the Indian government during the stipulated period of seven years.
Nevertheless, they are entitled to have either a one-time grant of between $1,000 and $2,000 or a monthly pension of about $10.
Till date, the government has offered aid to 400 half-widows. Activists are of the view there are between 2,000 and 2,500 such women.
Bottom line:
Even after seven years, women right to their husband’s property is further threatened as the in laws come in between and assert their right on the possessions, making the life of women more deplorable.
Men may be the worst targets in a conflict situation but women in Kashmir have experienced the conflict doubly. Although, most of the dead or missing in Kashmir are men, they leave behind women to cope with mental trauma, economic hardships and the hard struggle to rebuild their lives and homes.
Only hope keeps the women going. Hope that their husbands and sons would come back one day and they could experience the lost familial beat pulsating in their life too.
