It was not an easy decision to be a photojournalist in a place like Kashmir. For a woman like me, going out in the field with a camera hanging down my neck was an awkward vocation for many reasons. A place where rape and sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war by the state and where the sight of a woman with a camera would raise many eyebrows among my own people, it was akin to walking on a double-edged sword. But the urge to tell the stories of my people convinced me that the only thing I want to do with my life is tell stories through pictures.
Kashmir has many distinctions to its credit. Popularly known as the ‘Paradise on Earth’ for its unmatchable natural beauty, it has become the mostly densely militarised zone on the earth. Since 1989, more than 90,000 people have died and nearly 8,000 have gone missing. Rapes and incarceration are routine.
When I started working as a photojournalist in 2015, I never thought that the field would be so unforgiving. The huge military presence, daily gunfights and violent protests did intimidate me at first but soon did I realise that I still was much safer than the people who were directly affected by the happenings around. I especially thought about
women like me. There were mothers who had lost their sons, sisters whose brothers had been blinded, wives who didn’t know whether their husbands were dead or alive; termed half- widows in Kashmir, daughters who had never seen their fathers.
Finally I took a plunge and tried to bring back the stories of pain and suffering from the perspective of a woman. The work submitted with this nomination statement is not just a collection of photographs shot by a photographer in a conflict zone but a woman who looks at these photographs as snippets of conversations. It’s very hard to detach myself from the photos that I have made because these are not just about the people in my pictures, but also about my relationship with them as well.
Ever since I shot my first picture, my life and work have been through many tremendous challenges. Once, while covering a gunfight in an orchard in South Kashmir, a friend took a photo of me doing my job. In the frame, there were just me and a few soldiers, my camera barely visible. In order to give a sense of the environment in which I work, I shared the photograph on Facebook. Within seconds, somebody wrote, “ What is this girl doing among the soldiers. Surely she must be an informer.” In Kashmir being labelled as an informer means two things. One, ignominy and two, a serious threat to life. The trolling continued for several days that drained me emotionally. I had two options. Either to lock myself in a room and leave everything or fight back. I chose to do the latter. The people that trolled me then are the ones who often mention me as there inspiration now.
I believe that there are innumerable stories that are still untold because these stories are about women. A place where the population is predominantly Muslim, it’s expected why some women have not been able to tell their stories to male journalists. My goal is to contribute to the visual reportage of conflicts like Kashmir through the eyes of a woman and inspire other girls in my region to take unconventional paths, that were so far only tread by men.