WOMEN'S STUDIES
Do women have a country?
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`The book tells the story of thousands of women who were abducted during the partition and taken away... '
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FIFTY-SEVEN years after the Partition of India, an attempt has been made by Kali for Women to put together the memoirs, troubled thoughts, anguish and sheer helplessness of women who were closely associated with the trauma of the Partition, mostly in the capacity of social workers helping in the task of recovery of abducted women. They tell the traumatic tales of women in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who were on the receiving end of the frenzy of communal hatred that devastated the Sub-continent.
The anthology — No Woman's Land — edited by Ritu Menon, proves yet again how events like the Partition devastates women and children, leaving mental and emotional scars that can never ever heal.
The book tells the story of thousands of women who were abducted during the partition and taken away "as though they were commodities". In one of her essays, Kamlaben, a social worker closely involved in the recovery of abducted women, reflects on how the rules framed to send women back to their countries, hardly gave them any option or choice to decide on their fate.
In her essay "Darkness and Light", Begum Anees Kidwai, a social worker, talks about the striking similarity in the tales of horror abounding on either side of the border. These were "so similar that at times we were compelled to think that someone else had planned the whole scheme, made two copies of it and handed one over to each side."
She talks about how in the villages around Delhi, Muslims were intimidated, compelled to vacate entire villages or colonies, and encouraged to go to the other side. As they fled with their belongings, they were looted through organised attacks in which both the police and army men participated. Their luggage was snatched and their clothes removed, particularly those of women. "The aged and children were ruthlessly massacred like goats ad sheep, and those who tried to run away fell prey to the bullets of the police or the army. Then the army would arrive... the wounded would be sent to the hospital, dead bodies would be stacked in carts and either thrown into pits or rivers or burnt with dry leaves, and young women and unmarried girls were distributed among the attackers, police and the soldiers of the army as their share of the loot. The officer would enjoy his share till he was satiated. After that the custodian had the right to sell the loot and earn some money."
For a long time the reader will be haunted by images of blood-soaked trucks that were used to ferry the bodies of the massacred; of wells overflowing with bodies of helpless women who had jumped in to escape rape; of human scavengers who fattened themselves on the misery of refugees; of little children who had happily adopted parents of the other faith and were secure in the love showered on them till they were cruelly snatched away and sent across the border into the darkness of the unknown.
And yet, amidst the holocaust, rage, hatred and revenge, there are glimpses of humanity... and admission of shame when a rare officer grapples with a moment of truth. Like the police officer in Pakistan telling an Indian woman in charge of investigating abduction cases, "A number of women from this locality committed suicide by jumping into this well to avoid being raped and molested. At one time the well was almost full to the brim with dead bodies. We who live here have not been able to protect the women of our own locality, the mothers and sisters of our fellow human beings. How sternly will posterity judge us?"
Immensely moving is the story of the 25 to 30 Sikh women of Muzaffarabad in PoK who were abducted, converted and married to local Muslims. Ranjit Kaur, a retired headmistress from Srinagar, visited these women in 1985. The women were all in purdah, most of them were well off and had accepted their fate, but there were exceptions. Like the woman who "killed every child that was born to her of the Muslim Khan who married her forcibly. This was her protest. Finally, when there was no hope of rescue, she allowed two children to live."
Any number of Bollywood movies — good, bad and indifferent — have tried to tell love stories of an Indian boy and a Pakistani girl or vice versa. Well, this anthology of non-fiction has a love story too, but with a sad ending. It is the story of Ismat and Jatin, children of a Pathan family from Rawalpindi and a Hindu businessman from Amritsar, who would meet regularly during their annual holiday in Kashmir before the Partition. They fell in love but following the Partition, the holidays naturally stopped. Ismat, without a care in the world, and with no idea of Jatin's address in Amritsar, left her home in Rawalpindi, walked to the refugee camp about a kilometre from her home, pretended to be a Hindu girl and persuaded the camp authorities to send her to Amritsar. All this happened about a month after the Partition.
She somehow traced Jatin, they got married, and though were very happy, could not live happily ever after because after Partition the Governments of India and Pakistan entered into an agreement to recover the women abducted during the Partition riots.
Ismat's family lodged a complaint and she was traced in Amritsar. Though initially not willing, she was persuaded by the Rehabilitation Ministry and the Search Service Bureau in Amritsar to go across to Pakistan at least to meet her parents. Ismat was a minor girl and the Indian authorities were anxious that even though she was happily married to a Hindu, and that too of her free will, failure to send her back would be misconstrued and come in the way of the recovery of abducted Hindu women from Pakistan.
Kamlaben Patel, who was involved in this work, relates the heartbreaking story of how Jatin insisted on accompanying Ismat to Lahore, but due to some rigmarole, could not accompany his wife when she met her parents. She did not return, and also did not take his telephone call.
Kamlaben called on her after a couple of days to find a totally different Ismat. "She had changed completely. Her clothes, manner and behaviour were transformed — we thought she was Ismat's sister, so different did she seem. Even her expression was different." In front of her parents Ismat disowned her life in India, called Jatin a "rascal" and said "I wish I could cut him into pieces and send them to the dogs." The love-stricken Jatin almost destroyed himself after losing his wife.
More forceful than the tales of agony and cruelty are the untold stories. Like that of the woman in Jalandar, who, after spending eight years in Pakistan, was forced to return to India against her will. Refusing to disclose to Ritu Menon what had happened during those years, she said, "Forget it. What us is it recalling the past? Let it be — I've banished it from my mind."
It is the unstated horror of such untold stories that frightens you "and raises that most troubling question: Do women have a country?"
No Woman's Land, edited by Ritu Menon, Kali for Women.
RASHEEDA BHAGAT
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