Daily Times

All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC) has recently released a consolidated report on the atrocities carried out by security forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). According to the report, Indian forces in their anti-freedom operation, massacred 95,238 Kashmiris, including 7,120 in custody, since January 1989. An alarming statistic in the report is that the troops molested 11,107 women. However, independent human rights activists claim that this figure is not even ten percent of the actual number because many women hide the fact that they were raped due to fear of being castigated by society.

History is replete with examples of the rape of women by soldiers during wartime. Indeed, rape was long considered an unfortunate but inevitable accompaniment of war-the result of the prolonged sexual deprivation of troops and insufficient military discipline. Its use as a weapon of war was gruesomely demonstrated during World War II, when both Allied and Axis armies committed rape as a means of terrorizing enemy civilian populations and demoralizing enemy troops. Two of the worst examples were the sexual enslavement of women in territories conquered by the Japanese army and the mass rape committed against German women by advancing Russian soldiers.

As indicated in the opening paragraph, while India continues its intransigence in IOK, rape is not only being used as a weapon of war, it is being propagated blatantly on Indian media. A former Indian Army Major General SP Sinha, called for the mass rape of Kashmiri women on Indian television. A short video from the news program floated on the internet and sparked fury on social media. SP Sinha is a serving BJP official, who joined the party in 2013. His explosive comments of ‘death for death and rape for rape’ unleashed an outrage on social media, with hundreds and thousands of social media users from across the globe reproached the Indian government and BJP.

Unfortunately, the prevalent regime in India, currently under the influence of Hindutva, takes its inspirations from the founding fathers of this heinous ideology which preaches hate, odium and repression. VinayakDamodarSavarkar, who formulated the Hindutva philosophy, in his book Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, promotes using rape as a political weapon. Savarkar justifies the raping of Muslim women, rationalizing that not to do so when the occasion permits is not virtuous or chivalrous but cowardly (Chapter VIII: ‘Perverted Conception of Virtue’).

Narendra Modi, who is a self-confessed Parcharak (Activist) of Hindu extremist organization RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS) sponsored the rape of Muslim women and massacre of young men, women and children in Gujarat in 2002 when he was the Chief Minister. Besides Modi, thousands of followers of Savarkar have been working on fulfilling his dreams. Another extremist BJP leader Yogi Adityanath, the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh since 19 March 2017, delivered a speech in 2015, saying they should dig out the dead bodies of Muslim women and rape them.

Unfortunately, the prevalent regime in India, currently under the influence of Hindutva, takes its inspirations from the founding fathers of this heinous ideology which preaches hate, odium and repression

Rapes of low caste Hindu Dalit women have been used as weapons to punish Dalits who defy the rules of the caste system. This is the warped logic RSS and its fronts have been propagating over the years and VD Savarkar remains a much-admired hero among SanghParivar followers. Unbelievably, even a leader of BJP’s women wing also encouraged Hindu men to openly rape Kashmiri women. More than 30 Kashmiri women were raped by Indian Army officers in two villages, Kunan and Pushpora, in a mass operation in 1991. Though the Indian Army denied these allegations the UN report published confirms the allegations and even slammed the Indian authorities for obstructing efforts to deliver justice to the victims.

The moral depravity has been sunk deep by extremist Hindutva protagonists; so much so that soon after the revocation of Article 370 and 35A, songs of marrying fair Kashmiri women, and objectifying them as things of possession hit the Indian social media. India’s revocation of special status Kashmir exposed Indian men’s uncontrollable desire for fair Kashmir women. The idea was first floated by BJP MLA from UP, VikramSiani, who passed the misogynistic statement on Kashmiri women in his speech addressing his party members on the significance of the revoking of Article 370 and 35A. Listing the benefits of repealing the Jammu Kashmir’s autonomous status to the Indians, VikramSiani, wooed Indian men with a dream of having a fair Kashmiri bride, stating: “With the government’s Kashmir decision, BJP workers could now go there, buy plots of land and get married.” His bizarre statement came while he was addressing a function at Muzaffarnagar to celebrate the move. Ironically, the Muslim women gangraped in the 2013 anti-Muslim violence at Muzaffarnagar are yet to receive justice.

In a resolution adopted in 2008 the UN Security Council affirmed that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.” It is high time that this resolution was invoked in IOK to stop rape being used as weapon.

The writer is a retired Group Captain of PAF. He is a columnist, analyst and TV talk show host