By Prarthna Sen
LANDSLIDES in Kashmir are a recurring phenomenon and generate economic losses amounting to lakhs of rupees every year. While most slow-moving landslides may not result in human casualties, they carry the potential to inflict heavy damage on people’s properties and lands over a certain period of time.
Rising temperatures across South Asia have amplified the intensity of floods, landslides and river-bank erosion in Kashmir. Human activities too serve as a major contributing factor in causing landslides, though most human-caused landslides can be prevented or mitigated.
While much is known about the severe environmental and humanitarian impacts caused by landslides in general, less is known about how gender and landslides in Kashmir stand correlated.
Since time immemorial, local communities in the region have relied on the tradition of using earthen stoves. This practice has been passed down through several generations, and to date, wood and dried leaves are collected by women and girls to be used as cooking fuel.
In addition, geographical factors like hilly terrains constrict opportunities that ensure their safe access to cleaner sources of renewable energy– as seen in villages in the Kupwara District for instance. The availability of wood makes for a fairly sustainable source of cooking and for keeping warm, especially during the winter months.
The use of traditional sources of energy in Kashmir such as fuelwood, dung and agricultural residues remains a common practice. In fact, a Jammu and Kashmir wood balance study revealed that villages that lacked access to forest areas, relied on unclean energy sources like agricultural residues, cow dung and kerosene instead.
By losing access to and control over forest and land resources in the aftermath of landslides, women and girls have to rely on other unclean energy sources, which in turn accentuate the possibilities of respiratory issues such as bronchitis, asthma and phlegm. The study revealed that in such villages, the consumption of kerosene witnessed a monumental rise from just a litre to around 11.5 litres!
Further, gender sensitivities stand mostly ignored or overlooked during the project design and planning phases of infrastructure development, such as hydropower projects for instance. Upcoming projects like the Bursar Dam are located in high-intensity seismic zones and thus, reflect poor decision-making and planning in landslide management practices.
Seismic activities surrounding dam locations must be determined in the initial stages of a project’s concept phase. Geotechnical experts must be roped in for evaluating landslide hazards and suggest corrective techniques to decrease such risks.
Gender-sensitive planning must include community-level consultations comprising all the female members of the communities to be affected, in attendance with their male counterparts, and holding discussions on matters of land-use zoning, conducting professional investigations and coming up with appropriate designs for reducing landslide risks.
Dam-induced displacements are known to affect all irrespective of age and gender. It restricts women and girls’ access to clean water, and proper sanitation facilities and compromises their safety and mobility. At any planning stage, it is imperative to identify such vulnerable groups whose voices have remained traditionally suppressed in the decision-making processes.
Also, Kashmir’s farming communities constitute women farmers in large numbers, who more often than not, remain overlooked when it comes to policy-making concerns. With time, changes in the gender roles in Kashmir’s agricultural sector have been observed, with women farmers forming the ‘invisible’ hands of Kashmir’s agricultural sector.
Women in the Gujjar and Bakarwal tribes for instance, are heavily involved cultivating maize in the mountainous areas of Kashmir. Despite being present in large numbers, women farmers remain constrained by their inaccessibility to credit, insurance and other such financial tools that help make lands more productive, even in the wake of natural disasters like landslides and earthquakes.
It is mostly their lack of awareness of government-sponsored insurance schemes that cover crop damage in light of such unforeseen events, leaving them highly vulnerable to the vagaries of nature in return. It is imperative to close such gender gaps concerning agricultural awareness in Kashmir, so as to ensure higher adaptation in the aftermath of landslide disasters and build resilience among women in farming communities.
To this end, counselling sessions for women farmers must be held to generate awareness and ensure capacity-building. For instance, women farmers must be encouraged to replant on lost and damaged grounds, as erosion resulting from lost ground cover can trigger flash floods and additional landslides in the near future.
It is also important to preserve the traditional land use rights, cultural rights and the right to life of indigenous communities that remain affected and/or forcibly displaced by landslides– especially, women and children, as they are found to be most vulnerable among those affected.
It is seen that governmental efforts for assisting landslide-affected persons in Kashmir remains restricted to doling out cash grants and relief materials (such as food grains etc.). Evacuation efforts too are found replete with loopholes.
With factors such as the onset of heavy monsoons and COVID-19 restrictions at present, awareness generation campaigns for populations at risk for instance, have invariably taken a hit. Being aware of local evacuation plans, for instance, enables one to avail immediate assistance in the aftermath of landslide disasters.
Thus, raising awareness among Kashmir’s female residents is of utmost priority– it enables them to render protection not only to themselves, but also to their children and other members of the family during the sudden onset of landslides, as also take adequate steps and measures for their safety and protection.
Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer
- Prarthana Sen is a member of the Indian Association for Asian and Pacific Studies (IAAPS) and former researcher at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Kolkata
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