Question

What happen to women during india pakistan partion?

Answer 1

During the Partition of India, violence against women was an extensive issue.[1] It is estimated that during the partition between 75,000[2] and 100,000 women were kidnapped and raped.[3] The rape of women by males during this period is well documented,[4] with women also being complicit in these attacks.[4][5] It has been estimated that perhaps twice as many Muslim as Hindu and Sikh women were abducted due to the actions of organised Sikh jathas.[6]

India and Pakistan later worked to repatriate the abducted women. Muslim women were to be sent to Pakistan and Hindu and Sikh women to India.[6]
Systematic violence against women began in March 1947 in Rawalpindi district. Over an eight day period many cases of rape and abduction took place as Sikh villages were attacked by Muslim mobs. Many women committed suicide while at other places Sikh women were put to the sword by their own men before an attack by Muslims was imminent.The violence spread from Rawalpindi to the neighboring Attock and Jhelum districts.[8]

Apart from mob violence, abductions also took place on an organised basis, especially in situations where large numbers of inadequately protected refugees were travelling.[8] Women were separated from their menfolk and taken by groups of Pathans in the Jhelum district while an estimated four thousand women in Gujrat district had been openly abducted from refugee trains. One observer who witnessed the movement of a Muslim refugee column from Kapurthala to Jullunder, guarded by a few military sepoys, stated that groups of armed Sikhs would periodically drag out Muslim women in small numbers from the column and kill the men who resisted, while military sepoys would not make any serious attempt to stop these attacks. By the time the refugee column reached Jullunder, no women or girl was left. Where Sikh jathas would allow Muslim women to pass to West Punjab they would frequently be stripped naked before being released.[9]

At times revenge was also a motive behind attacks on women. Refugee men whose women had been taken by Sikhs in East Punjab perpetrated the same acts against the opposite community in Sialkot district. Sikh leaders also claimed that atrocities upon Muslim women was retaliation for the treatment of their own women by Muslims. According to scholar Andrew Major, the large-scale abduction and rape of girls seemed to have been a part of systematic 'ethnic cleansing' in the Gurgaon region on the outskirts of Delhi.[10]

Many influential men such as deputy commissioners and police officials vigorously tried to prevent abductions or rescue the victims. However, many such men abused their position of authority. A Muslim League member of the Legislative Assembly was known to be keeping 500 non-Muslim women and the Maharaja of Patiala was holding an abducted Muslim girl from a reputable family. Other known perpetrators included police officials, landed magnates and Muslim League members as well as criminal elements. Armed Pathans in particular have been considered the worst offenders, particularly in the Rawalpindi district. The Pathans abducted a large number of non-Muslim women from Kashmir and sold them in West Punjab and these sold women often ended up as 'slave girls' in factories. By early 1948, Pathans started abducting even Muslim women.[11]

In East Punjab, local police and the Indian military frequently engaged in the abduction and distribution of Muslim women besides the Sikh jathas and refugees from West Punjab. According to Anis Kidwai, the 'better stuff' would be distributed among the police and army while the remaining were distributed among the rest of the attackers.[12] In the villages around Delhi, police and army soldiers participated in the rape of Muslim women.[13]