Srinagar, July 14 -- By Rakshanda Gul

Bhaderwah's hillsides bloom purple now, and the postcards write themselves.

Twenty farming families in the Raie hamlet of "Chota Kashmir" have swapped maize for lavender, betting on a plant that tolerates drought, needs little upkeep, and starts paying by its second year.

The bet is working.

But what the postcards leave out is who did the planting, the weeding, the cutting, the drying, and the packaging that turned a hillside gamble into a cash crop.

Women did.

And they have done it in Ganderbal, and on paddy fields and orchards across Jammu and Kashmir for generations, mostly without a name for it.

A woman carrying a bundle of freshly cut lavender toward a drying shed isn't assisting her husba...