Silencing Afghanistan's future

THE TIMES OF INDIA

The brutal killing of the Bengali writer and women's rights activist, Sushmita Banerjee, in Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan is a tragic end to a brave life and a reminder of the extraordinary risks Indians take to foster a better world. Banerjee's cold-blooded murder by Islamist terrorists is an attempted assassination of the universal ideas she stood for in a bleak environment of generalised war and religious fundamentalism. What did Banerjee represent? Her values posed a serious threat to the extreme forms of patriarchy emanating from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. She became a martyr in the meat grinder of war zones where voices of dignity and decency are silenced by the gun to sustain the ideological basis for cultural repression of society. That Banerjee had opened a medical dispensary for women in the early 1990s from her home in Afghanistan drew the ire of the then newly ascendant Taliban. Despite the fact that she had converted to Islam for safety and acceptance into her Afghan husband's family, her origin as an Indian and her attempt to mobilise local Afghan women around the issue of healthcare were interpreted by hardcore Islamists as an unacceptable combination that had to be terminated. Hardline Islamists are riled by individuals or groups that could show by example, even if they are apolitical in their advocacy, visions of alternative futures for women. Banerjee's stated aim of working to raise awareness about "the conditions women in Afghanistan live under" and her missionary zeal to keep going back to that country to "free" its women through quiet, grassroots-based interventions disturbed the Islamist world view of the female as subordinate and incapable of determining the socio-economic structures. Banerjee's quest for finding meaning in her own life by supporting her Afghan sisters bears strong parallels to that of the Pakistani teenager and international celebrity, Malala Yousafzai, who miraculously escaped death after being shot in the head by the Taliban in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Control over the mind and the body are essential for Islamists to maintain their authority on civilian populations living under their thumb. The Taliban know that education and health are the key variables that have long-term impact in undermining radicalism and obscurantist restrictions on women. Both Banerjee and Malala were deemed 'enemies of the faith' on the grounds that they were subtly posing a challenge to the conservative moral universe constructed by Islamists and their followers in the Pashtun communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Insurgent groups fighting against their governments and foreign enemies do not tolerate insubordination or sedition among their own constituents on whose behalf they wage their self-determination wars. Banerjee, who had integrated well into Afghan society and taken the name Sayeda Kamala, was a "traitor" in the eyes of her assassins for disseminating the wrong messages that were corrupting women to take charge of the well-being of their families. Although Afghanistan has witnessed repeated targeted killings of Indian civilians as a means of scaring away the Indian government's reconstruction programmes, an estimated 3,000 of them continue to serve there in the United Nations system, in aid agencies, in consulates and embassies and in private corporations involved in reconstruction work. What makes them tick in an environment where being Indian is a life-endangering tag? My interactions with some of them elicited responses that they love performing their 'duty' towards their employers. The fairly large cohort of Indian professionals continues to stay its ground in Afghanistan despite hostile circumstances and renders services with trademark Indian efficiency and conscientiousness. The Taliban, the Haqqani network, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other anti-India forces closely associated with Pakistan's intelligence services have taken many cheap shots at these committed Indian citizens out of spite for India's popularity and influence in Afghanistan. Strategic fears of a lasting liberal Indian impact on Afghanistan's culture and economy are also background factors for the terrorist strikes on Indian nationals. Banerjee was a rare species lacking publicly known connections to governments, international organisations or private enterprises. The usual suspicion in a war zone that an Indian national like her could also be a spy for India's external intelligence agencies in Afghanistan would have added to the venomous rationale which took her life. But her solidarity with Afghan women derived neither from official strategic intent of New Delhi nor the liberal discourse of international institutions that dot the war-ravaged landscape of Afghanistan. Her story was deeply personal — one of marrying an Afghan for love by defying social taboos in Hindu society and then adopting the struggle of Afghan women as her own. She was a symbol of the free Indian spirit that operates non-violently and altruistically at the global level by integrating into local milieus in different corners of the world and trying to transform its surroundings in a progressive direction. At the time of her untimely death, she was authoring a new book whose protagonist was an Afghan girl child trying to navigate the Taliban's sexual terrorism. Sushmita Banerjee was an international Indian who gave her life to inspire like-minded souls to keep doing the right thing. Her ghastly end is a reminder that Afghanistan needs more purposeful and sustained external support for individuals sticking their necks out to improve the social indicators of that country.