[Reader-list] Kashmir's Abu Gharaib ?

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All,

Apologies for cross posting on Kafila.org, Facebook etc.

Some of you may have had the opportunity to visit and see for  
yourself the video of four naked young men being humiliated by  
paramilitary and police personnel in Kashmir. I have found it very  
difficult to watch this footage. And I append below the thoughts that  
I have been wrestling with ever since this material entered the  
horizon of my attention. It has not been easy writing this, but I  
hope it will be of interest to some of you. Please do circulate  
widely if you think it is of any significance.

best

Shuddha
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Kashmir's Abu Gharaib ?
Shuddhabrata Sengupta

Two days ago, I noticed a video posted by somebody on my facebook  
page. It was  yet another video from Kashmir. It was tagged 'brothers  
please watch, sisters please do not watch'. In later incarnations of  
the video, posted repeatedly on Facebook sites, Youtube channels and  
on blogs. it was tagged 'Indian Security Forces Kashmiri Youth to  
Walk Naked on Road' or 'Kashmir - India's Abu Gharib (sic)'.

[ The video was available on Youtube on the night of 8th/9th  
September, 2010, before being taken down at -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsVRaznn3rA ]

Notwithstanding the misspelling of Abu Gharaib in these tags, there  
was something compellingly accurate in the designation. What I saw,  
and what i have seen unfold subsequently as a response by the Indian  
state to the circulation of this video, makes Abu Gharaib look like  
child's play. Welcome to the virtual, viral, televisual reality of  
the nightmare of Kashmir.

For the past several weeks, I have been watching, and forwarding,  
several videos uploaded on to Youtube and facebook from Kashmir.  
Every video that I have seen contains evidence of the brutality of  
the Indian state's footprint on the Kashmir valley, and of the  
steadfast yet resilient courage of its people, and of the innovative  
use they have been making of the internet to bear witness to their  
oppression.

[ See for instance - Innocent Man being Beaten in Kashmir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA5s3tqG8CM ]

I have seen paramilitary and police personnel open fire on unarmed or  
stone pelting crowds, mercilessly beat up young people and children,  
attack doctors, patients and nurses in hospitals, smash windows of  
homes, steal chickens and livestock and hurl the most vulgar  
invectives at ordinary people. I have watched the armed might of the  
Indian state retreat in the face of the moral courage of the  
opposition it encounters on the streets of Kashmir. It doesn't take  
much to find these videos. Run a search with 'Kashmir, Stone Pelting.  
indian Occupation' on Youtube. Of follow the links and uploads on the  
growing cluster of Facebook pages from and about Kashmir.

But nothing prepared me for what I saw when I clicked on the video  
that said 'brothers watch, sisters don't watch'. I am a person who  
works with moving images. I think about moving images, about video. I  
watch all kinds of things. Not all of which are prettly, or edifying.  
But the sheer extent of humiliation that was visible in this video  
was not something that I was prepared to see, not even from Kashmir.

The video, not more than three minutes long, is a piece of uncut,  
unedited footage, in all probability (judging from the quality and  
resolution of the image) taken from a cell phone. It shows four young  
Kashmiri men, walking, across what appears to be freshly harvested  
fields (so it could be October-November, or, March-April) egged along  
by what appear to be paramilitary personnel and some policemen. Some  
of the security personnel wear khaki, some others wear olive green  
fatigues. One wears the black bandanna of a commando. Others wear  
helmets and caps. Some have bullet proof vests. The four young men  
they are 'escorting' are naked. They hold their clothes in their  
hands. From what one can make out in the video, their faces, reveal  
their acute shame, distress and embarassment. The paramilitaries and  
policemen taunt them as they walk. The main voice is that of a person  
who seems to be holding the device that is capturing the image. We  
hear him speak in perfectly legible colloquial Hindi.

"Move, Move, Move, Keep moving, sisterfuckers"

"Raise your hands, I'll hit you otherwise."

"Your shoes are very good. Sisterfucker, (then we hear another, more  
muffled voice say what seems to be -  "why are your shoes so dirty")

"Fold your clothes, collect them, hold up the clothes" (so that the  
genitlas are not covered)

"The sisterfuckers have been making us run after them since the  
morning."

"The police station is where we need to take them."

The video does not appear to have been taken in the recent weeks. The  
fields have been harvested. It has to be either autumn or spring. But  
it has not been taken that long ago either. It has to be from after  
cellphones were allowed to be used in Kashmir, and after cellphones  
capable of shooting video became cheap, and popular, which places the  
incident, and it's recording, roughly within the last two to three  
years. In some of the official and media responses that are beginning  
to trickle in, this business of 'the video is not recent' is getting  
some milage. As if somehow, the reality that the video portrays needs  
to be distanced from the current meltdown in Kashmir. Assuming that  
is the case, the implications of what the video shows become even  
more disturbing. It proves that a systematic humiliation of the  
Kashmiri population is part of the standard operating procedure of  
the security establishment of the Indian state in Kashmir.This is  
neither anything new, nor associated with the current wave of  
unrest.  It has been in operation for several years now.

The banal violence of the scene is in some ways far more distressing  
than the images gun battles  and blood on the streets that we have  
become accustomed to harvesting from the past few months in Kashmir.  
At least in the pitched street battles, we see, adversaries, albeit  
unequal adversaries, policemen, paramilitaries, soldiers one one side  
and the angry tide of stone pelters on the other.

Here, there are no adversaries. Prisoners are not in a position to be  
adversarial when they are surrounded by heavily armed men in uniform.  
What we see instead are unarmed captives, people who are in no  
position to threaten or endanger the security forces. That such  
people should be made to undergo a humiliation such as this is proof  
of the extent to which the forces of the Indian state in Kashmir have  
become bruatlized by the experience of serving in Kashmir.

They (the men in uniform) do not need to strip people naked and make  
them walk in public. There is something utterly, lethally gratuitous  
in their action. There is nothing that says that arrested or detained  
citizens should be marched to police stations without their clothes  
on, in public view. No imperative of self defence, defence of the  
realm, public safety and security, or the Indian constitution  
requires them to visit this indignity on the four young people in  
their charge. Nowehere is it indicated that one can behave like this  
even with convicted criminals, captured terrorists or  
undertrials.That they choose to act as they do only indicates that  
the laughing, taunting men in uniform see the four young men, and by  
extension, any Kashmiri that they can lay their hands on, as sub- 
human beings, as animals. By doing this, they only expose the extent  
to which they have allowed the state to turn them (the men in  
uniform) into racist, colonizing brutes.

The primary voice on the video betrays a  calculated, cold, cynical  
disregard for human dignity. You can recognize that mocking tone,  
even if you do not understand the language,  the moment you hear it.  
The paramilitaries are walking casually, one wears a commando's black  
bandanna, others wear fatigues, some carry sticks, others carry guns.  
They walk at leisure, without any urgency, as if - parading captives  
naked through open fields, was a perfectly normal, routine thing to  
be doing in Kashmir. (which suggests, horrifyingly, that it is indeed  
a perfectly normal, routine thing to be doing). We have all heard  
(from ex prisoners, human rights activists and lawyers) that sexual  
humiliation of young men is a routine practice during interrogations  
in Kashmir. That men are asked to simulate sodomy on each other, and  
that they are photographed in the course of doing so, and that these  
images are held out as means of blackmail and intimidation.  
Contemporary definitions of torture have expanded to include non- 
invasive and psychological terror methods, foremost amongst whom is  
sexual humiliation. The sobriety of rural Kashmiri society is not  
geared to deal with the spectacle of the humiliation of naked young  
men being made to march out in the open. Such an act is bound to  
leave deep scars in the consciousness of whomsoever it has been  
perpetrated on and whosoever was unfortunate enough to have observed  
it. It is designed to do so.

Why do coerced nakedness and humiliation make such a perfectly  
repuslive pair? Perhaps because we think of being naked only with our  
selves, or with someone whom we can be intimate with, or who is able  
to care for us. Children can be naked to their parents, lovers can be  
naked to each other. A patient can be naked to his or her doctor. Or,  
one can choose, lucidly, joyously, to be naked, (the insane do not  
'choose' to be naked, they simply 'are' naked) even in public, in  
moments of total abandon, when all inhibitions can be thrown away in  
a free act of the will. In the woods, in a river, by the sea, on  
stage.  In any instance, being naked, somehow suggests a condition of  
freedom, or care, or intimacy. Something we freely enter into and  
govern for ourselves. It is this condition of intimacy and care that  
is twisted and turned inside out when nakedness is coerced. Coerced  
nakedness takes place in contexts that are the very opposite of  
intimacy and care. It invariably takes place in contexts that are  
cold, violent, brutally impersonal but horrifyingly intimate. This is  
a kind of nakedness that lays bare the darkest secrets of power. That  
it really doesn't care about the humanity of the person in its  
clutches. In its transparency, what it makes most naked, is power  
itself. It is no wonder therefore, that this video will now stand  
alongside the images of naked Jewish prisoners being made to line up  
in Nazi concentration camps, and the disturbing legacy of the now,  
all too familiar images from Abu Gharaib.

That the uniformed representatives of the Indian state should choose  
to wear the nakedness of their violence with such pride and aplomb  
says something shocking and profound about the sheer immorality of  
India's ongoing military occupation of the Kashmir valley. After  
this, it is not necessary to give even a shred of consideration to  
the frayed patchwork of arguments that constitutes the indian state's  
line on Kashmir. And no, this is not an exception. The uniformed men  
in the video do not behave as if they were performing under  
'exceptional circumstances'. It looks like a jolly outing. A stroll  
with a few trophies. A casual

At the tail end of the three minute video. We hear a high pitched  
keening voices, and then mocking echoes, and laughter. The keening  
voice can be heard lamenting - in Kashmiri -  "Hata  
Khodayo" (something like 'Oh God' ) several times. It is not possible  
to determine whether these voices are of onlookers, (perhaps of women  
and/or older men) or of the paramilitaries themselves. What is  
impossible to dispute is that the lamentations/mock lamentations are  
in Kashmiri, proving conclusively, that the incident occured in the  
Kashmir valley. All attempts at suggesting that the video is 'not  
from Kashmir' fly against the face of this fact.

In any case, we soon hear, in counterpoint to these 'laments', such  
as they are. We hear a set of mocking, echoing responses that mirror  
the music and cadence of the lamentations exactly as a chorus would  
echo a soloist. The chorus is interrupted by cackling laughter. It is  
as if the men in the uniform of Indian security forces were not  
content with the mere humiliation of bodies. That in fact, they  
needed to pervert and mock the ways in which a people mourn their  
indignities in order to extract the pleasure that they felt entitled  
to in the course of this grotesque incident. When even the  
lamentations of the Kashmiri people are not safe because of the  
predatory presence of the  occupying force, then it is time for the  
world to sit up and say that we have had enough of the Indian state's  
mayhem in Kashmir.

Characteristically, the video was pulled down, on both Facebook and  
Youtube, repeatedly, in the course of last evening, night and today.  
There was some discussion on different Facebook pages about whether  
this occurred due to the 'nudity' in the video. I too was persuaded  
for a while that this might be the case. But a quick search for nude  
content on Youtube showed up a whole range of things from Naturist  
videos to medical material that featured nudity. In fact there is a  
whole discussion on 'Non Sexual Nudity' on Youtube that indicates  
that it is not Youtube policy. The Youtube 'Terms' webpage makes no  
mention of nudity whatsoever.  It is however Facebook policy to not  
have nudity on facebook videos and photographs.
Notwithstanding all this, the video repeatedly disappeared shortly  
after being posted on Youtube. And even posts of links to it, or  
discussions of it, began disappearing from Facebook pages. This  
suggested something more than the automatic application of 'no  
nudity' rules. It suggested what has been suspected for some time,  
that the Indian state, or some of its 'organs' - 'lean' on platforms  
like Facebook and Youtube to ensure that content that it problematic  
for its image simply gets erased.

Through much of last night. A concerted online effort across two  
facebook pages by a constellation of people who did not know each  
other prior to this incident made sure that the video was momentarily  
up on Youtube. Notices went out across facebook walls to download the  
video from the concerned Youtube site so that the video could have a  
distributed, viral presence across several hundreds, if not thousands  
of computers,. By the morning of Thursday, the 9th of September, the  
effort to 'erase' the video from public consciousness had failed.

News of the video (and responses to it) made it to newspapers like  
Greater Kashmir,  websites such Aalaw-Kashmirc alls.org and even the  
Indian Express. The Kashmir based sites carried extensive reports,  
quoting the shocked responses of the people who had seen the videos.  
These included some responses from several people who are non- 
Kashmiri Indian citizens. The reprt on the Aalaw-Kashmircalls.org  
websites explicitly quotes reactions on Facebook walls.

" The video has sent shockwaves and stirred a debate among the tens  
of thousands of users on Facebook. The video shared by outraged  
Kashmiri youth with their online friends and contacts has evoked  
sharp condemnation from the Facebook users across the globe,  
including India. Some of the users have even compared the abuse of  
the alleged stone pelters by the forces with the prisoners of  
infamous Abu Gharib jail in Iraq.

“I am daughter of an Indian army officer. I’m embarrassed and  
shocked,” comments, Avleen Gill, a graduate from Saint Bede’s college

"Kaptaan Singh, a resident of North India’s Punjab state comments:  
“After looking at this video, I feel ashamed to call myself Indian.”

[ see -  http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Sep/9/video-shows-cops- 
parading-youth-naked-29.asp
http://aalaw-kashmircalls.org/protestors-paraded-naked
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/kashmir-police/679592/  ]

By the afternoon of Thursday, 9th September, the response of the  
state had changed. From attempts at erasure, the state moved into a  
state of denial, and characteristic intimidation. Union Home Minister  
P Chidambaram questioned the authenticity of the video on the grounds  
that the 'people seen in it have not spoken up'. Leading some to say  
that were a mass grave of anonymous dead people to be discovered in  
Kashmir (as happens from time to time) , Mr.Chidambaram, would doubt  
the authenticity of the report on the grounds that the cadavers had  
not identified themselves or spoken of the circumstances of their  
deaths and burial.

On the other hand, a CRPF spokesman denied that such an incident  
could have taken place, beacuse in his opinion 'it is difficult to  
keep even rapes secret in Kashmir' (which involves the interesting  
tacit assumption that attempts are made, from time to time, to keep  
rapes secret). A spokesperson of J & K police, however, said that  
charges would be filed against Facebook, Youtube and all those who  
have uploaded and distributed the videos on the grounds of 'maligning  
the forces' by distributing such objectionable material. In the J & K  
police's version, neither the authenticity nor the veracity of the  
video is an issue, what is offensive is the effort to circulate the  
material in question, because the contents of the video can 'malign'  
the forces. The varied wings of the indian state have displayed the  
full spectrum of ostrich like obduracy, from attempts at erasure to  
incredulity to denial to attempts at intimidation, but none of these  
efforts seem to be of any avail. It needs to be noted, that so far,  
the Indian state's response to this scandal has been far short of the  
expectations set by international precedents. The US Army may not  
have come off with a shining reputation from Abu Ghraib, but the US  
Government realized the gravity of the situation and took action to  
punish at least the primary perpetrators of the outrage (even if  
those who dictated the policies that made the outrages occur went  
scot-free). The recent incident of a former Israeli conscript, a  
woman named Eden Aberjil who posted photographs of herself posing  
with blindfolded Palestininan prisoners attracted severe criticism  
world wide, including within Israel. Several serving Israeli women  
conscripts condemned Aberjil's conduct in public and even the Israeli  
Army, (not an organization known for its sensitivity in human rights  
matters) took a stern view of the matter.

The Huffington Post report on the issue says -

[ "These are disgraceful photos," said Capt. Barak Raz, an Israeli  
military spokesman. "Aside from matters of information security, we  
are talking about a serious violation of our morals and our ethical  
code and should this soldier be serving in active duty today, I would  
imagine that no doubt she would be court-martialed immediately," he  
told Associated Press Television News. ]

(See - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/eden-abergil-facebook- 
pic_n_683816.html)


Contrast these responses with the conduct of responsible officers of  
the Government of India, from the Union Home Minister downwards. If  
ever there were to be an 'object lesson' in how not to handle a  
situation like this - we will only have to turn to the conduct of  
Chidambaram and his minions.

As of now, the video is up, on distributed servers, in several  
locations and circulating, through emails, mms messages, bluetooth  
transfers, blog posts and  facebook notices (not of the videos  
themselves any longer, but of descriptions and commentary). There is  
no way that the Indian state can any longer evade responsibility for  
the venality of its actions, especially as they are visible on this  
video.

Even if the state can set its house in order, speak in one voice,  
persuade the lunatics who run the army in Kashmir to see the  
pointlessness of making a fetish of the AFSPA, and announce some kind  
of tepid 'package' by way of an insult to the people of Kashmir on  
the occasion of Eid, then too, it will not succeed in fooling either  
the people of Kashmir, or the world. This one video, with the perfect  
timing of its appearance, has succeeded in pulling the fig leaf off  
the true character of the Indian state's rule in Kashmir as nothing  
else has. It has exposed how the state acts, it has shown us that the  
state is 'leaking' information about its own misdeeds, and it has  
proven that the resistance in Kashmir and about Kashmir is getting  
increasingly sophisticated. If the state wants to prevail, it can do  
so only by recourse to massive armed force, or fraud and  
dissimulation at a hitherto unimaginable scale.

As of tonight, the mainstream Indian media has not covered this  
incident with the seriousness it deserves. Neither television, nor  
print media have tried to look beyond the state of denial that the  
home minister is in, vis-a-vis, this scandal. If this were any other  
civilized country, there would be immediate demands for his  
resignation. If such demands do not gather force, we will demonstrate  
how far we are as a nation from being civilized. The conduct of the  
Indian security forces in Kashmir threatens to make barbarians of all  
Indians in the eyes of the world.

I do hope that even all those who consider themselves to be genuinely  
patriotic Indians will be disgusted by what the video reveals about  
Indian might in Kashmir. If they hold their patriotism in the  
slightest regard, then, they should realize that the continuing  
occupation of Kashmir, which breeds perversities such as this, is  
only a blot of shame on what they hold dear as the fair name of their  
country and on their patriotism. I hope that they will find it in  
themselves to act with the honour that they take pride in, and refuse  
any longer to be complicit, willingly or unwillingly, in the  
nightmare that haunts the waking and sleeping hours of the people of  
Kashmir today.

Delhi, 10th September, 2010.

END

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Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net