CC_India

Credit Pathfinder International
The WRN initiative took form at a meeting in Nepal in
2011 that brought together 16 women from Afghanistan,
Pakistan and India. They constituted the core of what
has become an expanding network. In Kathmandu
three interlinked thematic areas were identified which
resonated with all three countries as priority areas
— militarisation and extremism, corruption and lack
of accountability in governance — and the impact on
security. As its first activity, the flexible framework of
a Community Conversation was proposed to document
women’s understanding of these themes as related to
their lived reality in ‘conflict’ affected societies.
The India Community Conversations interpreted the
notion of ‘conflict affected areas’ as broader than a ‘militarised
zone’ and representative of some of the ongoing
conflicts/struggles. They included societies affected
by conventional border conflict and insurgency in the
border districts of Jammu & Kashmir and identity conflict
in Tripura in the Northeast. Also reflecting the multiple
sites of peoples’ democratic resistance movement
against predatory development, land acquisition and
dispossession, the CC focused on the people’s resistance
against the Korean steel giant POSCO in Odhisa.
Here the state’s coercive apparatus of paramilitaries,
police and POSCO’s mercenary guards are pitted against
women, children and men. The fourth CC engaged with
the aftermath of communal violence, and focused on
women’s perspectives of its impact on their lives in
Kandhamal, Odisha focused and explored the challenges
of co-existing with perpetrators, and accessing
justice in a situation in a situation of unequal power.
OBJECTIVES
The CC based studies aim to document women’s voices
and experiences and focus on the conflict affected people’s
experiences and perspectives on corruption, security
and the multifaceted aspects of militarisation and
extremism and as it impacts women’s lives and specifically
to:
• Explore women’s strategies of resistance, and agency
in managing survival of family and communities,
building peace, pursuing justice.
• Assess the response of state institutions and civil
society sphere.
• Share cross site experiences on promoting women’s
rights and policy leverage.
• Intersectionality of sites of conflicts
OUTPUT
• Develop a gendered narrative of social impact of
politicised violence, militarisation and corruption in
these conflict affected areas.
• Construct a cross border agenda based on the gendered
experience of politisised violence, militarisation,
extremism and corruption.
SELECTION OF SITES
Four quite varied situations were selected to reflect the
country’s multiple types of conflict as well as women’s
differentiated experiences. Selection of the sites was
also influenced by the availability of local partners with
social and research capacity.
8 UNEQUAL CITIZENS: Women’s Narratives of Resistance, Militarisation, Corruption and Security