The historical literature
on the 1971 War is mired in hairsplitting controversies of blame and the
descriptions are restricted to nationalist discourses, maintained Yasmin
Saikia, from UNC-Chapel Hill, USA, in her presentation, Bodies in pain:
voicing a people’s history of 1971.
For Saikia, the descriptions emphasize episodes of armed conflicts, military
strategies, memories of enmity, which together create justification for
violence and perpetuate narratives of hate for promoting differences and
new conflicts.
Saikia said the experiences and sufferings of common people illuminating
a human story for developing understanding are suppressed.
By probing into the memories and experiences of survivors, Saikia understood
the gendered nature of violence, the multiple constructions of Muslim and
Hindu identities in the subcontinent, and investigated the institution of
postcolonial states.
She said the two wars fought in 1971 – the civil and international
– have been interpreted and explained differently, although neither
scholars nor veterans can decide who to blame and what for.
But few can deny that in the wars men fought and controlled, state violence,
combined with ethnic and religious agendas, led to victimization of women
who became the main casualty of "male warriors”. The rape of
women in 1971 is considered one of the most intense and widespread cases
of brutalization of women in the 20th century wars. Saikia maintained it
is not unique, but part of a familiar, though horrible, feature of wars.
She said the recent examples of such horrors are Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia,
and Rwanda. She presented narrative stories of women from various ethnic,
religious and socio-economic backgrounds who were victims of rape in 1971.
Hussain Ahmed Khan of National College of Arts, Pakistan, argued that feudal
lords in southern Punjab used Sufism and Islam to strengthen their control
over the region in his presentation, Constructing identities through symbols
in south Punjab.
He said the construction of Siraiki ethnicity in conjunction with the ideologies
of Islam might not necessarily represent, in a mimetic fashion, values,
traditions and customary practices of southern Punjab, but their specific
construction for the effective mobilization of masses for the demand of
regional autonomy and political independence.
Saba Gul Khattak of SDPI, Pakistan, said before analyzing the Wana operation
without the immediate 9/11 context, there is a need to understand relationship
between the state and the society in Pakistan. In her presentation, Post
9/11: terror, terrorists and women in Pakistan’s tribal area, she
said the relationship of the state with society needs to be problemitized
in its colonial and postcolonial contexts.
Saba said with Wana operation emerged a number of issues like identity,
citizenship, displacement and loss of homes and livelihood, but added that
there is no place in public discourse for them. In the context of the women
of the area, she said the dual oppression of being tribal and being women
is a structural issue that needs to be addressed on urgent basis.
She said the destruction of homes in all the different contexts ranging
from being razed under locally applicable laws that are over a century old
or targeted in the military action and looted afterwards, the issues of
displacement and homelessness and marriage — whether quick and quiet
overnight ones or of being married to foreigners and having children —
are all problematic aspects about the lives of women that the state will
have to contend with.
Already some moves are afoot whereby some women are demanding to know their
husbands’ whereabouts from the government, which has apparently arrested
them. Most importantly, the development emanating from the current tension
will impact the future options and arrangements of the state-society relations.
She said it is important to debate the Wana operation in Pakistan in view
of the larger masculinst policy background.
One of the participants commented that a group of progressive women from
Pakistan apologized to women who were victimized in 1971 War. The participants
emphasized on the need to work separately on impact of war on next generation
and the process of reconciliation.
Ian Talbot of the Conventry University, UK, chaired the session, while the
discussant, Pippa Virdee, also belonged to the same university.
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