{"id":2,"date":"2014-07-11T13:49:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T13:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/golz-2014-women-partition-india-pakistan\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2014-10-06T21:29:09","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T21:29:09","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/golz-2014-women-partition-india-pakistan\/india\/sample-page\/","title":{"rendered":"Working For The State: A Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMen alone do not have the monopoly of organizational ability. You have had a taste of this ability of a Patel\u2019s daughter!\u201d<\/p>\n

-Mridula Sarabhai<\/p>\n

\"Torn

Torn From the Roots, Kamla Patel’s Memoir<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n

When Kamla Patel was summoned from Ahmedabad to Delhi in November 1947, neither she-nor, indeed, those who had requested her help- could fathom the \u201cformidable\u201d task that lay in store for her and her colleagues. At the age of thirty-five, this unmarried Gujarati woman was to become the leading liaison for the Indian Central Recovery Operation in Lahore (newly part of the foundling Pakistani state) and the right-hand man of the head of the Operation, Mridula Sarabhai<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Born into a middle-class family, Kamla, as well as her father and sisters, were associated with the freedom movement \u201cfrom its inception,\u201d and were trained under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, it was whilst working for the Mahatma at the Sabarmati ashram that Kamla became acquainted with Mridula, under whose tutelage she would become an outspoken and confident activist in post-independent India, gaining comparable veneration as her teacher and friend.<\/p>\n

Like others involved in the Indian independence movement, Kamla could hardly foresee the sorrowful chapter that would accompany that of Independence in South Asian history. As she herself attests, they, \u201cwere concentrated on one objective alone-to see that [their] country became independent.\u201d It was as unimaginable to her as to many others that the two communities which lived in this vast land could cease to peacefully coexist with one another and require two separate, sovereign nations in which to live. But Kamla does indicate that the ability of these \u201ctwo communities\u201d to coexist did begin to fade, a development she blames largely on the British Empire\u2019s \u201cdivide and rule\u201d policy, as well as the political ambitions of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Her observations and opinions of this period (though perhaps reflecting the bias of a former independence activist and Hindu, as there is as yet no consensus on what caused the bloody division of India and Pakistan) are documented in her memoir, Torn from the Roots<\/em> (translated from the original Gujurati by Uma Randeria). This memoir, in which she relays the \u201cHerculean task\u201d of recovering abducted women, is an invaluable source. It is not only an account of one of the few who witnessed the traumatic effects violence and displacement had on those women who were rescued, but is also a rare insight into the mind of a woman who walked the thin line of being complicit in, but also defying, the patriarchal system of India.<\/p>\n

Silences<\/h4>\n

\u201cLike an epidemic of plague, the germs of this disease spread its poison throughout Punjab, Sindh, and the North Western Province.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although Kamla Patel describes her experience during the recovery operation as \u201csomething to be reckoned with,\u201d and expresses a certain fondness for some of the memories of this period in her life, as well as definite pride in her and her mentor\u2019s (Mridula) dedication to this cause, it was not until twenty-seven years had passed that she felt emotionally prepared to recount \u201cthe incidents in their proper perspective and in a proper frame of mind.\u201d This long-held silence on what had clearly been highly formative years in her life perhaps helps to shed a light on the many silences that seem to define this era of history. Kamla attributes her initial refusal to discuss her experiences in the recovery of abducted women to the \u201cagitation\u201d and \u201cuneasiness\u201d she felt when recalling \u201call that had happened.\u201d Discomforted at the bestial actions she had come to learn men to be capable of, she-as so many other witnesses and victims to such gender-based violence- remained silent on the matter. She echoes the very thought of other survivors who have since been interviewed: \u201cWhat good would it serve to put down on paper such tales of horror and atrocities?\u201d<\/p>\n

When she finally did decide to document her time as a social worker, Kamla still maintained many silences. While most of her memoir is direct and lacking in the literary flourishes that many other memoir writers indulge in, her description of the brutality to which women were subject to is uniquely metaphorical- as if there are no \u201creal\u201d words in which to truly capture the horrific violence perpetuated against the women of both communities. She describes the mass abduction of women as a \u201cplague,\u201d and the abuse upon them as \u201clooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

When not describing the rape, abduction, and mutilation of women in metaphorical terms, Kamla all but refuses to discuss the violence at all, claiming (perhaps truthfully) that the atrocities which women were subjected to \u201ccannot even be described in words.\u201d As the person in charge of the rescue of Hindu and Sikh women in Pakistan (she headed the rescue camp at the Gangaram Hospital in Lahore), and therefore often the first person with whom the recovered would have contact following the removal from their captors, Kamla was often confided in. At the very least, she was witness to these women\u2019s psychical and emotional states upon rescue, and could likely infer from their trauma the extent of their violation. But Kamla consistently forgoes such grotesque details.<\/p>\n

In fact, her extended silence on the matter calls to mind the reaction of the World War II soldiers who liberated the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Though these soldiers were not the direct victims of this violence, nor even the immediate witnesses to the actual acts of violence themselves, the emaciated state of the surviving European Jews left little to wonder. Those few who do speak upon this time generally do so in fictional works, laden with similar metaphors used by Patel.<\/p>\n

The choice- or need- to maintain this silence is manifold. For those who are witness to the aftermath of violence, there may be a sense of unspeakable helplessness- what\u2019s done is done, and no matter of voicing one\u2019s disgust and disapproval will change that past. So too might they develop a sense of shame for not having acted sooner (had this even been possible), thus motivating silence and repression of the visions that call forth this sense of guilt. For those in positions such as Kamla and military personnel- both of whom are employed by the government- there is certainly motivation to avoid vilification of the governmental and (particularly in the Indian case) social apparatus within which people- including themselves- must continue to exist.<\/p>\n

But for Kamla and other social workers, there is the added weight of their own status as women. It is improbable that female social workers did not heavily identify with the women in their care, did not realize that the only thing differentiating themselves from these poor wretches was the most arbitrary of things: luck. Some social workers could not have helped developing a sense of camaraderie with the survivors, choosing to maintain silence not only because they lacked the words to do otherwise, but out of respect to the real victims. Their silence can be seen as an unspoken recognition of the hidden knowledge to be borne by these women; containing this knowledge is the expression of this respect.<\/p>\n

Ally or Foe<\/h4>\n

\u201cAt the outset, the burden of the responsibility which had been thrust upon me seemed unbearable, but gradually I became used to taking decisions in accordance with the dictates of my conscience.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though there existed many obstacles for South Asian women who might wish to pursue an education and\/or career, there were a fortunate few who-generally due to the liberal attitudes of their fathers and families- were educated and involved in the more public realm of Indian life. Social workers like Kamla Patel were amongst these few. But despite her intelligence and her years of service to Gandhi in the freedom movement, Kamla was not immediately granted the respect and obedience that would have been accorded to a man in her position. This is best captured by the reaction of one Nandi Singh, who- upon meeting Kamla- exclaimed: \u201cSomehow, I had expected you to be a much older person!\u201d She not only faced the prejudice of those who believed women to be incapable of the enormous task at hand, but also the added impediment of being a young<\/em> woman. She was a female of a child-bearing age at a time when (perhaps more than ever before in this region\u2019s history) women were being reduced to nothing more than sexual symbols to be degraded and defiled.<\/p>\n

But Kamla quickly rose above these difficulties. Feeling that she was \u201csurrounded by a pack of wild animals,\u201d who would \u201cmake fun of [her] behind [her] back,\u201d she \u201cgradually became familiar with the system as it were, and built up personal relationships with all the officers with whom [she] had daily contact.\u201d Though she was a woman (and a Hindu woman at that, working with the at-times hostile Pakistani and Muslim government), she displayed unparalleled tenacity, many times butting heads with governmental officials of both nations in order to obtain what she thought best for the rescued women in her care.<\/p>\n

One must ask, however, what good this leading lady did for womanhood as a whole. As mentioned in “Two Families, No Home<\/a>“,\u00a0 the Recovery Operation-for all the undeniable good it achieved- was a gross violation of citizenship rights. Rescued women were rarely asked to choose<\/em> what they wanted, and the mere presence of a women like Kamla in the rescue task force would be of short-lived comfort if that woman were more intent upon adhering to the the wishes of the government than those of the individual.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to tread a new path while solving each problem. Keeping in mind the framework of the agreement signed between the two countries, I had to struggle to see my way through this jungle.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kamla herself admitted to the hardening up of her heart and mind in order to most effectively deal with her charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis, in a way was a blessing for me. Otherwise how could I have mustered up the courage to push along human beings with a stick, as if they were cattle, and decide the future course of action.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there were those who would accuse her for maintaining this stance, of being a heartless woman in cohorts with the very patriarchal system that had, in many ways, brought them to this undesirable position by first allowing (and even, in the case of some police, encouraging) these mass rapes and abductions, and then- adopting the convenient role of the nurturing parent or parens patriae<\/em>– wresting them from whatever comfort they may have found. In one such incident, Kamla describes how-upon returning a group of abducted Muslim women to Pakistan- the women wailed and ranted against Kamla, demanding to know what right she had to remove them from their new homes, and how the government could choose to \u201cprotect\u201d them now when it had failed to \u201cprotect\u201d them in the first place.<\/p>\n

There is perhaps some truth to these accusations. In her memoir, Kamla repeatedly makes biased remarks about the Pakistan government, consistently exhibiting surprise at a good deed committed by a Muslim official and shock at the noncooperation of Indian officials in rescue missions. This attitude begs the question of where her loyalties lay: with the glorification of the Indian government over that of Pakistan, or with the female victims of this political feud. Her sometimes callous responses to the women who begged to be left in their new homes, and her choice of language regarding the Muslim women who \u201chappened\u201d to be in India, suggests the former.<\/p>\n

Some of Kamla\u2019s personal beliefs, too, convey a less than liberal (to the Western bias) leaning. She herself proclaims that some of the women brought to the Gangaram camp, who had \u201cchanged hands\u201d four or five times were \u201cas good as dead,\u201d reflecting the prevalent belief that a \u201cspoilt\u201d woman was of no use to her husband or family, and was \u201cdead\u201d in their eyes. In fact, she echoes the Sikh men such as Bir Bahadur Kaur <\/a>who applaud the \u201ccourage\u201d and \u201cstrength\u201d of Punjabi women who laid their lives down rather than \u201close their honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would, however, be a grave injustice to reduce Kamla Patel to the position of a mere government worker steeped in traditional thought. There are several things to take into consideration.<\/p>\n

1. She exhibits sincere care for the women, and worked tirelessly for their fair treatment.<\/p>\n

More often than not, Kamla sided with the abducted women, time and again revealing her distaste for the manner in which other government officials (and men in general) viewed and treated her peers. Her own words convey this better than my own ever could:<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving heard the stories from these women of the inhuman or rather beastly acts to which they were subjected, we lost our appetites and even our sleep.\u201d (Kamla does not elaborate on what these acts were, maintaining her silence)<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like snapping back that a woman is a person, she is not some property when you can have a fair deal of exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been at a total loss to understand their attitude to women. For them, a woman is an object of pleasure. They would not bat an eyelid to throw her away and replace her with a new woman.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The sad reality, however, is that she and the women in her care lived in a world dominated by men, in a system premised on the rule of the many by the few. Try as Kamla might, it was unlikely that she would have been such a help if she had been considered too great a nuisance, and had stepped out of line for every case she deemed ill-dealt with. The second quote she never uttered aloud, realizing she could not get work out of officials by attacking them- and they had the power.<\/p>\n

But she certainly accomplished much, at times outside of the strict letter of the law. The three following examples exemplify this.<\/p>\n