Kashmir was always a conservative society. I remember the culture shock I got in 1985, when my dad’s transfer brought me from the national capital to the ”backwaters of a backward region in a Third World country” (my coinage). After the callous poverty and misery on the streets of Delhi, and the grime of the hot dusty plains, Kashmir seemed exactly like the picture postcard Paradise of pristine beauty with its clear lakes, snow covered mountains and the breathtaking landscapes. It took a good part of three decades to find out the slime, grime, and filth of Paradise in the minds and hearts of my fellow compatriots which is famously dubbed as ”crab mentality”, after the well-known observed behaviour of crabs in a pot.

(AFP photo)

I was privileged enough to belong to what would be termed a fairly liberal family in the sense that they believed in the education of daughters and promoted studiousness and personal libraries. But yes, there were lines drawn on certain habits and lifestyles even though 1990 was far away yet. I must have disturbed my cousins a lot. My tomboyish manners and fearless attitude, what I call my ” Dilliwajaen’ (belonging to Delhi) view must have been a pain in their neck and in hindsight I amusingly see their Kashmiri ”kaekgi” (sarcasm) as pathetic attempts to break me knowing I lived life on my own terms.

So wearing skirts as a sports uniform for my school basketball team, prancing around in jeans/trousers, hobknobbing with boy cousins flying kites, and playing cricket and later discussing everything political and religious was at best tolerated with seething lips, gnashing teeth and clenched fists by the elders. But come 1990 and the burqa diktat by militant organizations enforced through acid attacks, my extended family got a license to further subdue my spirit they had not been able to break.

I still remember how the fear of militants was used to solve property or marital disputes, forcibly get unwilling girls married to arranged grooms and stop any inter-caste, inter-religious marriage with the open threat of ”sending militants after the Hindu or Sikh boy who had dared to lure our girl”. The advent of Islamo-fascism through Pakistan’s Shadow War / proxy war let loose a reign of terror and permanently cast a shadow over the aspirations of many women in the Kashmir Valley.

Yet like flood waters, nothing can stop the flow of progress. Just like the generation of our grandmothers had successfully shed the shuttlecock burqa made famous by foreign photographers such as Bernier in travel magazines, etc, as a regressive practice, the same way successive generations were progressing in small changes such as less number of children, sending all girls to school, allowing boys to take up unconventional careers and even opening up to the idea of girls and women leaving home to study/work in Indian and foreign cities. This is a considerable achievement for a region in the grip of Wahhabism/Salafism since the 1990s and constantly being pulled back to the 7th century by fatwas of mullahs and the misogynistic media and social networks.

We can muse all we want of how – had Kashmir not been used as a launching pad for Jihad against India (Ghazwa-e-Hind) by those who still believe in the unfinished business of Partition”, how much forward and progressive the Paradise might have been. But musing is self-indulgence and we do not have the time to do that when our youth are falling prey to the real threat of indoctrination and regressive altered Arabised history in the grand scheme of establishing meta-narratives. The thing is, as civilizations do, regressive practices that were once seen as a part of culture are being questioned the world over and the advent of technology has made it possible to get windows into every country and geographical region of the world.

Hence the narratives that my generation grew up with – that Pakistan was the land of the pure, that Arabia was the epitome of ethics and human rights, that Muslims did not live dignified lives in India, that the Ummah has always been a peaceful, tolerant one and had spread through the benevolent Kings, the Sufi mystics and the power of reasoning, so on and so forth, are shattering on a daily basis now. Hence the ” Oppression Olympics” of Muslims that closet Islamists in the guise of scholars, academicians, media spokespersons of upright citizens of the community like to peddle do not hold water, and incidents like the Pragash controversy, the Zubin Mehta concert fiasco, the Literary Festival cancellation, and the recent Zaira Wasim trolling lay bare the actual extent of the damage that Kashmir’s psyche has undergone in 27 years.

It may seem like harmless trolling to many apologists but they can never imagine how real trolling on the streets of Srinagar and other districts can seem like and what exactly women undergo if they wear pants/trousers, ride a scooty, walk alone with uncovered hair, without escorts or even dream of joining the fashion and entertainment industry. Though because of awareness and an improvement in police-public relations and the stigma attached to a harassed woman, physical violence is minimal – a far cry from the acid attacks and knee-cappings of the 1990s, yet the verbal abuse, the harassment in workplaces and families once a woman becomes prominent should give a visual of why Zaira felt the need to put up those deleted posts in the first place.

Misogyny has no borders in South Asia. It would be dishonest to say that Afghanistan is the most dangerous place for women, or that Pakistan is now cracking down on Taliban forces who shoot school going girls in the head, or that New Delhi / Bangalore is becoming safer for women. But the first step is acknowledging the deep rot which has set in our society since extremist forces took over and long before when it was taboo to question regressiveness in a particular community or culture. Women in the movies or as singers and dancers especially from Muslim backgrounds were always looked down upon and frowned on as ” nautch-girls”. It hasn’t been that long ago when one of India’s talented actor Shabana Azmi was termed as a ” naachne-gaanewali” by the so-called well-wishes of the Indian Muslims – the mullahs.

If the UN proclaimed adage that countries will progress only if their women are empowered is to be taken seriously then we need to take a stand against this mindset that women should not be seen or heard. Do not let the token Liberalism of apologists or two-faced, dishonest community leaders who work for interfaith harmony with the unwritten rule of ”you-do-not-point-at-regressive-practices-in-my-religion-and-I-will-leave-yours-alone” rule fool you. Women need to be upheld according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and not against some divine text, or centuries old, unconfirmed and heard sayings.

This is not just about women but men too. Patriarchy hurts men too and if future mothers are to bring up well-balanced, stable and respectful sons, then the mullah-politician-military nexus needs to be called out as well as the hypocrisy of the Right wing morality brigade and Left-wing postmodern moral relativism.