ABSTRACT
Keeping women out of the polluting gaze or act of the 'others' is usually thought to be the supreme duty of the community because it would necessarily mean pollution of the religion/nation itself. Violation of 'our' women necessarily thrusts on the male psyche of a community the responsibility of taking revenge on 'their' men in general and women in particular - and the reproductive organs are generally foregrounded in this respect. Sidhwa shows in 'Defend Yourself against Me' how Ammiji, Mr Khan's mother, was abducted, raped and displayed before the crowd as a woman for male gaze and consumption. The amputation of breasts betrays a perverted will to forcibly colonize the female body, exploit its resource value and then to partition/amputate it to emphasize authority all because of 'otherness'. The mass rape of ‘other’ women, when taken at the level of community, may be considered to be a strategy to populate the enemy (‘other’) territory with the ‘same’ seeds.
