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By Rakesh Shukla
Two years after Godhra and the Gujarat riots that followed, a feminist report argues that the sexual violence in Gujarat was not random, impulsive or isolated, but a consciously-thought-out strategy to subjugate and humiliate a community painted as the Enemy Other
 February 27, 2004 marked two years of the train-burning incident at Godhra and the anti-Muslim carnage that followed. The December 2003 report titled Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocidal Project in Gujarat , by the International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat, a panel put together by several women's groups in India , is an in-depth analysis of these events from a feminist perspective.
The initial reaction to this report is that it's yet another one on Gujarat . But as you read it, that reaction gives way to growing appreciation. The factual details of the brutalities perpetrated have been documented by close to 50 human rights, civil liberties and women's groups, including the National Human Rights Commission. Notwithstanding the disputations by the Gujarat and central governments, the facts of the carnage have not been much in doubt. In fact, a number of perpetrators proudly proclaimed their intentions, accomplishments and successes in the electronic media with the flames of death and destruction in the background.
Information about disappearances, killings, atrocities in situations of communal violence -- whether it is Partition, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots or the Gujarat carnage -- is vital and intrinsically valuable. But analyses of such events are equally if not more important, because they assist in developing understandings and insights which might help prevent a recurrence of such mass violence.
The background of the politics of the Sangh Parivar, the non-registration of FIRs, lack of proper investigation, inadequate prosecution, the partisan role of the police and the complicity of the State are succinctly put together in this report. But all that is covered ground. The seminal contribution of the report is the foregrounding of the sexual violence in the pogrom against Muslims. To some extent, sexual violence and rape does occur in war and riots. But this report brings out clearly that the sexual assaults in Gujarat were not random, impulsive or isolated incidents, but a consciously-thought-out strategy to use mass rapes and sexual assault of Muslim women to subjugate and humiliate the community.
The successful conflation of Muslim rulers invading 'Mother India' and violating 'pure' Hindu girls and women in the past with contemporary stories of Muslim men 'spoiling our mothers and sisters' is well explored in an attempt to understand the processes leading to the rape of Muslim women being considered essentially 'retaliatory' and a duty of Hindu men. Drawing parallels with the construction of the black male in white supremacist racist discourse, the report points to the propaganda which dehumanises the Muslim male as beast-like and thus easy to kill. Comparisons with Nazi propaganda portraying Jews as seducers and rapists of Aryan girls and propaganda about Muslim Albanian men raping Christian Serbian girls lends substantiation to the hypothesis of the deliberate construction of the 'Enemy Other' which seems necessary to such genocidal projects.
The report points out that a section of Hindu women have legitimised attacks against women: instances of rapists being actively supported or even instigated by women find place in the report. The explanation offered is that women moving out of the domestic domain to play an active role in the Hindutva project taste the excitement of exercising a political voice and making an impact, not unlike the experience of feminist activists. Perhaps the report could have further explored the dynamics of internalised oppression acted out as 'horizontal hostility', as at times it is safer to express hostility towards other oppressed peoples than towards the oppressor.
Besides the recent trend of overt participation by women in communal violence, another area which merits feminist analysis is the crucial role played by women as mothers in shaping the psyche of the young boys and men who perpetrate killings and rape/violence.
While the marginalisation of a community offers an opportunity to mobilise that community, it is important to acknowledge that in times of crisis there is a resurgence of traditional identity-markers and roles with stricter rules for a community's women. The report does not hesitate to point out that the relief work in Gujarat was done predominantly by Muslim charitable organisations, which simultaneously led to greater legitimacy and dissemination of their definitions of gender norms and relations reflected in practices like encouraging the donning of the veil.
The panel members' experience of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo , Albania , Afghanistan and Algeria has helped them raise crucial issues about criminal jurisprudence in cases of crime against marginalised sections of society by those with more power, in contrast to cases where the accused comes from a marginalised section and needs protection. The inadequacies of present legislation as well as ordinary criminal law in dealing with crimes of mass violence, especially in the area of sexual offences, stand out in this report.
The panel makes a well-reasoned case for the recognition of the Gujarat pogrom and the continuing violence against Muslims as 'genocide' and 'crimes against humanity' subject to universal jurisdiction, because this would oblige the international community and each nation to prosecute the perpetrators. Linkages between local anti-Muslim discourse in the country and the global Muslim-Terrorist-Aggressor association, especially since the post-September 11 World Trade attacks, have been well drawn. The justification of the doctrines of retaliation and pre-emptive attacks against Muslims offered by the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is another interesting co-relation made in the report.
Focusing on the economic boycott, the humiliating 'compromise' conditions under which Muslims have had to return to their homes, the continuing violence and palpable fear under which the community lives, the report shatters the much-touted myth of 'normalcy' in Gujarat.
In the recent 'Bilkis Bano' case, the solitary case that the apex court has thought fit to direct the CBI to investigate, the sprinkling of salt on bodies to ensure early disintegration and the recovery of human remains on exhumation from collective graves is reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The substantive evidence and findings literally 'unearthed' in this single case, which had been 'closed' by the police, points to the urgent need for independent investigation into scores of other incidents of murder, rape and burnings which occurred at the time in Gujarat. Threatened Existence is one such attempt that goes much beyond putting together narratives, in an attempt to analyse the situation so that it can be tackled before the flames of hate are further stoked.
The nine panellists are: Sunila Abeysekara, Director of Inform, Colombo, Sri Lanka; Rhonda Copelon, Professor of Law, City University of New York and Director of the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic; Anissa Helie of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, Algeria /France, Gabriela Mischkowski, historian and co-founder, Medica Mondiale , Germany; Nira Yuval-Davis, Professor of Gender and Ethnic Studies at the University of Greenwich, UK; Uma Chakravarti, feminist historian from Delhi University who has documented the anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi in 1984; Vahida Nainar, Researcher of International Law and a board member of Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, The Netherlands, Urgent Action Fund, USA, and Women's Research and Action Group, India, current Development Director of the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice , New York; Farah Naqvi, co-founder of Nirantar and an independent writer and consultant on issues of women, democracy and development, Delhi; and Meera Velayudan, formerly with the Institute for Environmental and Social Concerns , Coimbatore.
he International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat was set up by: Citizen's Initiative (Ahmedabad), People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)-Shanti Abhiyan (Baroda), Communalism Combat , Aawaaz-e-Niswaan, Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW) and Stree Sangam (Bombay), Saheli, Jagori, Sama, and Nirantar (Delhi), Organised Lesbian Alliance for Visibility and Action (OLAVA, Pune), and other women's organisations in India.
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(Rakesh Shukla is a Supreme Court advocate)
(InfoChange News & Features, February 2004)
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