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“Breaking Barriers: Rape and Rescue During the Partition of India”

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“Breaking Barriers: Rape and Rescue During the Partition of India” “Breaking Barriers: Rape and Rescue During the Partition of India” Brooklynn Scott Senior Division, Historical Paper Words: 2,491 Introduction On the strike of midnight on August 15, 1947, a nation was divided into two-- India and Pakistan. Unfortunately, the violence building up to this moment did not look to dissipate any time soon. Fear of kidnapping, rape, and murder continued to hang over the women of South Asia during this tumultuous time. Official estimates say over 83,000 women were abducted in the violence of partition,1 but historians say there were well over 100,000.2 Such violence was so widespread, especially in the new border cities, that women became a new symbol of religious, national, and sexual tension. In response, the new countries decided to take action and formed government agencies to recover abducted women and return them to their families. However, their well-intended actions paradoxically broke more personal boundaries. While partition left a trail of broken hearts, it ultimately marks a period where women battled social barriers together. Religious Tension When India gained independence from Great Britain the greatest controversy was the decision to split India into two countries: Pakistan for Muslims and India for Hindus and Sikhs. Although migration was not legally required, the surge of movement resulted in the largest human migration in history.3 Not everyone agreed that one’s religious identity should determine their national identity, however pressure built for religious segregation. Hatred simply boiled for the 1 Khan, Yasmin. The Great Partition: the Making of India and Pakistan. Yale University Press, 2017. Pg 135. ​ ​ ​ 2 Ashraf, Ajaz, and Urvashi Butalia. “Men Killed Their Own Women and Children during Partition, but Freedom Overshadowed That Horror.” Quartz India, 14 Aug. 2016, ​ ​ qz.com/india/757914/men-killed-their-own-women-and-children-during-partition-but-freedom-overshadow ed-that-horror/. Accessed 13 Jan. 2020. 3 Bhat, Reiya. “India's 1947 Partition Through the Eyes of Women: Gender, Politics, and Nationalism.” Ohio ​ ​ University, 2018, etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ouhonors1524658168133726&disposition=inline. ​ 2 “other.” Muslims believed that their minority status in India would prevent them from ever achieving proper representation in government.4 After all, many Hindus treated Muslims as equivalent to an untouchable in the caste hierarchy. Pakistani Mariam S. explained that “the government acted as if Hindus were the supreme human being.”5 As part of the growing animosity, women were commonly attacked and kidnapped on both sides for symbolic reasons later discussed. These women were often forcibly married to their captors and, consequently, converted religions. In India, due to a Muslim’s standing as impure, converting abductees was the tipping point for outrage. In their view, crossing this boundary was even worse than regular kidnapping as seen when the government only focused on tracking down persons of the opposite religion, even when there were many reports of Hindus kidnapping Hindus as well.6 Taran, ​ a Sikh refugee from Pakistan, observed, "a woman has no religion-- her only religion is womanhood. She gives birth, she is a creator, she is god, she is mother."7 Kidnappers and governments alike disregarded how a woman personally identified her religion. Instead, her life depended on the religious community that claimed her. National Tension Women were also used to perpetuate extreme nationalistic dominance. The most prevalent medium used to stir up anger and national pride was the image of Bharat Mata or Mother India. 4 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali. “Move to Partition Punjab and Bengal.” The National Archives, United Kingdom, 4 ​ ​ May 1947, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/fo371-635331.jpg. 5 Siddiqa, Mariam and Brooklynn Scott. 4 Mar. 2020. 6India, Congress. Act No. 65 of 1949. The Abducted Persons (Recovery and Restoration) Act, 1949. High Court of ​ ​ Bombay, https://bombayhighcourt.nic.in/libweb/actc/1949.65.pdf. Nagpal, Himanshi. “The Partition Of Punjab: A Tale Of Violation Of Women's Rights.” Feminism In India, 27 ​ ​ June 2017, feminisminindia.com/2017/06/27/partition-punjab-violation-women/. 7 Menon, Ritu, and Kamla Bhasin. Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition. Rutgers University Press, ​ ​ ​ 1998. Pg 243. 3 Drawn on maps since late colonialism in the 19th century, the figure of Bharat Mata, as seen in Figure 1, represents the Indian nation in maps called ‘bodyscapes’ which purposefully blur borders and barriers and focuses on the humanization of the country as a person worth dying for.8 The idea of a national mother fostered simultaneous sentiments of belonging and possession which paralleled sentiments toward a mother and wife.9 When partition became inevitable, newspapers released cartoons evoking emotion against partition such as in Figure 2 which shows political leaders cutting Bharat Mata in half similar to the splitting of their country.10 Bharat Mata’s role as a damsel in distress perpetuated the common notion that women must be protected against the ‘other’.11 Nationalistic groups broke personal boundaries by violently taking the female body to express political opinions. Sexual Tension Part of the reason women carried nationalistic importance was because their fertility birthed the future of the nation.12 The general population felt a loss of control for their nation, so they took what they did have control of-- sex-- and used it to hurt their enemies. Mutilation of genitalia became a gruesome symbol for stopping the growth of nations. Mobs of men would storm villages 8IndianExpressOnline. Explained: The Evolution of Bharat Mata. YouTube, 24 Apr. 2019, ​ ​ www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7OtYSnJQy0. Sachdev, Nitika. “Deconstructing the 1947 Partition: The Effect of the Central Recovery Operation Through a Gendered Lens in India and Pakistan.” Colgate University, Semantic Scholar, 2017, ​ ​ pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bcb3/b3a08faaccf792c1e212d8f3a1af42b38e9a.pdf?_ga=2.232709919.1018809825. 1577142087-854990044.1548912844. 9 IndianExpressOnline. Explained: The Evolution of Bharat Mata. ​ ​ 10 See Figure 2 in Appendix A 11 Ramaswamy, Sumathi. “Maps and Mother Goddesses in Modern India.” Imago Mundi, vol. 53, 2001, pp. ​ ​ ​ 97–114. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1151561. ​ ​ 12 Dey, Arunima. “Violence Against Women During the Partition of India: Interpreting Women and their ​ Bodies in the Context of Ethnic Genocide.” 4 and burn political symbols onto women’s breasts or rip out their vaginas.13 Removing a woman’s fertility scarred the opposing community because it was a reflection of the men’s failure to protect their women.14 Another method rioters used was to parade kidnapped women naked through the streets as a demonstration of the other nation’s weakness.15 Violence knew no barriers. Stories of these raids spread fear across India and families began to prepare in case of an attack. Girls started carrying suicide pills because death was more honourable than rape.16 Soon, whole villages began systematically killing their women in order to protect them from possible humiliation. They used tactics such as beheading, strangling, and jumping into wells.17 One survivor recounted, “We girls would often talk about death -- some were afraid, others thought of it as a glorious death -- dying for an end, for freedom, for honour. For me everything was related to freedom, I was dying for freedom.”18 The surviving family rarely spoke about what they did. In order to cope with their haunting guilt, many men framed the mass suicides as heroic martyrdoms.19 While some scholars such as Urvasi Butalia argue the dishonor of rape afflicted Hindus to a higher extreme than Muslims, the challenges Muslims faced were not any less significant than 13 Sachdev, Nitika. “Deconstructing the 1947 Partition: The Effect of the Central Recovery Operation Through a Gendered Lens in India and Pakistan.” Universidad de Salamanca, 3 Aug. 2016 ​ ​ 14 Sachdev, Nitika. “Deconstructing the 1947 Partition: The Effect of the Central Recovery Operation Through a Gendered Lens in India and Pakistan.” 15 Dey, Arunima. “Violence Against Women During the Partition of India: Interpreting Women and their ​ Bodies in the Context of Ethnic Genocide.” 16 Thakur, Dipsikha. “Mourning The Forgotten Women Of India's Violent Partition.” The Establishment, 12 ​ ​ Oct. 2018, theestablishment.co/mourning-the-forgotten-women-of-indias-violent-partition-5eeb25d8bab2/index.html. 17 Patel, Meera. “Rape Accounts Still Surface from India's Partition 65 Years On.” Women's Media Center, 26 ​ ​ June 2013, www.womensmediacenter.com/women-under-siege/rape-accounts-still-surface-from-indias-partition-65-year s-on. 18 Menon, Ritu, and Kamla Bhasin. Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition. Pg 243. ​ ​ 19 Ashraf, Ajaz, and Ishtiaq Ahmed. “What drove some who experienced Partition to brutality -- and how they live with it.” South Asia Citizens Web, 13 Aug. 2016, http://sacw.net/article12905.html. ​ ​ 5 Hindus. In an interview, Pakistani Mariam S. asserted, “It does not matter if you are a Hindu or a Muslim; the horror of rape follows you.” She continued to relate the story of a friend who was engaged to a Muslim man but during their migration to Pakistan she was raped so her fiance called off the wedding.20 While communities may disagree, one thing is clear -- a woman’s body did not belong to her. She represented the honour of her community. Abduction and Recovery Programs In the face of so much atrocity, people felt an undeniable call to action. Every Indian knew ​ the epic of Rama and his wife Sita: Sita is kidnapped by an evil demon and, with the help of some friends, Rama goes and rescues her.21 It was a common story turned into a rallying cry when politicians said, "As descendants of Rama we have to bring back every Sita that is alive.”22 In order to rectify the heinous acts of partition, each country agreed to delegate efforts to pursue kidnapped women and return them to their original homes as laid out in the Inter Dominion Conference in Lahore in 1947.23 Lists of abducted women were compiled from police reports filed by relatives.
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