India’s Exploitation of Climate Change is Killing Kashmiri Women
OP-ED: Women in Kashmir are expected to exist under a constant reality of patriarchal terror sponsored by the state of India.
The region, one of the most physically militarized zones in the world, is also tightly digitally surveilled. India has been dubbed the ‘internet shutdown capital of the world’, and nowhere is this reality more prevalent than in Kashmir – a policy of repression which deepens Kashmir’s isolation, and renders Americans oblivious to what is happening on the ground.
Yet Kashmir is not disconnected from the world. The region, and the rest of South Asia, exists at the epicenter of cascading impacts from climate change, and ignorance of the realities impacting the most marginalized and impacted in Kashmir will have consequences felt around the globe.
Kashmiri women are placed on a particular political spectrum of marginalization, and faced with a barrage of constant blame underscoring a deep-seated misogynistic hatred. Kashmiri women are often held responsible for climate change, and misogyny threads its way into women’s existence in all public spheres, including education and employment. The brunt of blame for global warming and the associated decimation of agricultural production is laid at the feet of Kashmiri women, part of a long-standing cycle of patriarchal suppression which not only forces women into the domestic sphere, but also holds them accountable for all its failings and few of its successes.
Much hatred and blame comes, at least in part, from an underlying confusion and a misguided anger. Climate change is inexplicable, and often incomprehensible, to the average person. Targeting vulnerable and marginalized groups offers an easy avenue for displacement of this confusion and anger, yet always at the expense of those being targeted.
Climate Change, Gender Roles, and Mental Health Amid the Indian Occupation
This collective outrage has cocooned into an epidemic of depression and poor mental health outcomes among Kashmiri women. Ather Zia, an associate professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of Northern Colorado, emphasized the magnitude of stringent gender roles and their consequences in forcing women into undue mental health concerns.
“In Kashmir, women are doubly facing mental health challenges – and are counted as facing more clinical depression,” Zia said, “while the whole Kashmiri population is facing PTSD, [or] rather a perpetual traumatic syndrome. The social roles that women have make them doubly prone to stress.”
The mental stress on Kashmiris of all genders can be sourced largely to the occupation of Kashmir by Indian forces, which provides a backdrop of constant militarization, fear, and exposure to mass death and violence. This, studies have shown, can significantly impact and even damage neural pathways, increasing the risk for adverse mental health outcomes and late-life progressive diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.
The Indian regime’s policies appear to willfully neglect and even exploit the impact of climate change on Kashmir, amounting to an indirect application of genocidal policy. India, for example, administers Kashmir’s forestland and is responsible for severe environmental destruction as a result – often permitting climate change-fueled wildfires to run amok. The government also boosts the severity of these wildfires by approving mass deforestation for government infrastructure projects and even hospitality projects led by oligarchs politically connected to the Indian government. This decimates natural forest ecosystems, decreasing their resilience and increasing their susceptibility to wildfires.
Sakina Bhatti, a Kashmiri lawyer who resides in Philadelphia, believes knowledge of climate change is inherent among Kashmiris. Formal education, she says, is a largely irrelevant factor in their understanding.
“Lack of internet absolutely affects educational opportunities [but] I believe it is very disingenuous to presume that there isn’t inherent knowledge about the climate and the changes to it over recent decades, especially as Kashmiri lands have been increasingly occupied by people who are not native to the region,” Bhatti said. “For example, Kashmiri elders will often talk about the changes in the weather from their youth to now, or the fact that they can no longer drink from many bodies of water because of the increased pollution.“
Kashmiris are inevitably knowledgeable about the land they are native to. Indigenous people have constantly documented the changes they’ve witnessed as non-natives, including Indian settlers, continue to occupy the land.
The rate of occupation is increasing, as well: Over 3 million domicile certificates were issued for occupiers in Kashmir over the course of a few months in 2024. Kashmir is enduring settler colonialism, and in the midst of this, its identity is being intentionally erased. Kashmiri culture and identity are marketed as Indian by default, with no room for Kashmiris to express their true culture and national identity.
While the Himalayas span multiple countries, and many shared cultural precepts have emerged across the region as a result of thousands of years of trade and cooperation by the myriad ethno-cultural groups living on their native lands, Kashmir exists in culture, identity, and civil society as an independent country. The people of Kashmir are aware of the deeply intricate and colorful history of the country and natural landscape, in spite of attempts at national erasure by external cultural imposition.
Water as a Weapon of War
Kashmir’s agriculture and water resources are controlled by India, which manages the upstream administration of the Indus river basin – an issue which has faced increasing significance amid broader regional conflict. In 1960, India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty, which divided the Indus river and its tributaries between Pakistan and India. Rivers on the western front, including major portions of the Indus and Chenab rivers, were allocated to Pakistan, granting it the majority of water use rights while allocating unlimited water use to India for non-consumptive endeavors such as power generation and fishery production. Still, geographic reality and increased Indian encroachment into Kashmir subsequent to the 1960 treaty have created a circumstance whereby Indian forces maintain de facto control over the entirety of water distribution throughout the Indus river basin, from Kashmir into Pakistan.
This has been compounded significantly amid recent regional geopolitical developments, as India last month moved to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan. Recently, open armed hostilities between India and Pakistan have threatened total breakdown of water distribution in the area as India’s water minister threatened to cut off regional water supply.
Kashmir, meanwhile, remains caught in the middle. Pakistan seeks to exploit it as part of its broader conflict with India, while India seeks to facilitate full-scale settler-colonialism in an effort to erase Kashmiri identity in favor of Hindutva-styled Indian nationalism. As part of India’s efforts to weaponize water use for its broader regional aims, the BJP has approved four new hydropower projects on the Chenab river in or near Kashmir, further threatening local stability and climate security.
From a legal standpoint, while the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty did nothing to begin with in order to address Kashmir’s self-determination, Indian forces today increasingly violate Kashmir’s autonomy in terms of its food and water production. Indian occupation in the area serves largely to benefit Indian settlers, while restrictions on water use for Kashmiris has impacted basic hygiene and increased the number of excess deaths in Kashmir. Most of all, water use impacts a broad array of basic human needs.
“The rivers that originate in Kashmir, particularly the Indus River and its tributaries, are essential for agriculture and daily life for millions of people across the region,” Bhatti explained. “However, the management of these water resources has become a contentious issue, as India has taken control of the water for its own agricultural and industrial needs, undermining the rights and needs of the local Kashmiri population. Moreover, increased tourism to Kashmir has increased the pollution of Kashmiri water sources, making them unusable for the local population. In some areas, Kashmiris are even limited in how often they can bathe due to the lack of water, despite the fact that the water originating in Kashmir supplies millions of people downstream.”
Climate change inserts itself into the daily lives of Kashmiri women, compounding their struggles and necessitating additional communalism and cooperation to counter its impacts. Yet the dual struggles of patriarchy and genocide can only dissipate after the Indian occupation ends.
“Conditions of women in Kashmir face the dual scourge of military occupation and a society crushed by the occupation, which creates anomie [a breakdown of norms comprising a functional civil society],” Zia said. “Day-to-day policies can be improved per gendered rights in family, education, and professions, – but overarchingly, the one biggest problem facing Kashmiris is the Indian military occupation that needs to go for Kashmiris to take charge and bring, in the long-term, sustainable and culture-specific changes that give people overall security.”
As news outlets continue their focus on Pakistan and India, Kashmiri women remain victims of patriarchy and genocidal violence, greeted with brutality by Indian forces and in their own homes. Insecurity and colonialism breed hatred, and patriarchy does not leave during a crisis – to resolve one, we must resolve the other.
