Ms Urmi Gupta1
1Bml Munjal University, India
Biography:
Urmi Gupta is currently an Assistant Professor at BML Munjal University, New Delhi. She is pursuing her PhD in International Politics from JNU, New Delhi. Her research interests are IR theory, Gender, Sexuality, Security and Conflicts.
Abstract:
A particular photograph from the infamous riots of 1983 in Sri Lanka, known as Black July, was widely circulated, starkly indicating the atrocities committed against Tamils. The image depicted a naked man sitting on a bench trying to hide himself while several Sinhalese men stood laughing and jeering around him. As one of the men prepares to swing a kick at the crouching man, the photographer decides to capture this iconic moment. The visual imagery echoes the historical objectification of bodies, such as the Hottentot Venus, her body amenable for scientific curiosity and voyeuristic pleasure. Recently, the leaked pictures from Abu Ghraib suggests such dissemination of perversity and cruelty as commonplace, making it ‘normal’ to circulate battered pictures of tortured prisoners/inmates. While sexual torture has been legitimized and rationalized as a strategy, the techniques used are deeply intertwined with processes of racialization, sexualization and colonizing the victim. The paper aims to critique the dominant security narrative that frames sexual torture as a tactical necessity, exposing the gendered and perverse dimensions obscured by these frameworks. Through in person interviews and survivor testimonials from Kashmir and Sri Lanka, this papers examines two critical aspects of sexual torture: first, it disrupts the dominant security narrative that situates such violence solely as a war strategy/tactic. Second, it interrogates the role of camera as a tool of power, amplifying the humiliation and control. Camera, here functions as an extension of phallus – penetrative and dominating – transforming the victim into a spectacle for voyeuristic consumption.