Women and Militant Wars: The politics of injury

265 Pages·2014·1.022 MB·English

by  Swati Parashar

Women and Militant Wars
This book explores how women participate in militant wars, and how that
politics not only shapes the gendered understandings of women’s identi-
ties and bodies but is, in turn, shaped by them.
In International Relations, inter-state conflict, anti-state armed insur-
gency and armed militancy are essentially seen as wars where collective
violence (against civilians and security forces) is used to achieve political
objectives. This book considers women’s access to collective violence as
driven by a range of factors of which political motivation is very important.
The case studies discussed in the book offer new comparative insight
into two different and most prevalent forms of insurgent wars today: reli-
gio-political and ethno-nationalist. Empirical analyses of women in the Sri
Lankan Tamil militant group, the LTTE and the logistical, ideological
support women provide to militant groups active in Indian administered
Kashmir suggest that these insurgent wars have their own gender dynamics
in recruitment and operational strategies. Thus, Women and Militant Wars
provides an excellent insight into the gender politics of these insurgencies
and women’s roles and experiences within them.
This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of critical
war and security studies, feminist international relations, gender studies,
terrorism and political violence, South Asia studies and IR in general.
Swati Parashar is lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Monash
University in Melbourne, Australia.
Series: War, politics and experience
Series Editor: Christine Sylvester
Experiencing War
Edited by Christine Sylvester
The Political Psychology of War Rape
Studies from Bosnia and Herzegovina
Inger Skjelsbæk
Gender, Agency and War
The maternalized body in US foreign policy
Tina Managhan
War, Feminism and International Relations
Christine Sylvester
War and the Body
Militarisation, practice and experience
Edited by Kevin McSorley
The Politics of Protest and US Foreign Policy
Performative construction of the war on terror
Cami Rowe
Joy and International Relations
A new methodology
Elina Penttinen
Women and Militant Wars
The politics of injury
Swati Parashar
Women and Militant Wars
The politics of injury
Swati Parashar
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Swati Parashar
The right of Swati Parashar to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Parashar, Swati.
Women and militant wars : the politics of injury / Swati Parashar.
pages cm. -- (War, politics and experience)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Women and war--Case studies. 2. Insurgency--Case studies.
3. Insurgency--India--Jammu and Kashmir. 4. Tami_li_la
Vitutalaippulikal (Association) 5. Naxalite Movement. 6. Gurerilla
warfare--Case studies. 7. Feminist theory. I. Title.
U21.75.P37 2014
355.02'18082--dc 3
2013035226
ISBN: 978-0-415-82796-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-62866-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
in memoriam
Bahukutumbi Raman
(14 August 1936–16 June 2013)
for envisioning my path to the ‘road not taken’
hato va prapsyasi svargam jitva va bhoksyase mahim
tasmad uttistha kaunteya yuddhaya krta- niscayah.
Either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly
kingdom, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore,
arise O son of Kunti; with determination, fight.
Chapter 2, Verse 37, Bhagwad Gita
Contents
Foreword viii
CHRISTINE SYLVESTER
Acknowledgements x
Introduction: when silences speak 1
1 Women, wars and gendered subjectivities 28
2 The feminist researcher and the researched: negotiations
of difference 55
3 Kashmir: armed insurgency and the story of women’s
silences 80
4 Sri Lanka: continuities and disruptions in the lives of LTTE
women 113
5 War, memory and gendered (re)presentations 144
Conclusion: women, wars and feminist IR – troubled
frontiers and troubling silences 171
Appendix 1: transcript of interview with Asiya Andrabi 189
Appendix 2: transcript of interview with Rudra 215
Appendix 3: transcript of interview with Dr Daya
Somasundaram 218
Bibliography 226
Index 244
Foreword
Swati Parashar was my PhD student at Lancaster University. I am immensely
proud of her on many levels and this book is one indicator of why that is so.
Swati entered her PhD studies backed by a remarkable set of life experi-
ences. She grew up in a small town in India, attended one of the country’s
prime universities, then worked in counter- terrorism think tanks in Delhi
and Singapore, and already had edited books on terrorism and counter ter-
rorism as well as numerous published essays on Indian politics. She then
came to the UK, where she finished her PhD in a record two years and nine
months, landing her first academic position before completion. She is now
well settled into academia at Monash University in Australia. This is her first
single- authored book and I am happy to say that it sits brilliantly in her pan-
theon of achievements.
Women and Militant Wars: The Politics of Injury is a cross- disciplinary anal-
ysis of a subject that has only recently been receiving the scholarly atten-
tion it has long deserved: women involved in militant movements to
change configurations of statehood that deny their people proper recog-
nition and autonomy. Kashmir and Sri Lanka serve as her main cases, but
she is also looking into the Maoist movement in India in her ongoing
research. Her study is empirical and theoretical, comparative and also
local and particularistic, informed by her long-s tanding interest in femi-
nist scholarship but also showing some impatience with its usual contours.
Most centrally, it is a study based on extensive and difficult fieldwork in all
the locations presented here. I cannot overestimate the importance of this
fieldwork and its challenges. Given that India is the country Kashmiri mili-
tants and many ordinary people oppose, it is not easy for an Indian to gain
access to some of the most prominent women in the self-determination
movement and to record their stories with empathy. Sri Lanka is another
difficult location for an Indian to conduct field work given the history of
the relationship between the two countries. Swati was on the ground in
2008 as the war was coming to its violent end and conducted some of the
last interviews with Tamil Tiger women, under very trying circumstances.
Through it all, Swati Parashar has kept her composure, her compassion
and her outrage in exquisite balance. She has also kept her eyes both on
Foreword ix
South Asian and Western fields of scholarship, on peace as well as war, on
feminist theory and practice, and on postcolonial analysis and some of its
weaknesses when applied to South Asia. Very admirably and unusually, she
is able to travel gracefully in this book between tough empirical analysis
and warm literary analysis: Swati knows her ancient epics and how to relate
them to contemporary events and issues of gender, women, war, and mili-
tant action. Perhaps this unique combination of traits emerges because
she is herself militant in her determination to bring the problems and
issues of women in South Asia to the world’s attention. These are the
words of a proud PhD supervisor. Read further in this remarkable book
and see it all for yourself.
Christine Sylvester
Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies,
University of Connecticut USA
Affiliate Professor in Global Studies,
University of Gothenburg Sweden