WOMEN AS SPOILS OF WAR
By Ishtiaq Ahmed

July 18, 2004 - (The Daily Times) On March 17, 2004, I interviewed Hans Raj Khatri (born 1920) of Sidhwan Bet, the twin village of Saleempura, in Jagraon tehsil of Ludhiana district, East Punjab. Before Partition, these villages were populated by Muslim Arains who had a large presence throughout the Jagraon tehsil as well as rest of the district. He told me the heart-rending story of two sisters, Zainab Bibi
and Ramzan Bibi.

"In August 1947," he said, "the Muslims in our area started preparing to migrate to Pakistan. Bhaisakha Singh, a Sikh from the neighbouring village of Kishenpura, told them they did not need worry. The communities had long lived together in peace and now that the Muslims were leaving they would be escorted safely to the nearby refugee camp.

"They trusted him and next day the caravan began the short journey towards the camp. Suddenly two
gunshots were fired at them. Baisakha Singh told the men to walk to the camp on their own and leave the women and children in his protection. So, leaving the women and children behind, the able-bodied men walked away.

"However, some scoundrels raided the women in Baisakha Singh's custody and were able to take away some of them. Among them were two married sisters, Ramzan Bibi and Zainab Bibi. Kidnapped women were selling at the time for as little as Rs 300. The sisters pleaded with their captors to first let their families pay for their freedom.

They agreed and approached Inder Singh, also of Kishenpura, who was in the Indian army, to find out if the families were willing to pay the ransom. Inder Singh asked me to talk to them. "The goons demanded Rs 1,000 for each sister.

Ramzan Bibi's husband was in England at that time. Her father-in law, Ata Muhammad Mehr, said if he did not try to get her freed, his son would never forgive him. After some wrangling, the deal was made at Rs 700 and she was returned.

"Zainab Bibi's father-in-law offered only Rs 300, saying he could not pay more. Her husband did not protest. The kidnappers said they would not charge less than Rs 1,000. They argued that Zainab Bibi was younger than Ramzan Bibi and more attractive. Her in-laws, however, refused to raise their offer. She was never returned. I am not aware of what happened to her later."

On the night of March 6-7, 1947, several Hindu and Sikh villages in the Rawalpindi and Jhelum districts were surrounded by Muslim miscreants. In a matter of a fortnight some 3,000 people had been killed. Women were raped, their breasts cut off and vaginas torn. It was the first large-scale carnage in the Punjab.

Later, it was replicated in many places. On 15 August 15, 1947, Muslim women were paraded naked by Sikhs in Amritsar and then hacked to pieces.

Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon-Kamla Bhasin have recently published excellent academic works inspired by the feminist theory of the treatment meted out to women in 1947. They observe that many Sikhs, as well as some Hindus, chose to kill their women. Also, many of their women committed suicide. Their theory is that aggression against women is meant to symbolise the defeat and humiliation of the enemy.

Rape of captured women is the ultimate proof that their protectors are no longer real men. The children born to such women represent total control over enemy property. Consequently, the defeated group considers those captured by the enemy defiled and worthless.

I have wondered whether or not such ideas crossed the minds of their in-laws in the case of Ramzan Bibi and Zainab Bibi. Is it possible, in the case of Zainab Bibi, that their decision not to buy her back was not dictated by lack of money? Perhaps she was unwanted both by her husband and father-in-law now that she had been in the hands of known criminals?

Wars bring out the worst in humankind. While those defending themselves against aggression are in the right and deserve sympathy, there is no such thing as a noble war. The revelation of flagrant human rights violations by the US and British occupation forces in Iraq lay bare world leaders' hollow claims of civilised conduct by the Anglo-Saxon powers.

Yet, no news has come out of Iraq so far of women being subjected to sex crimes or being sold as chattel. Even the Israeli military, which has been mercilessly inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinians in the occupied territories for a long time, is strictly forbidden any sexual outrage against Palestinian women.

The Indian security forces, too, have not been accused in recent days of indecent acts against Kashmiri women. It seems that considerable restraint is now exercised in treating enemy women as far as wars directly involving functioning states are concerned.

For this we should thank the Geneva Convention and the subsequent UN conventions outlawing primitive practices - tolerated in the past by Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Hindu lawmakers - which allowed women (as well as men) captured in war to be legally sold as slaves.

However, warfare in a situation of breakdown of established authority is poorly covered by the existing laws of war and human rights, simply because the jurists are unable to identify the principal - state-like - offender.

But things may be changing now. In Yugoslavia and Rwanda, where ultra-nationalist groups started wars in the 1990s to ethnically cleanse the territory of the enemy group, women from the opposite side were subjected to shockingly barbarous acts. In Yugoslavia the Serbs and in Rwanda the Hutus have been
identified as the main aggressors, although the Croatians and Muslims in the former case and
Tutsis in the latter fought back and in some cases inflicted similar injury on innocent Serbs and Hutus.

The UN has now established criminal tribunals to trace the culprits and punish them. Shall we ever track down the culprits of crimes against women in 1947 and try them in a court of law? As far as I know, none was ever punished and when India and Pakistan became independent many being tried for various crimes walked away scot-free!