Indian-Administered Kashmir is one of the most militarized zones in the world, where the Indian government controls both Kashmiri space and bodies to maintain their power in the region (Mathur, 2012, p. 218). One method for achieving this is gendered violence, which includes the sexual assault and rape of Kashmiri women by Indian military, and the killings and disappearances of their male kin.
Many Kashmiris have practiced resistance against the ongoing Indian occupation and its actions through their words, including Ather Zia, a prominent Kashmiri scholar and poet who released a poem titled Prima Facie nothing has happened. The poem highlights the collective abuse experienced by Kashmiri women in Kunan Poshpora at the hands of the Indian Army. In this village, at least I53 women were gang-raped by Indian soldiers and many men were tortured (Mathur, 2012, p. 229). Primarily, the poem highlights how gendered violence is used in colonial military operations to break down communities, crush dissidents and therefore maintain control. Next, it reveals how gendered violence purposefully targets women’s honour to disintegrate the national freedom movements of the colonized. Finally, it highlights how gendered violence is used to further the masculinized nationalist agendas of colonizers, who view the occupation of feminized lands like Kashmir through whatever means necessary, as essential to the survival of their own nation. Ultimately, the suffering of Kashmiri women in Ather Zia’s poem ‘Prima Facie nothing has happened’ reflects how gendered violence is a colonial weapon used to maintain control over colonized lands, disintegrate national freedom movements of colonized peoples, and advance masculinized nationalist agendas.
(Photography Source: Free Press Kashmir News)
To begin, Zia’s poem covers how gendered violence in Kashmir is a weapon used by colonizers to maintain their power, as it breaks down communities and crushes dissidents. Zia describes the sexual violence women experienced in Kunan Poshpora through their hearts, which remain as “mounds of broken, palpating flesh,” and their tunics and veils which became “rags,” and “shameful flags of hubris” (Zia, lines 15-19). When discussing the aftermath of the violence, she states that men inside “armored jeeps” with “shiny insignia’s” (referring to the authorities) looked at the evidence and found things like “scratches, smudges and marks” which told “no tale,” (Zia, lines 28, 56-57). Zia even highlights that the authorities viewed the victims as “militants, dissidents and traitors,” (Zia, line 45). Finally, the authorities concluded that “prima facie nothing has happened,” (Zia, line 61) demonstrating how gendered violence is weaponized to maintain power during military occupations. In addition, many human rights organizations have observed patterns in which sexual violence has been employed in counterinsurgency efforts in Kashmir by Indian forces who have impunity (Mathur, 2012, p. 229).
The soldiers responsible for raping women state they are following orders, and their actions are covered up by officials who accuse victims of fabricating stories (Mathur, 2012, p. 229). Describing the victims as “traitors” is Zia’s way of showing how the sexual violence endured by women was a part of counter-insurgency efforts (Zia, line 45). Zia also covered how violence towards male kin impacted women, as the night watches over the “unseen dead bodies of their husbands,” and “the ghosts of the disappeared sons” haunt “only them” (Zia, lines 72-73). These stories, of women being left without fathers, sons, and brothers, have become “legends of the occupation” (Mathur, 2012, p. 228). The violence they have endured breaks down communities by causing women to spend decades of their lives searching for their lost kin. Therefore, Zia’s poem illustrates how gendered violence enables colonizers to maintain their power as it breaks down communities and crushes dissent.
Furthermore, Zia’s poem represents how gendered violence is used to deliberately target women’s honour in order to disintegrate the national freedom movements of the colonized. In the poem, the authorities’ observations reveal their bias towards the victims who they perceive as “militants, dissidents and traitors,” and despite the presence of “boot marks” and signs of “military” in the crime scene, they conclude that “nothing has happened” (Zia, lines 41-44). Furthermore, in the whole scene of suffering which Zia paints, where there are the sounds of “sobs that must be quieted,” and the women are experiencing the “terror filled night,” the authorities also see “nation,” and “pleasure.” This is because women’s sexuality is a major concern of nationalists around the world, and Kashmir is no exception, where women bear the masculine honour of their communities (Nagel, 1998, p. 256).
Colonizers, like the Indian authorities, understand how important women’s honour is to the national freedom movements of the colonized and use sexual violence to disintegrate these movements. Part of this political exercise is the humiliation of the families whose women have been victims of rape (Kaul, 2021, p.119). This is why Zia depicts the authorities in her poem as seeing their “nation,” in the conquering of “traitor” women through rape and allowing their perpetrators to walk free (Zia, lines 45-47). The authorities’ own Indian nation is protected, while the violation of Kashmiri women’s bodies destroys the honour of Kashmiri families and their national visions for a free Kashmir. Zia depicts the Indian authorities becoming stronger while Kashmiris become weaker following these incidences at the end of her poem, when the Kashmiri women “mourn in an unknown language,” while the “officials come to measure the territory,” and “keep the barbed wires in place,” (Zia, lines 74-79). It is clear that Zia’s poem shows how gendered violence is used as a tool to target women’s honour and subsequently dismantle national freedom movements of those who are colonized.
Finally, Zia’s poem reveals how gendered violence is used to further the masculinized nationalist agendas of colonizers, especially because they view the occupation of feminized lands like Kashmir as essential to the survival of their own nation. Within India, officials have always exoticized Kashmir as a feminized land, which is the head of the broader national vision of “Mother India” (Kaul, 2018, p.120, 133). This has driven masculinized Indian nationalists to occupy the territory of Kashmir through any means necessary (including gendered violence), as their control of Kashmir is essential to preventing their “mother” from being beheaded (Kaul, 2018, p. 120 and 133). Zia demonstrates this by ending off her poem with the gendered violence endured by Kashmiri women, while “the alleged rapists again deny all charges,” (Zia, line 82). The silencing of women’s voices here is shown through the authorities determining that there were “no witnesses'' despite the many women present (Zia, line 37). This is because another feature of coloniality is denying agency towards the colonized because the patriarch or the colonizer is the owner of the colonized, feminised ‘Other’ (Kaul, 2021, p. 117). Hence, “nothing has happened,” was the conclusion determined by authorities in Kunan Poshpura, without consulting the victims (Zia, line 61).
Within contexts like the masculinized Indian state, power and control over women also depicts a valourised form of masculinity, which justifies gendered violence (Kaul, 2018, p. 136). Once again, the authorities in the poem seeing their “nation,” in the trauma of Kashmiri women who had been gang raped, shows how this manifests in the Kunan Poshpura case (Zia, line 47). As a result, it is clear how Zia’s poem depicts colonizers’ use of gendered violence to further their own masculinized nationalist agendas, as their occupation of feminized lands like Kashmir through whatever means necessary, is deemed essential to the survival of their own nations.
To conclude, Ather Zia’s poem ‘Prima Facie nothing has happened’ reflects the experiences of Kashmiri women and represents how gendered violence is used by colonial powers to maintain control over their lands, disintegrate the national freedom movements of the colonized and also further their masculinized nationalist agendas.
Zia’s poem cannot only be understood within the context of the Kunan Poshpura case however, as it is representative of a larger group of gendered violence cases within the region, and a clear strategy used by the Indian colonial regime in the region to maintain their power (Mathur, 2012, p. 222). It can often be difficult to see how, within the seemingly postcolonial world order, formerly colonized nations themselves can also be perpetuating the same colonial systems which they spent so much time fighting against. However, this has become clearer to scholars in recent years in Kashmir, particularly through the stories of women who have been oppressed in the region for so long at the hands of the Indian government (Mathur, 2012, p. 223). While there is still a long way to go before Kashmiri women can find justice for the suffering they have endured, it is in writing about their stories, and what they represent in the larger context of the Kashmir conflict, as Ather Zia does, that we can begin to find a pathway forward.
Sources:
Kaul, Nitasha. (2021) "Coloniality and/as Development in Kashmir: Econationalism." Feminist Review, no. 128, pp. 114-31, librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_sage_journals_10_1177_01417789211016490&context=PC&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&lang=en&search_scope=UTL_AND_CI&adaptor=Primo%20Central&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,gendered%20violence%20in%20kashmir&offset=20.
Kaul, Nitasha. (2018). "India's Obsession with Kashmir: Democracy, Gender, (Anti-)Nationalism." Feminist Review, vol. 119, no. 1, pp. 126-43, librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_crossref_primary_10_1057_s41305_018_0123_x&context=PC&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&lang=en&search_scope=UTL_AND_CI&adaptor=Primo%20Central&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,gendered%20violence%20in%20Kashmir&offset=20
Mathur, Shubh. (2012). “Gender, Power, and Military Occupations: Asia Pacific and Middle East Since 1945”, edited by Christine De Matos and Rowena Ward, Routledge, books.scholarsportal.info/en/read?id=/ebooks/ebooks4/taylorandfrancis4/2018-06-05/3/9781136339356.
Nagel, Joane. (1998). "Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations." Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 242-69, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014198798330007.
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