The Hindu : Army spearheads social change in Kargil

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Friday, Mar 12, 2004

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Army spearheads social change in Kargil

By Praveen Swami

Young women at the Women's Empowerment Centre in Kargil . — Photo: Praveen Swami

KARGIL, MARCH 11. As growing numbers of teenagers almost anywhere do, Tahira Bano spends her afternoons glued to her computer, surfing the Net for news and chatting with cyber-friends. She has a firm grasp of desktop publishing, image processing and databases; if all goes well she will soon hold a diploma to prove it.

Women with computer skills are not unusual in middle-class India — but Tahira Bano most certainly is. Like most of her 17 classmates, she hails from a village above Kargil. Until a year ago, Tahira Bano had never even seen a computer. Now she is talking about a career, something almost unheard of in a region where the Jammu and Kashmir Government has historically resisted posting women in top administrative positions for fear of antagonising the conservative clerics.

Inaugurated in December 2000 by the 14 Corps Commander, Lieutenant-General Arjun Ray, the Women's Empowerment Centre (WEC) in Kargil is at the cutting edge of social change in the highly-conservative mountain region. Funded by the Indian Army, the WEC runs job training courses for women. At any given time, almost a hundred students learn a variety of skills, ranging from computers to carpet weaving, knitting and embroidery. Some of the students are graduates; others have just a few years of school education behind them.

Like much of northern India, Kargil has no tradition of women working at jobs that give them some degree of economic independence. Although women work hard at home, and look after agricultural fields and livestock, they rarely have any cash in hand to call their own. A fortnight's work on embroidering a shawl, for example, can bring Rs. 150. Ready markets exist for WEC products — Kargil's main market, for example, stocks carpets from Uttar Pradesh, and shawls made in Punjab. In time, the Army itself could prove a big buyer for locally-made products.

Cash, though, is not the only reason for the growing popularity of the WEC. The WEC in Kargil, for example, has a badminton court, a television and a music system, making it the only place in the district women can call their own. The Army has also used its influence to organise tours by groups of women to the rest of the country. "We spend a lot of time persuading village leaders of the need for women's empowerment," says the 121 Brigade's Deputy Commander, Colonel S.S. Jog, "and the community is becoming receptive to new ideas."

Projects like the WEC are just a small part of Operation Sadbhavana, an effort to build bonds between mountain communities and the military. In 2001, the Army spent Rs. 2.77 lakhs on Operation Sadbhavana; this year, it will commit over Rs. 16 lakhs. The funds have gone into running and operating schools, clinics, an orphanage, and even a facility for the physically-challenged. At the special school, the physiotherapist Akhtar Bano marvels at what state-of-the-art equipment is doing for her wards. "My biggest problem are not the disabilities I deal with," she says, "but parents who cannot believe their children can live fulfilling lives."

Tahira Bano knows she can. Her teacher, Zakia Bano, is living proof of what is possible. Three years ago, she was part of the first batch of Kargil women to join the WEC.

Now, she is a computer instructor there. Most of those who studied with Zakia Bano also have jobs, either in the private sector or in other Operation Sadbhavana projects. "All we needed was a chance," she says, "and the Army gave it to us."

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