Shopian: The red and blue uniforms stand vividly against the impossibly bright sunlight, falling and rising to the rhythm of leather being smacked by fists and hands. At various intervals, tuneless election jingles blast out of passing auto-rickshaws, advertising promises from candidates to the youth of the district. The teenage volleyball players—some wearing the hijab with their sportswear, others less deferential to local religious conservatism—remain focused on their own fierce contest.
Fifteen years ago this summer, the road outside the stadium, leading across the Rambiara River from Pulwama, had been barricaded by stone-throwing youth. The asset of a generation in Kashmir’s apple-growing heartland had committed itself to battling central and state police, determined to evict India and secure azaadi, or independence.
The protests were ignited in 2009 by the alleged rape and murder of two women—an allegation the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) later established was based on fabricated evidence.
Kashmiri Islamist leader G.N. Shaheen had claimed the purported rape-murder was part of a war against Kashmir’s religious traditions, embodied in its women. The perpetrators, Shaheen alleged, were “fanatic Hindus” who had put sindoor on one of the victims.
Largely born in the long shadow of those events, the young women playing volleyball along the Rambiara—not far from where the victims’ bodies were found—are engaged in a rebellion of their own. There is little government support though for the profound social change underway.
“I’m not really into politics,” says Shopian high-school student and volleyball player Nusrat Mir. “I just want a leader who cares for my dreams, too.”
Also Read: Kashmir’s ‘Generation Rage’ takes poll plunge after decade lost battling Indian forces on streets
Playing fields in the orchards
Swinging wildly outside her off-stump, 14-year-old Adeeba Jan is at some risk of annihilating her bat on the cement wicket as she tries to swat away the ball. “I’m warning you,” coach Summayah Lone says, “I’ll make you pay for it if you break it.”
A student at a school in Chowgam, where there are no sports facilities, Adeeba spends most of her afternoons at the nets in the cricket academy run by Sumayyah Lone, the coach of the state’s under-23 women’s team.
“Lots of girls in my school want to play sports, but their parents won’t let them,” Adeeba says. “I am lucky. My parents let me play cricket since I don’t have any brothers who can do so.”
Few understand that sentiment better than Summayah. The youngest of six sisters, she was given the freedoms usually reserved for boys in conservative rural societies. Even at the risk of being locked in her room as punishment, she would sneak out to play marbles with the local boys, together with volleyball and cricket.
“The boys didn’t like it, but I had a big advantage,” Summayah recalls. “You see, I owned the only bat.”
Later, in class 11, Summayah began playing national-level cricket. She was the only girl from the Kashmir Valley picked for the North Zone team in 2011. To attend nets in Srinagar, she’d make the 50-kilometre journey on a scooter bought in instalments, often braving miserable weather.
Educated in Nagpur and the National Institute of Sports in Patiala, Sumayyah spent time coaching teams outside the state before returning to Kashmir in 2018.
“Even though I didn’t get the training and support I needed to have a chance to become a national-level player,” she says, “I wanted to give the next generation of girls from Shopian every opportunity to realise their dreams.”
Across sports, women from southern Kashmir are earning a national reputation. Sana Gul and Hurrain Iqbal from Shopian won gold and silver medals respectively at a national Wushu tournament in April. Girls representing Shopian won Kashmir’s inter-district volleyball tournament last year. And Jasia Iqbal—the daughter of a daily-wage agricultural labourer in the village of Braripora—plays in the Women’s Premier League for Delhi.
Even though southern Kashmir has long been considered especially conservative, women have not been absent from the public space. Women from the region have occupied important positions in local politics, from National Conference veteran Sakina Itoo, daughter of a father slain by jihadists, to former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, and now her daughter Iltija Mufti. For the most part, however, they have avoided contentious religious issues, with Mehbooba consistently backing conservatives demanding women wear the hijab.
However, local politicians seem to be sensing the desire for change. The Jama’at-e-Islami-backed Independent candidate from the Kulgam constituency, Sayar Ahmed Reshi, raised eyebrows among his conservative constituents by calling for gyms to be set up for girls. “Girls in Iran and Saudi Arabia are playing sports, so there is no reason girls in Kashmir shouldn’t,” Sayar explained.
Summayah says, “Even before our girls manage to put their hands on a bat or a ball, they have to argue with their families and with society. They need every bit of support they can get—but, sadly, there just isn’t enough.”
Shadow of terror
Three years ago, when the firing ended, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists Sajad Ahmad Check and Basit Yaqoob Najar lay dead somewhere near mid-wicket, just a few dozen metres from the nets where Adeeba now attempts to strike cricket balls.
Following the shootout, police arrested Zeeshan Gauhar who owned the home next to the ground. A grenade and 10 Kalashnikov bullets were found in his home, Jammu and Kashmir police said. Together with his friend Mohammad Saleem Mir, prosecutors have said in a Jammu court that Zeeshan provided safehouses and ran weapons for jihadists.
“This is a bald lie,” says Zeeshan’s father, Altaf Gauhar Lone, “There was no grenade or pistol. The only thing my son loved was cricket.”
Even though Zeeshan is in prison, his father has cleared a small patch of apple orchard and set up a greenhouse-like indoor practice area covered with plastic. “This will be waiting for Zeeshan whenever he comes home.”
Even though both girls and boys from Shopian hope to compete at the national level, Summayah points out, the playing field isn’t even.
There is no bowling machine or turf wicket, facilities young cricketers elsewhere now take for granted, in all of southern Kashmir, she says. Altaf Lone’s academy, where she coaches, hopes to install astroturf wickets before the winter, but the costs will be difficult for players from rural homes to meet.
Local women volleyball players ThePrint spoke to also complained they had nowhere to play in the winter, while their competitors in other states could practise all year round. Jammu and Kashmir’s Sports Council is building an indoor sports stadium in Shopian, but work remains incomplete over five years after the project began.
“You can’t give our players village playgrounds and expect them to become national-level heroes,” Sumayyah says. “And they deserve the best.”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
Also Read: With Kashmir in election mode, security bureaucracy unprepared for looming mountain war with Jaish