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June 16, 2002
Raising the voice of peace
While Urvashi Butalia captures the agony of the women in Kashmir who are the chief victims of the conflict in the valley, Shabnam Lone narrates her personal anguish to Pamela Bhagat
It is now widely accepted that while women seldom create or initiate conflict, they — along with children and the aged — are often its chief victims and sufferers. Nowhere is this more true than in Kashmir. Yet, despite this, women’s suffering has, until recently, barely been acknowledged. The Kashmir conflict, for example, has generated a vast amount of analytical and historical literature; very little of it actually mentions women. Yet today, in Kashmir, there are large numbers of women who are identified as ‘half widows’ (women whose husbands are assumed dead but there is no proof to show they actually are), widows, mothers who have lost their sons, or those whose daughters have been raped, young women who dare not step out of the house, women who have been pushed out of employment by the fear and uncertainty created by conflict, and those who are suffering from medical and psychological conditions related to stress and trauma.
Nor is this the only reality of women caught in conflict. For there is enough evidence from research and activist work the world over, and specifically in the South Asian region, to show that conflict — whether long-term or sudden — often results in pushing women into the public space, or in their taking the initiative to carve out their own spaces in which to come to terms with the changed reality around them.
Clearly, conflict has created a situation of tremendous fear and uncertainty in women’s lives. Kashmir was a state, one woman told us, where if you wanted to kill a chicken you had to ask the permission of your elders, and, she said, “Look at what it has become today. Violence is a way of life. The gun is like an old familiar — children ask to be given AK47s as birthday presents.”
A statement that is heard time and again today relates to another condition created by the conflict, and that is about the lack of trust. “Our fear is as much from the gun,” we were told, “as it is from each other. We no longer know whom to trust. Sometimes your closest friend, even your brother, may be an informer, or a militant, sometimes he may be a renegade (the local term used for ‘surrendered’ militants).” Further, for women, this lack of trust works in other ways....
Statistics are hard to come by in Kashmir. There has been no census there since 1981 — by the time the date for the next census came round, the trouble had already begun — and much has changed in twenty years. Figures for the number of people killed in the violence, the dead, the missing, women widowed, raped women, children orphaned — all these vary widely depending on where they come from. Government figures are always lower than those calculated by human rights and civil liberties activists.
While the lack of ‘proper’ statistics is a problem that needs to be addressed, one does not need statistics to measure people’s grief and suffering, and their desire for peace. If the women of Kashmir, whether Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or Ladakhi, are to be believed, the levels of domestic violence have gone up sharply in the state in the last decade or so. For women, then, the external violence of war or political conflict is not something that is happening ‘out there’, but it has made its way into their homes and hearths.
Yet, in the hierarchy of violence set up by such situations, the ‘external’ violence of conflict somehow comes to acquire much greater significance than the ‘internal’ violence of domestic strife, no matter that domestic strife may be generated, or exacerbated, by the external violence. Women who become the targets of such violence, have no one to talk to, for to everyone, it is the male who is the hero, whether as an army man, or a militant, or simply someone caught in conflict. She does not count.
In this context another question becomes important: that of the nature and meaning of peace. Does the ‘return’ of peace then mean a going back to the conditions that existed — the status quo — before conflict broke out, no matter how terrible those conditions might be in themselves? For women for whom levels of violence have escalated sharply, what will a return to ‘normalcy’ mean: the status quo ‘then’ (i.e. pre-conflict) or the status quo ‘now’ (i.e. during conflict)? Will ‘peace’ mean only the end of conflict ‘outside’ so to speak, or can women expect peace to extend within the four walls of the home as well?
At this meeting a young Kashmiri woman, speaking of the rape of a friend, posed a question to the audience and participants: “I want to ask how the militants’ struggle for azadi, for liberation, will be advanced by the rape of this woman. I want to ask how this rape — and the countless other rapes that have taken place — will help in the security and protection of the nation? Can you answer this question for me?” The young woman’s anguished question goes straight to the heart of the problem. It cannot, it must not, be ignored.
Rape has today become a commonplace occurrence in Kashmir and where once, it was the militants and the security forces who used it as a weapon of war, today it would seem that by far the larger number of offenders come from within the security forces — particularly the local forces (although whether this is actually true or whether it is that people are fearful of speaking about militant rape remains unclear). Protected by their power, and the Draconian laws under which they operate, and protected also by their guns, they use rape, as it has traditionally been used, as a weapon to humiliate the Muslim community through the violation of its women.
Mirroring this, the militants similarly use rape to target the Pandit Hindu community through its women. Civil liberties organizations are the only ones — along with some sections of the media — who have actually attempted not only to acknowledge that fact of rape, but to bring the issue to public attention. For the others, rape as a weapon of war, rape that targets women as the cultural markers of their community, and is then used to humiliate the community (clearly seen to be made up only of men) through their women, is not something they need even to acknowledge. A high-powered fact finding team sent out by the Indian government and the Press Council of India, for example, concluded, shamefully (and after making a half hour visit to Kunan Poshpora where there had been mass rape of women by a unit of the Rajputana rifles) that the women had lied about this.
Shabnam Lone
I felt strongly about human rights abuses and the state of terror which was rampant because of the excesses by the security forces. Militant excesses were also there but you could not pinpoint the culprits. They came masked at night so you really couldn’t condemn the militants.....
You get used to hearing and seeing death and resign yourself to fate. Many of the youngsters have moved out for education and not to escape the environment. We all have to learn to live with it, not to run away from it. People move out for the lure of money or for individual perceptions and aspirations. Nobody would want to go if good education were available right here because our experience outside, in India, has not been very good.
People outside view us Kashmiris as violent and trouble creators. For me, since I belong to the exalted institution of the Bar, people don’t tell me to my face but I can understand the vibes. I have to do a balancing act. They are sympathetic to Kashmiri Pandit lawyers because they can see the misery of someone who has been uprooted but they don’t see my trauma. There are extreme pressures in everyday life, I face them all the time. The first time that I went to Delhi, in 1991, I was arrested under TADA from my house in Lajpat Nagar. They had some ridiculous charge about me taking some money, which they couldn’t substantiate. It was my boss who filed a petition and I was let off the same day.....
In my opinion the only way out of the impasse in the valley is dialogue with everyone, even the most extreme militant — listen with patience and without any preconceived notions. To find a solution there has to be an understanding of the historical, political, economic and real problems here. It is a complex situation that requires a collective solution. The thought process hasn’t even taken off as yet. Everyone here wants peace and stability. They realize that the best place to live in is where there is dignity and respect for human rights....
Everyone here has suffered or had some dreadful experience. I haven’t told you yet about my kidnapping. It was a terrible and scary experience that left me very bitter. Sometime in late 1990, I visited my father in Tihar jail where he had been detained along with other activists. While there my father told me to meet another senior leader, Shabir Ahmed Shah and other detainees since I was a lawyer.
Soon after that, on January 10, 1991, a girl came to my house in Rawalpora, Srinagar and told me to accompany her since a Naeem Khan wanted to see me about a message from Shabir Shah. I am usually very careful but on that day I just walked into a trap. I drove her to wherever she said and then we walked. Gun-wielding boys started surrounding us and we kept walking through a labyrinth of narrow lanes till I was led into a room.
All this while I kept asking them about where they were taking me, but all they said was that I had to meet someone who was coming all the way from Baramula and that I would have to wait for him. I was very scared but then I thought that if this is how I am supposed to die, well then so be it. Then these boys put a Kalashnikov to my head and started saying ridiculous things like — you are a lawyer, a very modern girl, an Indian agent. I told them — ‘if you want to, go ahead and shoot me. I have worked with many militants but they were very good boys who were committed to the cause of freedom, not like you.’
Then they put me into a three-wheeler and boldly took me through the security cordons to another place. Here I was asked all kinds of political questions like, when you visited Tihar — what deal did you strike up there? What set agenda did you discuss with people in Mehrauli? In what way are you involved with IB (Intelligence Bureau) and what role are they playing?
I was blindfolded throughout with my hands tied. There were torture sessions when I was made to sit in a bucket full of water, I was made to walk on ice and a lady called Baaji was called upon to slap me off and on. They put a Kalashnikov in my mouth and said that I should remember God since I was going to die. I told them that they were cowards and that if they were good people they should just kill me without coming near me. That they should kill me like men. In Islam, before someone is killed, all the jewelry is removed. They had done all that.
They kept me for two nights and three days. Later I came to know that they had wanted to kill me but since I had remained cool and coherent, I had created some kind of division between them. I did hear them arguing. Most of them were young dropouts but were being directed by some older men. Many did not even know who I was.
After they left me I was angry, scared and shattered. But I had to recoup on my own because no one from my family was in Srinagar. Our retainer did miss me but all he did was to ask a few people and wait. Later, my anger lessened against them because I realized they were as much victims as I was. They had been used by a certain system, by certain people. This helped me get over it.
But this was not the end. A couple of years later there was an attempt on my life — I was also shot at. I escaped that assassination attempt and am still confused about why they targeted me. I am opinionated but I couldn’t have posed a threat to anyone. Everyone knows that I have always believed in Kashmir for the Kashmiris without discrimination between caste, creed, religion. I was furious and decided to channel this anger into my career. Surviving a kidnapping and a murder attempt has been very traumatic for me.
Excerpted with permission from
Speaking peace: women’s voices from Kashmir
Edited by Urvashi Butalia
Kali for Women, K-92 Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi-110016
Tel: 91-11-6864497, 6964947
Email: kaliw@del2.vsnl.net.in
ISBN 81-86706-43-7
315pp. Indian Rs350
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