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Gendered Partition of India: An Untold Story

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By Akshara Goel 

Women during the partition. Source – Sabrang India.

‘Partition has caused the politics of the belly’ – Francois Bayart.

On 15th August 1947 India attained independence from the two hundred years of British rule, but, witnessed its  secondly, partition into present-day Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh. The date, 15th August, is chiefly remembered as the victory from colonial domination? achieved through non-violence. Concurrently, its bemoaned for partition the narratives which are limited to national leaders, political causes and high politics dominated by the upper-class male perspective leaders. However, Indian feminist scholarships have argued that this recollection has disregarded the gendered understanding of wide spread communal violence – the story of displacement and dispossession and, the process of realignment of family, community and national identities. Women survivors of partitioned India occupied a distinctly marginalised space in the partition violence. They were not only subjected to barbarity from men of the ‘other’ community but also from their family members and community which began in the pre-partition period (before 1947), and carried on until the 1950s. The ‘other’ here refers to ‘enemy community’ who were not part of the dominant ethnic community of India or then West Pakistan or Pakistan. 

Women partition survivors were made attached to their male family member or community as they were assumed incapable of making their decisions on migrating to the other side of the border. Consequently, theywere compelled to agree with the twin concept of ‘Azadi’ – translated as Freedom – that was the loss of community, networks, identity and more or less stable inter and intra-personal relationships . Simultaneously, they witnessed double jeopardy. Firstly, by many human right discourses that were packed up recognize them as victims during the conflict occurred at the time of partition. Secondly, since males couldn’t perform their “role of protector” or unable to participate in “income generation activities” it drove to the domestic violence or resurgence of religious practices. This resulted in re-composition of the patriarchal structure which got disintegrated under the partition conflict, wherein, it led to greater control of women rather than, letting providing them with a mechanism to create their agency otherwise their agency was limited to the act of producing or reproducing the nation, according to the Indian government.  

The predominant memory of partition for these destitute women consisted of confusion, dislocation and severing roots. The day-to-day violence caused by the partition formed the everyday experience for these women. They were exposed to distinct forms of sexual violence that carried the symbolic meaning designated to their status in the male dominated -patriarchal society where  gender relations are arranged along the beliefs and traditions of the religious and ethnic communities. The most predictable form of violence was sexual assault inflicted the men of one community upon the women of the ‘other’ community to assert their own identity and ‘subduing the other by dishonouring their women’. However, the most notorious action was the sadistic pleasure these perpetrators sought from the humiliation of women. 

According to anecdotes by the women partition survivor, they were raped in front of their male family members and some of them were paraded naked in the market or danced in gurudwaras (holy shrine of Sikhs). For the stigmatization purpose and its legacy onto the future generation, the perpetrators sexually appropriated these women by desexualizing her as wife or mother through mutilating or disfiguring her breasts and genitalia (tattooing-branding on their breasts and genitalia with triumphant slogans like a crescent moon or trident) so that they no longer remain a nurturer. The motivation was to make her an inauspicious figure by degrading into an unproductive woman. These barbarian acts reflected the thinking of the patriarchal community wherein women are just considered objects of honour constructed by the male. Women survivors of Partition encountered or witnessed the episodes of violence from their family members and community as well. The latter, coerced their women to death, in some cases women were forced to kill themselves, to avoid being sexually offended and to preserve their chastity along with the shielding the honour of individual, family and community. According to the anecdote by Taran, a partition survivor who successfully came to India in 1947– “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 an honour. For me everything was related to freedom (from British colonial rule), I was dying for freedom”. Fortunately, she didn’t have to go through the ‘choice’ of death while her women friends were planning how to prepare for their death- an interview was taken by the Ritu Menon and Kamala Bhasin – Indian feminist writer and activist, respectively. However, women were made to ‘volunteer’ for death coerced to poison, put to the sword or drowned or set ablaze individually or collectively that is with other younger women or women and children (Butalia 1998 cited in Chakraborty, 2014, pg. 41-43) .

Some of the partition survivors were women who got abducted by ‘others’ and went through the identity crisis concerning the dominant ethnic community. They were abducted as Hindu (dominant community of India) married as Muslim (dominant community of Pakistan) and again recovered as Hindus and eventually had to go through a lot of bitter and painful “choices”. Women who were brought back ‘home’ after getting abducted, following the 1947 partition period with Pakistan,  weren’t given choice to decide  their home. It was assumed that Hindu women will retreat to India while Muslim women will be transmitted to Pakistan (during 1947 partition). Their space of home could have changed wasn’t given consideration. It wasn’t the boundary of domestic that defined home but it was the boundary of a nation, yet, they met the fate of non-acceptance from their natal families. In theory, everyone had a choice to move or stay but in practice staying on was virtually impossible. The ‘choice’ of whether to move, stay or return was a decision being made for women, by the patriarchal nation-state and their families. Women’s agency wasn’t a principal concern in any of the conflicts and its aftermath . 

The partition of violence affected the everyday world and the lives of women. This concept of the “everyday world” was promulgated by Dorothy Smith (1987). She maintains that “everyday world” refers to lived reality in the private sphere in which women’s representation and gendered lives on the domestic space gets effected and affected by the major events in the political sphere – “the domain of men”. The primary meaning of “everyday world” is to connect the political space with domestic (private) lives of women in a given historical instance. In other words, women survivors of partition have illustrated that there is a definite continuity between the “everyday world” and “extraordinary historical times” of the partition era. This everyday world consists of the private/domestic space in which a woman identifies herself’ and a ‘safe space’ as assumed by the patriarchal structure. However, in the partition violence, their ‘safe space’ gets threatened and compromised as they get dragged into the turmoil of public/political space where their male counterparts take an authoritative position but with no or negligible space for women. The patriarchal mechanisms decided everyday belonging of these women survivors. The fate of these women become tied to that of the nation-state or family and community which dictated how the women should live their life in post-partitioned independent India. 

The partition violence and Indian nation-state – their efforts and narratives towards the women survivors- have played a crucial role in deconstruction and reconstruction of the women’s identity, space and role. It can be observed that the national belonging for all the partition women survivors was meditated through the institution of the heterosexual and patrilineal nuclear family and community concurrently they were disenfranchised as sexual commodities, patriarchal properties and communal commodities by the nation-state and their respective community and family. After partition, the Indian patriarchal state has explicitly infantilized women survivors by denying them to represent themselves and this process eventually has caused their disenfranchisement.

 

Akshara is a prospective PhD candidate and has completed her Master of Arts in Diplomacy, Law and Business (2020) from Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University, Delhi-NCR, India.  Presently, she is a Commissioning Editor in E-International Relations and Associate Editor of Law & Order. 

Pakistan-Bangladesh Relations: Islamabad Calling, Will Dhaka Respond?

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Bangladeshi youth commemorate the Bengali freedom fighters of the 1971 war at the National Memorial in Dhaka, on Victory Day, 16 December 2019

By Silvia Tieri

In South Asia, music speaks politics. Among uncountable melodic masterpieces, there is a moving Pakistani ghazal, Woh Humsafar Tha, that goes like this:

Woh humsafar tha magar us sey humnawai na thi…

Adavatein thi, taghaful tha, ranjishein thi magar

Bicharne walay main sab kuch tha, bewafai na thi…

(He/She was my companion (fellow-traveller) but there was no harmony between us…

There were feelings of animosity, indifference, and anguish but

In my departing partner I had found all but unfaithfulness…)

The composition gained new popularity within and beyond the country in 2011 thanks to its indie-style remake that served as a soundtrack for a romantic soap-opera also named “Humsafar” (Hum: together; Safar: journey). However, few among its younger fans will know that this song tells the story of no typical heartbreak. In fact, the two co-journyers who had so much in common yet could not quite stick together – as the lyrics say – are Pakistan and Bangladesh, parting ways five decades ago. The ghazal was written by Naseer Turabi soon after the news of the fall of Dhaka (for Indians: Lt. Gen. Niazi’s surrender to Indian forces; for Bangladeshis: Victory Day) reached West Pakistan on 16 December 1971, leaving him shocked and in tears.

When the great partition of the Indian subcontinent divided Punjab and Bengal in 1947, Bengalis of the East had joined their Western co-religionists into a brave political journey called Pakistan: a homeland for South Asian Muslims, forming a nation separate from the Hindus’. However, while they officially constituted a single nation-state, the two wings of Pakistan (one’s capital was Karachi, the other’s Dhaka) were divided by significant cultural, ethnolinguistic, and socio-economic differences, as well as by more than two thousand kilometres of Indian territory. It could not last. Under the leadership of Sheikh Mujib “Bangabandhu”,  father of Bangladeshi nationalism as well as the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the East eventually seceded, militarily supported by India. East and West Pakistan had existed as one for less than twenty-five years. In 1971 they split. It was a massive blow to the Two-Nations Theory that had been Pakistan’s raison d’être.

On paper, Pakistan and Bangladesh have much in common. They are the two Muslim-majority nations of the Indian subcontinent, carved out of British India by means of partition(s). They also both share a complicated relationship and some long borders with South Asian hegemon India, although the Indo-Bangladeshi border is rather porous, while the Indo-Pakistani is the most militarised in the world. Nonetheless, relations between Dhaka and Islamabad, which replaced Karachi as Pakistan’s capital in 1967, have been strained ever since Bangladeshi independence.

Hasina’s perceived closeness to India, as well as her government’s vigorous prosecution of former pro-Pakistani and Islamist forces since the late 2000s, have cast a long shadow on post-1971 bilateral relations. A partial rapprochement had occurred earlier, under the rule of Ziaur Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), traditionally closer to Pakistan. However, Hasina’s Awami League (AL) inherited the independence legacy and in 2008 returned to power, maintaining a solid grasp over it ever since. In 2009 the AL administration created the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), a special court in charge of prosecuting war crimes, including genocide, committed by the Pakistani Army and its collaborators during the 1971 war. Because the convicted belong to political forces that are AL’s archenemies, the ICT receives criticism not only for its supposed low judicial standards, but also for being allegedly used to knock out political competition. In Bangladesh, it still counts on considerable popular support.

Bilateral relations between the once humsafars have been almost non-existent in the last decade. The execution of Bangladeshi members of Jamat-e-Islami (JeI) in 2013 and 2016, strongly condemned by the Pakistani Parliament, marked their lowest points. In May 2019, it even seemed that the two countries temporarily suspended reciprocal visa issuance. The last high-level official visit of a Bangladeshi head of state to Pakistan dates back to February 2006, when Islamabad received then-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, heiress of husband Ziaur Rahman’s BNP leadership.

Speculations about a possible thaw, however, emerged following a series of gestures initiated by Pakistan in 2019 and continued in 2020. In September 2019, Pakistani Foreign Minister S.M. Qureshi phoned his Bangladeshi counterpart A.K.A. Momen to apprise him on Pakistan’s position over Kashmir after New Delhi revoked of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which had granted special status to the disputed region until August 2019.The two talked again in March 2020 regarding the  pandemic. In July 2020, Pakistani High Commissioner I.A. Siddiqui met Momen in Dhaka. Days later Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan paid a courtesy call to Sheikh Hasina, exchanging views on the COVID-19 emergency, Kashmir, and inviting the Prime Minister to visit Islamabad. Khan also expressed commitment to deepen relations. This was reiterated on 3 December 2020, when High Commissioner Siddiqui and Hasina held a courtesy meeting in Dhaka. Additionally, Pakistan expressed its interest in deepening the trade relationship with Bangladesh, especially in terms of partnerships and investments in the textile sector.

These unusual overtures alerted Indian hawks in particular, as they caught India in a turbulent period, dotted by protests and lockdown impositions in Kashmir, border tensions with China, and a general deterioration of relations with regional neighbours. Some consider that Pakistan’s move towards Bangladesh is an attempt to take advantage of the widening vacuum left by New Delhi’s policy towards its eastern neighbour, less attentive in the latest years despite declared intentions to “Look East” and to “Neighbourhood First”. One emerging commonality between Islamabad and Dhaka is their convergence towards China as a key investor, development partner, and defence supplier, proving Bangladesh has other reliable options besides India. While Pakistan remains China’s major ally in South Asia, Dhaka-Beijing relations have been recently upgraded to a “strategic partnership of cooperation” in 2016. 

Overall, Pakistan’s recent openings towards Bangladesh undoubtedly signalled an interest to rekindle an otherwise frosty bilateral relationship. But the critical issues that keep poisoning it have been left untouched. These are rooted in the divergent Pakistani and Bengali nationalisms, and their irreconcilable narratives of the facts of 1971. The AL and most Bangladeshis are determined that Pakistan owes a formal apology for its actions against the Bengalis of East Pakistan. Pakistan, on the other hand, acknowledges neither the accusation of genocide nor the number of victims alleged by Dhaka. Because the matter is so controversial, to establish where history ends and national narratives begin remains a challenging task. Other pending bilateral issues include the status of Bangladesh’s Biharis, the question of asset sharing, as well as the 1974 trilateral agreement on the repatriation of prisoners of war and civilian internees, of whose violation Bangladesh and Pakistan have accused each other. Meanwhile, to the dismay of Pakistan, the war crime trials have continued in Bangladesh. In 2019, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court resumed hearing appeals of such trials after a three year interruption. In the same year, the ICT emanated 14 new death sentences to former militants of JeI and Razakar Bahini. Also, Bangladesh’s official stance on Kashmir remains non-intervention. Although the notorious abrogation of Article 370 was met with protests in Dhaka, Foreign Minister Momen reiterated that it is an internal issue of India into which Bangladesh will not get involved. 1971 was a bad break-up. Pakistan is now making a move. But Dhaka still wants Islamabad to apologise and make amends, before they can embark on a new journey, together.

Silvia Tieri is a political scientist and ethnographer in training based at King’s India Institute. In 2019 she joined the King’s College London-National University of Singapore Joint PhD Programme. Her doctoral research concerns the politics of linguistic identity in contemporary India and Pakistan. Before joining KCL, she was a Research Analyst at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), Singapore. She holds a Master’s in International Relations from the University of Pisa (Italy) and a Master’s by Research in South Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore.

Pakistan Paradox: Will New Intelligence Committee Erase Deficiencies or Increase Military Influence?

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By Mariam Qureshi

Image Caption: Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa at ISI Headquarters. Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1593085

Pakistan has predominantly been a praetorian state with military overreach extending to politics and also to intelligence agencies. The intelligence community is marred with deficiencies in structural organisation and its politicization has further dampened its efficacy. In an attempt to reform the intelligence community, Prime Minister Imran Khan recently approved of a National Intelligence Coordination Committee. Would this be sufficient and effective in streamlining the two-dozen civil and military intelligence organisations existing in Pakistan? An effective reform in the intelligence community would ultimately help strengthen the civilian policy making process rather than solidifying military control. 

Pakistan’s troubled birth also accounts for the weakness of its institutions and strong military presence within them. India received the lion’s share of the division of assets of intelligence, bureaucracy, administration and army which meant that Pakistan had to start from scratch with minimal infrastructure. The initial military intelligence organisation collectively known as Defence Intelligence Services (DIS) consisted of tactical intelligence wings of the navy, air force and the Military Intelligence (MI) wing of the armed forces inherited at Partition. They specialised in carrying out offensive counterintelligence and military espionage. The only civilian-led intelligence organisation was the Intelligence Bureau (IB) which emerged from the partitioning of the British Raj’s Intelligence Bureau in 1947. It was responsible for collection, analysis and dissemination of domestic intelligence but no effective mechanism of coordination with other agencies existed. 

As the two neighbours started off with a highly volatile relationship that could boil over a plethora of disputes, Pakistan prioritised the development of its army and failed to take into account the equally essential need for a strong intelligence community to counter any Indian threat of war. With army as the only developed institute, Pakistan slipped into military dictatorship. The military dictatorships obstructed the development of a constitution and democratic political institutions, and it was not until 2008 that Pakistan witnessed the beginning of smooth democratic transitions. 

The Radcliffe Award arbitrarily divided the subcontinent along religious communal lines in 1947, creating border clashes and forcing a bloody, cross-border migration. The border dispute culminated into the 1947 war of Kashmir with India which presented an intelligence failure that highlighted the pressing need for a foreign intelligence agency. Thus, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) was established in 1948 as a military organisation to carry out collection and analysis of external threats, liaise with foreign counterparts and conduct operations. It also aimed to enhance coordination among military intelligence organisations. The ISI was tasked with collection and analysis of domestic intelligence during the unrest in East Pakistan in 1971. Following that, the unrest in the province of Balochistan during the 1970s presented another opportunity leading to expansion of ISI’s ambit to cover internal intelligence permanently. This brought the military-led ISI in direct clash with the dwarfed civilian-led Intelligence Bureau. The better resourced military intelligence organisation monopolised the intelligence community of Pakistan as it flourished under military dictatorships in the initial decades. Unfortunately, rather than a structured development, Pakistan’s agencies were created as independently functioning units on a need-by-need basis with often overlapping responsibilities. 

Though Pakistan created civilian-led intelligence agencies for specialised tasks to fulfil domestic intelligence requirements, it failed to provide a conducive environment for them to operate in. The Pakistan Special Police Establishment, inherited from British India, proved inadequate for overseeing control of organised crimes, smuggling, human trafficking and other offences. Therefore, a cumulative counterintelligence agency also responsible for countering money laundering, border control and domestic security known as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was formed in 1975 under civilian control of the Ministry of Interior. The National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) was formed in 2013 under Ministry of Interior to counter terrorism although this clashed with ISI’s remit in overseeing external and internal terrorism. Similarly, other agencies were set up for specialised offenses such as drugs and narcotics control. The creation of independent agencies for specialised tasks meant their spheres of control overlapped, exacerbating the turf war between military-led and civilian-led intelligence organisations. The absence of a coordination committee to cohesively join the independent agencies meant that instead of pooling in intelligence collected for analysis, all agencies would carry out their own collection, analysis and dissemination. Further, they also faced a dearth of resources to carry out their tasks. The opportunity for these civilian-led intelligence organisations to realise and execute their responsibilities was diluted by the monopoly of military intelligence organisations. 

Perhaps the most problematic of all challenges is the deep politicisation of the intelligence agencies due to absence of oversight and accountability. The international and domestic threat of terrorism after the Soviet-Afghan War and the United States’ invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks allowed the ISI to receive aid and work closely with the America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The pre-Partition, British imposed Pak-Afghan border, Durand Line, was on the radar of the intelligence agency since 1947. The border is rejected by Afghanistan as it claims that the Pashtun and Baloch tribes divided along the Durand line should be united as a single nation. The poorly managed border became the gateway for drugs smuggling, human trafficking and refugee migration after Soviet-Afghan War and cross-border terrorism after 9/11. The crossover between foreign and domestic security threat along the Durand Line became a priority issue for ISI, increasing its might and power. The premier intelligence agency became the de facto central authority in the intelligence community. Consequently, it has been accused of conducting proxy warfare in Kashmir and surveillance on leading political figures. The subtle manifestation of military control through ISI’s increased role in politics caused it to be dubbed as ‘a state within a state’. ISI’s authority remains unchallenged in the post-2008 democratic set up. 

Proposals have been made in the past three decades for an oversight and coordination committee under the Cabinet of the Prime Minister to enhance coordination between agencies and streamline civilian-military relationship within the intelligence community. Unfortunately, the civil-military tussle in Pakistan’s politics resisted any staunch attempt at reforming the intelligence community which could effectively undermine the military monopoly. The National Intelligence Coordination Committee is expected to improve coordination between existing intelligence agencies but is to be led by the Director General of the military-led ISI, an agency that does not want to see its influence reduced. The committee is at risk of being another ineffective bureaucratic layer if it is not divorced from military control. It is imperative to strengthen the democratic institutes of Pakistan which have been unable to develop due to decades of military rule. Therefore, the reform is likely to address underlying problems if the committee is placed under the Prime Minister’s Cabinet.     Additionally, the committee needs to carry out an efficient analysis of the collected intelligence and disseminate these assessments to the executive branch. This would boost efficiency of the intelligence community within Pakistan. A revival of the existing National Security Council under the Prime Minister’s Office can provide an effective platform for the civil-military leadership to formulate policies on matters of national security. These steps will significantly empower the democratic government in policy making and execution.

 

Mariam Qureshi is an MA International Affairs student concentrating in Espionage and Surveillance at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. She received her BA (Honors) in Political Science from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan.

Article 370’s Revocation: Integrating or Alienating Kashmir?

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by Prachi Aryal

There has been heavy military deployment in Kashmir in order to contain protests following the revocation of Article 370 (Image credit: Dar Yasin)

“Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast…”

“If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here…”

– Amīr Khusrau (1253–1325), Indian poet on Kashmir

The land of Kashmir, often portrayed as heaven on earth, finds itself marred in a conflict between India and Pakistan, two countries that share a colonial past. The end of British Colonial control of the Indian subcontinent, in August 1947, led to the formation of India and Pakistan. In the aftermath of the partition, the many former princely states which had persisted under British suzerainty were left to decide which country to join. The state of Jammu and Kashmir, which lies in the northern mountainous region was seen as a strategically important area by both new-born states who each wanted it incorporated within their territory. The ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, chose to remain independent.

The bloody saga which ensued through the partition and the infiltration by tribal militants posed a great threat to the state of Kashmir. The state, in a severe political dilemma, was required to take urgent action, leading to a request to the Indian state for military help. After multiple deliberations, the Instrument of Accession (IoA) was signed in October 1947 by Maharaja Singh and the Indian state in return for military help, thereby integrating Kashmir into India. The IoA stated that the Dominion of India would have control of the state in three major areas – defence, communications, and foreign affairs.

Nevertheless, the claim on Kashmiri land continued to be debated between India and Pakistan with specific counterclaims that the IoA was a farce. Nonetheless, negotiations between Kashmiri representatives and India led to the creation of Article 370 – which granted special autonomous status to the state of Kashmir in the Indian Constitution. While this legislation was being laid down, the state of Kashmir faced constant threats from tribal invaders who had their bases in Pakistan. Against the backdrop of large scale massacres that the nation had just witnessed, India decided not to resort to military actions and took the issue to the United Nations, following the advice of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India,

The UN responded in January 1948 by passing Resolution 39  establishing the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan. In April of the same year, the Security Council decided to increase the power of the UNCIP under Resolution 47 to facilitate mediation between India and Pakistan. The resolution called upon the countries to withdraw their troops, after which point the UN would establish a temporary plebiscite administration in Kashmir, which would then carry out a fair and impartial plebiscite deciding the accession or autonomy of the state. Both the countries eventually agreed upon a ceasefire and a Line of Control (LOC) came into effect in January 1949, demarcating the territorial lines between the nations. Despite resolution 47, the failure to hold a plebiscite resulted in a divided rule over the region.

The Indian-administered area of Kashmir has been subject to internal violence ever since claims of a rigged election surfaced in 1987. An armed rebellion has existed against New Delhi’s rule in Kashmir, growing anti-India statements and a massive outcry for ‘azadi’ – freedom from Indian rule –  have triggered stringent military reactions from the Indian state. In August 2019, the Hindu Nationalist government of Narendra Modi abrogated Article 370 against the will of large numbers of Kashmiri people. This move was claimed to be yet another step towards ‘integrating’ Kashmir into India, a six-decades long nationalist endeavour supported in particular by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Following the revocation of the special status of Kashmir, the dream of freedom from India’s rule has become stronger (Image credit: Dar Yasin).

The government went on to divide the state of Kashmir into two centrally administered territories. Indian military forces operating in Kashmir are shielded by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which grants them immunity from human rights convictions, such as rape, extrajudicial killing and torture. Parallelly, the government is set to embark on a witch hunt of activists and journalists who raise their voices against the violence perpetrated by enforcing draconian anti-terrorism laws such as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Furthermore, critics claim that the government’s pseudo-secularism agenda has been furthered by the revocation of the article, where Hindu-nationalist policies are used to garner electoral votes.

Despite several concerns highlighted by the UN Human Rights Chief  Michelle Bachelet and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, any mediation on the issue of Kashmir has been blocked by India under claims that it is an internal issue, an exclusive concern of Indian sovereignty. Given the presence that India has in the international sphere, there have been little to no repercussions for the grave violations of human rights in the region. The lack of global attention due to restrictive anti-media practices alongside a rejection of third-party mediation has granted the government more leverage to continue unlawful activities. There have been mounting claims that the situation in Kashmir is getting worse by the day with Internet shutdowns, a government crackdown on media organisations and journalists, the arrest of political leaders and civilians many of them who are children.

Arundhati Roy, asserts that, ‘Indian Muslims have been effectively disenfranchised and are becoming the most vulnerable of people – a community without political representation.’ Critics claim that the government’s pseudo-secularism agenda has been furthered by the revocation of the article, where politics is used to secure votes. In the expansion of the Hindu Nation under Modi, international organisations have fallen victim, Amnesty International’s office in India was shut down following reprisal from the government over its coverage of human rights violations that occurred in Kashmir. This further erodes any ground for seeking justice or accountability for Kashmiris who have been subjected to various atrocities.

Since the revocation of article 370, civilians have been arbitrarily arrested and the valley remains in a state of siege with a stringent curfew. Meanwhile, the Indian government refutes claims of human rights violations, maintaining that this legislative move will pave the way for economic growth in the state. Inclusivity, however, remains a far-off dream for the people of Kashmir. Furthermore, the information ban and the detention of Kashmiri political leaders, civilians, and journalists outlines a rather meek prospect for the accountability of the Indian government.

The longstanding conflict has polarized the Kashmiris even further as they have been side-lined in political discussions and the decision on the fate of the valley of Kashmir is carried out by those who centrally rule the country. The aspirations of the Kashmiri people have been overlooked and they have been rendered voiceless with the revocation of the special status. The crisis requires the integration of Kashmiri people into the mainstream discussion, addressing their issues and concerns. The Indian government needs to be held accountable for its actions, decades of violence, and mass unnamed graves of Kashmiris if it wishes to truly integrate Kashmir and Kashmiris.

Prachi Aryal is a MA student in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research interest is inclined towards Gender, Human Rights, and Cross border conflicts in transitioning nations and how visuals from conflict zones play a role in communicating the realities of conflict to the broader world. She completed her BA in Journalism from the University of Delhi, India.

Book Review: ‘Dying to Serve’

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by Kamaldeep Singh Sandhu

Maria Rashid, Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2020. ISBN 978-1-5036-1198-6 Pp. 267. Paperback. £19.41

Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice ...

Are military deaths in an armed conflict avoidable and prodigal or are they a necessary and sacred sacrifice required for the protection of the state and society? Maria Rashid’s new noteworthy book, Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army, carries this sensitive and difficult debate forward through a study of the Pakistan military’s relationship with its soldiers and citizens. The Pakistan military’s use of religion and the idea of ‘shahadat’ (martyrdom) as a motivator for training, fighting, and dying for the nation are well established (p. 33). This book is a comparative study of narratives provided by the Pakistani state and military on the one hand and the subject soldier and his family on the other.

Pakistan is one of those states that thrive on a strong military spirit. This militarism establishes war as normal and necessary and, in turn, demands sacrifices from its subjects. Dying to Serve is an attempt to understand the mechanisms through which such sacrifices are made sacred by the military narratives of heroism, and meaningful, glorious, and honourable deaths. This mechanism, in turn, extracts legitimacy and unquestioned support from the citizenry. The book explores this phenomenon through the dead soldiers, considered as heroes, mourned for long periods by communities, and taken as social examples. The author also briefly examines the same through retired and disabled soldiers.

In Rashid’s own words, ‘the book examines the role of affect­—such as grief and its accompanying notions of death, dying and sacrifice as well as feelings of attachment, pride, and fear—in maintaining the military’s hegemony in Pakistan’ (p. 9). The study is based on fieldwork conducted in five villages in the Chakwal district of Punjab over a period of thirteen months where the author interviewed more than one hundred people.

The author begins the book by examining the Youm-e-Shuhada (Martyrs’ Memorial) and Youm-e-Difah (Defence Day) ceremonies, described as ‘spectacles of mourning’ (p. 23) that define the narrative and valorise military service. The story proceeds by comparing the narrative of Chakwal as the ‘land of the valiant’, a name the district has earned through its martial tradition since colonial times, versus its location in the Salt Range of Northern Punjab that lends it to an economic dependency on the armed forces for providing the main source of employment. The district is located between the valleys of Indus and Jhelum Rivers and its terrain is partly covered with scrub forest, featuring plains interrupted by dry rock. Approx. 96 per cent of agricultural demand for water is met by rainwater, which naturally leads to ‘gurbat’ (poverty) and ‘bhukh’ (hunger) amongst the inhabitants. It is from this economic deprivation that the author questions the authenticity of the ‘martial tradition’ narrative.

The author begins with the process of military training, where the bonds of kinship are broken to develop affective relationships with fellow soldiers, who signify their new family, and group leaders who stand in for father figures (p. 97). The affection thus sculpted by love and loyalty for the regiment and determination to uphold its honour prepares them to kill or die in combat. It highlights the depersonalisation that soldiers experience along with a sense of emotional distancing, a silencing from others who can no longer understand or relate to what soldiering is about (p. 106). The story also highlights how the military commands the right to ask you to die or kill in its name as a response of love, loyalty, and attachment of familial connections reimagined according to the concerns of the state (p. 207).

Rashid talks of the families of the dead soldiers gripped with grief, guilt, and regret who, yet, have to put on the mask of a social reality scripted with the themes of ‘pride in the act of sacrifice for the motherland and a belief in eternal life’ in order to make sense of the death of their loved ones. They must also accept the money and benefits offered because, after all, it was for material needs that the tribute to the nation was risked in the first place (p. 138). It explores the mechanisms through which a violent and preventable death is transformed into a necessary, honourable, and meaningful sacrifice (p. 149).

One chapter, in particular, brings out the hollowness of this narrative. Describing the disabled soldiers as ‘the bodies left behind’, Rashid argues that although in reality the maiming is socially induced as a result of modern war and armed conflict, it is managed by the military within some perfunctory and feeble attempts at promoting narratives of empowerment, pride in resilience, and sacrifice for the nation (p. 169). The author argues that the military’s ability to depict service and sacrifice as noble and draw foot soldiers from society will be sustained as long as ‘war’ is imagined to be glorious, and the dead to be heroes; whereas in reality, it is merely a viable source of ‘pakki naukri’ (permanent employment) (p. 217).

The author has articulated militarism and its effect accurately in the context of the Pakistan Army. It is a must-read for all, especially those who once believed in the narrative of militarism and the sanctity of military deaths but were confused when the layers of this social construct began to peel off. While Rashid provides a new humbling and soothing perspective on this issue, the one place the book falls short is in providing definitive answers or an equally acceptable alternative belief system.

Despite being a case study on the Pakistan Army, which has played a dominant role in state formation over the years, the arguments made here are applicable to the phenomenon of militarism across the globe. Hardly any society collectively calls its military deaths avoidable or unnecessary.

When viewed through Charles Tilly’s famous cyclic aphorism ‘war made state, and the state made war’ the comparison of narratives highlighted in the book holds firm within the context of ‘state makes war’. However, as this axiom shows that war is inevitable and ultimately perpetuated through the imperfection of human thoughts, whether the same arguments still hold when the ‘war makes state’ and the state merely takes advantages or is victim of its inevitability, remains debatable.

Kamaldeep Singh Sandhu is a PhD Candidate in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. His research interests include South Asian security, military culture, and defence diplomacy. An alumnus of National Defence Academy, Pune, Army War College, Mhow and The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he has served as an Officer with the Indian army’s Parachute Regiment for ten years and currently serves as an Officer in the Reserve Army, UK. You can find him on Twitter at kamal_sandhu78.