Intro : “Pakistan was made only for the powerful and for the men. It was not made for weak and poor women like me. What are we worth and what is our status here? Nothing at all…”
—Basheeran Bibi, one of the numerous female victims of violence in Pakistan
When the whole nation was gearing up for Independence Day celebrations, Asiya Andrabi, founder of radical women’s outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat like every year dared to unfurl a Pakistani flag on the Indian soil on the poignant day of Partition. This is not the first time she did that. She justified it earlier also as a revolt against Bharatiya state. This time she has shown more courage by addressing a rally organised by Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Pakistan. There have been such obscure incidents of unfurling Pakistani flag in few districts of Kashmir Valley, but Asiya Andrabi’s act of treason is far more dangerous than the terrorists infiltrating from Pakistan.
Asiya Andrabi, a separatist, some even label her as feminist of different kind, founded a religious group Dukhtaran-e-Millat, literally means Daughters of the Nation, in 1987. The wife of a founding member of the Hizbul Mujahiddeen, Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, who is in jail since 1992, Asiya wants to implement Islamic laws in Kashmir, for which she believes separation from Bharat is inevitable. While propagating her jihadi ideology, she openly says, “Yes, I believe in that, and not only in Kashmir. I believe jihad is the most sacred job in Islam, and we believe we will be rewarded in the life hereafter. So, if Kashmir will be liberated from Indian clutches and there will be jihad somewhere else in Muslim world it’s my dream that my sons will go there and fight, even if my son become a suicide bomber and would kill the enemies of Islam…”
This makes the lady most dangerous proponent of violence in the name of Jihad. After sending her son safely to Malaysia on Bharatiya passport to play cricket, she is instigating common Kashmiri women through her group and a chain of schools run by it, that the dream of Pakistan is incomplete without the merger of Kashmir. This women force, though just in few dozens, has a potential to create more Jihadists than the terrorist organisations across the border.
At the same time, she is cutting off the womenfolk of the Valley from the Kashmiri culture, which is deeply rooted in the Bharatiya civilisation. She is converting true Kashmiriyat into Pakistani version of Political Islam that is also in the name of Kashmiri identity.
The worst part is that she is calling Pakistan ‘a dreamland’ of which Kashmir is the ‘jugular vein’. On the one hand while talking about religious rights of women; she is fooling the masses by showing the mirage of Pakistan. The country, which is consistently ranked among the worst places for women in the world, where violence against women is the ‘rule of the land’ as the cases of Malala Yusufzai and Sabeen Mahmud and women wearing Jeans is cited as the reason behind earthquakes by a Maulana, is projected as a dreamland for Kashmiri women.
This poisonous ploy has to be uprooted and the best way to do that is providing quality education and training to everyone in Jammu & Kashmir irrespective of gender. Culturally and historically that education should provide correct perspectives on Kashmiriyat. Like everywhere, the aspirations of youth in the state are very high. It is a high time that the government of Jammu and Kashmir book such people under the charges of treason and give stern message to insidious tendencies in the valley.
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