Ongoing struggle

Tuesday, April 12, 2009

By Beena Sarwar

The advent of the Taliban is splitting our South Asian identity and leading to the existing schizophrenia and changing dress codes

A newly married young environmentalist who recently visited Quetta returned to Karachi somewhat rattled by being the only woman out in public. The experience compelled her to do something she doesn't normally do in Karachi: cover her head with her dupatta. Did it help? "No, because I was still the only woman in a public space, I had the dupatta on my head, not wrapped around so that only my eyes were visible. I still felt exposed but it was a little better."

Many women who drive their own cars even in Karachi now carry chaddars with them when out at night. For those who travel by public transport, a hijab or burqa is the norm, affords some protection (but no guarantee) against harassment. Nor is the hijab a new phenomenon.

An older single woman who lived alone and worked at a multinational bank took to wearing a full hijab -- black covering from head to toe -- some ten years ago in order to protect herself from the advances of her married male colleagues. Like so many other middle class urban women she had also been attending "Quran classes." Ninety nine percent of the women who attend such classes eventually take to the hijab, says Faiza Mushtaq, who is researching the phenomenon.

The trend is also visible at the lower socio-economic level. Some years ago, Sughra, who cleans homes for a living, began wearing a burqa when going to work, motivated by weekly religious meetings. She feels it is "better", both because it is ordained by religion and because it helps her to avoid the male gaze.

Her cousin Ameena, a cook, shrugs off the suggestion to wear a burqa. Although deeply religious-- she says her prayers regularly and fasts during Ramzan -- she does not see the need to alter how she dresses, which is perfectly modest by any standards.

"If a man harasses me, I beat him with his own shoe," she says. She did this six months ago when a man kept nudging her with his feet on the back of her bus seat. Some time before that, she thrashed a fellow who kept brushing against her in a crowded bazaar.

To cover or not to cover is essentially a personal decision. The motivation may be religious but much of it is due to factors based in fear, like social pressure, the desire to conform, and self-protection

The atmosphere that compelled the woman visiting Quetta to cover her head is directly linked to political events three decades ago, before the word Talibanisation was invented. One of Gen. Zia's first moves after grabbing power in 1977 was to control women's morality and dressing in the public sphere as well as in private spaces. He used the media to indoctrinate audiences. The sole TV channel of the time, government controlled, presented 'good' women dressed conservatively, their heads covered whether sleeping or drowning. The bad ones were shown in western dress.

Women on television were directed to cover their heads. A few refused. The symbol of that refusal is Mehtab Akbar (now Rashidi), who then hosted a Sindhi programme. PTV authorities in Karachi allowed her to continue (head uncovered) since it was only broadcast in Sindh. In Ferozan, a national programme with college students, the producer got her out of the dupatta requirement by suggesting she wear a sari. "If the authorities ask why your head wasn't covered, we will tell them that it slipped."

Later the sari was also banned. Madame -- the flamboyant, glorious Noor Jehan -- refused to conform to this directive but was too big a personality to keep off the silver screen. Hundreds of other sari-clad women working in government offices or educational institutes did not have that option.

Mehtab Akbar walked out of another programme Apni Baat (in which she answered letters) after then Secretary Information General Mujib ur Rehman began objecting to her uncovered head. She finally called it quits when she got a call from the Presidency after a couple of programmes of Ferozan the following quarter, "saying that if your head is not covered, you won't come on TV."

Her own parents said nothing to discourage her, "even my mother, whose own head was always covered," she recalls. "I realised that this was because it was an issue of empowerment, the need to have the option to choose, to decide how you want to live. It took me a second to decide. I thought, if I say yes to this today, I will be compromising on other things tomorrow."

Gen. Zia would present the women in his Majlis-e-Shura with 'chaddars' to cover themselves with. Today he might have handed out a hijab -- a covering that is alien to our South Asian culture.

The advent of the Taliban in Afghanistan highlighted the "Middle Easternisation" -- or "Wahabisation" -- of Pakistan, a process that has split our South Asian identity and led to the existing schizophrenia and changing dress codes.

The reverberations of Taliban rule in Afghanistan echoed in Karachi soon after their ascent. My mother, a college professor, was threatened by an elderly Pashtun for not covering her head at a weekly open air market. It was a Friday and the man was perhaps fired up by the afternoon sermon. She tried ignoring him but he followed her, calling her names and telling her to cover her head. Finally, she told him, "Baba, keep your eyes to yourself". Shopkeepers kept the man from approaching her further but the incident left her shaken.

The word 'Talibanisation' was not even part of common discourse at the time. Policies supporting the Taliban and the local jehadi organisations with the intention of bleeding Kashmir in India process kept the fire burning that Zia had ignited. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's 15th Constitutional Amendment (CA 15) fanned it further.

"This is not the first time that a so-called Shariat Bill has been introduced here -- always by a floundering government seeking to divert attention from its weaknesses. But never before has such a move seemed so threatening, thanks to the geo-political situation. On Pakistan's west lies Taliban-ridden Afghanistan and to the east is the India of the BJP. The rise of religious militants in both countries provides an impetus to extremist religious outfits in Pakistan, who are encouraged by one and find a windmill to tilt at in the other," I wrote November, 1998, talking about how the introduction of CA 15, whether passed or not, had "intensified fears about the Talibanisation of this area".

Despite the partial reversal of policies following 9/11, the struggle continues. Whether or not the trend is reversed or accelerated depends on the stand the Pakistani people take and how the government enforces the law to deal with these issues. The video of the girl being flogged in Swat that caused such intense outrage may well prove to be a turning point. Hope springs eternal.

Courtesy: The News International