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== Rape as a Tool of Genocide ==
To make Bengalis “‘true Muslims,’” was the order given by General Yahya Khan.<ref>D’Costa, ''Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes'', 119.</ref>As a result of early inculcation and a multitude of propaganda, Pakistani Muslims hated Hindus. Although no official documentation exists, perpetrator accounts verify that the orders given by the Yahya regime and General Tikka Khan included forced impregnation on Bengali women. These women——presumed Hindus——were taken to “rape camps” where they were kept for months at a time in order to be serially raped with the goal of impregnating the women with Muslim fetuses. Joseph Fried of the ''New York Daily News'' reported from Dhaka that, “‘a stream of victims and eyewitnesses,’” relayed to him that, “‘truckloads of Pakistani soldiers…swooped down on villages in the night, rounding up women by force. Some were raped on the spot. Others were carried to military compounds.’”<ref>D’Costa, ''Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes,'' 121.</ref>No Bengali women were spared.
The intent of the perpetrators was to destroy in whole or in part an entire group. Further, in a military and patriarchal society, “collective sexual violence…exemplifies an ethic of male exceptionalism,” whereby women are possessions belonging to one group or another. In sum, a reciprocal violation occurs during military rape in that there is a “simultaneous elevation of ‘our’ women in opposition to the degradation of ‘theirs.’”<ref>Roland Littlewood, “Military Rape,” ''Anthropology Today'' 13, no. 2 (April 1997): 9</ref>Following this line of reasoning to its logical end, the women of Bangladesh were used as tools in a war for liberation; a liberation they would never realize.
== Aftermath in Bangladesh ==
''Biharis'' in East Pakistan were non-Hindu Bengalis who sympathized with and aided the West Pakistan Army during the Liberation War of Bangladesh. India joined the cause on the side of Bangladesh late in the war and with its military might quickly forced Pakistan’s surrender. With the troops to whom they remained loyal tucked away in POW camps in India, the Biharis were left in alone to face the wrath of the Bengalis. Bihari women faced the same fate as the birangonas.
While interviewing soldiers in the Comilla prisons, Dr. Davis spoke frequently to Pakistani officers. They had no remorse. These men were unable to grasp the notion that they had done something wrong. When Davis spoke of the international outcry after the rape camps had been discovered, the officers asked, “‘Why are they getting so excited about it? It was a war! You rape the women!’”<ref>D’Costa, ''Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes'', 200.</ref>For the rapist, the rape has an ending. In a society where women are seen as property and being the victim of sexual violence is stigmatized, there is no end for the victim. When a family’s honor is lost, the blame falls “not upon the rapist, but upon the raped.”<ref>Sharlach, “Rape as Genocide,” 95.</ref>War heroines remain prisoners even in the silence of their shame.
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==References==
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