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Gujarat Carnage - A Gender Based Legal
Initiative, 2004 |
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In the communal carnage that was carried out
by Hindu communal forces with the active
support of the state administration in
Gujarat in February-March, 2002, around 3000
people from the minority Muslim community
had been killed. The media reported horror
stories of gruesome premeditated murders of
community leaders, traders and citizens.
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The burning of Muslim shops and business
establishment had resulted in a colossal
financial loss to the entire community. But the worst manifestation of the
hatred towards the minority community was the
sexual violence that was unleashed upon women
and young girls. A large number of women were
raped and murdered. But the horrifying barbarity
was fore grounded in the acts of sexual
mutilation that was inflicted upon women after
they were raped and before they were burnt. The
horror stories defied all norms of a civilized
society.
But despite media reports there were hardly any
cases of sexual violence that were recorded in
crime registers. The incidents of rape and
murder of women were buried within the stories
of murder, arson, looting and burning. It is
this silence in official records that prompted
us to initiate an investigative programme in the
relief camps through which we talked to women
and girls who had witnessed this violence. We
worked through local NGOs like Sahr Waru. After
gaining their confidence, the research team
meticulously recorded some of the horror stories
and converted them into affidavits which were
filed before the Shah and Nanavati Commission
which was enquring into the communal violence.
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Of Lofty Claims And Muffled Voices. |
In order to record the experiences of the
volunteers, our own struggles and the voices of
those women who had dared to speak to us we
brought out our entire journey through the
Carnage in the form of a small report titled
Of Lofty Claims And Muffled Voices.
The book, is a collection of first person
narratives by volunteers who worked for the
legal initiative programme. The invisibility of
sexual abuse in official records and the
Herculean efforts needed to bring it into
the domain of law and legal mechanisms are
the primary concerns of the publication. |
While the immediate context is the communal carnage unleashed upon Muslim
women in Gujarat, the issues are not
confined to Gujarat. They raise questions of
state structures, Constitutional provisions
and the civil society at large. |
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Link to Article :
Lofty Claims - The Quest for Justice |
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