Description
The existing scholarship on conflict related sexual violence (CRSV) indicates certain conflicts attracting significant international attention and hyper-visibility, either due to high incidence of rapes or clear evidence of sexual violence employed as a ‘weapon of war’/war tactic. This framing of sexual violence as strategic has side-lined other complex motivations in conflict zones. In the context of South Asia, the strategic lens struggles to explain sexual violence in the region as the data doesn’t reflect high incidence of cases. This doesn’t necessarily indicate an absence of sexual violence but rather highlights a complex relationship between gender, conflict, and power in the region. Reporting on sexual violence is extremely low, as it is highly stigmatised and silenced. One of the reasons for the silence is the overshadowing nature of the larger political and militarised conflict that contributes to the invisibility of everyday losses, pain and suffering. By analysing two protracted conflicts – Kashmir from India and Sri Lanka as case studies, this paper adopts a queer methodological lens to examine sexual violence. Queering the discourse on sexual violence challenges the dominant narrative of strategy, by exploring how sex, sexuality and desire intersect with violence. Sex is not necessarily opposed to violence, as often portrayed in conflicts. The paper structures its argument through three critical interventions in the discourse of sexual violence. First, it interrogates the silence surrounding sexual violence in Kashmir and Sri Lanka, examining how this silence is produced and reinforced. Second, it unpacks the entanglements of power, pleasure, sex and violence that extend beyond the strategic logic of sexual violence. Finally, it critiques the heteronormative, racialised and colonial underpinnings inscribed into the practices of sexual violence. By doing so, the paper aims for a reimagined discourse on sexual violence in the context of South Asia.
