Women Pakistan
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Women Pakistan
Protecting women and their rights
By Ilhan Niaz
“DO not burn widows, do not kill daughters, do not bury lepers alive,” warned John Lawrence almost 160 years ago as the British Empire in India annexed what are now the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and the NWFP.
Indeed, female infanticide in the north-western and central territories of their Indian colony was particularly offensive to British sensitivities. For the Indians who practised it, the logic was simple. A girl could not marry into a lower caste or biradari without lowering the family’s honour. If she married into an equal or higher group then the sum to be paid as jahaiz (dowry) was so high that it would ruin the family financially. Thus, to varying degrees, the higher castes and kinships put their daughters to death and preserved their honour and finances.
In 1870, though progress had been made, a special survey was conducted. It found that in the most conservative kinships/castes the gender ratio was 75 males to 25 females. More had to be done. So new laws were passed mandating the separate registration of births for girls. By this method, the British undertook investigations into mysterious fatalities, and the district commissioners and their staff pressed the offending groups hard, threatening, persuading, punishing, and praising, as the need arose.
By 1893, the gender ratio in the worst affected areas came down to 60 males to 40 females. Though the landlords and notables grumbled about the impact that letting their daughters live would have on their finances they knew that should they revert to the old ways they would face unpleasant inquiries, embarrassment, and prosecution.
This was done in an age much before computers, the mass media, and the need for a parha likha Punjab. The reform was implemented in the teeth of religious opposition, caste prejudice, and tradition, and led to severe rumblings amongst the same elites upon whom the Raj depended for local support. It was executed through the premier executive institution of that day, the Indian Civil Service – “the steel frame”.
There are numerous other examples one can cite as regards the efforts made, many with a fair amount of success, by the Raj at dispensing what would now be dubbed women’s protection, such as the exemplary punishments meted out to regiments whose soldiers raped women. Or Sir Sayyid’s striking testimony that one of the causes of the Indian Revolt was the insistence of education inspectors that women attend schools. Evidently, “nothing more offensive” to the sensitivities of the Indians than female education could be imagined.
One must also bear in mind that in the mid-19th century hardly anyone thought in terms of female equality or emancipation. Indeed, at that time class and economic differences divided men into those with and without political rights. In Britain, it was not until 1911 that the House of Lords lost its power of veto over financial legislation and it took till 1928 for electoral equality to be granted to women. It is far too easy to criticise a 19th century state from a 21st century perspective by engaging in the counter-factual anodyne dialectics that tragically characterise public discourse and academia today.
Amongst the lessons we can learn from this and many other examples of a similar nature one stands out. All the “sensitisation” and “empowerment” seminars “enlightened” and “moderate” laws for “women’s protection” are exercises in the unreal. For, unless the institutions responsible for enforcing the law, maintaining order, and ensuring security of life and property (the police and civil services) are sufficiently motivated, properly organised, and inspiringly officered, little, if anything will change for the better.
Compartmentalising women’s rights doesn’t help much. A classic example of such compartmentalisation was the women’s police stations initiative launched by the PPP government in the 1990s. Male constables, inspectors, and staff were pleased with the setting up of separate women’s police station. The reason was that with the female officers separated from the male-dominated police force, policemen were no longer subjected to the “indignity” of having to take orders from female superiors.
One of the many extraordinary observations made by Enlightenment-era European thinkers was that criminality and violence in most cases presented a threat to society when they were animated by a sense of impunity. Extraordinary legislation or harsh punishments were meaningless, if not counterproductive, as instruments of order and progress unless backed by effective administration.
The lesson was that to improve the situation a vital link was the shattering of the feeling of impunity. The only way to shatter it is through effective, vigorous, and sustained, law enforcement as part of an overall reform programme that should complement education and welfare measures.
The reform programme can be organised on five major principles. First, improve the quality of personnel recruited into the law enforcement agencies by increasing their educational prerequisites. Second, increase the ratio of officers in the police force and ensure that they complete a proper tenure of at least three years in a single posting.
Third, constitute an All-Pakistan Criminal Prosecution Service under a statute as part of the Central Superior Services with appropriate prestige, training, and remuneration. Fourth, insulate the police management from arbitrary interference by extraneous elements by entrusting their promotion, transfers, and disciplining, to neutral bodies consisting of eminent citizens. And fifth, cease the compartmentalisation of women’s rights and issues and make women an integral part of the administrative institutions. And when this is done, follow the prescription for twenty years, monitor the results, and maintain the pressure.
At present the districts are headed on average by intermediate or matriculation pass landlords with over fifty acres of land. The councillors are either dependents or smaller landlords with lower levels of education. The entire district establishment is under the control therefore of poorly educated landlords immersed in local rivalries, bound by biradari pressures, and animated by traditional sentiments hostile to progressive ideas in general and women’s rights in particular.
The women who are elected on the reserved seats are beholden to their patriarchal patrons. In the post-devolution scenario and the further softening of the state apparatus and politicisation of the district administration caused by the reforms, it is useless to expect any favourable change in this or indeed any other sector.
The writer is the author of “An Inquiry into the Culture of Power of the Subcontinent” (Islamabad: Alhamra, 2006). niazone@yahoo.com
