Can A Gang Rape Change India's Hate Culture?

Sexual violence makes India a global frontline in the battle to save women and girls. But the problem extends to hatreds spawned by history and religion.

[This article is based on a column published in The News International, Pakistan's largest English daily].

The sad gang rape of a college student on a public bus in the Indian capital might end up having an impact beyond the country’s borders. Although an internal matter, this particular incident concerns Pakistanis in important ways. It should also concern India's other neighbors like Sri Lanka, China, Bangladesh and Nepal.

India is a country beset by virulent hatreds of all types: political, historical, religious and social. These hatreds are so potent they led to 21st century's first genocide. More than 2,000 Indians were butchered and burned across Gujarat, a major trading state in western India near the Pakistani border.

The murder of 2,000 Indians spread over just three days was no small matter, happening as it did in 21st century, and not in 20th or 19th centuries. The fact that almost all of the killed were Indian Muslims; men, women, elderly and children, eliminated on the streets by mobs representing the majority religious group, meant that this was a ghastly incident of ethnic cleansing and religious extermination.

One way to gauge the amount of hate that motivated the Indian mobs is to look at one type of criminal act that was repeatedly committed during the 2002 Gujarat ethnic cleansing. In case after case, Indian mobs cut open the stomachs of pregnant Indian Muslim women and killed the unborn babies. In other cases, genitals of Indian Muslim women were mutilated before killing them.

Independent Sikh groups report similar gang-rapes of Sikh women in public places across northern India in 1984.

The New Delhi bus gang rape and similar atrocities against women and minorities are not isolated incidents. Some foreign policies pursued by Indian governments were also driven by religious or social hatreds preexisting in Indian society.

In less than seventy years since the creation of India by Britain in 1947, New Delhi managed to provoke a war and several border clashes with China, four wars with Pakistan, invade Bangladesh, fight a proxy war in Sri Lanka and indirectly interfere in Nepal.

The Indian military invasion in 1971 of what is now Bangladesh is the perfect example of how the combustible mix of Indian hatreds poisoned its foreign policy. [See India Invaded Pakistan In 1971: Know The Facts at http://j.mp/qw8dXC ]

In 1971, there was no armed freedom movement in Kashmir. There were no pro-Kashmir groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT). In that year, Pakistanis were busy in messy and chaotic elections. Less than 40,000 Pakistani soldiers were stationed in East Pakistan, and all of them in their barracks.

Despite this peaceful Pakistani posture, Indian army crossed international borders in December of that year in an unprovoked war. Assisting the Indian army was a terror militia that went on a killing spree of Pakistani civilians, selecting targets based on their language. India's ally, the Soviet Union, provided indirect help.

Several indisputable evidences that emerged in the following years show how India meticulously planned the invasion at least two years in advance, if not more, recruiting agents and saboteurs and deploying a psy-ops strategy.

Until 1971, Kashmir was the only dispute between Pakistan and India and was contested in a largely peaceful manner inside the UN Security Council. But India created a permanent blood feud with Pakistan by planning and executing the one-sided, unprovoked invasion and war of 1971.

HINDI-SPEAKING INDIANS:
WHO TO BLAME?

It would be unfair to associate all Indians with this sordid record. In fact, evidence points to one group of Indians: the Hindi-speakers of northern India.

The multifaceted social and political hatreds in India are linked to the Hindi-speaking minority, about a third of the Indian population.

The Hindi-speakers are a powerful, rich and arrogant minority, for a reason. Most upper caste Hindus belong to this language group.

Other Indians often hold Hindi-speakers responsible for India’s social and governance problems and for wars with neighbors, for prolonging the Kashmir conflict, and for feeding hate against India's Christian, Sikh, Muslim, Dalit and Assamese minorities. [See http://j.mp/ZgBWKJ and http://j.mp/Tz9JLt as examples.]

The Delhi bus gang rape occurred in the heart of the Hindi-speaking belt. The February 2007 bombing of a ‘friendship train’ carrying Pakistani families on a goodwill visit to India occurred near Panipat, an old Hindi-speaking center.

The Hindi-speaking upper caste culture looks down at other Indians. Women in this culture do not enjoy much respect. There have been numerous cases of public rape and sexual assault in northern Indian where men chose to cheer and make cell phone videos as mobs assaulted and stripped young women. [See http://bit.ly/UIQEWZ and http://bitly.com/VueGTS and http://bitly.com/1349smA and http://j.mp/Vljxai and http://j.mp/10UJVh6 and http://j.mp/YZ3krZ and http://j.mp/136yamj ].

THE GANG RAPE

This background gives context to the gang rape of a 23-year-old college student on a public bus in New Delhi.

The incident sparked riots in the Indian capital because of the increasing cases of gang rapes that have given New Delhi its unflattering designation as the Rape Capital of India.

But the gang rape hides an uglier fact, that India has the worst world record in treating women.

Newly born or unborn female babies are often killed in India for religious and social reasons, according to surveys by the UN and other independent agencies. The country has the world's largest cases of underage forced girl marriages. And a probe by American television network ABC News earlier this year [See India’s Deadly Secret at http://j.mp/tHVRHI ] concluded that over 40 million Indian women of all ages disappeared or were killed in India since 1980.

A spate of articles in the aftermath of the Delhi bus gang rape confirms that social and religious traditions contribute to animosity toward women in India, making the country the world’s frontline battle state in countering anti-woman traditions and customs. [See http://bitly.com/12Z1kEK ]

INDIAN SOLDIERS RAPED
53 WOMEN IN ONE NIGHT

In 1991, in a Kashmiri village called Kunan Poshpora, 53 women were gang-raped by Indian Army soldiers during one night. The use of rape by the Indian Army as a weapon of war against Kashmiris who are demanding accession to Pakistan was documented in detail in the report Rapes In Kashmir released by Human Rights Watch. [See http://bit.ly/X3NDjK ]

There is something deeply wrong in India. Leaders of opinion need to raise it and end the state of denial. There have been many recent warnings and they have nothing to do with rape. The 2002 Gujarat ethnic cleansing is one. The riots against poor Assamese migrant workers are another. The Indian interior ministry blamed those riots on alleged Facebook posts originating in Pakistan. The ridiculous accusation caused embarrassment to India as television footage showed ordinary Indians beat and humiliate the Assamese workers on the streets prompting a mass exodus by the Assamese from Indian cities. No wonder then that the entire northeastern belt of India is up in arms demanding independence.

We in Pakistan continue to be at the receiving end of Indian hate. In 2007, a group of Pakistani families heeded Indian government's call for peace and boarded a 'Friendship Train' from Lahore to the Indian capital, which is located in the heart of the minority Hindi-speaking belt of India. The train was blown up and more than 50 Pakistanis were killed. The perpetrators turned out to be Indian military officers working with Hindu extremist groups.

Recently, the captain of a Pakistani sports team of blind players was served a form of acid at breakfast at an Indian hotel. Pakistani artists who visit India are routinely threatened by extremist Indians. [See posts under #AcidForBreakfastInIndia on Twitter].

On Twitter, Pakistanis increasingly complain about Indian trolls who dedicate time and human resource to spam Pakistani timelines. [See Twitter Is Infested With Indians Spreading Hate Against Pakistan at http://j.mp/IndHate ]

The new Indian Spring against policies of hate practiced by the minority Hindi-speaking elite of New Delhi is a good omen. But it's only a start and there is a long way ahead. This effort should expand to force the Indian elite to listen to the voice of a majority of Indians who are a peaceful people and who deserve to see the billions of dollars generated from the Indian economy spent on their welfare instead of rapid militarization in pursuance of hostile designs against neighbors.

Ending New Delhi's culture of hate is essential to seeing an India at peace with its own people and with neighbors.

The riots by Indian civil society show there is hope that India will be able to defeat the multifaceted hatreds that pollute Indian society and politics.

This article is an extended version of a column by the author that appeared in The News International, Pakistan’s largest English-language daily.

Krishna's Dirty India

India does it again. When a senior White House official announced delaying Pakistan aid, the Indian foreign minister coundn't hide his glee, more like a kindergarten bully than a foreign minister of a large-sized country.

He welcomed the US move and dumped a heap of propaganda lines on Pakistan.

I laugh no end when I read for US officials swearing to us that India means us no harm, that we are wrong to think the Indians will wage war on us any chance they get, etc.

US officials are desperate to give India a larger role in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and they firmly want Pakistan under Indian wings.

But the truth is, India is a country that can never even dream of entering a war with China. Its multibillion dollar armament drive is meant for Pakistan, which is an obsession for India's ruling elite.

India is a big country but with the brain of a mouse. In 1971, long before there were any pro-Pakistan freedom groups in Kashmir, and long before there was Lashkar-e-Tayyeba or even an intifada in Kashmir, India invaded Pakistan while Pakistanis were busy in post-election bickering.

The Indians prepared a proxy terror militia and waited for a perfect opportunity, which came on the eve of the messy Pakistani elections in December of that year. The Indian invasion across international borders was totally unprovoked. Indian soldiers and their terror militia launched murders and rapes.

Today, India refuses to settle even minor border disputes with Pakistan that could build trust. It never lets go of any chance to harm Pakistan. When the EU offered concessions to Pakistani textiles in early 2011, India blocked them through a complaint to WTO. India is doing everything to steal Pakistan's water from Kashmiri rivers that India occupies by force. Pakistani artists are routinely threatened with the worst type of religious extremism on Indian soil, and there have been several cases of Pakistani artists beaten at the hands of Indian extremists.

[Recently, serving Indian army officers have been arrested for planting bombs in Indian cities and blame them on Pakistan to create an excuse to launch a war on that country.]

India is a country programmed to obsess about Pakistan and keen to harm it any chance it gets.

This explains Krishna's tastelessly gleeful remarks on US refusing to pay Pakistan money owed for facilitating US war in Afghanistan.

Watch out for India exploiting every opportunity to harm Pakistan, regardless of the American sales pitch on Indian intentions.

India Invaded Pakistan In 1971: Know The Facts, And The Enemy

Click to enlarge

Time for some facts on India's 1971 invasion of Pakistan.

First of all, there was no 'Indo-Pakistan war of 1971'.

That's a misleading description.

India INVADED Pakistan in 1971. Use the right words because there is a big difference.

Pakistani history books, official and private, need to be corrected.

There was a full-fledged, one-sided invasion across an international boundary. And it was an unprovoked invasion, preplanned. A foreign country exploited a chaotic election in Pakistan to launch a snap attack without warnings.

Remember: there was no Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in 1971, nor was there an armed freedom struggle in occupied Kashmir. There was no excuse of ‘terrorism’. India invaded Pakistan to hurt and kill as much Pakistanis as possible simply because India saw a good opportunity and seized it.

To this day, India deliberately uses the term ‘India-Pakistan war of 1971’ to avoid admitting what it actually was: an unprovoked invasion of another country. Unfortunately, Pakistanis at all levels continue to use the Indian description for that invasion.

The Indian role in 1971 war is the dirtiest Indian secret. It’s been effectively hidden from the world. The Indians never discuss how they invaded Pakistan in that year. And Pakistanis discuss everything except the foreign invasion across international borders. The reason this invasion remains unknown is because of our inability in Pakistan to show the world what really happened.

This did not start out as a Pakistan-India war. It was a Pakistani election gone bad and political parties resorted to violence to make a point. Elections go bad everywhere and sometimes they get violent. It happened in Pakistan in 1971. India saw an opportunity in internal Pakistani chaos and invaded Pakistan across the international border without any provocation from the Pakistani side.

India exploited the fact that the Pakistani military was not on alert and that we did not have enough soldiers at that time in East Pakistan. Why weren’t there enough Pakistani soldiers to defend the territory against a foreign invasion? East Pakistan was geographically disconnected from the rest of the country. But more importantly Islamabad never thought that India would launch such a brazen attack on Pakistan without any reason, especially when Pakistan was a member in several US-led defense pacts. Pakistani planners miscalculated in believing they could rely on an ally such as the United States for help. [Indian government documents released this month show that Washington not only ditched Pakistan but also secretly told New Delhi it would support India in case China entered the war to help Pakistan.]

India’s blatant war of aggression was not a chance happening. It was meticulously planned. Two years before the ‘war’, India started secretly recruiting local peasants in areas of East Pakistan adjoining India. In two years, these recruits became foot soldiers for a terrorist militia known as Mukti Bahini that sprung into action as soon as the Indian army began the invasion. Indian soldiers and their terror militia went on a rampage, murdering Pakistanis on linguistic basis [Urdu, Bengali] to feed chaos and pitch Pakistanis against one another. This provided a cover for wanton killings by Indian soldiers because all killings ended up being blamed on Pakistan.

Wrong Pakistani political and military decisions helped the Indian invaders. Here is an excellent brief written by Mr. Mushtaq Sethi that helps in understanding the Indian proxy militia:

“Mukti Bahini were not just another insurgent force: on the contrary, their original core consisted of defectors from the former East Bengal Regiments of the Pakistani Army, who reached the Indian soil and also those Hindus who had fled East Pakistan and crossed over to India and had returned after having received complete training in the art of guerrilla warfare. They were soon reinforced by a considerable number of volunteers, mainly students, then during April and May, Pakistan had purged Bengalis from the armed forces. Many others defected, while those who remained were not trusted. Result was that the combat effectiveness of Pakistani units suffered considerably.  Once in India, together with other volunteers from East Pakistan, they were trained and organized into six new East Bengal Regiments in June 1971. By November 1971, the Mukti Bahini was reinforced by the addition of three artillery batteries as well as a small flying service (operating two Aérospatiale SA.316B Alouette III helicopters, one DeHavilland Canada DHC-3 Otter and a single Douglas DC-3 Dakota transport). They were counting up to 85,000 and their order of battle during the war in December was as follows:
K Force/Brigade, consisting of 10th and 11th East Bengal Regiment and No.3 Field Battery- S Force/Brigade, consisting of 2nd and 4th East Bengal Regiment, and No.1 Field Battery- Z Force/Brigade, consisting of 1st, 3rd, and 8th East Bengal Regiment, and No.2 field Battery.”

The Indian terror militia was dismantled as soon as the war ended with the surrender of the outnumbered Pakistani units. India crowned its invasion with orchestrating a secession, declaring the occupied Pakistani lands an independent country.

If Pakistan does not and cannot trust India, it is because of India’s treacherous unprovoked invasion in 1971. India set many examples later that prove it won’t miss an opportunity to hurt Pakistan when possible. The Indian ruling elite, especially the minority Hindi-speaking bigots in northern India, have wanted to destroy Pakistan since our independence in 1947. They have some strange notion that Pakistani territories somehow belong to them according to their religious history. Some of them cannot forget ten centuries of our rule in the region and have a deep fear and loathing of anything Pakistani. If there is a war in Afghanistan, India would be the first to exploit it to send saboteurs into Pakistan from the Afghan soil. If the European Union decides to allow importing Pakistani textiles, Indian diplomats would spring into action to object. Indian writers, analysts and commentators in the US and anywhere else in the world are the first to launch anti-Pakistan diatribes whenever there is a chance to do it.

It’s a deep seated hate for Pakistan in the north Indian Hindi-speaking belt. And this hatred was at the heart of India’s decision to invade Pakistan in 1971.

Yes, we committed mistakes in our internal politics in 1971 that helped the Indian enemy in its designs. But we have learned those lessons. What is important now is that every Pakistani man and woman understand that our homeland faced a treacherous invasion and a blatant aggression across international borders in that year. Whatever our own mistakes domestically, that cannot justify a blatant war of aggression by a foreign country exploiting our internal situation.

Know the history. And know your enemy.