Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?
Book depicts pain, shame and goof-ups
Daanish Bin Nabi
Introduction
When a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern, Jyoti Singh, was gang-raped in Munrika, Delhi the entire India was shocked and shamed. Like any other rape incident happening every now and then in India, it gave no different impression to me. What I failed to comprehend at that point of time was how this very episode was going to come up as a catalyst for five young Kashmiris girls to compound a horrific shame we had been put through 25 years ago. Again I went amiss when a local weekly magazine poshed its cover story of these five girls as – The Bravehearts – I all over again looked as if through the frozen frame of skepticism at their work.
The result is their maiden work – a book titled “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?” Kunan and Poshpora are two hamlets in Kupwara district, clubbed together after their dreadful experience. The book has been written by Essar Batool, Ifrah Butt, Samreena Mushtaq, Munza Rashid, and Natasha Rather.
The crowded book release
On the 25th anniversary of the Kunan Poshpora gang rape, the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) released the book, “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?” The release function was held in a very small balcony of a shopping mall in the heart of Srinagar. The function was organized by Khurram Parvaiz, a human rights activist of Kashmir.
The small balcony was crammed with people. Social activists, lawyers, journalists, civil society members of Kashmir and India, amidst them, moving in civvies, were officials of intelligence agencies and Jammu Kashmir Police. For two and a half hours, maximum number of people including me had to stand as the book was released.
I asked Khurram why did he not reserve a spacious venue for the release of this much-awaited book in Kashmir. His answer made me realize that in this age of frenetic social networking, Kashmir does not have free spaces.
“No hotelier in the entire Srinagar was ready to give us space for the release of the book. The agencies and the police had strictly warned against it. I am thankful to this hotel that they gave us a small balcony to release this important book,” he said.
The Book
Moved by the Delhi gang-rape and the public outrage it generated, 50 educated women of Kashmir filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in 2013 to reopen the Kunan Poshpora case. The same incident also inspired five young women to undertake work on this book on the nightmare that two villages in Kashmir suffered 25 years ago.
The preface of the book is written by an independent research consultant on Gender and Conflict Saba Hussain. The book starts with five introductory notes. These are the personal accounts of the authors. They tell us how and why they got associated, and felt the need to revisit Kunan Poshpora. The book is published by Zuban Publishers.
Essar Batool, one of the authors, is famous for her “sumo sagas”. These are her posts posted on the social media, and are accounts of the intimidation and bullying she faced while travelling in public buses. Batool provides a vivid picture of her teenage days. She also speaks of how Indian institutions in Kashmir have always tried to distort public opinion.
The authors speak of how some women withdrew from the project fearing intimidation, or opposition from their families. They were also apprehensive of court procedures.
The authors also write about the constant obstacles they faced, and the efforts made to dissuade them from taking up on this thorny journey. The book has been divided into seven chapters.
Ironically, the authors speak of how they loved the Indian Army, viewed them as “saviours”, and used to call them “Army uncle”. Their seniors at school and the elders always saw Indian Army as outsiders, and loathed them. Gradually, the authors’ perceptions started to change, when ground realities sunk in.
The book painfully records the rapes that happened in Kupwara district in 1990s, before the ugly night of 23 February 1991. About 20 to 30 women were raped in Ballipora-Pazipora area of Kupwara by 9 Rajputs of the 68 Brigade of Indian Army, by 8 to 10 army men each.
After this gory incident, eight more girls were raped in Tregham village of Kupwara.
Next, a couple was arrested. The husband was tied to a tree, and his wife raped in front of him. One more crackdown followed, and a 26-year-old girl was raped by three Army men. In one case, one of the army men pressed the child’s chest hard so that he could not cry while her mother was raped in front of him. All these rapes took place before the Kunan Poshpora mass rape.
During 1990s, the Indian Army was inconsiderate and presumptuous in its operations in Kashmir, and everything was justified as a counter offensive strategy.
The book also talks about the rapes that took place in other districts of Kashmir. A graphic picture is visualised in the book about January 2, 1992. On this fateful, men of 5 Rashtriya Rifles raped two sisters. The sisters were made to spend a full night in a bathroom on the banks of a stream, while their father was abducted. He never returned after this horrific night.
In another incident, men of 22 Grenadiers gang-raped six to nine women on October 10, 1992, including a 11 year old girl. In all these cases, the standard state reaction was to pacify the protesters by ordering an enquiry. Nothing happened thereafter. The book says, “Last twelve years from (2004 to 2014), there have been 173 probes instituted which have not resulted in a single prosecution.”
The Fateful Night
The chapter “That Night in Kunan Poshpora” can be described as the backbone of the book. It is powerful and lucidly written. The book provides minuscule detail about what happened during on that ghastly night of February.
The entire sequence, from Indian Army leaving their Headquarters in Tehgram, raping women, torturing the men, to leaving the next day at 9 am has been given in full detail.
The intervening night of 23 and 24 February is described in chilling detail, even as a full moon shone bright. What the perpetrators of 4 Rajputana Rifles of 68 Mountain Brigade of Indian Army did with men and women would put even God to shame. How young, old and pregnant women and girls of every age were gang-raped by 120 men of 4 Rajputana Rifles makes for a hair-raising read. One cries for those who suffered this deathly experience.
The book carries the picture of the wooden house in the village, used as a torture centre. Not only women but men were brutally tortured in these makeshift torture centers.
The chapter leaves the reader in deep pain, numb from the pain of what the Kashmir had to endure.
Social Stigmas
The book provides a detailed account of the social stigmas of the rape survivors. It is extremely said that not only the rape victims but their next generation is also facing problems, as people refer to them derogatorily.
Kunan and Poshpora have schools only up to Class VIII. After passing Class VIII, students had to go to Kupwara or Trehgam.
The book records that when children of the victims went to other villages to study, taunts, bullying and humiliation was their everyday experience. These students started to move to other villages to study, so that no one would recognize them. In many cases, the students stopped going to school altogether.
Following intense social stigma, not only education but marriage also became a problem for these families. No one came forward to marry their children with children of rape victims. In most cases, rape survivors were married to their relatives.
The rape victims had to suffer economically. They also suffered from deep mental trauma for years, and various health disorders.
The daughter of a rape survivor says, “When I was about eight years old, I used to go for swimming to a nearby river. One day when I was near the river, a few women from the neighbouring village sneered at me and called me an illegitimate child of the Army. They abused our whole village. I was very annoyed. I didn’t understand what they meant, and started crying. When I returned home, I asked my mother to tell me the reason for these taunts. Painfully and hesitantly, she told me about the horros of that night. My sister was married in a nearby village. Her in-laws harassed her terribly. She was called the daughter of the raped village.”
Inquires and Goof-ups
The authors have extensively researched the inquiries and goof-ups that followed, and how successive attempts were made by the Centre and the Army to cover up the horrifying incident.
The book raises some disturbing questions. It asks why Wajahat Habibullah was “silent for 22 years”. The book also questions why he made the statement “deleted important portion of his confidential report” after 22 years. B G Verghese stated in his report that this was a “hoax to malign the Indian Army.”
Being a Kashmiri, I know about the crackdowns of the 1990s in Kashmir. B G Verghese in his report says: “4th Rajputana Rifles were innocently searching houses….Army before leaving the villages distributed sweets among the children.” Everyone in Kashmir knows how people were treated by the Indian Army at the time of a crackdown and distributing sweets is a crude joke.
The book gives credit to the veteran journalist Yousuf Jameel. He was the first journalist who broke the news of the gang-rape. The story was published in the prestigious Telegraph in March 1991.
When the case was finally reopened after 24 years, the petitioners had to go through threats and intimidations. The last chapter talks about the year 2013 and 2014, when the court proceedings was in limelight, and how the police and the army tried to stop these young women from pursuing the case.
Tail Piece
The message of the book is “remembrance”. That we must not forget the pains and humiliations we have suffered. The key to Kashmir’s survival is remembrance. The book has aptly described the Kunan Poshpora victims as the “Living Martyrs of Kashmir”.
After reading this lucid account, one is compelled to ask question that if in India rape is punishable then why gang-rape in Kashmir justifiable when committed by Indian Amry?
