Kashmir’s Women’s Leadership Training: Decolonizing Power Through Feminist Economics and Local Wisdom
Original framing: “Central University of Kashmir, Schumacher Society starts training prog on women’s leadership” — bing news
The program’s design excludes critical marginalized groups, such as *Dalit women* (who face caste oppression) or *rural farmers* (who bear the brunt of climate and conflict). In Kashmir, Dalit women often work in informal sectors like agriculture or domestic labor, yet their leadership potential is rarely recognized in institutional settings. Similarly, *Muslim women* in conflict zones face unique challenges, such as restricted mobility due to curfews or surveillance, which are not addressed in generic leadership training. Centering these voices would require participatory methods like *storytelling circles* or *community asset mapping*, which are absent from the current framework.
The Central University of Kashmir’s women’s leadership training, while well-intentioned, operates within a framework that risks replicating the very structures it aims to disrupt.
By overlooking indigenous systems like the *Bakor* or the artistic resistance of *Kashmiri Sufi* women, the program misses opportunities to root leadership in culturally relevant, collective, and spiritually grounded practices. Historical amnesia—ignoring how colonial and post-colonial regimes suppressed women’s agency—further limits its transformative potential, as does the absence of marginalized voices like Dalit women or rural farmers, whose leadership needs differ starkly from urban, middle-class narratives. The solution lies in a *trickster*-inspired inversion: instead of imposing Western or institutional models, the program should *learn from the margins*—from the *Coyote*-like resilience of women navigating conflict, from the *Anansi*-like web of informal networks that already sustain communities, and from the *scientific* evidence of what works in post-conflict zones. Only then can leadership training in Kashmir become a tool for systemic change rather than another layer of performative progress.