CC_India

Rape rarely becomes a human rights issue here.
According to co-author Anuradha Bhasin-Jamwal drawing
upon her long journalistic exposure to the border
belt,
“It is also how women are placed culturally in the
social hierarchy which makes rape a much bigger
stigma than in other parts of the state. The twin
border district are not only strongly patriarchal,
inter-caste marriages here are considered unacceptable.
Besides access to police and institutions
of justice is limited as most of the incidents take
place in far flung remote villages. Access to media
is also limited and therefore these stories are never
heard. Even if there is a murmur of protest, it does
not last long in a highly militarised area with
excessive surveillance on locals by men in uniform
and their co-opted informers. Also, for them the
issues of bread and butter, poverty and lack of
development are so grave that pursuing justice
becomes secondary.”
OPERATION SADBHAVNA
In the late 1990s, India’s counterinsurgency operations
in the Northeast and J&K acquired a new strategic orientation
— WHAM — winning hearts and minds, or as
it came to be called in J&K–Operation Sadbhavna. 34 In
2006 WHAM was formally integrated into the counter
insurgency doctrine as manifest in the army’s expanding
civic action profile. In 2007-2008 Operation
Sadbhavna’s budget was Rs 79 crores and encompassed
building infrastructure, (community buildings, water
tanks, micro hydro electric projects, public health centres,
schools, stadia and public toilets) as well as vocational
training centres for computer training, beauty
parlours, blanket weaving and model army schools. In
the initial years, it targeted school going children and
women. In 2013 the army was engaged in 91 civic action
projects in the two border districts.
This ‘bombs and biscuits’ frame has deligitimised
urgently needed humanitarian and welfare assistance,
undermined civilian authority and absolved them of
their responsibility to provide for citizen’s welfare.
Accountability has further receded as the ‘buck stops
at the CO’. Also the co-existence of dual civil-military
responsibility in implementing and operationalising
these projects has made for huge wastages, skewed
development priorities and corruption.
Moreover, in the context of women and girl’s socialised
experience of the security forces in situations of conflict,
militarised civic action initiatives have compromised
women’s access to necessary welfare and life
enhancing facilities. “Do’s and Dont’s” for the army
include scrupulously avoiding situations which make
women sexually threatened. However, complaints persist.
Admittedly though in most places families do send
women to army run computer centres, blanket weaving
workshops etc. Army officers acknowledge that
the women reached out to are diffident about getting
involved, lest “it be used to win their confidence and
to make them become informers.” As Arpita Anant’s
study of Operation Sadbhavna revealed, “Operation
Sadbhavna is not about logistics, nor is it about welfare,
rather, it is an important dimension of the operations of
the Indian Army.” 35
What did the ‘receivers’ of the army’s civic action programme
think? In the village of Khairi Karmara, in
Poonch district, a model village under the Sadbhavna
programme, we confronted the contradictions built
into the army’s welfare projects. In 2008 with much
pomp and show the Health Care Centre was inaugurated.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi was present
along with the Defence Minister and Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Rs 7,50,000 had been allocated from the Centre and a
lakh and half was spent on the arrangements. Today the
buildings have not one but two padlocks. Inside can be
glimpsed hospital beds and medical equipment from
that earlier time when it briefly functioned. Shakira
bi remembered what a difference it made to pregnant
women who developed complications at night, to have
a ‘hospital’ in their midst. Her brother, AlamShir had
donated the land to the local army regiment. Apparently,
the CO of the 93 Brigade, 56 APO had promised that one
of his family members would be given a government job
in lieu of the land donated. Soon after the inauguration
of the Centre, the unit moved on. The promise of a government
job was forgotten. To add to this confusion, it
seemed that no application had been made to the state
authorities to sanction the Centre and allocate state
doctors for running it.
The women who had collected around us at the locked
Health Centre were quite cynical about Operation
Sadbhavna. “The army has built a toilet. But where is it?
Right next to the Sarpanch’s house. Who is going to use
it? And there is no water,” they laughed.
38 UNEQUAL CITIZENS: Women’s Narratives of Resistance, Militarisation, Corruption and Security