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ATHWAAS, which means ‘a warm
greeting or shake of the hand’ in Kashmir, is an initiative that has reached
out to many people, especially women, in Jammu &Kashmir since its inception
at a Roundtable meeting organized by WISCOMP…
Following
the Kashmir Roundtable Breaking the
Silence- Women and Kashmir and in response to the express request on part of
some of the Kashmiri participants to form a group who could visit each other’s
realities, record women’s voices, build bridges of trust and reconciliation,
WISCOMP facilitated an initiative called ATHWAAS in June 2001 following a
meeting held in Srinagar. At the meeting the purpose of ATHWAAS and its goals
were set out. ATHWAAS,
which means a handshake and symbolizes reaching out to the other, WISCOMP’s
Kashmir initiative has opened up an invigorating process that has enabled its
members to negotiate the difficult journey to re-humanization and understanding.
Conscious of the empowering potential of “listening/peacemaking circles”
(that have been used widely in Canada and the USA), WISCOMP used this
methodology to encourage active listening and to facilitate an acceptance of the
existence of multiple truths and realities in Kashmir. An important area of
shared intervention identified by the Kashmiri women relates to the need to work
with young men and women so as to dissuade them from “picking up the gun.”
Since a whole generation had been raised in an environment vitiated by conflict,
it had become easy to draw them into violence. As
part of the WISCOMP Athwaas initiative, Kashmiri women travel to
different parts of the troubled region to:
The
initiative began with a re-humanization process between Muslim, Hindu and Sikh
Kashmiri women, representing different truths and narratives and divergent
perspectives on the conflict and its resolution, today has had a ripple effect
with the women engaging in a range of activities including active listening,
trauma counseling, conflict transformation workshops and facilitating an
interface with the district administration.
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Breaking the Silence: Women in Kashmir Roundtable background
on Athwaas Workshops
in Kashmir and New Delhi Women in Dialogue: Envisioning the Road Ahead in Jammu and Kashmir Exploring Peace Journalism: A Workshop
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is an
all-Kashmiri group formed from among the roundtable participants and is
sufficiently reflective of the diversity of the valley. The core travel group
consisted of Valley Muslims (Sunni, Shia , Ahmedia), Hindus and Sikhs and they
decided that the guidelines for their work in Kashmir would be networking,
awareness, reconciliation and advocacy (NARA). Subsequently, through their trips
in Baramulla, Kupwara, Anantnag, Pulwama, Srinagar, and the camps in Jammu, home
to the displaced Pandits of the valley, the onus has been on listening to
women’s narratives on the conflict, identifying support structures, copinging
mechanisms and generating awareness about alternatives available to redress
genuine grievances. Between November 2001 and March 2004, ATHWAAS has undertaken
as many as eight field trips to Kashmir