In Kashmir, most women don’t adhere to purdah. Kashmiri women work outdoors and share work with men. They may not be flashily dressed but they are not the type who would like to live in purdah for all time. If you stand outside a college for women or a girls’ school in Srinagar, you will see students wearing the shalwar kameez and no burkha. The only concession they make to the sentiments of their elders is to have the chunni covering their heads.

In the early ’90s after militancy erupted in Kashmir, several radical organisations tried to enforce purdah on women. Because of the fear, for a while college and university-going girls wore the burkha, as in several instances acid attacks were carried out on those who did not. But the campaign didn’t last long and with the situation improving in the late ’90s, women gave up the burkha once more.

However, a few years ago the campaign for the burkha was raised by a small militant group, Lashkar-e-Jabbar, to establish its standing. A little-known outfit, the group’s main objective was to grab the headlines and earn a place for itself in the ranks of the larger militant organisations. Its campaign had no deeper purpose. However, the major militant organisations criticised the dictates of the Lashkar-e-Jabbar.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the veteran Kashmiri separatist leader, had also criticised the Lashkar-e-Jabbar’s move to enforce a purdah code and had vehemently opposed acid attacks on veilless women in the valley. Although he supported the observance of purdah by Muslim women, describing it as a symbol of dignity and self-respect, Geelani said it needed a system and state to enforce the law of purdah. He had urged those who were campaigning for the observance of purdah in the valley to go in for persuasive methods instead of coercion. Most of the Hurriyat leaders had also condemned the move, calling it un-Islamic.

Kashmiri culture has to be properly understood to know why the burkha campaign will not last here. Kashmiri women and youth are not inclined to take to the burkha. In the rural areas, most women work in the fields. Most of them can be seen in knee-deep paddy fields, looking after the crop that provides Kashmir’s staple diet. As they work in the fields, food is brought to them from their homes and they eat it by the side of the waterways. How can they wear the burkha in these conditions?

With the situation improving in Kashmir, more girls are attending schools, colleges and university. They also attend professional institutes in other parts of the country.