SAVE India Activities
SAVE India - 26/11: Never Again?
The global launch of SAVE in Vienna sadly coincided with the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. The unstable and emotionally charged environment created by the Mumbai attacks immediately put the new SAVE initiative and declaration to the test.
Archana Kapoor, one of our SAVE pioneers, leads the SAVE India chapter. She was immediately able to send her New Delhi-based film team to Mumbai to record evidence of the attacks. Her film “Surviving Terror” is a powerful documentation of the emotions and events that ensued. Many victims and witnesses she talked to have asked the same question: “Why is this happening to us?”
The 26/11 attacks add to a long list of tragedies caused by the history of animosity between India and its neighbor, Pakistan. As nuclear powers with great geostrategic importance, their difficult relationship remains a major issue on the world stage. However, peace talks between the countries’ political leaders have failed to lead to tangible, enduring solutions. Activities must be strengthened at the grass roots level to ensure that people feel personally addressed by efforts to counteract fear, hatred and stigmatization of the "other”.
SAVE India works with victims and activists to make women’s voices heard in the strategic security debate, both in the public and private spheres. Through storytelling workshops, confidence-building swimming training and income generation programs, SAVE India has supported the families of police officers who were on duty during the 26/11 attacks. These workshops have helped them to rebuild their lives, express their grief and the challenges they face, and create a support network that gives them the strength to speak out about their experiences. SAVE India works closely with Vinita Kamte, author of To the Last Bullet, whose husband Ashok Kamte was killed by Azam Amir Kassab, the last surviving terrorist of the 26/11 attacks.
SAVE India has recently initiated a dialogue process with SAVE Pakistan. Leading female experts, activists, academics and women whose lives have been affected by terrorism from both India and Pakistan met in Mumbai in November 2010. Their strategic dialogue aimed to create a counter-narrative to the prevailing culture of suspicion and fear that blights the relationship between the two countries. This dialogue is an ongoing process, which SAVE intends to initiate in association with SAVE chapters across the world.
SAVE India Films and Features
Surviving Terror - One Year After the Attacks in Bombay
A Woman without Borders/SAVE trip on the occasion of the first anniversary of these tragic attacks. Please click here to watch the 8 minute feature dedicated to the victims and survivors of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Schools Against Violent Extremism
In July 2009 Archana Kapoor produced a new SAVE documentary entitled "Schools Against Violent Extremism". Please click here to watch the 5 minute feature.
Terror, Trauma, and the Search for Answers
This feature was written by Edit Schlaffer and can be read here.
Please click here to read Archana Kapoor´s reflections on the terror attacks in Mumbai.
Reactions to Mumbai Bombings
Mumbai, July 2011
Three bombs exploded in Mumbai, India, on July 13, 2011, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 100, in the fourth terrorist attacks on India’s financial capital since 2003. Two and a half years ago, on 26 November 2008, 164 people lost their lives as terrorists invaded the city in a series of coordinated bombing and shooting attacks. For SAVE, Mumbai has a special significance, because it was on that day in 2008 that we held our first international conference, bringing 33 women from around the world together to strategize on new ways to counter violent extremism. Read the SAVE sisters' reactions to this fresh attacks here.
Indian Women Say No to Violent Extremism!
Mumbai, April-June 2011
SAVE has successfully completed the pilot phase of its innovative income-generation, empowerment and anti-extremism workshop in Mumbai. The project was such a success that SAVE has immediately enrolled a further 70 women in a continuation of the workshop.
The three-month long course trained 100 women in computer skills, English-speaking and accountancy, while simultaneously teaching them the major principles that underpin SAVE’s Mothers for Change! Campaign. Through this approach, SAVE empowers participants economically, providing them with the opportunity to bring income into the home and thus increase their decision-making power, while simultaneously equipping them with the rhetorical tools to promote a culture of peace. In conservative Indian society, the idea of a woman stepping out of the home is often resisted until she starts to earn a salary. Respect for a woman even within traditionally orthodox communities can soar after she takes on a career.
The participants were the wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers of the police officers who were on duty during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Five active female police constables also joined the course after requesting special permission to attend. The experiences of these women in security-related issues, conflict and trauma can, with the correct training, make them powerful advocates for non-violence and innovators of smart security.
To read the full project report with stories of the participants' personal journeys, please click here.
To read an interview with Archana Kapoor, SAVE India coordinator, please click here.
The Women’s Dialogue: India-Pakistan
Mumbai, November 2010
SAVE India invited SAVE Pakistan to Mumbai to conduct a bridge-building dialogue. The results of the dialogue were presented to a large audience in Vienna in January 2011. The goal of this dialogue project is to offer participants the opportunity, accompanied by experts, to practice conflict resolution and dialogue within a small circle. Within the framework of this project, getting to know the “other side” across cultural and religious boundaries is facilitated, while an exchange on the personal level is accelerated. In regular meetings, the foundations for a further interaction between Indian and Pakistani women are laid, in order to reduce tensions and deconstruct prejudices.
The first such dialogue in Mumbai in November, 2010, brought together Indian and Pakistani representatives of academia, the media, victims of violent extremism, and activists helping those victims. In a two-day process, the representatives shared their stories and expertise. They discussed the commonalities between the two countries which should be emphasized to discredit the enemy image that each country has of the other. The representatives then came up with concrete recommendations that will be implemented by both chapters, including instigating witnesses of history project that will tell victims’ stories in schools. Please visit our blog for further details of this project.
In January, two representatives each from SAVE India and SAVE Pakistan came to Vienna to present the outcome of the dialogue. SAVE Pakistan representatives Mossarat Qadeem, Executive Director of the PAIMAN Trust, and Shabana Fayyaz, a Professor in the Defense and Strategic Studies Department of Quaid-I-Azam University, as well as SAVE India representatives Archana Kapoor, Founder of SMART NGO, and Anita Pratap, a leading journalist and best-selling author, gave their impressions on the dialogue in an event hosted by Rudolf Hundstorfer, Austrian Federal Minister of Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection. To read more about this event, please click here.
The dialogue project is carried out within the framework of the project “Political Conflict Resolution Starts at Home! Funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection.
From Soft Power to Smart Power
Mumbai, November 2010
On the second anniversary of the 26/11 attacks, SAVE India held a workshop to discuss income-generating projects with the families of the police officers who were on duty during the attacks. Building on the emotional breakthroughs made by the women in these families during the SAVE workshops in April 2010 (see below), SAVE India held a brainstorming session with them to work on ideas for income generation. It is essential to give women a method through which to bring something to their family’s table both economically as well as politically and socially. This reinforces their role as the primary care-taker of the family and empowers them to be a key decision maker in their home. The women discussed possibilities for skills training, and agreed that the most necessary skills are English-speaking and computer abilities. SAVE India will provide such workshops in the future. A further description of this workshop by Archana Kapoor can be read here.
Bollywood and Terror
Mumbai, May 2010
SAVE held a round table discussion on Bollywood and Terror at the Taj Bandra Hotel in Mumbai. Films often reflect the main concerns and tensions that are present in a society, and can also be a powerful instrument of mass communication to influence mindsets and change attitudes. The roundtable aimed to analyze the role of Bollywood in promoting cultural and religious pluralism and tolerance in India, and also the role it can play in countering violent extremism.
The theme of terror has been present in Bollywood films since the director Subhash Ghai produced the film Karma. Films have already been proposed that will deal with the Mumbai terror attacks and the life of Kasab, the last surviving terrorist. The round table discussed how Bollywood’s treatment of terrorism differs from Hollywoods, and the questions raised in Bollywood films about terrorists’ motivations and radicalization. Furthermore, Bollywood is largely dominated by Muslim writers, actors and filmmakers, who produce films watched by millions of Hindus. It is therefore a key tool for capturing and transmitting the Muslim experience in India. To read more about the round table, click here.
Mothers for Change! - Pilot project
Mumbai, April 2010
SAVE India launched the Mothers for Change! pilot project to test how to reach out to families affected by the 26/11 attacks. The wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers of the police officers who were on duty during the 26/11 attacks formed the main participant group. These women, who are a major support to their husbands and who also bear an incredible emotional burden, have been completely neglected in the aftermath of the attacks. Several victims of the attacks also attended the workshop, speaking out for the first time about their experiences. The testimonials of these women as they speak out against the violence that has transformed their lives can be central to developing an alternative narrative to extremist ideologies.
Through the workshop “Our Stories, Our Future”, participants engaged in a week-long storytelling process designed to help participants explore the traumatic events and emotions that they have experienced. The storytelling workshop allowed them to begin the process of personal healing and recognize their own potential to make a difference in their lives. “Swimming into the Future” involved the participants in a workshop aiming at stress relief and confidence building. Participants received swimming training that increased awareness of one’s physical capabilities, promoting teamwork and overcoming inhibitions.
SAVE India continues to work with these families, supporting them in their efforts to rebuild their lives. To read the full report on these workshops, please click here.
Surviving Terror - One Year After the Attacks in Bombay
Mumbai, January 2010
SAVE launched a 3-city project in New Delhi, Lucknow and Mumbai, that aims to mobilize youth against violent extremism. In New Delhi SAVE connected with the Delhi Public School R K Puram, a leading secondary school, which has a network of 70,000 students. A group of 25 student leaders engaged in a SAVE workshop and agreed to form a weekly after school SAVE club called "Schools Against Violent Extremism", which will focus on media activities such as writing to the press to encourage the media to disseminate messages of tolerance and non-violence. The students also wrote poems and songs that advocate a society without violence and terrorism. In Lucknow, SAVE India began cooperation with the female dean, Professor Nishi Pandey, at the leading local university. The school, which has 40,000 students, provides a huge female talent pool.
The Women without Borders‘ “Girls fit for Politics!” program will reach out to these young women, to empower them with practical skills and hands-on training regarding how to speak up and practice civilized dialogue as well as how to make their mark on their communities. In Mumbai, SAVE held a day-long workshop with victims and survivors of the November bombings in order to provide a platform for them to share their grief and, more importantly, their resilience. Nurses of the Cama hospital, which was a main target of the attacks, shared their stories. Please click here to read more about these activities.
Women take part in the activity "Threading my Life Story" as part of the storytelling workshops in Mumbai, April 2010
"Swimming into the Future" workshop, April 2010, Mumbai
Shabana Fayyaz, Edit Schlaffer, Minister Rudolf Hundstorfer, Mossarat Qadeem, Archana Kapoor and Anita Pratap, participants on the Women's Dialogue: India-Pakistan, New Ideas for a New Way Forward in Vienna on 18.01.2011
The panel members of The Women's Dialogue: India-Pakistan
Participants at the Income generating workshop, Mumbai, November 2010
Edit Schlaffer and Vinita Kamte in Mumbai, April 2010
The Women's Dialogue, Mumbai meeting, November 2010
Anne Carr and Manjiri show their painted hands after taking part in the storytelling activity "The Dance of Life"