In the valleys and hills of Jammu and Kashmir, a quiet revolution is taking place—and this time, women are not waiting for someone else to write their future. What began as modest Self-Help Groups (SHGs) under the Jammu and Kashmir Rural Livelihoods Mission (JKRLM), popularly known as UMEED, has evolved into a powerful grassroots movement of women who are saving, borrowing, investing, producing, selling and increasingly making decisions for themselves. The transformation is no longer confined to financial inclusion. It is challenging old ideas of dependence and changing the economic and social position of women within Kashmiri households.
Official data from early 2026 indicate that 96,274 active Self-Help Groups are serving 788,769 women across Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier assessments had recorded more than 94,000 SHGs mobilising over 7.5 lakh rural households, with the network expanding across all 20 districts and nearly 285 blocks. These groups have developed into Village Organisations and Cluster Level Federations, creating an institutional structure for savings, credit, skill development and collective enterprise.
But statistics cannot fully capture what is happening on the ground.
As a member of a Self-Help Group myself, I have witnessed how collective savings and support can gradually become a pathway towards entrepreneurship. In villages across Kashmir, women are establishing mushroom cultivation units, handicraft enterprises, dairy activities, food-processing units and other small businesses. Women who once had little or no independent source of income are learning to turn their skills into livelihoods. Their homes are becoming workplaces, their phones are becoming marketplaces and their abilities are becoming economic assets.
This is not simply a change in income. It is a change in identity.
Credit has been one of the strongest pillars of this transformation. Women-led SHGs in Jammu and Kashmir have accessed substantial institutional credit, while the relatively low Non-Performing Asset ratio demonstrates that women are increasingly becoming responsible participants in the formal financial system. Through initiatives such as the Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP), Community Enterprise Funds and bank linkages, women are moving beyond subsistence activities and building enterprises capable of generating sustained income and employment.
But the real power of this movement is best understood through the women behind the numbers.
I encountered the story of a woman whose life had been devastated by loss. She had lost her husband and, tragically, her son as well. She was left with her two daughters and almost no support. Even those she expected to stand beside her abandoned her during the most difficult period of her life.
Then came the Self-Help Group.
Someone encouraged her to join one. What followed was not merely financial assistance; it was the rebuilding of a life. Members of her group provided financial support of around Rs 50,000. Subsequently, enterprise credit helped her daughter establish a small beauty parlour. What began as a modest business gradually became a source of livelihood, confidence and independence. Today, the enterprise has expanded to the point where it employs others.
There is something profoundly powerful in this transformation.
A family that had once been left without support did not remain trapped in helplessness. A woman who once needed someone to hold her hand eventually reached a position where she could create work for someone else’s hands. Those who disappeared when she needed them no longer define her security.
She built her own. That is what empowerment looks like when it moves beyond speeches.
The Lakhpati Didi initiative has added another important dimension to this transformation. Within a relatively short period, well over 1.84 lakh women and in later assessments, approaching or exceeding two lakh have reached annual incomes of Rs 1 lakh or more through agriculture, livestock, manufacturing, services and trade. Farm livelihoods under the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana have reached large numbers of women farmers, while non-farm enterprises have expanded across handicrafts, food processing, dairy, embroidery, retail and other sectors.
The economic map is changing.
A Kashmiri woman is no longer necessarily confined to producing something that is sold by someone else. Increasingly, she can produce it, brand it, market it and sell it herself. Partnerships with platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho and government-supported marketplaces such as eSARAS have opened wider markets for SHG products. Traditional Kashmiri craftsmanship can now reach customers far beyond the local market.
Technology has accelerated this change. Smartphones, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, digital payments and online marketplaces have become powerful business tools. Women are creating business accounts, communicating with customers, receiving orders and payments, promoting products and managing enterprises from their homes.
The smartphone is no longer merely a device for communication; for many women, it is a shop, marketing office and payment counter in the palm.
This digital shift is particularly significant because it has weakened one of the oldest limitations placed on women: restricted mobility. A woman does not always need to leave her home to reach a customer. She can take her business to the customer digitally.
But perhaps the most important transformation is happening inside the household itself.
For generations, economic dependence has often been accompanied by limited decision-making power. In many traditional families, a woman’s contribution to domestic life was expected, while her opinion on financial or major family decisions was not always given equal weight. SHGs are beginning to challenge that equation.
Women who were once rarely involved in important household decisions are increasingly participating after contributing to their husbands’ businesses, accessing institutional credit or establishing their own enterprises. Their economic contribution has strengthened their position within the family.
When a woman starts earning, society may still try to silence her—but it becomes considerably harder to ignore her.
As an advocate and an SHG member, I see economic independence as one of the strongest foundations of women’s empowerment. We speak extensively about rights, liberty, equality and dignity. Yet knowing one’s rights and having the practical ability to exercise them are not always the same. Patriarchal norms can survive even where legal rights exist on paper.
Economic independence can help bridge that gap. A financially independent woman is better positioned to make choices, resist exploitation, support her children, participate in family decisions and stand up for herself. When she becomes an employer, her empowerment extends to other women as well.
Challenges remain. Lack of confidence is a major barrier, alongside infrastructure gaps, limited markets, transportation difficulties, fluctuating demand and the need for continuous skill development. Yet digital platforms are making knowledge increasingly accessible. Women can learn marketing, packaging, branding and business management online, often without waiting for formal training to reach their villages.
The real question is no longer whether Kashmiri women can become entrepreneurs. They have already proved it.
The real question is whether society is prepared to accept the woman who no longer needs permission to dream, earn or decide.
The journey from SHGs to digital enterprises is therefore much more than a welfare programme. It is a gradual redistribution of economic agency—from beneficiaries to participants, from participants to entrepreneurs, and from entrepreneurs to employers and decision-makers.
A woman who earns her own income is not merely contributing money to her household; she is claiming a voice in its decisions, dignity in her identity and power over her choices.
From self-help to self-reliance, from dependence to enterprise, and from silence to participation, Kashmiri women are rewriting their economic future—one group, one enterprise, one decision and one woman at a time.
