Uti-Possidetis and Cartographic Anxiety: Locating Violence Against Women in Post-Colonial India

Co-authored by Rongeet Poddar

Colonially-instituted administrative lines became international frontiers for emerging nation-states under the doctrine of uti possidetis, a safety valve to facilitate lasting territorial integrity. The conclusive freezing of inherited borders has been prioritized in international law for ushering in lasting ‘peace.’ Consequently, gendered dimensions of violence, inflicted by perceiving women to be the ‘biological’ carriers of new-found national identity, have been relegated to the margins. With the nation-state’~ boundaries being transplanted from the colonizer’s map, women’s lived experiences of dehumanization have been marginalized by the immediate anxiety of settling the demarcation of territorial lines. The dismembennent of British empire on religious lines sparked tensions about national belonging. Women were consequently reduced to objects, who would have to symbolically uphold the nation-state’s boundaries. After the triumphalism of independence had been dispelled by ensuing communal violence, a patriarchal state dispensation assumed the responsibility of , recovering’ abducted women from the other side of the border in a reflection of international law’s lingering cartographic anxiety. By deploying a feminist TWAIL lens, the paper interrogates the specific nature of post-colonial violence faced by women, highlighting its glaring erasure within international law.

Views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinion or stand of the University.