Interplay of Torture, Gender, and Fantasy during the Sikh Militant Movement

The widespread use of torture against Sikh militants during the 1980s and 1990s insurgency is well-documented, with numerous reports from human rights and civil liberties organizations. Despite this, academic scholarship on the subject remains surprisingly sparse. This paper seeks to address this gap by examining torture as a psycho-political tool not only intended to subjugate individuals but also to target the collective Sikh psyche. It further explores the gendered nature of torture practices, demonstrating how, even when both victims and perpetrators were male, the language, techniques, and demeanor employed carried significant gendered implications.

Torture inflicted upon Sikh women was predominantly sexual in nature, reflecting a deeper patriarchal violence. This form of violence imposed a discourse of dominance, attempting to control the behavior, subjectivity, and identity of Sikh women through sexual violence. The sexual nature of this torture reveals a hidden connection between sexual violence and the process of subject formation. Drawing on the works of Marquis de Sade and Sigmund Freud, this paper engages with two extremes of the same process of subject constitution: a) the self subjectivizing the other through sexual violation and b) the self realizing its full potential only through the sexual debasement of the other, who is often gendered feminine. This sexualized torture is interpreted as a paradigm for the subject-other relationship in modern India.

The paper also considers the role of fantasy in these dynamics, engaging with the work of Turkish feminist scholar Meyda Yeğenoğlu, particularly her intervention in Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism. Yegenoglu demonstrates that the processes of representing the other and constituting the self are inherently gendered, sustained by a desire to know, penetrate, and master the other. This psychoanalytic reading of Orientalism posits that male fantasy plays a crucial role in shaping its discourse. By juxtaposing the torture of Sikh men and women with Bollywood portrayals of Sikh subjectivity, this paper illustrates how cultural representations play a role in legitimizing and enabling the subjugation of the Sikh community.

Additionally, the paper draws a comparative analysis with the Algerian War of Independence, highlighting the French colonial regime's systematic use of extreme torture against Algerian freedom fighters. This torture served as a fantasmatic foundation for reinforcing French masculine identity. In The Centurions (1960), French war journalist and paratrooper Jean Larteguy presents the story of the Algerian War from the perspective of French soldiers. This novel, which can be seen as an exact opposite of the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers, justifies the use of torture, introducing the ‘ticking bomb scenario’ for the first time. Larteguy also links torture with the restoration of masculinity, suggesting that torture enables men to reclaim their manliness, which is seen as weakened by democratic and liberal institutions. The character Boisferous, a French military commander, tortures an Algerian woman, Aicha, to extract information about planted bombs. Here, torture serves not only as a means to inflict pain but also to assert absolute authority over the victim. The scene echoes the Sadean drama, where the man imposes his principles onto the body and subjectivity of the woman through sexual violation. This male fantasy – "I will fuck you until you love me" – illustrates the crucial role of fantasy in constructing self-image.

This paper argues that a similar phenomenon occurred in Punjab, albeit with distinct cultural and political nuances. The deliberate degradation of Sikh symbols and identity was integral to the torture, aimed at dismantling the perceived threat that Sikh identity posed to the Indian nation-state. Through psychoanalytic insights, while acknowledging their limitations, this paper seeks to elucidate the complex interplay of torture, gender, and fantasy during the Sikh militant movement.