The Voice of Ladakhi Women
This article appeared in the ISEC newsletter: Issue No.13 Sprlng 1994

In many ways, development and modernisation in Ladakh have affected women much less than men. Most women still farm, wear traditional dress, speak only Ladakhi, and are for the most part untempted by the 'glamorous' consumer culture that development is bringing . Yet women are nonetheless among Ladakh's many victims of 'progress'. Their workload has increased, their status has fallen, and their voices are rarely heard within the government bureaucracy. In response, we have been working in recent years to establish a network of women's groups, so as to give them a much-needed voice in the modern sector.

Things have changed a great deal in Ladakh since development began two decades ago. Then, most Ladakhis were farmers in self-reliant villages. Although there was some division of labour, women and men shared important agricultural tasks, and their status was roughly equal. The household, where most of the important day-to-day decisions were made, was the centre of economic life, and here the position of women was very strong.

Today, modernisation is undermining Ladakh's traditional economy while creating new 'needs' - from kerosene stoves to bluejeans to Michael Jackson videos - that can only be met with cash. Many people are abandoning village life for the slim chance of landing a job in Leh In this new money economy, women are marginalised. The few jobs available - mostly in the government bureaucracy or in tourism - are generally filled by men. Women are left behind in the villages, where they have to do all the agricultural work that they once shared with men. Despite the doubling of their workload, the respect accorded women has declined: the traditional Ladakhi farmer, once the backbone of the economy, is increasingly considered backward and irrelevant, an impediment to 'progress'.

The psychological impacts of development have also been hard on women. Traditionally outspoken and confident, women in Ladakh's modern sector are far less secure, and no longer speak up freely in mixed company. This is particularly tlue of women with a Western-style education, who have much less self-confidence than traditional women.
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For the last three years, we have been organising village meetings - with as many as 700 participants - in which groups of women from different regions of Ladakh have come together to discuss the impact of development, their feelings about current trends, and their ideas about Ladakh's future. They talk about how communities and families are being broken down by the psychological pressures of advertising, television and tourism; about the greed and envy that are now separating people, so that even wedding parties have become occasions to show off wealth; about the women who have stopped spinning now that it has become a sign of being 'backward'.

Working to counter these trends has been extremely exciting and rewarding, and has already brought results. The women have been strengthened immensely by the opportunity to join with others to discuss these issues. Many of the women are proudly spinning again, consciously supporting one another by taking pride in being farmers, in producing the needs of their families.

There are now several thousand who have participated in village meetings, and they have already taken collective action. In addition to their promotion of the traditional diet, the women organised a 'No TV Day' and a demonstration that managed to reverse a new rule prohibiting them from selling their vegetables in the central bazaar.

We are now working to build up a more formal, independent women's organisation. The women have expressed interest in running classes in Ladakhi as a written language, in producing handicrafts for extra income on the farm, and in an appropriate technology programme that would complement LEDeG's.


We are hoping that these Ladakhis can meet with representatives of other women's organisations around the world, for the benefit of both groups. This past summer we organised a very successful meeting with Western and Ladakhi women that included a trek to some remote villages. In turn, we would very much like to bring members of the women's group to the West, since this may be the most effective way of raising their status in the modern sector if an 'illiterate peasant' woman has visited the West, even government officials in Leh will treat her with respect.

Things are changing very quickly in Ladakh, but if thousands of mothers and grandmothers can voice their opinion - liaising with LEDeG, SECMOL and some of the other emerging NGOs - they may yet be able to influence the entire course of development in one of world's last remaining indigenous economies.