Pakistan’s media has become increasingly powerful in the decade and a half since then-president Pervez Musharraf eased restrictions on new TV channels. The move sparked a boom in channels that hasn’t slowed and has encouraged the pursuit of ratings and viewers.
The crowded broadcast media market has driven the networks to cover lavish weddings during their morning shows, or dissect domestic disputes between husbands, wives and mothers in law. But more importantly and tragically, the networks are filling with shows aimed at “policing” women in this conservative nation.
While in the families, fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands, and other male-figures make sure that women don’t do any jobs or say anything that affects family name, in the working places too, policing of women is common. From telling them how to dress to how to be soft-spoken and more feminine, the trend of considering women as some property is prevalent.
So too with the media. A recent episode the show Target, broadcast on Aaj TV made many liberals cringe.
Under the guise of protecting Muslim values, the show’s producers and host broke laws while behaving like a proxy police force.
The Aaj TV team swooped on an apartment where they had heard women were involved in prostitution, which is illegal in Pakistan. The video then shows the programme’s host making a fake call to get his team member inside the apartment. Later — after the police break the lock on the door without showing a warrant — the host berated the women inside. “I know women like you” he yells.
While the show’s host Syed Shahryar Asim does claims he could go ater all the powerful people who frequent the brothel, he never names them. Perhaps it is easier to intimidate helpless women than the influential men who actually back the brothels.
At the end of the programme, Superintendent Police (SP) Ali Asif advises people to call 15 to report illegal or illicit activity. While in a civilised country, that would be the way to report criminal activities, in Pakistan, apparently, investigations and trials are carried out by the media. Be it some case to be handled by police, parliament or Supreme Court, Pakistan’s eager media anchors have taken it on themselves to police, stalk and harass anyone in their way.
For women featured in these reports the consequences can be terribly serious.
– The video in Urdu can be watched from this link.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari addresses the opening ceremony of the Sindh Festival on 1 February (Photo: Jamal Dawoodpoto / Demotix)
Hoping to use culture to battle Pakistan’s slide into “Talibanisation”, the son of Benazir Bhutto kicked off a two-week-long arts festival on 1 February to offer an alternative to what is perceived here as dithering by prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who announced he was giving “peace another chance”.
After a spate of violent attacks in January, Pakistanis assumed Sharif would crack down on the Taliban with an iron fist. However, in a speech on 29 January, Sharif opted to promote talks instead. Critics immediately pointed out the repeated violations of peace accords signed by the Taliban.
Finding it a “characteristic feature” of Pakistani politics on matters of national security, Ambreen Agha, a research assistant with New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management said: “Mr Sharif finds it convenient to keep the nation busy with his idle pursuit of rhetoric, with nothing concrete being done.”
Among the many who are tired of hearing about the peace talks with the Taliban is 25-year old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari — the son of the assassinated former prime minister — who believes Pakistan has “exhausted the option of talks”, arguing that the militants need to be beaten “on the battlefield”. He recently put forth his point of view to BBC’s Lyce Doucet.
Despite threats from the Taliban and other armed groups, Zardari, who is also the chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), has begun waging a war of words against them where others have been silenced. He has urged politicians to “wake up” to the looming threat and unite against the Taliban.
“Though Bilawal’s idea of political will sounds positive, I doubt that this idea is there to stay,” said Agha and added: “Like many of his predecessors he is susceptible to fall on the same track of delays and betrayals. But, if he is willing to take the bull by the horns, which in my opinion is not even a rudimentary possibility, he needs the much called for political will.”
Zardari is spearheading the cultural festival. In a televised advertisement, in which he is seen as a head of state addressing a nation, he is declaring a “cultural coup” to fight the threat posed by the Taliban to Pakistan’s civilisation. The opening ceremony extravaganza that started with a light and music show at one of world’s ancient ruins of Mohenjo Daro — much to the disapproval of conservationists — included kite-flying, donkey cart races, cricket matches, fashion shows, theatre, music and literature.
But many in Pakistan refuse to take him seriously. He is often scoffed at for his anglicised Urdu accent, his exile in Dubai and London and his English education. Critics believe his sudden passion for reviving Sindh’s culture is misplaced.
Agha finds him “distanced from his own society, standing on a pedestal too high to be reached”.
“Of course there is a lot of criticism of him and many consider him out of touch of with reality,” agreed Islamabad-based independent journalist, Taha Siddiqui, but added: “His coming back and making this effort…it’s commendable…”
Siddiqui has been travelling the length and breadth of Pakistan for the last several years and has seen the “creeping radicalisation and religious extremism” in not just Sindh but all over the country.
While he believes the festival such as the one organised by Zardari will be a small step, more needs to be done to stem rising extremism, like revamping of school curriculum, checks and balances on religious seminaries, and for the state to clearly label the Taliban as the enemy which it has so far been unable to do.
“Unless all of these and such other measures are taken together, we will see Pakistan moving further down the trap of Talibanisation,” Siddiqui concluded.
Conceding to a need for a more holistic approach to fight Talibanisation, Agha said that while the cultural synthesis may rejuvenate the lost cultural ethos and values of Sindh, the PPP chairperson will have to “penetrate deeper into the layers of Pakistani society and address the issues that bind the people culturally.”
On the morning of 28 January, the Area Study Centre, at Peshwar University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, was set to hold the launching of the book I Am Malala but called it off after the police informed its director that it would not oversee security. The author of the book, fifteen-year old Malala Yousafzai rose to fame after the Taliban attacked her in 2012 for promoting education for girls.
“We, as educationalists, can only persuade and fight militancy through ideas but we are not even allowed to do that,” said Dr Sarfaraz Khan, centre’s director. He regretted that the role of academics was being thwarted by “misled” politicians. “The state interfered in the dispensation of my duty,” he added.
Finding the whole episode “most shameful”, rights activist and academic A.H. Nayyar, said: “The city police, the university administration give a false impression that they are not scared of the Taliban but in reality they are and therefore capitulated.”
The storm began brewing the evening of 27 January when Khan received a phone call from the religious-based political party Jammat-e-Islami (JI) spokesperson, which was followed by one from the provincial information minister Shah Farman, who belongs to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf — PTI, asking him to cancel the event. The requests soon turned into intimidation.
“Educational institutions have the academic freedom and don’t need government’s permission to hold such events. More importantly, this is what we do — read, write and to celebrate books,” Khan said. “This is what I explained to the politicians and I also told them they were being misled and that they should review their undertaking.”
The pressure mounted as the night wore on with phone calls from university personnel and various government officials. But Khan refused to yield. Then he got a call from the superintendent of police telling him his force would not be able to provide security for the event. “I tried to dissuade him and even asked him if he was threatening me. He kept saying he was compelled to obey orders.”
“A simple book launch has been transformed into a major story because the government in KPK doesn’t share the progressive convictions of the ruling party’s leadership [PTI and Imran Khan],” said Islamabad-based political analyst, Mosharraf Zaidi.
By noon of January 28, after the news spread that the event — jointly staged with the Baacha Khan Trust Educational Foundation and the Strengthening Participatory Organisation — could not take place, Imran Khan tweeted: “I am at a loss 2 understand why Malala’s book launch stopped in Peshawar. PTI believes in freedom of speech/debate, not censorship of ideas.”
Zaidi said: “Imran Khan can try to distance himself from him, but nothing Farman does elicits serious reproach.”
But Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor and a peace activist refuses to buy the “flimsy pretext” of security to stop the book launch or spare the PTI or IK.
Terming them “Taliban’s B-team”, he said: “They have mourned the killing of terrorist leaders; forcibly stopped supplies to those fighting the Taliban; blamed every terrorist atrocity on US drones, and re-introduced violent religious material into the KPK school curricula. On the other hand, they are unmoved by the actions of their allies such as the ghastly murders of health workers, pogroms against Shias and Christians, and attacks on the army and police.”
And thus the event never happened that morning. Just as Khan was getting ready for the function, he felt very ill. The pressure had taken its toll and he was taken to the hospital where the doctors refused to release him until his condition stabilised.
By then the news had spread like wildfire and civil society and rights organisations were up in arms at the way the event had been taken hostage. At around 3pm, Khan got a call from the police saying they had made a mistake and that he could hold the event if they wished. It was too late; the harm had been done; the function had been ruined.
But there is still time to salvage PTI’s sullied reputation, Nayyar said: “It was great to see Imran Khan defy Taliban attacks on polio workers by openly administering polio drops himself, and to know that he was furious at the cancellation of the Malala book launch. We expect him to hold the book launch in Peshawar on his own and invite his friends in JI to the event!”
Hindu women protest in favour of Rinkle Kumari who was forced to convert to Islam in 2012 (Image: Rajput Yasir/Demotix)
December 21 will forever be etched on the memory of Sapna and her family. Belonging to a poor Hindu family, Sapna and her older sister Sabita were teachers in a neighbourhood school in Paharipura, Peshawar, the capital city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. They were the sole breadwinners for the family after their father, who worked for Radio Pakistan, retired four years ago.
On that cold wintry day Sabita stayed after school to give extra tutoring while Sapna walked home alone. During her walk a car suddenly pulled up alongside her- out jumped a man who placed a cloth doused in an unknown chemical over her face. Sapna passed out.
When she regained consciousness she found herself in unfamiliar surroundings. A man, whom she had never seen before, asked her to marry him. But first Sapna would have to convert to Islam.
On her refusal, the man placed the intoxicant-doused cloth over her nose and she fainted once again. This routine carried on for 16 days.
Sapna narrated her account of the kidnapping to the judicial magistrate earlier this month after she was rescued.
“The police traced her through a phone call she made to us asking us to rescue her,” Ramesh Kumar, her brother-in-law told Index on Censorship during a phone interview. He, along with his wife, Sapna’s older sister, had accompanied the police and found her in a village in Bahawalpur, in Punjab province some 680 km from Peshawar.
“Unfortunately, the person who kidnapped her, Zahid Nawaz, got a tip-off and escaped,” said Kumar. Nawaz wasn’t a complete stranger to Sapna. Kumar believes that his sister’s kidnapper had managed to ensnare Sapna by calling her a few times before the snatching took place.
“When he learnt that she was a Hindu, he told her that he didn’t have a sister and looked on her as one,” he added.
Despite being the first case of its kind in the area Sapna’s kidnapping has spread fear among the Hindu community in Peshawar- since the day her sister was abducted Sabita has not been allowed to step out of her house.
However, the kidnapping of Hindu girls is nothing new in other parts of the country. According to Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, head of the Pakistan Hindu Council and a legislator: “We hear of three to four such cases every month from Sindh [province].”
More worrisome to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is the forced coercion of these Hindu girls to Islam before marriage takes place. The majority of these cases have been reported in the Sindh area with the HRCP calling it one of the “most outrageous human rights violations one has to deal with.”
I.A. Rehman, of the HRCP, blamed both the state and society for the escalation: “Both are getting more and more caught in the frenzy of religiosity, a process accelerated by the increase in Al-Qaeda/Taliban/Salafi influence on Pakistan’s Muslims.
“Hard-line Islam is supposed to liquidate non-Muslims and Shias and people belonging to other sects, such as Barelvis who enjoy music and visit shrines,” referring to the recent killings of devotees at a sufi shrine in Karachi earlier this month.
At the same time, he pointed out, the “zealots” among the society hoped to secure a “place in paradise” by converting non-Muslims to Islam. Hindus account for just over one per cent of the Pakistan’s population of 180 million.
Rehman deplored how the judiciary had been unable to intervene in such cases, noting how such lack of action reassures the culprits and depresses the communities of the victim.
Most religious minority members sitting in the assemblies are selected, as opposed to elected, and are therefore not the true representatives of their communities. Instead, they often toe the party line that has given them the ticket to their seat.
For their part, people like Vankwani say: “The main political parties pay lip service to our problems but have consistently failed to protect our lives or our rights,” arguing that until fair representation of minorities occurs in the assemblies their issues will never be resolved.
Amar Guriro, a journalist from a Hindu community, had a different take on the issue of coerced conversion. “There are cases where girls have converted of their own will or have eloped because, unless their parents can pay the heavy dowry that is demanded by the groom’s side, they cannot be married off,” he said.
Muslims have often been accused of preying on Hindu girls of marriageable age, forcing families to marry off their daughters at an earlier than desired time. “If they don’t there is a danger they may be kidnapped and asked to renounce their religion,” Guriro reported.
According to Amarnath Motumal, a lawyer with the HRCP, young Hindu girls may easily get “influenced” by their Muslim paramour: “In a country where even in schools Islam is the only religion taught and where religious freedom is negligible, young minds can easily be moulded.
“In Pakistan a Muslim woman cannot be married without the consent of the waali (her guardian — a father, uncle, or brother). Why didn’t the same hold true for the Hindu girl who had converted?”
Motumal has appeared in several cases of forced conversions. He told Index that during these hearings there is immense pressure on not just the young girls but also the judge as hundreds of protesting clergy can gather outside the courtroom. “The girls often do not have the courage to speak how or what they feel about the predicament they are in. And if the woman converted of her free will, why is she not allowed to meet with her parents?” he asked.
In 2012, the cases of Rinkle Kumari from Ghotki and Dr Lata Kumar in Karachi were taken up by the court after concerns arose in the media that they were forcefully converted to Islam.
Today, Motumal said, both women live with their respective Muslim husbands, but, he added: “They may be apparently happily married, but who knows what is going on in their hearts. They know what their fate will be if they have a change of heart and mind — they may be shunned by their own community and never find a match!
“Most believe themselves to have been polluted beyond redemption and prefer to stay with their abductors to returning home.”
