Sex as a Weapon: The Silent Wounds of Gujarat

January 23, 2004

It is always a tragedy when criminals attribute their acts of

cruelty and wanton violence to their religion. The most obvious

recent examples are those terrorists who commit crimes against

humanity, falsely claiming that they are defending Islam. Then there

are the abortion-doctor assasins in the U.S. who claim they are

murdering simply to be good Christians.

Unfortunately, Hinduism is not exempt. We too must deal with

criminals who say their disgraceful acts (in this case, atrocious

levels of violence against women) are in defense of their faith, as

gravely illustrated in this story by Herpreet Kaur Grewal in

openDemocracy.net, an online global magazine of politics and culture

(link below):

THE SILENT WOUNDS OF GUJARAT

January 22, 2004 - A new report highlights a neglected aspect of the

massacre of Muslims in India's western state of Gujarat in 2002:

brutal sexual violence against women.

In February 2002, Hindu mobs went on the rampage in Gujarat, a

western state of India, in revenge for an attack by Muslims on a

group of Hindu pilgrims travelling from the site of the Ayodhya

temple.

In the violence, around 2,000 people – mostly Muslims – were killed

and 200,000 were left dispossessed, according to independent

estimates.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party

in India – which, under its hardline regional leader Narendra Modi

also governs Gujarat – was accused by many of being complicit in the

attacks. Despite condemnation of the riots by the Indian prime

minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, human rights groups say that those

guilty of the anti-Muslim violence have not had to face their

responsibility.

The Best Bakery case – in which 14 Muslims were burnt alive by a mob

of 21 Hindus – is an example of how the victims of the 2002 riots

are still denied justice in Gujarat.

In June 2003 the accused in this case were acquitted because almost

half of the 73 witnesses retracted the statements they had given to

police identifying the attackers.

The pursuit of justice and compensation for all Muslim victims is

arduous, but its achievement is an even more distant dream for the

women who were worst hit by the violence.

A SYSTEMATIC TARGETING OF WOMEN

A new report launched in the UK, India and America by the

International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat reveals how the

assailants used rape and torture of women as weapons in their

violence against Muslims.

"Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in

Gujarat" offers vital testimonies and documentation about the brutal

sexual violence against women in Gujarat during the events.

The report is compiled by nine feminist jurists, activists, lawyers,

writers and academics from over the world, who travelled to

Ahmedabad, Baroda and Panchmahals in December 2002. It is based on

hundreds of statements and eyewitness accounts of the violence.

In the report, one Muslim woman recalls how she, seven other women

and eight men were surrounded by a mob when they were trying to

escape the riots. The mob threatened the men with swords and hit

them on the head with iron rods until they lost consciousness. They

took the women into the fields, tore at their clothes, scratched

their bodies and sexually assaulted them, while shouting: "We will

make you conceive Hindu children!"

Another witness remembers how she saw six of her neighbours being

raped and molested, with iron rods and swords being thrust into them

after which they were set alight. A pregnant woman had her breasts

cut off and her womb sliced open.

A woman described how policemen desecrated the Koran and then picked

up her eighteen-month old child and threw him across the room. When

she protested, the police said: "Reproduce and make more

terrorists."

The report identifies the patterns of systematic rape, torture and

mutilation that emerge from testimonies; the way women have been

used in order to humiliate Muslim men; and the consequent silencing

of women's experiences because there is nowhere to turn in society

for support after the trauma.

Mobs are described marching into homes taking off their trousers and

raping women and girls in front of their families, killing pregnant

women, and children.

A woman and her baby, who were separated from their family in the

bloody aftermath said she was stopped and surrounded by a mob of 20-

25 men.

"They grabbed my son and threw him in the bushes. I begged them to

leave my child but they began beating me," she recounts in the

report.

"Some were biting me, someone was punching me on my chest, someone

was tearing my clothes off and they were abusing me. They were

saying, 'We will make you bear a Hindu child.' After that three

people raped me. They were saying, 'Use her as much as you want now,

we won't get her tomorrow.' At that time we could hear screams from

the road, so they left me and went towards the road."

The report calls for the international community to declare a

genocidal alert in Gujarat and acknowledges that the global branding

of Muslims as terrorists after 11 September 2001 is aiding

persecution of the Islamic community there.

MASCULINITY AND POLITICAL MURDER

Behind these harrowing violations lies a disturbing political

reality: the brutal way women are being used by followers of the

Hindutva project – the nationalist ideology of the Hindu right-wing

in India – in conflicts taking place primarily between Hindu and

Muslim men.

Chetan Bhatt, scholar of Hindu nationalism comments: "The way in

which systematic rape, mutilation and burning was used against women

and girls shows how the violence in Gujarat was taken to an obscene,

grotesque level and this is what the report is significant in

showing. Hindu nationalism was born out of the irrational fear of

the Hindu male losing his potency and being outnumbered by

minorities. One central theme in Hindu nationalism is emasculation,

so the Hindu right's targeting of Muslim women and girls is central

to their idea of humiliating the Muslim man."

He adds: "The RSS, which is the organisation that founded most of

the Hindu right-wing's movements and parties, stresses physical

exercise, martial training and ideological brainwashing in order

to 'strengthen body, mind and intellect.' It is an aggressive,

masculine ideology in which Hindu women are both controlled within a

masculine framework and urged to fight and make sacrifices for the

so-called Hindu nation."

The report states that the rapes of women aimed to "replace Muslim

children by Hindu children and thereby contribute in bringing about

the destruction of the Muslim community."

The Hindutva project explicitly uses sexuality in asserting its

power. Nira Yuval-Davis, one of the authors of the report, points

out that one way the Hindu right were able to get Hindu men involved

in the violence was to aggressively question their virility.

"They sent around bangles to Hindu men saying if they don't

participate in violence they are women. We found that even the

policemen in some instances were exposing their penises. There is a

strong masculinity agenda and they want to show they are men and

that they have power. In the name of a Hindu nation, they are even

able to get lower-caste Hindu people involved in the violence."

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a hardline cultural organisation in

the Hindutva fold, distributed a leaflet signed by the state general

secretary during the riots with the following poem, aimed at

inciting mobs to violence:

"The volcano that was inactive has erupted/ It has burnt the arse of

the Muslim men and made them dance nude/ We have untied the penises

that were tied until now/ We have widened the tight vaginas of the

Muslim women."

Hindu right-wing mobs justify using rape and murder as a way of

reclaiming their manhood and this reduces women's bodies to

territories on which men's battles for power are fought.

"As a result of this kind of propaganda, Muslim men feel

disempowered and emasculated. This is the Hindu right's weapon.

Women are symbolic of a family's honour. By attacking that, they

attack a man's masculinity," says Nira Yuval-Davis.

"However, there is a paradox. Women are idealised, there is this

idea of Mother India. Women are seen as the reason to go to war and

precious but if they are raped or hurt then it's their fault and

they are made to feel ashamed. What happens to them is seen as it is

reflected on men rather than truly considering what happens to them

personally.

"As a result there is nowhere for these women to escape to deal with

their trauma. There are no neutral places in civil society –

especially in rural villages."

When a woman is considered "tainted" she is married, often to

unsuitable men, to contain her "dishonour" – and husbands disown

their wives. If they do stay with each other it is in a state of

denial of the abuse.

Although this may appear "to work" on the surface, it means the

extreme break down of communications within the family unit,

weakening the community bond even further.

One woman, who was raped, spoke about how she was happy because her

husband accepts her yet he does not talk to her and has no physical

relationship with her.

Nira Yuval-Davis says that although the delegates who put together

the report were initially called in to assess the after effects of

the riots, they discovered that sexual violence was continuing

against women.

THE POLITICS OF VIOLENCE

South Asia Solidarity Group – a campaigning organisation committed

to strengthening movements for secularism, justice and genuine

democracy in south Asia and communities in Britain with people of

south Asian origin – launched the report at the Institute of

Contemporary Arts in London, where a film documenting the movements

of the Hindutva project was also premiered.

Spokeswoman of the group Amrit Wilson said: "A huge amount of money

is going from Britain in the name of charity to fund the Hindutva

groups. We are campaigning to put pressure on the British government

to stop the flow of these funds.

"A lot of Hindutva organisations pose as charities and many Asians

in this country – Hindus and Muslims – send money without realising

that it is going to fund the sort of atrocities on women and

children described in the report."

Amrit Wilson added: "Hindutva is not Hinduism, it is really fascism.

The Muslim communities have been devastated in Gujarat but

increasingly, everyone, Hindu or Muslim, who stands up for basic

justice is under attack. It is a very frightening scenario."

URL:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-2-43-1684.jsp#

January 24, 2004

Religion is root cause of all ills

all religions are man made

They can be wiped out

be spiritual

ego

Devi Bhakta <devi_bhakta wrote: