Kavita Krishnan Yesterday at 09:40 ยท The Maoists' statement claiming the Sukma attack was in retaliation for sexual violence against adivasi women and girls by paramilitary forces is highly problematic and condemnable, for a variety of reasons.
1) The women's movement for long has been stressing that retaliation and revenge, whether by the State or by non state actors, do not constitute justice for victims of sexual violence. An organized military 'retaliation' of this kind is very very different, also, from any spontaneous resistance or self defence by a woman victim herself. Such retaliation by the Maoists perpetuates the same macho masculinist logic that the State also peddles when it upholds death penalty for rape. Such retaliation says 'We're man enough to avenge our women.' Like the State, the Maoists might argue that such retaliatory violence will be a 'deterrent' and so on. Again, women's movements have long argued against the so-called deterrent potential of draconian punishments or retaliatory violence. 2) The Maoists' rationale smacks of the logic of collective punishment - I. E it does not claim to bring individual perpetrators of rape to justice, or even the individual commanders who encourage and enable such rapes; instead it kills one lot of CRPF men in retaliation for acts done by other CRPF men. 3) By claiming the Sukma attack to be retaliation by [read: "against] sexual violence by CRPF men in Bastar, the Maoists have undermined the painstaking work by women's groups to seek justice for those acts of sexual violence. There are women's rights activists and human rights defenders putting themselves in considerable peril to bring such instances of sexual violence to light and helping the victims or victims' families pursue the cases. The Maoists' rationale for the Sukma action undermines this immensely courageous work. Finally, some journalists have flagged the possibility that some of the CRPF jawans' private parts were mutilated in the attack. The police and CRPF officials have so far denied this. The Maoists have also denied inflicting such mutilation. So, in this particular case there is no confirmation yet that bodies were mutilated. But for the record let us reiterate what we have said often before - that mutilation of bodies whether by State or non State actors would be nothing less than an atrocity. If the State forces - police or CRPF - are covering up an atrocity of this kind anywhere please hold them to account. Kavita Krishnan, Secretary, AIPWA -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
