Purity, Silence and Violence; The Experiences of Partition Women
Introduction
Although Hindus may refer to Partition as Vhibajan (वि भाजन) and Muslims may remember it as Batwara ( بٹوارہ††) or Taqseem ( تقسیم††), for many these words are also associated with a traumatic history of violence, displacement, and segregation. The Partition of India in 1947 was an unforeseen conflict that was marked by religious clashes, civil unrest, and significant violence. Partition was characterized by trauma and atrocities that ultimately led to the largest mass migration in all of human history. The 1947 cultural strife forced fifteen million people to migrate from their homelands. More horrifically, the ensuing conflict resulted in almost two million deaths. Unfortunately, this narrative is increasingly described only through this lens. The truth surrounding Partition has been hidden not only by the era’s successive governments: British Colonialists, then independent Pakistan and India, but also by individuals, families, and their respective communities.
This essay will address the experience of women in Partition. Much of the discourse and literature surrounding the Partition of India is an archive of men’s experiences. However, there was disproportionate gendered violence in the ensuing political conflict of 1947 British India that was real and had special significance. In this essay, I will first discuss the general historical background of Partition. Next, I will explore the cultural norms and values relating to purity that predominated in local communities, connecting them to the gendered violence that women endured. I will also explain the symbolism behind the violence and how it had a special meaning. I will argue that the strategy of silence as a means of women reclaiming autonomy. Finally, I plan to examine how the treatment and neglect of these atrocities against women continue to suppress their socio-political life in modern-day India.
Background
Pakistan and India are two Southeast Asian nations that have been unable to co-exist peacefully since the 1947 Partition of India. The British had colonized parts of India since the early 18th century and after the Second World War concluded, they were forced to vacate this territory. Before their departure, they decided to divide India into two separate countries; Pakistan with a predominantly Muslim populace and India with a Hindu majority. Before British colonization, religious division in South Asia was a foreign concept. The region was characterized by differing religious populations that were both cohesive and cooperative. Although there were boundaries between various communities, these were not formally defined or segregated until after Partition. Cultural fluidity was to the extent that “Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians-coexisted, with overlapping traditions and the sharing of experiences, each accepting the other and peacefully living together”.
Purity
The overwhelming value of a woman’s purity in South Asian culture provides context for why violence was targeted towards women. The idea of purity was closely related to one’s personal, family and community honor. Women’s bodies were battlegrounds for male masculinity and a place where religious supremacy was asserted and then interpreted. These ideas and cultural norms of purity gave special significance to violence against women. Breaking down India’s emphasis on purity provides critical context for why violence was disproportionately experienced by women.
To begin this discussion, it is important to understand the linkage between Indian female purity and a community’s honor in South Asia. Purity was a means for a woman to establish her place in society: as a virgin, wife, or widow. It was also an indication of a woman’s value. In India during the late 1940s and 1950s, these were the only three archetypes of women. If a woman’s purity was violated, she could no longer fit into these clearly defined societal roles; essentially losing her social identity. Women were attacked specifically because it was the perpetrator’s way of asserting that a particular community’s honor had been defiled. It was a popular mindset that a “polluted woman is an undesirable part of the nation”. It became clear that not only was rape considered a community shame, but it posed a real threat to the patriarchal domination of this era. Rape, the vilest violation of a woman’s purity, was a “domination by men but also a domination of men’’. It is a point of note that these acts were committed not only to cause pain to women but to cause immense public shame to the entire community.
Because the purity of women belonging to a particular community was indicative of that community’s respect and honor, men in local communities reacted proactively to potential threats to women’s purity. It was common for men to encourage women to kill themselves in order to ensure that they would not be abducted or raped. Rationalized as protecting purity and honor within a community, many men would pressure women even in their own families or communities to commit ‘protective suicide’. Thus, men created narratives for women who were not allowed to speak or make their own choices. The beliefs of this concept are verbalized in a Punjabi husband’s firm words; “We have not lost our respect. We had to kill our wives, but we did not let them get into the hands of the Muslims.” Fathers willed their daughters to die for family honor rather than live within bodies that had been violated. The preservation of the community’s respect and honor was more important than the women’s individual lives.
Violence
This context sheds light on the ensuing gendered violence that was rampant throughout the Partition of India. Official reports of abducted women during Partition show that almost 50,000 Muslim women in India and 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women in Pakistan experienced sexual violence. Much of the Partition’s history lies in the assumption that both genders experienced the same amount of violence. In fact, the violence during this political unrest was disproportionately directed towards Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh women as seen in personal testimony and oral histories of the victims. Violence against women was particularly horrific and it included rape, abduction, genital mutilation, trading, and psychological trauma. Because South Asian culture placed such importance on the purity of women, men on both sides of the political conflict knowingly targeted women as part of their strategies of violence to undermine the very foundations of a particular community. Additionally, they understood that the violation of women’s purity would achieve humiliation, shame, and insecurity in a communities’ male population.
In terms of violence, reports show that in addition to rape, “tattoos were inscribed on women’s bodies, they were paraded naked in sacred spaces such as temples, mosques and gurudwaras and their breasts were cut off.” The act of severing a woman’s breasts symbolically destroyed their role as a potential nurturer. It also removed their femininity, the physical manifestation of their motherhood, and potential to bear children. By destroying the womb of the women, they were also destroying the possibility of future progeny for that community so they would not have a new generation to continue the traditions. Men committing these violent acts were sending this radical political message.
Tattooing was also a common practice during Partition. It was effective because not only did it serve as a permanent means of “marking the women as impure and tainted by their attackers, but it deemed them as touched and impure to other men in their own communities.” This symbolic inscription on women not only caused a great deal of personal shame, but it rendered them as “damaged” and thus unsuitable for marriages. Branding a woman’s body with symbols of Pakistan, India, Hinduism or Islam, implies that the woman has been stained by the sinful religious ‘Other’. Rape survivors still bear the scars of their sexual violation and wear signs of their “shamed” past. With mutilated and disfigured skin and graffiti that indicated a religious or political association, many girls had the words “Jai Hind” (Long live India) and “Pakistan Zindabad” (Long Live Pakistan) tattooed on them. Symbolic markers such as the Islamic crescent and Hindu trident were also permanent illustrations on women’s bodies.
Silence
In response to the gruesome violence that women experienced, silence became a powerful tool of self-preservation and autonomy. The pairing of gruesome sexual violence and deterioration of purity forced many women never to speak of the atrocities committed against them. Promona Debnath, a Partition scholar, stated that the “display of the wounded, admission of the violation, would be tantamount to an admission of public defeat. To acknowledge the atrocities… or worse, discuss it openly, charge the other side with the creation of their trauma, would help the other side achieve their goal of inflicting pain on women in the community.”
Victims of sexual violence believed that speaking out against their accusers would only give them more ammunition and satisfaction of having achieved their original aim. Thus, women learned that maintaining a ‘forced silence’ was the only way to cope with their trauma. Furthermore, the other real issue with discussing women’s abuse was that once disclosed, they no longer fit into the predefined roles of society: a virgin, wife, or widow. The silence was actually power because it allowed for a certain degree of self-preservation, a hope that the woman would be able to reintegrate into society. Survivors of Partition adopted silence as their means of self-preservation. The silence was their power because it was the only agency reserved by these women. Silence gave them the tools to differentiate which parts of their past they wanted to share.
It was only years later after the highly politicized era of Partition had finally come to an end, that women felt comfortable enough to discuss the previously “shameful” parts of their past. After Partition victims felt they could finally rid themselves of the shame and fear that would arise from sharing their stories. Many of them opened up about their traumatic experiences. The bravery of many women inspired the birth of Partition documentation and discourse in the form of oral testimonies, interviews, and films. Gyandra Pandey is a famous Partition historian and has interviewed many victims from this era. She commented that many of them “behaved the same, silent when asked about this subject.” In an interview with an anonymous female Partition victim, Gyandra reports that when the interview questions were directed at the woman, she repeatedly deflected the questions to her eldest son and brother although they both encouraged her to answer for herself. The woman’s responses were extremely elusive and defensive by her repeatedly answering the phrase, “I have nothing to tell and nothing happened in our village”.
Khamosh Pani, a film released in 2003 at a Swiss film festival, was a controversial piece that depicted a formerly Sikh woman and her experience during Partition. Ayesha, a Muslim convert, was abducted during Partition and refused to commit suicide. Because of this, she was forced to convert to Islam and marry her abductor. Ayesha’s brother, Jasmant, comes looking for her in their old village. Her old name, Veero, is called throughout the village and she hides as she says Veero must have died. She becomes very emotional experiencing “longing, deep sadness, pain, and anger,” just within a couple of seconds. After Jasmant finally finds Ayesha by spotting her at a nearby well, he begs her to return to visit their dying father. She refuses, in fear that her father’s last wish will be to force her to commit suicide because of the shame that he carries. Ayesha later becomes ostracized because of the outing of her previous heritage. Those who used to be her closest friends shunned her and she became socially isolated.
Ayesha’s story concludes with her committing suicide after her best friend betrays her and the subsequent social isolation and exclusion from village celebrations. This coupled with her son’s initiation into radicalized Islamic society deprives her of human relationships, and she believes that she has nothing left to live for. Ayesha’s narrative depicts the experience of a few post-Partition survivors who were able to escape forced suicide and begin a new life. Once ultimately uncovered and subsequently outcasted by society, suicide was an unfortunate only option for many of these individuals. Many women experienced the same resistance to speaking about their past in fear that their stories would come to a fateful end.
Both the experience of the woman Ayesha from Khamosh Pani and the interview described above illustrate that many women do not feel comfortable sharing their Partition experiences with the public because they are afraid to invalidate their current status. Additionally, many women feared that they would not only face retribution from implicating men from foreign communities but from men in their own families and communities. Through many oral histories and depictions of the experiences during Partition, it is clear that women were only able to survive through a specific verbal contract; that they would keep their lives if they agreed to never discuss the atrocities committed against them or acknowledge their past.
Prakashvanti, who was a Partition survivor and twenty-year-old Hindu wife in August 1947, understands the weight of bearing silence for decades. She was interviewed by Butalia at the Gandhi Vanita Ashram in Jalandhar in Punjab, India. Her story begins in the village of Sheikupura (modern-day Pakistan), where Muslim hordes approached her village. Her husband urged her to commit “preventative suicide” in order to avoid defilement and assault. When she refused, her husband abused her and she fell unconscious. He fled the scene thinking that she had passed away. When Muslim attackers ultimately raided her house, they discovered her unconscious and figured she was dead. To Prakashanti’s horror, she woke up to her dead child and husband. She moved to an ashram where she spent the rest of her life in silence in fear of potential retribution for her survival
The psychological trauma of this physical violence has influenced almost three generations of women since the 1947 atrocities. Youthful women who experienced this trauma are now elderly ladies just beginning to reflect upon the barbarisms they experienced. Women have just recently begun to tell the accounts of their Partition violence. Saadat Hasan Manto authored the true story, Khol Do, where he depicted the effects of the violence during Partition. His true story begins in Amritsar, Punjab. A father named Sirajuddin is looking for his estranged daughter, Sakina. After desperately asking local men to create a search party to find his daughter, Sirajuddin spends days in agony waiting to be reunited with his daughter... Sakina is found on the roadside and rescued by the young search party team. After nursing her back to health, giving her proper clothing, the men began to repeatedly rape her. These four men returned her body to a nearby hospital where her father, Sirajuddin, discovered her. After taking her for a doctor’s visit to ensure she is physically stable, the physician requests for Sirajuddin to open the window. Sakina, barely able to move, unfastens her salwar, the cord which keeps her pants up. She unfastened it, pulled the garment down, and painfully opened her legs. Her father overlooks the obvious psychological sexual trauma and exclaims, “She is alive, my daughter is alive.”
Many fathers at this time did not rejoice when they were reunited with their daughters because they were ashamed of their sexual trauma. This father, Sirajuddin, is different because he does not react when his daughter’s instinctual reaction is to undo her pants. If we examine the symbolism of this doctor’s visit, we see that the father chooses to overlook his daughter’s trauma. He “overlooks how she has been violated and accepts her as she is.”14 This is a rare instance of a Partition father accepting his assaulted daughter with open arms. Khol Do was published in a Pakistani magazine named Naqoosh in 1948 and subsequently banned for six months. The author continued to publish this narrative anywhere that it would be accepted, despite those who wanted to censor his honesty and truthfulness of the situation.
New Identities and Reclaiming of Women’s Autonomy
The primary goal throughout all of these women’s hardships was self-preservation. After Partition occurred, many of them reclaimed their autonomy in ways other than sharing their trauma. It was embedded in women’s mindsets that the openness and discussion of their traumatic experiences would still give gratification to their assaulters. Thus, they channeled their feelings of prior subjugation and abuse into reclaiming autonomy in their career pathways. Partition left many women no longer associated with stable and settled patriarchal households, from which they were instead ousted because of their trauma. Many were completely displaced from their previous lives and lost their sense of identity. Because of their considered “impure” experiences, women could no longer fulfill their clearly defined roles of being a wife, widow, or virgin. Many were outcasts with no male support.
As an attempt to create new identities for women, the state put forth many programs that would help women who were looking to “fashion new strategies of survival in a completely alien land”. India set up transit camps, “relief centers, rehabilitation homes, and vocational training centers.” In these centers, India acted as a patriarch for women that had been displaced. Women were provided with new skills and training that would enable them to meet the requisite qualifications of labor in India. The overall goal was to create newfound “homes” for displaced women and incorporate them into the economic mainstream.
In a personal account from Bibi Ram Pyari, a once traumatized and displaced girl, she explains her journey of finding a new identity and space in a post-Partition world. Partition and her husband’s diagnosis of Tuberculosis forced Bibi to take responsibility for her entire family. With four young children, a sick husband, and no skills to pursue work, Bibi felt helpless in how she would support her family. She decided to sell her wedding jewelry to open a small kiosk that would sell sugar-coated candies. Soon after opening her kiosk, her husband passed away and she experienced extreme pressure in supporting her family. Although she could barely manage the shop by herself, she refused help from her young children and encouraged them to stay in school. After a few years, Bibi expanded her shop into a large general store. In her reflection on her life post-Partition, she stated that “something that was started by means of bare survival has today acquired the status of a popular general store. I feel as if I finally have an identity of my own that is self-made over a long time… It is a space that I can call mine.”
Final Remarks
The ways in which women were affected by violence during Partition is unquantifiable. Through migration, violence, recovery, abduction, and readjustments, it is clear that Partition women endured a great deal. Most of all, there was a huge loss of identity. These effects still impact, linger and haunt generationally today. There are wounds of diaspora and the severing of roots. A great ethical reckoning demands to be had; one that confesses and recognizes the experiences of women during this time. Many women still cannot make peace with why so many lives were lost and why gendered violence occurred. To answer these questions, many Partition historians and activists have encouraged those previously ashamed of their experiences to speak out. Jisha Menon, a Partition historian, has highlighted that “silence is not the same as forgetfulness.” I concur with her statement and agree that these strategies of silence affect the ways in which we discuss and remember the account of Partition. Although silence does not equate with forgetfulness, it is far easier to forget in the depth of silence. Through all the quieted voices and experiences during Partition, it is easy to forget many of the victims’ stories. I believe that when accounts of violence are suppressed violence becomes easier to overlook. Thus, through Partition’s silence, any opportunities to make conclusions about the experience and connections to modern society can be lost. It begs the question if we do not remember the history of Partition, who will? And finally, if it is not remembered truthfully, “are we doomed to repeat it”?
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