CC_India

and Hindu and Christian women are both vulnerable.
Hindu women complained of their inability to access
self-help group (SHG) schemes (such as the preparation
of mid-day meals in government schools). They
have to be approved through the ICDS (Integrated Child
Development Scheme) supervisor, etc — to all of whom
bribes have to be paid. The police are also seen as hugely
corrupt and in the pocket of the liquor mafia. They have
often had runs in with the police over their anti liquor
campaigns.
As regards the local police, most women viewed them
with suspicion and distrust. Summing up the responses
of women, Saumya states, “the police had a) failed to
protect them from the rampaging mobs; b) been complicit
with the perpetrators; c) failed to perform their
duty when the women approached them for registering
their complaints; d) failed to arrest perpetrators persuant
to their complaints; and e) conducted investigations
in a callous and disinterested manner. Whereas some
women preferred to repose faith in the central reserve
police forces (CRPF), others had been witness to the CRPF
jawans’ sexual exploitation of girls in the relief camps.
PEACE WITH JUSTICE
In the powerful ‘Women and Peace’ discourse, there is
the lofty moral assumption of women building bridges
across conflict faultiness, of empathising and building
bonds with each other’s common suffering of loss
of a husband or a son. However, that belief seems to
flounder when confronted with the complex responses
of women which are shaped by their location in life —
belonging to the majority community, to a particular
religion, caste, ethnicity or class.
“Prior to the violence, Hindus and Christians used
to drink water from the same well in my village. We
would go to the forests together to collect leaves,
wood and other products. We would celebrate festivals
together, work on each other’s farms, and help
each other. After the violence, we are not allowed to
pick forest produce, and we cannot take water from
the common wells.”
As evinced from women’s perspectives on ‘peace’ in the
Kandhmal context, whereas social reconciliation was
critical from the viewpoint of minority women — the
victim-survivors, for the majority community women
re-establishing communal harmony was secondary to
other pertinent issues such as domestic violence and
alcohol abuse. Indeed, the issue of domestic violence
was common for both communities, but amongst some
of the victim-survivors there was a nascent groping
towards an understanding of the continuum of violence
women face because of women’s low status. For example,
a woman from the Nandagiri rehabilitation site said:
“For women, there is no peace — either at home or
outside. At home we face the demands of children
and violence from husband. Outside, we face the
fear of violence from the Hindu community.”
Return and the rebuilding of lives and the re-establishment
of inter community social and economic ties is
crucial for the security and survival of the vulnerable
minority women. It may also explain the emphasis on
the Christian value of ‘forgiveness’, and the recourse to
a higher justice — the justice of God, especially when
punitive justice is inaccessible. Peace is the return of
communal harmony.
As lucidly stated by a dalit Christian girl, “Peace is
to live in harmony with other communities as in
the past, without violence, harassment or taunts,
including from Hindu boys”.
Among the Hindu women, there was a chorus of voices
against alcohol abuse by the men of their families and
domestic violence (related and unrelated to alcoholism).
Peace was threatened by alcoholic consumption.
The women spoke at length of their acts of resistance
to male family members’ consumption of alcohol,
and their efforts to confront shop owners and alcohol
manufacturers.
Justice, for many, remains elusive, as in the case of A.B.
whose husband was hacked to death. All the accused
were acquitted as crucial witnesses turned hostile
during trial. But A.B. was not about to give up on the
judicial system.
“I will encourage all women to lodge FIR. If they
threaten the woman, we will again lodge FIR about
the threat. We will not leave them free.”
Many older mothers spoke of a higher court of justice,
the justice of god. IJ (70 ) whose son bled to death in
her arms, brutally killed by his own community, said,
26 UNEQUAL CITIZENS: Women’s Narratives of Resistance, Militarisation, Corruption and Security