The empowerment of women in Jammu and Kashmir as elsewhere in India, no doubt, has been part of the development planning process and has helped improving the status of the state’s women in various spheres, but serious challenges still remain on the ground, and this is more so in case of the women of marginalised communities, such as Hanji (fisher). This article presents an attempt to locate the status of Hanji women of Kashmir from sociocultural standpoints, and gives an analysis of their economic contributions towards poverty reduction at familial and household level. The empirical evidence analysed reveals that majority of Hanji women despite being low at some major parameters of empowerment, were playing variety of hand to elevate their families socially and economically.
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