Remarkable Book...The Evidence [The Authors] Marshal Is Unimpeachable. It's A Little Revolution in Itself...
Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia
Preface
This book that you are about to read is unusual, special and quite extraordinary. It spans, traverses and tracks a long passage of time-24 years during which the truth of the mass rape of women and the brutal sexual torture of men in the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora by soldiers of the Indian Armed Forces, was sought to be distorted, denied or buried by the Indian state and its many agencies. When a truth of this nature and magnitude is thus treated or suppressed, the quest for justice is boosted not only amongst the victims/survivors but also amongst large sections of the population; women and men, none of whom is unscathed or untouched by the mass violence surrounding them. They are in fact, witnesses.
Many have grown up in the midst of this violence; the myriad forms it takes, the fear and terror that it unleashes on a daily basis, the lies and lawlessness of the state; be it on a street or one's home - it is their lived experience. So it is with the five young authors of this book. They were either not born or just-born at the time of the 'incident' in early 1991.
When I met these young women in the summer of 2013 (at the office of JKCCS, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society) in the course of my own work on sexual violence and impunity in J&K*, each one of them was poring over various documents in English or Urdu in files that were scattered open; these were the documents that told and corroborated the 'story' of the mass rape in Kunan and Poshpora that JKCCS had accessed through several RTIs (right to information) that they filed in different government departments. There were also records of the victims'/survivors' testimonies that these young women had procured over a period of time. I was struck by the number of documents and the amount of information that was there, it reminded me of how different it was compared to fifteen years ago when hardly any information was available, either official or unofficial, particularly regarding sexual crimes/rape. Silence and fear had prevailed then but here were these young women fearlessly articulating the problem and determined to fight the state authorities for justice and accountability.
I was curious to know what had inspired them to look into a 'case' that took place so many years ago, even before some of them were born. What prompted them to take on this arduous journey, to undertake their frequent travels to Kupwara where these two villages are located? How did they manage to gain the trust and confidence of the victims/survivors such that they were willing to share their stories yet again, this time with a group of young, concerned women? One of them voiced it poignantly and succinctly: when a young woman physiotherapy student was gang-raped in a moving bus on the streets of Delhi in December 2012*, the outrage among people was such that the entire country erupted into militant protests that demanded justice for the victim and punishment for the accused. How come the frequent rapes in J&K by the armed forces do not move the same Indians to protest this crime, not even when it is a mass rape of women as in Kunan and Poshpora? 'We decided', she told me, 'that we have to raise our voice and wage our own struggle against such crimes. If we don't, no one else will.
This sentiment is reflected in the book when the authors ask:
Is rape in India punishable but rape in Kashmir justifiable when committed by the men in uniform, the protectors of India's honour in Kashmir? Is this the typical 'face' or attitude of the Indian authorities of burying the truth and denying Justice?
'In Kashmir, Justice is a hard thing to find say the authors at one point, reminding me of what a Sri Lankan woman in one of the IDP camps had once told me, Justice is a dark room for us'.
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