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ID: 115287

Absent piece of skin: gendered, racialized and territorial inscriptions of sexual violence during the Bangladesh war / Mookherjee, Nayanika

Mookherjee, Nayanika	Journal Article
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2012.

Summary/Abstract

This paper addresses how the wombs of women and the absent skin on the circumcised penises of men become the predominant sites on which racialized and gendered discourses operating during the Bangladesh War are inscribed. This is explored by examining instances of sexual violence by Pakistani soldiers and their local Bengali collaborators. The prevalence of these discourses in colonial documents about the Bengali Muslims underscores the role of history, the politics of identity and in the process, establishes its link with the rapes of Bangladeshi women and men. Through this, the relationship between sexual violence and historical contexts is highlighted. I locate the accounts of male violations by the West Pakistani army within the historical and colonial discourses relating to the construction of the Bengali Muslim and its intertextual, contemporary citational references in photographs and interviews. I draw on Judith Butler's and Marilyn Strathern's work on gendering and performativity to address the citational role of various practices of discourses of gender and race within colonial documents and its application in a newer context of colonization and sexual violence of women and men during wars. The role of photographs and image-making is intrinsic to these practices. The open semiotic of the photographs allows an exploration of the territorial identities within these images and leads to traces of the silence relating to male violations. Through an examination of the silence surrounding male sexual violence vis-à-vis the emphasis on the rape of women in independent Bangladesh, it is argued that these racialized and gendered discourses are intricately associated to the link between sexuality and the state in relation to masculinity.

Key Words

Bangladesh ; Politics of Identity ; Sexual Violence ; Bangladesh War ; Pakistani Soldiers ; Bengali Muslim

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ID: 183665

Historicising the Birangona: Interrogating the Politics of Commemorating the Wartime Rape of 1971 in the Context of the 50th Anniversary of Bangladesh / Mookherjee, Nayanika

Mookherjee, Nayanika	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

Two decades ago, ‘1971’ was deemed to not have a market within Indian publishing houses and media outlets. Yet, one is struck by the contemporary Indian focus on the iconic figure of the Birangona – brave women, a title given by the State of Bangladesh to women raped by the Pakistani army and their Bengali and non-Bengali collaborators during the Bangladesh war of 1971. It is important to engage with the public memory of wartime sexual violence of 1971 beyond the horrific constructions of the Birangona and the potential for propaganda and geopolitical calculations that the narrative engenders for India.

Key Words

Wartime Rape of 1971 ; 50th Anniversary of Bangladesh

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