Our Daughters Can Be Simone De Beauvoir Of Kashmir

Punchline
Simone de Beauvoir and Our Daughters
By
Z. G. Muhammad
It was a book release function with a difference. On Wednesday, 24 February 2016, ‘Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?’ a book authored by five young women Essar Batool, Ifrah Butt, Samreena Mushtaq, Munza Rashid, and Natasha Rather was released. In a jam-packed hall of young men and women with only a few elderly columnists, journalists, academics, and civil society activists around, I strongly realized that our post-1947 struggle has been passed on to our third generation- a more ebullient and intelligent generation. Out of five authors of the Book, ‘four along with publisher of the book Urvashi Butalia, an author, and leading Indian feminists were on the dais.
The young authors mostly in their early twenties shared their experiences about how and why they thought of writing a book on the macabre night of February 23-24 1991 when men in olive green had committed mass rape in twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora (KP) of the Kupwara District. Ostensibly, the reason for them writing this book was a question, ‘Is rape in India punishable but rape in Kashmir justifiable when committed by men in uniform’ that bothered their minds when entire India had erupted into ‘militant’ protests against gang-rape of a physiotherapy student in 2012 in New Delhi. But, from their individual stories it emerges that deep down the reason for these young women authors rising to the occasion and courageously working for reopening the cases of mass rape in KP and demanding reinvestigation of this gruesome crime is the sense of insecurity etched on minds of our younger generation. Listening to the individual stories about their transformation to activism, I suffered a rude shock that we have blindfolded ourselves to harsher realities of our daughters suffering perpetual molestation and our failure to realize psychological traumas they have been suffering on a daily basis. The young school girls, who out of innocence called ‘army standing on the streets as “army uncles” believing they would protect them’ years later become victims of their lasciviousness.’ Ifrah Butt, one of the co-authors of the book writes, “As a child every morning first outsider I saw an army man who smiled at me when I was on my way to school and said, ‘Gudiya school jana hai?’ I nodded my head and thought the poor fellow must be missing his children. They have to stay far away from their family, just for our security. They are real heroes. That is what I used to think.” As she grew up and realities dawned on her, the empathy for her heroes etherized, she writes, “My heroes no longer felt like a source of inspiration but more like uninvited tenants. I was agitated by the way the army men stared at me now. A whistle, a wink or a remark.” The stories that inspired five authors to write a book on Kunan and Poshpora mass rapes are in fact stories of a whole generation. But what made them excavate the truth from the piles of the information arduously collected by them and explode the manufactured narrative about by “the State and its many agencies” bordering on denials and distortion has been their deep urge to ensure justice to the survivors. For having defeated the ‘fear’ by recounting mass rapes in graphic detail and denial of justice to the survivors without mincing words these young women have emerged as torchbearers for a whole generation. As one of the authors rightly said fear is a potent weapon with the oppressor and ‘once you defeat fear, the battle is won.’
Can the chilling tales of Kunan and Poshapora gang rape lucidly told by young ‘concerned’ Kashmiri women capture the public opinion in India and prick the conscience of public intellectuals to see justice done to women and men of Kunan and Poshapora villages. This questions during discussions on the book reminded me of a much sought after a book in the sixties, ‘Djamila Boupacha: The Story of the Torture of a Young Algerian Girl’ by Simone de Beauvoir and Gisele Halimi. The book had shocked French public opinion that led ultimately to Evian Accords between France and the government-in-exile of FLN Algerian Liberation Organization and ultimately to the liberation of France.
For understanding the analogy between a book written by Beauvoir and five young Kashmiri women one needs to know under what situation the famous French intellectual of her time had written a book on Djamila Boupacha. France had annexed Algeria in 1834. In 1954, FLN started its war of independence. Immediately, French Interior Minister, Francois Mitterrand asserted, “Algeria is France. And France will recognize no authority other than her own”, and to maintain status quo the French army turned to torture. In 1960, Boupacha had been arrested along with other family members for carrying out subversive activities. She was subjected to torture and gang-rape. Torture having been the practice of French army in Algeria for over five, crimes against humanity in Algeria no more shocked people in France. It was just a few intellectual like Simone de Beauvoir who did not approve of this policy. Gisele Halimi, the lawyer of Boupacha, sought a meeting with Beauvoir to seek her support. Immediately, Beauvoir wrote a long article in Le Monde, a leading newspaper of France giving graphic details of the torture and gang-rape to which Boupacha had been subject. The French government seized all copies of the Le Monde edition in Algeria. The seizure went to the advantage to the Algerian movement; it draws more attention to Boupacha case and Beauvoir’s involvement.It took French intelligentsia by storm, letters and telegrams flooded to the newspaper and the author. Some readers in their letters drew comparisons with torture and government complicity during the Nazi occupation. Some wrote it was reminiscent of Gestapo methods.
The response sufficiently boosted the resolve of Halimi and Beauvoir. The twin established the Djamila Boupacha Committee, ‘to keep the case in the public eye.’ After that, the publicized developments of the case in detail. The committee attracted to its ranks Jean-Paul Sartre, Françoise Sagan, Germaine Tillon, Rene Julliard, André Philip and many others. There was an intellectual outcry in France against denial of justice to the authorities and obstructions by the military. The outcry in France found its echoes in many other countries. The international press carried lots of columns and articles in support of the movement by Beauvoir. Beauvoir tried to sensitize her fellow countrymen about injustice committed in Algeria and identified ‘Boupacha scandal as the French public indifference to the atrocities and committed in their name in Algeria.
This article damaged Frances image internationally and garnered the support of French intellectuals for Boupacha. The ‘shocking awakening’ in intellectuals and people despite opposition made France change its policy towards Algeria and decide to free the country.

Our younger generation writers are a new hope for us.

Published in Greater Kashmir on 29-2-16