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Government Action Against TLP: too little, too late?

Every political party in Pakistan, before coming into power, has made questionable alliances with the religious right parties, the most recent example being PML-N’s alliance with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F). Making these alliances eventually results in these parties having to give some political power to the religious right they allied with to fulfill their promise, and gives the right a platform to promote intolerance, sectarian violence, and a complete disregard for minorities’ rights.

Previously, the TLP claimed that they had reached an agreement with the government wherein the government was supposedly accepting all their demands including expulsion of the French ambassador within three months, releasing already arrested TLP workers and not arresting any more TLP workers (Dawn). After the TLP leader Saad Hussain Rizvi was arrested on 12 April, the TLP carried out extremely violent protests with the intention of “jamming the entire country”. Rizvi is carrying forth the legacy of his dead father, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who died in November 2020, by demanding the deportation of the French ambassador after the Charlie Hebdo cartoons incident. From their inception, TLP has proudly worn their extremist agenda like a badge; a senior TLP leader claimed in 2018: “When it involves the honour of the Prophet Muhammad, the finality of his Prophethood or the dishonouring of his person, then every Muslim will become an extremist” (Al-Jazeera).

TLP has repeatedly caused civil unrest and opposed key reforms, and government action is long due. Party workers and supporters have participated in violent protests across the country for the past three days now, and their hostile acts have resulted in the injuries of 340 people and the deaths of around 4 people, including two policemen as some TLP supporters decided to arm themselves and were well trained in this respect.

 

The French embassy within Pakistan has directed French nationals and companies to leave the country for a while, with the embassy running with limited staff. The actions of TLP are straining key relationships of Pakistan with important European allies. The TLP has endangered the lives of people through these violent riots amidst a pandemic which is only worsening, and these extremist actions have caused deaths. The recent government orders have banned the party under Rule 11(b) of the Anti-Terrorism Law of 1997. Police reports have also been filed against individuals from TLP who were active participants in the riots.

But is this government action too little, too late? Laws that could charge the religio-political parties with several misdemeanors have been established for quite a while now, but the government has only chosen to take action now. Not only the incumbent government, but past governments have also failed to act decisively when TLP and other religio-political parties caused unrest in the nation with their divisive ideologies meant to actively incite violence. This is linked to the alliances made with these parties as a desperate move to gain more votes.

The state urgently needs to address the problems of sectarian violence, riots, terrorist attacks, and the lack of rights granted to minorities in the country. All of these problems can be linked to the far right opposing any and all laws that could possibly result in some peace in the country for the average citizen. It is not only the democratic political parties that have granted the religious right a platform for their extremism, but also the military governments which have used religion as a source of legitimacy for their undemocratic rules in a democratic state and thus unwisely involved maulanas in the policy-making process. The objectionable actions of previous governments are still haunting the nation, and the current  government’s move to ban TLP should not stop with this party, but should be applicable to religio-political parties everywhere in Pakistan, especially violent ones because their existence is simply unconstitutional. Toleration of these parties by the state has only resulted in more violence; there can be no tolerance of intolerance.

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Fahashi and Rape: The PM’s Questionable Perspective

By now, everyone is aware of what Imran Khan’s comments were regarding rape.

Just to reiterate, he stated that “Ye jo parday ka concept hai, ye kya hai? Temptation na ho mushray mei… har kisi k andar takat nai hoti, willpower nai hota…”. He went on to blame fahashi (vulgarity) for the rise in crimes against women and children.

His comments resulted in a controversy stirring worldwide. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan stated that it was appalled by Khan’s comments, citing it as unacceptable behaviour by such a prominent public figure. His remarks also sparked a debate on social media with people going against him, while some supported him.

Now, why is this a problem?

One point of view that caught my eye the most was the fact that rape is not a crime of temptation, it is rather more of a tool through which power and control is imposed. One can understand that by seeing how it is even used as a weapon to dehumanise civilian populations during wartime. A historical example of this close to home is the mass genocidal rape of Bangladeshi women by Pakistani military personnel as a way to cripple and subjugate the enemy during its quest for independence.

Khan’s comments also indicated that women are responsible for their own security, as if practising purdah will make them completely immune to rape. This reminds me of the Lahore CCPO’s comments regarding the motorway rape case, where he stated that the woman should not have left the house so late at night and should have checked her fuel beforehand. It seems that victim blaming is something these men have in common, never realising the extremely harmful effects such attitudes have on both victims of sexual crimes and society in general.

Khan’s statements reinforce the idea of women asking for it, and this is highly dangerous. It could serve as a nod towards rapists and harassers to go along and invade the bodies of people who are not dressed modestly enough.

If fahashi really was to blame, here are some cases worth thinking about: the Marwah case (a 5-year-old girl that was raped and set on fire), the Zainab case (6-year-old girl raped and murdered), Kasur child sexual abuse scandal (organized crime ring selling child pornography of young children to porn sites), Kainat Soomro case (13-year-old girl gang raped by four men for four days), Muzammil Bibi (20 – raped, killed and hanged from a tree in Layyah), molvis raping kids in madrassas, and the list goes on. Now, the question arises – where was the fahashi or vulgarity when small children were walking home, playing on streets, or when women were driving cars or working in fields? Other crimes against women and children, like acid throwing, bacha bazi, domestic violence, honour killing and whatnot also incite the same question.

Pakistan ranks among the worst countries for women, with just about 3 or 4 countries ranked lower than us. It is safe to say that this, too, is not because of the way women (or young girls) dress. It seems as if men in the position of power will continue to make such remarks, thereby avoiding any sort of accountability or acknowledging how the country’s state is becoming increasingly worse day by day. They will continue to preach religion where they find suitable, and forget about it where they wish. Completely disregarding administrative inadequacies, failing the country in general, and putting the blame on people for those failures are all unfortunately familiar patterns in a country whose leadership runs on the empty vestiges of grand long-ago promises.

This cycle of victim blaming and benefitting from the patriarchy is extremely perturbing and alarming. With influential people like the PM and Rohail Hyatt speaking in favour of victim blaming, viral Twitter trends like #Stand_with_PM_hayamovement, and molvis such as Tariq Jameel blaming women for the coronavirus, it seems that the women of Pakistan will continue to be made scapegoats for problems that they should instead be protected f

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1971.

War, Violence and Memory was a conference many looked forward to. It seemed only fitting that we reflect upon the 1971 War and the events that led up to it in the year Bangladesh celebrates its 50th year since independence. What wasn’t fitting was how the event had to be canceled due to “unavoidable circumstances”, as Dr. Ali Khan put it. The purpose of this article, so to say, is to assess what exactly these unavoidable circumstances were, and to talk about the problems they pose.

Many individuals and groups took to Twitter and other public platforms to voice out their concerns against the conference and its organizers. Often enough, the reasons they cited for their disapproval and admonishment were borderline laughable. Journalist Ejaz Haider, for instance, was of the opinion that LUMS should be focused more on talking about the Indian treatment of minorities and Indian-Occupied Kashmir. He falls under the oft misguided group of people that feel this constant need to divert attention from our own nation’s flaws and history. Instead, to say that “we are much better than India!” becomes their mantra, and that in itself is problematic for a slew of reasons.

Another concern raised was that of the day this conference was supposed to commence. The 23rd of March, Pakistan Day, the day the Lahore Resolution was passed. A fairly important day for us, where we remember the struggles that led to the creation of our great nation. Somehow, however, remembering and assessing our failures on the same day is seen as a travesty. Therefore, many took to Twitter with their nationalist sentiments, condemning LUMS and its organizers for violating the sanctity of Pakistan Day. The five-day event had an expansive range of talks that included concerns of gender, religion, the politics of forgetting, resettlement of Biharis in Punjab, the politics of evidence, and so on, with Dr. Usman Ali Qasmi reaffirming the academic nature of the event. And yet, we found ourselves in a situation that stifled our academic thought and freedom of speech to preserve a façade of Pakistan’s perfect image. Public pressure and alleged threats of violent protests made it so that what may have been a pertinent and fruitful discourse had to be put to rest.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve seen this happen, both at LUMS and elsewhere. The inability to reconcile with our shortcomings as a nation and to allow minorities to have a voice are phenomenon that continue to stifle academic thought. The Unsilencing Balochistan event which was supposed to be hosted by LUMS in 2015, aiming to “learn about the history, complications, human rights abuses, and the struggle for justice that has been going on in Balochistan” was abruptly canceled for the same reasons. Balochistan, and the treatment of its people, has been a longstanding subject of controversy, and yet we find this deep-seated reluctance to bring this topic under discussion, or to allow discourse on the matter in an academic setting. The case of Atif Mian, who was first removed from the Economic Advisory Council and then had his lecture at IBA on Pakistan’s economic crisis canceled, also comes to mind here. Yet again there were alleged threats of violent protests, first on the basis of his Ahmaddiya faith and then, quite possibly, because of the subject matter of the lecture itself.

Suffice to say that if we, as a people, continue to stifle discourse over these so-called controversial topics and cave in to public pressure and threats, we won’t be able to progress as a nation. Not allowing ourselves to question our shortcomings as a people, both in how we treat our minorities and how quick we are to suggest that we are any better than India, will inevitably trap us in an illusion of misguided perfection. How long, dear reader, can we hold out like this?

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The Ungentle Underbelly

The purpose of this essay is to make a delicate incision through your thick skull and offer you a sip of mine. The human skull does not have sensory neurons, so this should not hurt in the least. Just be sure to have your scalp peeled off. The author conveniently holds no responsibility thereof.

You, trippy, tipsy darling with your subtle puffed up head corroded by too many fascinations, walk across the pavement, half lost in the dark side of your mind and dreaming of little bombs whizzing off as the rain lashes on mercilessly. Your umbrella harkens to the angst of mother earth raging in all her merciless furies. It leaves you and scurries off into its own distant dreams, receding from SSE – that ageing giant whose somber, pitiless stare scans the deep, eternal, endless pit. You wonder what hope it seeks, whom it seeks, and if you are among the ones sought after.

In the deep night, its stare persists, lingering on your skeletal frame as its gaze pierces right through you as if it can see all of your weaknesses. You, trudging on drowsily at this delayed hour of the night, are only holding up because of the caffeine. Yet, now as even then – then, when the machine was unborn, nature humbles the man at the edge – that lone warrior wages battle against the night. Calamitous against the night, nature humbles you with its own spells of drowsiness, with its own incurable spells of nauseating sicknesses. Across the void, it spills your guts, which now float in the abyss of space-time. Spilled, slashed, bloodied, and gashed to the truth of their bleak existence, remnants of your being roam past your containment, their freedom and their battles lost in a mere night.

At first, a gentle shudder. Then, a mighty roar from the heavens as a lightning bolt strikes and a glass breaks. Nature strikes again.

The giant SSE yelps in pain as a glass window breaks and falls off. In the deep pit of the night, startled science kids come running out of the building, looking around hurriedly to explain this phenomenon. The giant yelps and moans while they beg for the cause. The giant rages fiercely in the night – rages battle against this nature that turns to humble it.

You, lone warrior now spilled, bloodied, and lying half dead in the lawn, don’t bother about the goddamn glass. For you, it is the unknowable, and you have learnt to be at peace with your unknowability. Alas, you belong to the underbelly. You are to SSE as Will Graham to Hannibal and as Desdemona to Othello: doomed to love-crime. You swoon in its desire even as it torments you to the utmost, to the core, and to that which emerges as your sole in the myriads of all your selves. Deep within, you want as Othello wants, to “put out the light, and then put out the light.”

As the underbelly, now, you watch the mammoth building howling in its mad pain. The wind gushes through its corridors, recreating a strange phantasmagoria: howling banshees beating drums and lining the corridors. Bats rise from the trees as tiny aero battalions, their wheezing sounds numbing the life out of the air. With this strange custom of bats and banshees forging a new battleground, you struggle to choose your alliance — the giant howling in pain or this strange concoction of your mind.

Bloodied, broken, and with your wet clothes clinging to your bare skeletal body, you rise like a phoenix out of the ashes and push your way through even as you are terrified for your laptop in your bag. This is your sole battle now – to make it to the building. You wage this mighty war against nature with your bare skeletal body drenched in rain and your own blood. You push yourself through this ordeal as you push yourself to meet every deadline, as you wake your weakened body every morning for those godforsaken 8:00 AM classes, and as you take a quiz while a pandemic gently arrives.

Today, as on many other days, you return to this strange home to traverse the edges of its underbelly. You feel the haunting cold of the labs that keep the experiments running while you look for your fleeting soul in strange murky places – in other departments, on meme pages, and even in thick textbooks for graduate students.

Of all the unimaginable sounds, you hear that of a child arguing with his father – a well-reputed professor in this building. You suddenly feel more at ease; you ache for the shrill sound of a stubborn child weeping in this abyss, where only the machine hums. Yet another baby suddenly pierces the silence; the void is ruptured, the machine cannot be heard, and the cold is replaced with a sudden, startling warmth. The howling wind turns into a zestful lullaby.

The lullaby of revolution is sung. Even as the wind howls like a moaning banshee and the bats fill in with their wheezing, new drums are beaten. One by one, battalions of little babies pour in from the elevators, transforming into a giant ocean. An army rages in the lobby — to redeem the irredeemable, to reverse the irreversible, to do the undoable, to restore the disorder, and to stare back at the pitiless stare with the absurdum of infanthood. Your brain screams at you: “pick a side!” You, a mere spectator, have now become a historian of this strange occurrence that records itself as viscerally as if it were to become a live performance in your mind for the rest of time.

The helpless child crying for his mother emerges as the new hero — emerges as the only response that can pierce through the impregnable walls of SSE. Little babies invade its departments. One by one, they will take its labs down, lay siege to the offices, cut off their funding, build their own cradles, fill the refrigerators with milk, sing lullabies at the top of their lungs, and have their own melodies bemoan through the giant building that has now been  overtaken.

The experiments are all ruined now, and the sheer madness of this dull delight – this delirium of the mad – has ended.

The underbelly roars in delight.

You sip your coffee in the ghastly hollows of your undelight. The brooding hour of the dark returns. It torments you, piercing you nauseatingly. Your insides swoon in the vomit that fills you in this loss. Sick to the core, your soul slips out into the night as you go back to studying quantum decoherence.

Author’s Note:

I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to my editor, Irfan Javed.

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#LUMSKHOLO: The Campus Reopening Protest

On Monday, 25th January, around sixty students took to the streets outside LUMS to protest the HEC directives communicated by LUMS with regards to campus re-opening. While students claim that LUMS failed to communicate effectively, the admin claimed to have reported and implemented HEC directives within hours of having received them. Certain students went on to quote the admin about earlier comments made asserting the university as a private institution that needs not follow HEC directives. At the same time, the admin asserts that the second wave is hitting hard, and stresses the need to be careful. More so, even when the decision to open campus for all students was made, it came with the clause, “subject to government directives.”

The protest which took place outside the infamous store referred to as Kashi’s (actually: Smoke City) attracted some media coverage as well. Students came with placards that read: “In a toxic relationship with LUMS,” “give students their rights,” “we deserve better,” “lums kholo, lums kholo,” “we deserve campus access,” “we don’t pay so much for online classes.” The last of these seems to be a pressing concern as students say that this ‘u-turn’ no longer justifies the fee-hikes, particularly the hostel fee whose increase was premised on additional costs bearing out as a result of housing and transport arrangements being made at Askari-11.

The protest was successful in bringing two members of the administration to the protest site to hear student demands. The student council served as an intermediary between the two parties, communicating with both. Initially, the admin requested that a couple of students from the sit-in be permitted on campus so that demands could be heard. Upon student refusal, the Dean of OSA and the Provost joined the sit-in outside the main gate. While the Dean of OSA refused to engage with the students, the Provost, Dr. Tariq Jadoon, listened to the students’ grievances. The protestors report that about 43% of the student body will be allowed to access campus after the negotiations following the protest. However, on the very same day, many of SSE in-person classes were unfortunately converted to online classes. While students were left frustrated by this policy, the admin claims that the motive behind doing so was in order to ensure that priority/need-based admission of students on campus is made possible.

Another post in circulation around the LUMS Discussion Forum and the Democratic LUMS Discussion Forum claims that the government is allowing 50% of the student body to return to campus. This seems to have delayed the email promised to arrive on 27th January. While it is past midnight and students have not yet received an email with regards to accommodation, many students worry about cancellation charges as the forty-eight refundable window for plane tickets withers away. For many seniors, being allowed back on campus for Spring 2021 seemed to be the only glimmer of hope in an otherwise anxious time. As the night deepens, seniors sit behind screens, refreshing their inboxes, waiting. Waiting for accommodation, waiting for job acceptances, waiting for graduate programs. Waiting and wondering about what life after LUMS will be like, but wait, didn’t LUMS already end?

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Campus Reopening: A U-Turn?

Pakistani politicans are not the only ones who take sudden U-turns, thereby decimating the public’s hopes and aspirations. The LUMS administration also meanders down these unforeseen curves, bends and U-turns, as it has become evident through the campus reopening debacle of January 2021. As the student body booked their tickets for Lahore, packed their belongings, and planned for an on-campus academic semester, their hopes were dashed by the administration’s latest email that trickled into their inboxes like some murky, ominous potion.

In the aforementioned email, the student body was regretfully informed that the admin would not be able to accommodate the majority back onto the campus, as per the new government directives which entailed that “in no case shall the total number of students permitted to come to campus exceed 30 per cent of the total enrollment.“ This dealt a significant blow to the student body who had only recently begun to restore their faith in the administration’s intentions and motives. It was also established that those who were previously notified about their imminent return back onto campus would unfortunately have to be turned away. This instigated massive fury, bewilderment and protest from the students who felt like they had been promised mere kernels of false hope by the administration. This email, sent on January 23rd 2021, was in direct contradiction with the cheerful, celebratory email sent on January 8th 2021. The previous emailed brimmed with promises of the campus reopening, ” If allowed, we intend to invite all hostel residents who have been assigned housing to return back to campus by February 1st.  Similarly, all day scholars from Lahore who are able to come back to campus will be welcomed once we have the permission from the government”.

With the university suddenly deciding to take back their decision of calling back additional people on campus, there came financial burdens that some students had to bear. Ones who had booked their tickets in advance were forced to cancel their flights, the costs of which are mostly non-refundable. According to one student who attended the Town Hall, the Vice Chancellor Arshad Ahmed stated that they would compensate students who have faced such costs. He is reported to have said that the university will reimburse the expenses accrued as a result of these travel tickets.

In addition to this, some students had already paid the hostel charges included in their fee as well. Given that the student body was notified so late that the university had no plans to open accommodation to everyone, the question was raised as to how students who had already paid their fees were going to be compensated. Those who had already paid were told to email Residence and inform them if they wish to have their money refunded or adjusted in future fee vouchers, and those who had not were told that their accommodation was to be cancelled and new vouchers are to be uploaded February 2nd.

Speaking of expenses, it is also worth nothing how per credit hour fees were increased without prior notice, as were the hostel charges. The question of how such rises are justified has puzzled students, given the fact that learning is still taking place online, and no additional facilities have been granted to hostelites which would help them understand why the hostel charges have increased. Some students, before the university decided to follow government directives, withdrew accommodation after seeing the high amount which was being charged.

The expenses may even be said to be two fold, firstly, the direct loss of money, and secondly, the emotional cost from steadily losing hope of returning to campus and living a normal university life. The student body expresses sentiments of hurt and confusion amongst deceit. They claim that the admin has not been straightforward with their motives, and has also refused to reconcile matters in a civil manner. The graduating batch of 2021 is especially disheartened by the sudden U-turn, as they consider the possibility of all their senior year plan disintegrating into mere ash.

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Aftermath of Charlie Hebdo cartoons

September 2020 saw the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and subsequently, an attack was carried out by Islamic extremists outside the former headquarters of the magazine. Charlie Hebdo has a long tradition of using caricatures as a way of countering the rhetoric of political and religious authorities. This assault comes five years after an attack on the same magazine for the same reasons. Following these events was a beheading of a middle school teacher who had shown these cartoons to his students, in a class on ‘freedom of expression’.

Muslim countries in the Middle East and South Asia, along with Turkey, have witnessed protests against France and a ban on French products. This ban would extend to French multinational stores as well, including the Carrefour supermarket chain, Total and its petrol products, and fashion and cosmetic products from the brand L’Oreal, among others. The question arises, who is the ban for? It is clear that a strong European economy such as that of France will most likely not suffer from a boycott by countries in the Global South. The consequences of this ban may not be felt by the French economy; instead, only serve to fulfill the wants of far-right groups in Pakistan and restrict consumer choice.

This ban on French products is hypocritical if the Uighur Muslim crisis is taken into account. While PM Imran Khan of Pakistan has strongly condemned the cartoons and admonished President Macron for “attacking Islam”, Khan has not denounced the concentration camps in China for Uighur Muslims. This act highlights the politics that underlie the condemnation of France, while China remains unquestioned and unaccountable: whereas France is far removed from Pakistan in terms of political geography, China is an immediate neighbor with whom Pakistan wishes to keep good relations. The expected boost to Pakistan’s economy from the ongoing project of China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is too profitable an opportunity to squander in favour of opposing human rights violations by the very country upon whom the success of this venture depends.

Moreover, a political battle of wills has ensued as tensions rise in both nations following the controversy. France’s idea to have ID numbers for children led to Pakistan Minister for Human Rights, Shireen Mazari, likening it to Hitler’s ideology of anti-Semitism, only this time it was so-called Islamophobia. Mazari was forced to withdraw her statement after France clarified their position, saying this identification form would not apply to only Muslim children, but to all children in France. This identification is related to a recent move on part of the French government to make sure that all French children are attending schools, and to prevent “radicalization at home”.

By far the most concerning thing to happen on local ground is the mass protest carried out by TLP, which called for completely severing ties with France and banning French products; and in doing so fueled the ideology of the far-right Islamist political party. The fact that the government allowed these protests to take place, that too in the midst of a worsening pandemic, is highly unsettling. Violence ensued at the protest and riot police had to resort to using tear gas and rubber bullets. Additionally, it exposed many to the threat of COVID-19, and the leader of TLP also succumbed to the virus on November 19th.

What is especially worrying is the fact that such far-right politico-religious parties are allowed to exist in the first place and that their activities are not sanctioned by the government of Pakistan. Parties such as the TLP, JUI, and JI, in all their years of existence, have only managed to polarize the citizens of Pakistan even further, and have constantly fought against rights for women and minorities from a supposedly “religious” stance. It is clear that they are using religion as a means to an end: the end being power over a heteronormative patriarchal society based on a version of religion that constantly oppresses women and minorities in order to silence dissent.

These instances show Pakistan’s hypocritical and uninformed stance on French legislation related to Muslims. However, France has not been doing itself any favors in the present moment, or in the past, when it has carried out controversial bans on hijab, niqab and burkinis. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has asserted that this ban violates women’s freedom of religion and it could have the effect of marginalizing them by obstructing their access to the public sphere. The French Interior Minister has also attacked stores selling halal meats, claiming that this serves “separatism” in the community.

Clearly, France needs to take a more nuanced position when dealing with the threat of extreme Islamism in their secular nation: “…what is concerning is the lack of nuance from the government that results once again in Muslims feeling as if they are guilty until proven innocent,” says Sarah Alouane, a French legal scholar and expert in religious freedom (The Washington Post). On local ground, it must be demanded that the government of Pakistan also take a stand, not only against international threats, but against native threats posed by far-right political groups which misuse religion as a tactic to gain power and cause civil unrest.

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On The Rise: Spiralling Rape Cases

TW: Rape

 

Rape.

An ever-growing sadistically, heinous crime, happening to people all around the world regardless of age, gender, and species. In Pakistan alone, over ten thousand cases were reported from January 2014 to June 2017. In 2019, 3881 cases were reported in the province of Punjab, which was a five hundred increase from the year before. Considering a country such as Pakistan, where topics of sex education are termed taboo, or where a woman is severely ostracized by society for coming out with such a claim, one can only imagine how many more cases cease to see the light of day.

During the early hours of September 11, 2020, a woman with her two children present, was brutally gangraped on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway after being dragged out of her car. The case garnered national attention, and a variety of reactions were observed; some sympathized with the victim, while some blamed her. Matters became worse when the Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO), Umar Sheikh, made deplorable comments about the incident. According to him, the victim should have taken an alternative route, checked the fuel in her car and should not have traveled without her husband’s permission. Protests erupted soon after, with thousands of people taking to the streets, demanding justice, and the removal of the CCPO. Facing severe backlash, Sheikh later offered a lackluster apology and was not removed from his post.

The case remains unsolved, with the police yet again failing to capture the victims. It seems as if lately, such incidents are on the rise, or are being reported more often. Prayer leader Jamshed Iqbal attempted to rape a 9-year-old girl while she had gone to take Quran lessons from him in Jhelum. In Lahore, a woman was lured to a certain place with the promise of a job, instead, two men forcefully took her to a hotel where they then gang-raped her. A woman was raped at gunpoint by five men in front of her husband while the couple was returning to their home in Ferozewala, Sheikhupura district. Another woman, waiting on the roadside for transport as her bus had broken down, was offered a ride and was later intoxicated and gang raped by six men. A 16-year-old girl in Sargodha had been repeatedly raped by her landlord for a period of six months and a 17-year-old girl was raped by her stepfather in Gujranwala.

While scavenging through these cases, one of the things that greatly perturbed me was how in almost all of them, none of the perpetrators were arrested or brought into custody. This indicates how little is done to seriously look resolve these cases. Prominent government figures take ‘extreme notice’ of these incidents, and that about sums up all they really do; pertinent in the fact that most of these cases are left open without any justice being served. Nothing is really done, and Pakistan has become, or perhaps always has been, an extremely unsafe place for women. Our Prime Minister has suggested the castration and hanging of rapists once the accused have been proven guilty. Whether this will be implemented or not, and if it will prove to be effective or not is something only time will tell. This might indeed have adverse consequences, as some are of the opinion that the rapists will likely not leave their victims alive in order to prevent being convicted. The absence of the victim’s testimony will result in the preparator’s going free. Perhaps the best approach is to educate people, especially boys, on consent.

With these problems in mind, one must take into consideration how much power Islamic figures have within our country. It is worth mentioning how these prominent religious figures, be them Maulvis, Mullahs or anyone of the sort, have a considerable amount of influence on much of our population. I strongly believe that if they take the initiative of educating the public on violence against women, we will observe some positive change in society. Instances such as the likes of Maulana Tariq Jameel blaming co-education as a source of promoting obscenity while addressing the motorway incident might not have been ill-intentioned, but the focus should have been on the crime that was committed and what can be done to prevent such an atrocity from repeating itself. Placing blame on an already barely existing, co-education system without proof of any correlation deemed these comments to be off handed and undesirable, sparking controversy amongst the public.

A movement of change is desperately needed. Protests do occur, with people taking to the streets and posting about such cases on their social media accounts to create awareness. The Me-Too movement is gaining some momentum in Pakistan, and the Aurat March takes place every year as well. However, the problem has much deeper roots. The mentality of much of our people, which automatically inclines them towards blaming the victim needs to change. People thinking it is perfectly acceptable to engage in activities with others without their explicit consent needs to change. One gender being seen as weaker, submissive and inferior to the other needs to change. Rapists thinking that their hormones are to blame, and that sexually objectifying women is natural needs to change.

Whether it is pornography or entertainment involving the degradation of women, it needs to be very carefully assessed. Our precious country has become a place where women constantly feel unsafe, even within the vicinity of their own homes. Such a nation, where a significant proportion of its population have live in fear or discomfort, is no nation to be proud of, nor one which should be acceptable to its people.

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How the Catastrophic Storms in Karachi are Making Life Unliveable?

2020 has been a tough year for Pakistan so far. The unexpected wave of Coronavirus caused numerous casualties and brought life to a complete halt. Now when people had only started to recover and return to normal life, a series of continuous rainfall befell the country – causing havoc in Sindh especially. While the rest of Pakistan enjoyed the drop in high temperatures, the past two weeks were devastating for Karachi: the city of lights had turned into an abyss of darkness and despair amid heavy downpours.

Heart-wrenching images have been circulating on the internet that provide a glimpse into life in Karachi: an old man carrying his sewing machine (the only source of his income), struggling shop owners desperately looking for intact items so they could salvage some of their life’s work, and kittens drowning in rainwater. Roads and underpasses are filled with water to the brim. The vehicles of those who saved for ages to buy a car are now submerged and forever lost, and the destruction of houses has left people without any place to seek shelter.

The residents have been deprived of electricity for days. Many civilians have not only lost their homes and livelihood but their loved ones too. The rainwater has mixed with sewage water which is a great threat to the health of many. In areas like Malir, the water is increasing to a dangerous level every day, leaving the residents in a state of helplessness and desolation. The desert areas of Tharparkar have received plenty of rainfall which has destroyed the residents’ mud-houses as well as their crops, forcing them to migrate to unknown areas with their animals and without any assistance from the government.

In these difficult times the people have come out to help one another: a few NGO’s namely Al-Khidmat foundation, Chippa Welfare Association and Edhi Foundation have been working to rescue the citizens.

While many of the residents are struggling to save the lives of their family members and desperate for a place to seek shelter, people living in the posh areas actually seem to be enjoying the multicolored hues of the skies and a change in the weather. While many have nothing to eat, the other side of Karachi has been ordering food online from eateries whose workers put their lives in danger by commuting through the rainwater to earn something for themselves in these desperate times.

This highlights the disparity between the classes and the plight of the underprivileged- a scene from the movie ‘Parasite’ come to life, a stark and sobering contrast between the haves and have nots.

The monsoon rains this time have broken an 89-year-old record with an increase of 306 MM as compared to the monthly average for August. With more rainfall expected in the coming weeks, the city is likely to be hit by more flash floods which will further disrupt the lives of the people.

The city is now in a dilapidated condition and the question which arises here is that who is to be held responsible for all this destruction – the Government which has once again failed the citizens of Karachi or the management authorities who have failed to repair Karachi’s infrastructure and unclog the city drains in preparation for the monsoon?

The truth is, no one is willing to take responsibility for Karachi’s welfare. In the face of such calamity, all anyone is able to do is watch Karachi sink deeper and deeper still.

 

 

 

 

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Is This My Pakistan?

What comes to your mind when you think of the country, Pakistan? Do you think it is a place that our founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, would be proud of? Well, I am here to give you my two cents on what I personally see, and what do I feel when I see it.

I see a place where a child’s worth and the amount of celebration that should be done is determined by your gender at birth. A place where, if it is revealed to be a girl, you will hear hushed whispers saying, “oh no… better luck next time.” Hearing this always released a bitter laugh out of me, because these same people otherwise love quoting the religion of Islam on everything, but when it comes to the blessing of a baby girl, their narrative changes.

Speaking of which, people who are religious (read: mullahs) seem to hold some sort of autonomy over others. The mullahs and Quran teachers, even the ones who are known who molest and sexually abuse kids, are still at their posts, and the Pakistani masses do not seem to protest about this as much. On the contrary, a Pakistani celebrity was facing severe backlash for shooting a twirling scene (without music) at a mosque, for which she also apologized for. Another woman was sent actual rape threats, and abusive voice messages, all over a picture in which she had tied the flag of Pakistan onto her dog’s collar because apparently dogs are shaytaan ki nasal. I am going to keep this part brief, but I see a place where women ‘crossing boundaries’ irks the common folk more than destroying and potentially permanently scarring children’s mental health.

I see a place where the white part of our beloved flag, which is a representation of religious minorities, is largely ignored. Ahamdis live in constant fear of being killed. They have been shot dead in courts, while closing their shops, at their prayer meetings and inside their mosques. It seems as if a difference in faith from the majority of this pious population is threatening. A mere accusation of blasphemy can ruin your life, whether it gets proved or not. I wonder, what gives them the right to murder innocent human beings, and ostracize them from society?

I see a place where, even during a pandemic, your religion determined whether you would survive or not. An NGO in Karachi denied ration cards to Hindus and Christians, because apparently ‘only Muslims are entitled to them’. In other places, people had to convert to Islam to receive aid, changing their faith to survive. It is alarming that creations of God are going against their own kind, in the name of God.

You might be thinking what a pessimistic approach this is to be writing about our beloved country, but I am merely stating the realities of our motherland. Of course, there are positive things as well, but in recent times where people have more access to be aware of things happening nationwide, my image of this nation has become anything but positive. It is also important to note that being critical is not the same as being ungrateful, another thing which Pakistanis need to keep in mind. I sincerely hope that one day, this country becomes a safe space for women, children, and minorities.