Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter concludes an understanding of Muslim Kashmiri women by focussing on the question of their agency in the historical resistance movement to the Indian rule. It shows that women are not merely accidental victims and they choose to operate within struggles of self-determination in Kashmir in order to register their political agency and fight for their rights. Women are persistent in their fight against the injustice of the state and the excesses of the social patriarchy. By focussing on women’s context-specific political action, the chapter shows women’s effective struggles against patriarchy are at the heart of a complex resistance. The experience of victimisation often stimulates women to take control and direct their lives into struggles pressing for change. It is only by engaging in political actions that they come to realise the lack of freedoms and injustice in Kashmir. Despite experiencing these isolating political conditions, women do not accept or internalise their own supposed inferiority. Instead, they have challenged the patriarchal militarisation and social patriarchal subjugation (to uphold women’s rights and the cause of freedom).