Gender, Technology and Development

http://gtd.sagepub.com Review Article : Women and Ethnic Cleansing: A History of Partition in India and Pakistan
Beatriz Gonzalez Manchon Gender Technology and Development 2000; 4; 101 DOI: 10.1177/097185240000400105 The online version of this article can be found at: http://gtd.sagepub.com

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Gender, Technology and Development can be found at: Email Alerts: http://gtd.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://gtd.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.in/about/permissions.asp

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

Review Article

Women and Ethnic Cleansing: A History of Partition in

India and Pakistan

Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin; Borders and Boundaries: Women in Indias Partition; New Delhi: Kali for Women; 1998; 274 pages; Rs 300. Urvashi Butalia; The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India; New Delhi: Viking (Penguin India); 1998; 278 pages; Rs 295.

Introduction
Nationalism has become an increasingly powerful ideology in the post-Cold War era. Ethnic and religious conflicts are an ongoing reality affecting women and men in nearly every region. But, as we continue to witness systematic rape and other forms of inhuman treatment of women as deliberate instruments of war and ethnic cleansing, there is definitely a need for continued feminist research into womens distinct experience of conflict, violence and war-like situations. Fifty years after the great convulsion caused by the territorial separation of religious communities in Indias Partition, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, and Urvashi Butalia, in Borders and Boundaries: Women in Indias Partition and The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India respectively, provide a feminist analysis of those events. The books focus on womens personal experiences and the

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

102

repercussions that Partition had on their lives, their relationships with men, with their religious communities and with the state. When the Hindustan-Pakistan Plan was announced on 3 June 1947, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were scattered all over Indias territory. In view of the threat of becoming a minority in an area dominated by the other religion, a mass exodus of non-Muslims traveling to India and Muslims traveling to Pakistan began. Population movements took place at a scale unprecedented in human history, and the communal violence generated in this process cost one million people their lives. Over 12 million people were displaced and uprooted, and approximately 75,000 women were abducted and raped on both sides of the border. Borders and Boundaries draws a close parallel between the violence directed against women during the recent war between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Partition violence. While there are certainly important differences, the authors stress the link between religion-based vivisection of countries, the sexuality of women and their role as upholders of honour and reproducers of the community (p. 63) in both context. Today, the ethniccleansing effort directed by the Serb armed forces and paramilitary groups, especially against the Muslim population in BosniaHerzegovina, is being repeated against ethnic Albanians of the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Human rights violations of women in the form of murder, rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancies have unfortunately been consistent throughout these and other ethniccleansing campaigns. In the Asian region, human rights groups have reported mass rapes of women among others in the contexts of the offensive of the Burmese military against the insurgency of ethnic minorities and in the Indonesian military repression of the EastTimorese independence struggle. Rape and sexual mutilation of women, including the tattooing of their sexual organs with symbols of the other religion, were very much part of the communal violence that accompanied Partition in India and Pakistan. Similar forms of violence continue to be used today as tactics of terrorism with total impunity in different parts of the world. These two books make a crucial point denouncing this kind of brutality against women not just as characteristic of particularly-troubled historic moments, but rather as an indicator of the place that womens sexuality occupies in patriarchal societies.

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

103

A Feminist Reading

of Partition

The absence of womens distinctive experiences from historical accounts, as a result of their gender roles, has been extensively criticized by feminist research in the past decades. The valuable contribution of these two books therefore lies in their construction of women as historical actors and the denial of the notion that major historic episodes affect women and men equally. Through their feminist reading of the consequences of Partition, the authors explore the specific repercussions of large-scale violence, displacement and dispossession on the lives of ordinary women. Crucial questions of identity, country and religion, as well as the intersection of community, state and gender are approached from a critical perspective, adding significant dimensions to the analysis of the cultural, psychological and social impact of Partition stories on the present India. In both books, the first chapter introduces the reader to the historical context of Partition and the magnitude of the convulsion created by the demarcation of territorial boundaries between religious communities that were previously co-existing. A few pages are also dedicated to explaining the research methodology and the authors positions with regard to the debate over the value of oral testimonies versus historical facts. Over the past decade the authors of the books interviewed individuals, mainly, but not exclusively, women, to learn more about their experiences of Partition. It is precisely through the accounts obtained, for example, from women in rehabilitation centers and social workers that women can become a focus of inquiry and the subject of the narrative. On the other hand, the authors see the need to locate these testimonies in the context of historical facts, establishing the relationship between memories and official versions contained in historic records, official statements and other government documents. Neither Menon and Bhasin nor Butalia intend to do a review of historical writings on the politics of Partition. They aim instead to understand the meaning of the historical events from the perspectives of the people who suffered and lived through them. By elaborating their own views on the problematic of oral histories, their motivations and their dilemmas around the question of whether or not to ask questions which are painful for individuals to remember, the authors make these very human research projects credible and

transparent.

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

104

My purpose is not to literally compare these two books. The relevthing about their publication in 1998 is actually the fact that the authors have found it important to do a reading of historical events out of their sincere feminist commitment and deep concern for the increasing communalism in Indian society. Both books engage in an exhaustive analysis of Partition realities from a gender perspective, the issues treated in-depth being the ones emerging directly from peoples testimonies. Borders and Boundaries classifies these issues
ant

into six clusters: violence, abduction and recovery, widowhood, womens rehabilitation and what the authors call rebuilding and

belonging.
Concerned with the same subjects, the narrative in The Other Side of Silence is constructed on a more personal note and is less systematic. Butalia recalls her familys experience of the Partition and reproduces in great detail selected interviews with individuals. Along with womens stories she also includes the experiences of other marginalized groups. Chapter 6 is dedicated to the problems of displaced and orphan children and the children of abducted women, and in Chapter 7 it is the Harijans, Dalits or Untouchables who are the focus of her analysis. She stresses the point that Partition has been only thought of in terms of the opposition between religious identities, neglecting other important aspects of identity such as gender, class or caste. The scheduled castes, who were a sizeable proportion of the population in Punjab, also had a distinct experience of Partition as a result of their inferior social status. The information contained in both books refers mainly to events in the area of Punjab. The authors have to a large extent consulted the same sources and come to very similar conclusions in their interpretations of the gender aspects of the conflict, in particular, with regard to the stories of violence against women, abducted women (women taken hostage or kidnapped) and unattached women (displaced, destituted or widowed women). Now discussed are some of the main ideas developed in both

books.

Violence
The scale and

against Women
Punjab following the was organized
and
a

intensity

of the violence in

announcement of Partition reveal that much of it

and

supported by

law-enforcement

agencies

communalized

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

105

It was intensified by economic factors such as the conflict between agricultural labor and landowners and cultural and psychological factors related to the deep-rooted antagonism between the communities. It was a period of de facto suspension of law and order in which violence against women occupied a very particular place. An important point made in both books is that women were particularly targeted for violent actions not only because of their special vulnerability in times of conflict. There was a deep patriarchal complicity between country, community and religion, which allowed overall brutality and certain forms of permissible violence against women to take place. Hindu, Sikh and Muslim women experienced violence at the hands of the men of the other community who abused them sexually in an overt assertion of their identity and a simultaneous humiliation of the Other by dishonouring their women (Menon and Bhasin, p. 41). Feminist research in the field of ethnic conflict and sexual violence has pointed out that womens bodies are considered by the men of rival communities as a territory to be conquered. Along with the contamination of the raped women, the humiliation of the men who were not able to protect them has to be seen as another important factor indicating the degradation of the enemys identity, stressing his lack of maleness. Some of the women were raped in temples or mosques, constituting a double violation from the point of view of a nationalism based on ethnic and religious purity. Ironically, however, both books stress the fact that much of the violence directed against women during Partition was perpetrated by their kinsmen. Their own families and communities, in the name of preserving chastity and honor, forced large numbers of women to death. Both books recall, for example, the story of 90 women of Thoa Khalsa (Rawalpindi) who jumped into a well on 15 March 1947 in fear of an imminent attack on the village and sexual aggression on the women. Such incidents had previously been interpreted as willing sacrifices from women; there was no further questioning of the circumstances. The authors argue that these acts can hardly be seen as the result of voluntary decisions. Particular notions of shame and dishonor were very deep-rooted in families and communities, making women internalize the notion that death was preferable to living in humiliation. Some women resisted this logic, but many others committed suicide or were killed by their own community men to avoid submission to the enemy. Menon and Bhasin see a patriarchal

bureaucracy.

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

106

agreement around the acceptability of these murders, which indicates how doses of violence against women were embedded in everyday history. They enable us to see them as part of the continuumand, despite the shudder of horror, part of the consensus (p. 60).

Night fell, they kept raping the women, then dumped them. Divided up the gold. They wouldnt leave the 17-year-old and she
decided she would commit suicide. But how to kill herself? She asked for a rope-but where to get it from? Her brother and husband then got hold of a scarf and decided they would strangle her with it.... She survived, despite their efforts to strangle her all night. During this she fainted, and in the morning they decided to throw her in the river. We didnt try to stop her-we, too thought we would do the same, but we had the children to think of. Testimony of Bimla Bua, one of two or three Hindu women who had not taken their lives in this incident in Muzaffarabad in October 1947 (p. 52).

Abducted Women and Recovery

By the end of 1947, both the Indian and Pakistani governments were overwhelmed by the complaints from relatives of missing women. An Inter-Dominion Treaty was signed to organize the recovery of abducted women on both sides and restore them to their families. The legislation on the Act to facilitate the recovery operation provoked intense controversy in the Indian Parliament. Among the most polemic issues was the definition of abducted person, the virtually unlimited powers attributed to the police by the Act, the denial of rights and legal recourse to the recovered women and the forcible return of unwilling women. Once recovered, abducted women were brought to refugee camps to await their restoration to their families, just like stolen property. Some were pregnant or had already given birth to the children of their abductors. They had been polluted by mixing with the blood of the other religion (especially with regard to Hindu women abducted by Muslims), and had therefore to be purified, through rehabilitation within their communities. According to the accounts in these
books, many women knew there was reluctance to accept them back
and often resisted recovery. Children of these illegitimate unions raised a whole range of questions for these women and for the states

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

107

of which they were supposed to be citizens. This too is a subject discussed in both books. Without questioning the validity of the recovery operation as a whole, what the books argue is that the circumstances of the abduction varied significantly from case to case. In some cases the women had been left behind by their own families for the safe passage of the rest of the members. Moreover, not all abductors were evil and they often married the abducted women. Many of them were living with considerable dignity and respect with their new partners and had improved their social status. Resistance to the recovery often did not come only from abductors but from the women themselves. Being separated from their families they had eventually had the opportunity to choose their partners freely, which is something they could never have done inside their own community. The authors are therefore very critical about the policy of forcible recovery. They point out that recovery was a question of honor directly linked to the issue of religious conversion, or to the concern for the loss of Hindus to Islam: The honour that was staked on the body of Mother India, and therefore, by extension on the bodies of all Hindu and Sikh women, mothers and would-be-mothers. The loss of these women to men of the other religion, was also a loss to their original families. These, and not the new families which the women may be now in, were the legitimate families (Butalia, p. 145). The identities of abducted women were primarily defined in terms of their membership of religious communities instead of full-fledged citizens from two free countries, and their rights to free choice therefore subordinated in order to preserve community and national honor. There were some women who had been bom into poor homes and had not seen anything other than poverty. A half-full stomach and rags on your body. And now they had fallen into the hands of men who bought them silken salwars and net dupattas, who taught them the pleasures of cold ice-cream and hot coffee, who took them to the cinema. Why should they leave such men and go back to covering their bodies with rags and slaving in the hot sun in the fields? There was also another fear. The people who wanted to take them away ... how did they know that they would not sell them to others? After all, she has been sold many times, how many more times would it happen?
....

Testimony of Damyanti Sahgal, social worker in the recovery operation of abducted women that continued for nine years after Partition (p. 113).

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

108

Unattached Women and Rehabilitation

Displaced

and widowed

women

constitute the second group of

women; the Indian

government assumed direct responsibility for them after Partition. In the case of widows, government policies and

programs were initiated with the purpose of integrating the women as economic beings and mainstreaming them into the countrys economic life. The state provided shelter, training and work of different kinds so that they would become economically independent and acquire a sense of dignity and self-worth. As Butalia describes it, this is the second story about Partition. The story of how in the midst of trauma and turbulence, opportunities opened up for people, especially women, to rebuild their lives. Many women were able to join the workforce after Partition as social workers and volunteers in camps and government homes for women and children. The breakdown of traditional constraints on womens mobility was probably one of the positive effects of Partition on gender relations. At the same time the state became the custodian of unattached women in the absence of their kinsmen, not only supporting them financially, but also interfering in their private lives. Both books provide details of how marriages of young widows were arranged in the camps through the network of social workers. At that time the newly-independent Indian state was defining its political priorities and trying to build up its egalitarian character, as well as its commitment to secularism and proximity to peoples

problems.
On this point Menon and Bhasin write: Through its policies and programmes for both categories of women (abducted and unattached women) the government not only undertook its first major welfare and legislative responsibility as an independent state, it revealed the complexity of its relationship to gender and community, and secularism and democracy (p. 159).
It was not easy in the Ashram. The women were unhappy at being uprooted like this. In their own homes they were settled, here they were dependent on us for every morsel. Standing in lines in the morning for their rations, waiting for three hours and they were often cheated-it was hard, but at least they got something to eat. Sometimes they would protest, take out a procession against the management for being careless or indifferent.... But the

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

109

Government made sure everything was available-free food, electricity, water, shelter, medicines, schools. If they worked, they
were

paid.
Testimony of Durga Rani, a widow herself who lived and worked in one of the unattached womens camps (p. 145).

Conclusion

Following the departure of the British, India was divided into a nonMuslim-majority state (the present India) and a new Muslim-majority entity (Pakistan). The idea of territorial separation of religious communities emerged as the political solution to communal tensions and
Muslim claims for a separate state, within a context of politics of power and class struggle. The fact is that it proved to be an unworkable idea, which led to a decision with far-reaching consequences for the future of both countries and the relationship between them. It is precisely the objective of these two books to establish the links between historical Partition events of 50 years ago, their dramatic consequences for ordinary people, in particular women, and the reflections of yesterdays divisions in the context of more contemporary realities. Butalias book refers on several occasions to the Sikh massacre following Indira Gandhis assassination in 1984 as practically a replication of the brutality of Partition violence, as well as to the manifestations of present communalism and religious fundamentalism in India. Menon and Bhasin recall that since the Partition of India, which they describe in fact as an undeclared civil war, there have been disputed borders in every country of South Asia. The tension created by these border disputes probably had its most intense expression during the nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan in May 1998. As I am writing this review, international media report renewed fighting between the Indian and Pakistani armies in northern Kashmir, near Pakistans border. For the past 10 years, India has been denouncing the involvement of Pakistans army in support of Muslim separatist guerrillas in the Himalayan territory, an accusation that Pakistan denies. One can conclude from the thoughtful interpretation of Partition events provided by these books that decisions taken in the context of grand politics, like the division of India and the simultaneous creation of Pakistan in 1947, have far from provided appropriate solutions to outstanding problems. They have not only been responsible

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009

110

creating great human distress, but also for inducing the emergence of even more complex issues around the nationalist question. The root causes of conflict, in particular of nationalist claims by a community or another derive, more often than not, from power struggles resulting from uneven development, unequal access to land and government and competition for scarce resources. If the structural reasons for those communal divisions are not addressed, the symptoms of long-standing inequalities and oppression translate into violence and intensify over time with a serious risk of reaching ethnic-cleansing or even genocide proportions both in their nature and magnitude. Ironically, those excluded from political decisionmaking processes in a systematic way, like women, are the ones who have suffered the most, and are likely to continue to suffer the worst consequences from these situations. In these two books, it is ordinary people, instead of grand politics, who are placed at the center of historical accounts. Through the testimonies of courageous women with names and surnames we hear the voices and stories behind shocking statistics like 75,000 abductions and rapes. We see the real human lives behind cold numbers, otherwise ignored and silenced by the official discourse of political division. What emerges from this different version of the past are stories of violence and loss, of systematic human rights violations full of symbolic meanings in the dominating patriarchal structures between and within religious or ethnic communities, that as a woman, I
can

for

only deplore.

The reading of both books can be recommended to all those interested particularly in gender and ethnic conflict or issues of gender, nationalism and the state in general. As testimonies of suffering, the books can also provide a humanizing insight for researchers, policymakers and activists working in the fields of conflict management and resolution. Hopefully they will contribute to spread the notion that violations of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict, communal violence and such like, are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Gender and Development Program

Asian Institute of Technology

Beatriz Gonzalez Manchón

Bangkok

Downloaded from http://gtd.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 27, 2009