UNSEEN, UNHEARD AND UNLOVED: The Silent Grief of Kashmir’s Disabled Women
Rukaya’s room has one small window. It opens to a world she is not allowed to enter. Every morning, she sits by it, tracing the rhythm of birds outside. Her legs no longer work as they once did. Her face carries a grief older than the mountains surrounding her village.
A few months after her 14th birthday, her family noticed she struggled to stand. A devastating diagnosis followed: polio had paralyzed her legs. This marked the beginning of relentless challenges. The first casualty was her education; mobility issues forced her to drop out. Financial constraints meant no wheelchair. She was ridiculed as a “curse” or “bad omen.”
“That was my life,” Rukaya sums up her journey.
Today, she owns a retail shop, creates embroidery and helps disabled women file pension applications. She earns a dignified living, proving dreams can become reality. She credits her father and the Entrepreneurship Development Training Program by NEDAR Foundation for equipping her with business skills.
“I don’t know if my life has value,” she says faintly. “Sometimes, I wonder... does it even matter?” After breakfast and chores, she prepares for work. Her father pushes her wheelchair and lifts her shop’s shutters. Rukaya feels erased—forgotten by a society that sees her as broken, ignored by a system that never tried to understand her.
Like hundreds of Kashmiri women, she embodies how trauma, gender, and disability suffocate joy. “For disabled women, it’s a double-whammy,” she says, dusting her shop. “The problem is ableism. It teaches non-disabled people that disability equals shame—that we are not normal or beautiful enough.” Rukaya insists that Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) should not be portrayed as victims or “inspiration porn.” To clarify the term, I contacted Masrat Akhtar, an RCI-licensed Rehabilitation Professional, Counsellor and Special Educator.
“It’s objectifying disabled people as inspirations solely based on their life circumstances,” Masrat explains. “Disability isn’t a disease or disorder. Media must normalize it; otherwise, their narratives harm the community.”
A Girlhood Denied
Farah remembers the day her mother called her cursed.
“She glared after I spilled tea,” Farah recalls. “She whispered, ‘God sent you to test us.’”
Farah is blind. At 35, she’s lonely, terrified, and severely depressed. She has never travelled alone, visited a park or had an unmonitored friendship.
She tried to kill herself, twice. The first time, her family scolded her; the second, they threatened to lock her away. “No one asked why,” she says. “They just told me to be grateful I am alive.” She pauses. “I wish I wasn’t.”
The Conflict Outside, the War Within
This isn’t just Rukaya and Farah’s story. It’s the story of thousands of disabled women. Their minds unravelling behind locked doors, their mental health ignored until it collapses into silence.
Women with disabilities—physical, intellectual, or sensory—live in ableism cages. Their bodies are seen as burdens, their minds irrelevant and their dreams delusional. Masrat calls the crisis urgent but invisible. “These women don’t just fall through the cracks,” she says. “They are not on the map. Nobody hears their screams—because their suffering is silent.”
Inside the Home, the Hurt is Loudest
In a Budgam village, 21-year-old Neelofar, who is deaf, was assaulted by a relative. She told her mother through gestures and tears. Her mother slapped her in response.
“You are lying. No one would touch a girl like you.” The mother silenced her daughter.
“Since then, she has stopped trying to speak,” Masrat told me at Srinagar’s Composite Regional Centre - a Rehabilitation Centre for persons with disabilities, established by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India.
Across Kashmir, such stories are rarely whispered. Disabled women face societal discrimination and abuse—verbal, physical—from their own families. Fewer are believed.
“If a disabled woman seeks help, she needs money, mobility, and courage,” Masrat explains. “And even then, she often gets shame and pills.”
Sajida, 33, uses wheelchair. She saved for weeks to see a private psychologist in Srinagar. “When I said I cry daily and can’t sleep, he replied, ‘That’s normal. You’re disabled. What else do you expect?’” She never returned.
One woman with schizophrenia from Srinagar’s suburbs is locked in a room during breakdowns. Her brother claims it’s “for her own good.” A neighbour whispers: “She cries like an animal. No one listens.” How do you heal when those meant to love you... don’t?
Sadly, the Government Looks Away!
No policies in J&K explicitly address disabled women’s mental health. No helpline offers sign language support. No awareness campaigns feature disabled voices. Hospitals remain architecturally and emotionally inaccessible.
“Everywhere I go, I feel I don’t belong,” says Sajida. “It’s like the world is made for people who walk, talk, and smile like they are fine.” The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 promises dignity and equality. But in Kashmir, it is a paper promise—especially for disabled women.
What Must Change
This pain isn’t inevitable—it’s structural. Mental healthcare must be physically, emotionally, and economically accessible. Frontline workers need training to spot mental health issues in the disabled. Therapists must be sensitized to gender and disability. Schools must welcome disabled girls. Ableist narratives are pervasive societal stories and beliefs that devalue, marginalize, or exclude individuals with disabilities, often by framing non-disabled individuals as superior and disability as a negative or undesirable condition. Newsrooms must invest in sensitivity trainings for journalists telling the stories of PwDs. Above all; families and communities must stop seeing disability as a curse.
Love, Unconditionally
Back in Rukaya’s Handwara home, the sun sets. Her shop’s shutters are down. She presses her palm against her wheelchair’s armrest. “Affection is medicine too,” she concludes. “Sometimes, all we need is someone to say: ‘I see you. I believe you. You matter.’”
(Note: Some names have been changed for privacy reasons.)
(The author is a Laadli Media Fellowship recipient 2025. This work is supported by Population First. The opinions and views expressed are those of the author.
Laadli and UNFPA do not necessarily endorse the views.)
