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The Royal Nepalese
Army, the last instrument of the state, is being mobilized to suppress the
Maoist movement in Nepal. Suppression and repression are not a new phenomena in
Nepal, especially after 1996, when the CPN (Maoist) declared the launching of
People’s War in Nepal. Before promulgation of emergency, the police force and
Special Task Forces (STF) were used against the masses. However, after the
promulgation of emergency, military rule has been imposed in addition to
mobilisation of the above forces. Correspondingly the level of repression has
increased manyfold. What effect all these have on women is worth noting as they
constitute the largest marginalised group who are fighting against the state in
various capacities.
Universally rape has
been used by various states as an instrument of repression directed against
rebellious women; however, there is a cultural dimension to its use. In Iran
during the Khomeini era, revolutionary women were raped before they were killed
because according to their religious belief, virgin women if killed go to
heaven. Hence, to make sure that they went to hell, they were subjected to rape
before being killed. In Nepal, where virginity is worshipped in the form of
Kumari Puja (the living Goddess of Nepal), virginity is valued as a symbol of
purity, prestige and pride for unmarried Hindu women and hence, her family and
community. Thus, the use of rape as an instrument of repression in Nepal is to
make women culturally impure, frivolous, unfit for marriage, thus, shaming the
whole family or community. With the influence of imperialist culture which
thrives on pornography, blue films with all kinds of misogyny and sadomasochism
messages, and intoxication with liquor consumption, all of which are made freely
available for the reactionary armed forces, the political rape by the state has
taken brutal dimensions. Thus, the very act of rape and its brutality represents
how feudalism and imperialism reinforce each other to teach lessons to
rebellious women.
In Nepal women,
suspected to be Maoists or sympathisers of Maoists, have been marched nakedly in
front of the public, subjected to repeated rape with all forms of sadistic
torture on their private parts while in custody. There have been cases of rape
committed on whole families whenever the armed forces go to the villages for
search operations A typical such case is that of a family in Marinkhola of
Sindhuli, where a sixty five years old grandmother, a thirty five years old wife
and seventeen years old daughter were raped at the same time.
There is, however, a
definite qualitative as well as quantitative shift in the way women are punished
after the promulgation of emergency. The use of the Royal Nepalese Army on top
of the already assigned police force, the STF, has made women subjected to not
only mass rape but also brutal rape together with heinous killing. Today, women
are brutally raped, with their private parts hacked and killed, and are
deliberately displayed before the public for days in order to sensitize the
killing. For example, on 10th April, 2002, a platoon member named Roza, who was
twenty years old, was arrested in the morning. She was subjected to rape by
fifteen armed forces, her dead naked body with tongue drawn out and tied with
rope, both her breasts were cut, both her legs were torn apart wide open and a
wide gash wound above her eyes were displayed to the public for three days. On
the fourth day the Maoist combatants managed to get hold of her body and duly
cremated it. Mass rape before the public has become common. All these are a
deliberate strategy which has been adopted to send the message that women should
not be sent to challenge the status quo and the present state. With the
censorship of the press, curfew promulgated, the armed forces are having a field
day torturing women and killing them.
It is often assumed
that the reactionary state agency uses rape as a reward, a privilege for
compensating for the rigorous lifestyle of the armed and police forces. However,
rape as an instrument of repression has been deliberately and systematically
used in any conflict, war, in order to achieve a tactical and strategic goal.
Tactically, rape is used as a weapon to send the message to rebellious women
that her place belongs to the home and also the message to her family and
community that daughters should not be sent to rebellious movements,
organisations, parties. Strategically, rape is used to bolster patriarchal
values, sexist ideology in order to reinforce masochism in their men and
feminize the enemy, thus, reinforcing misogyny. It also helps in brutalizing
their men without chances of being hit back, as women are generally trained to
be docile and are least prepared for war. It also has a psychological advantage
of healing the wounded and defeated ego, especially when the armed force is
badly defeated by the revolutionary forces. Usually any successful armed assault
by the revolutionary force is followed by search operations in the affected area
by the reactionary armed forces that go about raping women, burning houses and
looting properties. Lastly rape is considered safer as it is least reported, and
even if reported hard to prove.
However, use of rape
as an instrument of repression by the reactionary forces has negatively
benefited the revolutionary forces. First of all, they are able to expose the
sexist nature of the exploitative class-based state apparatus. Secondly, they
are able to expose the hollowness of reactionary ideology whereby, they use
brute physical force including the phallus as a weapon against the ideologically
equipped revolutionary forces. Thirdly, they are able to channalise the fury of
the raped victim, her family, community into a fighting force. Fourthly, the
sense of isolation that is generated amongst the masses from the state apparatus
after every such mass rape is in turn channalised into the mass-line, thus
giving them security and a sense of belonging. Fifthly, such acts on women have
helped in forging unity between struggling men and women to fight together
against the state apparatus, thus making them more class conscious. Sixthly,
such mass rape is making a mockery of ‘virgin worship’ in the form of "Kumari
Puja" (the so-called living goddess) whose patron is the king, the head of Royal
Nepal Army, thus undermining feudal culture. On top of this, the monolithic male
structure of reactionary armed force, together with its crime on women, makes
the masses gender sensitive which, in a long run has importance for the
revolutionary women’s liberation movement.
Lastly, for women,
the deployment of the Royal Nepalese Army symbolises the force which represents
the resurgence of the monarchical system, the hall-mark of feudalism and the
number one enemy of the women’s liberation movement. Hence politically they are
all the more determined to fight against this feudal force.
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