For more than three months, ethnic and communal clashes have gripped the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, which is dominated by the affluent Hindu community of Meitei.
Women belonging to the marginalised Christian community of Kuki were stripped, groped, raped, and paraded through the village by several men. Their cries for mercy were not answered by men, who walked with the women with shameless smiles on their faces.
In India, perpetrators of gang rape are rarely punished, whether it is the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, the 1989 Bhagalpur riots or the 1984 Delhi Sikh genocide. Perhaps, the only exception is the Bilqis Bano gang rape case during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Some 11 people received life sentences. But last year, all 11 were pardoned by the Gujarat state government.
READ MORE: Video Surfaces Of Women Paraded Naked In India
Oxford scholar Megha Kumar, who authored the book Communalism and Sexual Violence in India: The Politics of Gender, Ethnicity and Conflict, has made a connection between Hindu extremists' hatred of Muslims and the gang rapes during riots.
Recalling interviews with the women of Rashtriya Sevika Sangh, the women's wing of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Megha Kumar says they did not disapprove of these acts of men. “Neither did they not support them nor disagree with the ideas. For them, it was about settling scores and setting records.”
She brings forth the fact that in patriarchal societies like India, women are considered a sanctified property, and sexually victimising them is like violating the symbol of honour and an attack on the biological reproducer of the community.
Speaking to The Friday Times from London, she said, Hindu ideologues have created propaganda material that is used to label Muslims as “enemies.” She mentioned various writings by Hindutva ideologue, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, where he sanctifies the use of rape as a weapon to teach enemies a lesson.
“Muslim women never feared retribution or punishment by Hindus for their heinous crimes… Muslim women were sure that neither the victorious Hindu chiefs, nor any of the common soldiers, nor even a civilian would ever touch their hair,” writes Savarkar.
READ MORE: For Prime Minister Modi: Learning Lessons From The Indian Past
The enemies mentioned in Savarkar’s writings are described as sexually promiscuous, hyper-virile rapists who must be taught a lesson in the same coin.
The worst thing in these cases is that the fascist mentality and humiliating women during riots is approved by the families of perpetrators. Recalling interviews with the women of Rashtriya Sevika Sangh, the women's wing of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Kumar says they did not disapprove of these acts of men.
“Neither did they not support them nor disagree with the ideas. For them, it was about settling scores and setting records,” she says.
She traces all these traits of right-wing fascist ideology to the writings of Savarkar, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar and Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.
All these icons of the Hindutva movement have equated the common Indian Muslim with the sultans who plundered Indian cities and abducted their women as slaves. In his works, Savarkar calls on Hindus to settle accounts with Muslims.
Had action been taken against those guilty of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the 2002 riots in Gujarat might not have occurred, and if those involved in Gujarat had been punished, those who raped and humiliated the Kuki women in Manipur might have thought twice.
During the 2002 Gujarat riots, more than 500 women had complained of being raped. “But only three cases reached the court, two of which were indefensible. Only in the Bilkis Bano case were the guilty punished,” said Shabnam Hashmi, a civil society activist who has worked in Gujarat for three decades.
READ MORE: Gujarat Riots: The Story Of Hate, Violence And Killing Of Muslims
Violence against women in conflict zones is a part of human civilisation not only in India. Whether in the two world wars, the ethnic cleansing of Jews by the Germans, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, or the treatment of Hazara women by the Taliban in Afghanistan, a woman’s body is treated as a battleground to take revenge and proof one’s masculinity.
“In a patriarchal society, women are the bearers of honour and shame and are considered to be the property of men. They are the biological reproduces of the community and to humiliate them is like humiliating the whole community and so they are the targets,” explains Kumar.
What is particularly painful, however, is that despite a secular democracy, the perpetrators of gang rapes during the unrest are hardly punished. Had action been taken against those guilty of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the 2002 riots in Gujarat might not have occurred, and if those involved in Gujarat had been punished, those who raped and humiliated the Kuki women in Manipur might have thought twice.