Tahira Mazhar Ali

(Ed. note: This article was a speech given by the author at the Second Amiya & B.G. Rao Memorial Lecture on 50 Years of the State and Human Rights in South Asia organised by Champa in India in December 1997.)

I remember Garhi Shahuin, 1950, a working class district of Lahore. Railway workers used to live there, and one day, early in the morning, police arrived to eject them from their mud huts to vacate the place for some big officer who had come from across the border and needed land to build a house. As I worked in that area, I rushed there at once, it wasn’t too far from my flat on Nicholson Road. When I reached the place women were on the road howling and screaming, with the police throwing their household belongings on the road. We women decided to hold hands and form a long row in front of the huts so that the police could not enter these huts. We stood like that for at least five hours until some men got back home. We did this for a whole week and then eventually got the land for the workers, who are still living there now. Women are a great force if united, and when along with their men, they fight for their legitimate demands.

Our leaders had already started intriguing and turning their faces away from the people who were suffering because they had to leave their homes and get to Pakistan. I remember in a parachute factory, where our organisation worked with those who had just arrived from India, we used to hear them saying, "Bibi, where are the honey and milk canals which we were promised by our leaders?" Twelve to thirteen people lived in small hovels, and we heard crying most of the time because many had to leave behind part of their families and many others were missing. In this respect, Mridula Sarabhai did a very useful work. She was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s personal envoy and brought Muslim girls from India and took back Hindu girls from here. The tragedy was that many households did not want the girls back; they were "tainted" and "dirty," and it took a lot of talking and persuasion before they were accepted back.

Never be able to see home again

About five years ago I saw Bhisham Sahney’s film on Partition, and I felt miserable because the area he describes in the film is our area, our village, and to think that I knew nothing of what was happening or had happened. Some time ago some women from India came for a function at Kinniard College, and they came over to see Mazhar, my husband. Just by chance I asked one of them where she was during Partition, and she said she was from Rawalpindi and her father and family had houses in Nathia Gali and Doonga Gali, where I have been going ever since Partition. She told me that they had left the houses with everything there, her dupatta hanging in the dressing room, her books lying all over the place in her bedroom. They went for their summer vacation to Kashmir, never to return to their home again. It made me very sad, and I realised how lucky we were not to have to leave our home. It is a horrible thought, and so many people went away never to be able to even visit their homes again.

I knew a number of professors who had been saving money all their lives to be able to build their homes and when they finished building they left for good. There are so many stories. I must tell you another tale which made me feel proud of some people who risked their lives to save others.

In the early fifties, I went with Faiz Ahmed Faiz to attend a Kisan conference in Montgomery, now named Shiwal. During my stay there, three girls came and sat next to me. I was delighted to see these girls about my age - at that time about 21 years - and asked them about their experiences during Partition. The eldest girl said that they were from Amritsar and that the whole family was very frightened most of the time. At midnight one night, three Sikhs came and told them to hurry up and leave the place and asked them for their Qurans. They put the Qurans under their turbans and accompanied them up to the Wagah border, where they were out of danger. It was after this experience with the Sikh peasants, they said, that they decided to work among the peasants and become members of the Communist Party.

On the other hand, I also know of incidents where people took money to get people across the border, and I know of officials who looted the people and helped burn certain areas of some cities. I could go on and on. There isn’t an incident of that period that I have forgotten, and yet I am finding it difficult to reconstruct the events in their chronological order. It is more a tangle of memories which stand sharpest in my mind.

In 1951, the borders were opened for people from Amritsar to come and watch a cricket match. When they arrived in Lahore, I was amazed to see Muslims and Hindus embracing each other. The shopkeepers did not take any money for the fruit, the hotel-wallas offered free food, tonga-wallas refused any payment. The Lahore Mall saw Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims walking arm in arm, and Lahore once again became real Lahore. Muslims living in houses where Hindus had lived before saw Muslims taking the Hindus back to their previous dwellings, where Hindus picked up the mud outside and wept. Muslims were heard saying, "Lalaji, you sleep inside, we will remain outside."

Hatred is taught; it doesn’t remain for too long unless it is encouraged and used by those who rule for the benefit of power. Partition was a separation from those with whom we had lived for centuries, therefore it was painful. Suddenly, Amritsar - where we travelled several times a month from Lahore - now suddenly became foreign territory which we could not enter without a passport or previous permission. I hope that once again people of both our countries will walk arm in arm and not be threatened because they want peace and good neighbourliness.

Women of both our countries could be on the forefront to create an atmosphere of peace and love. In a UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) conference held in Delhi two years ago we put up a proposal to suggest that there should be a SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) women’s peace committee - because without peace there cannot be much development. I am sure about one thing: that the arms race should stop so that poverty can be tackled in earnest. We must learn to face reality and then seriously combat all that keeps us hungry and miserable. I think women’s organisations, with those other public organisations - youth organisations, trade unions, etc. - should be working in both our countries towards true, effective democracy which will improve the condition of our masses; democracy which can be felt; democracy which improves the conditions in which we live so that our countries can move forward and prosper. We have to find solutions for our concrete problems.

Sufferings under martial law

Pakistan has gone through traumatic periods. Since Partition we have been experimenting and we still are. Every new period of experiment has been disastrous, because every period had its intrigues and nobody was sincere to Pakistan, to the people of Pakistan. In the earlier period when Liaqat Ali Khan, the first prime minister of Pakistan, was still alive and when people marched in the street for their demands, we were shown a fist to fight India! During the fifties we invited Americans to do as they pleased. They entered the Punjab Secretariat whenever they liked and looked at whatever they liked! When my husband Mazhar wrote an editorial in the Pakistan Times against American interference, we got a "sweet" letter from the American councillor saying that Mazhar must apologise for that and from now on he would not be able to attend their parties! Of course he ended by sending his love to me. Our leadership consisted of decadent feudal landlords who became so-called freedom fighters.

In the sixties we started talking of "us" and "them." Gradual confrontation had started between the civilian population and the army. Our politicians were fighting each other, and to divert the attention of the people, persecution of the Ahmedias, a sub-sect in Islam, began. General Ayub Khan took over power in 1958 and that was the beginning of the first martial law. We had 10 years of his rule. During his time there was strict censorship, the country’s most influential paper, the Pakistan Times was taken over because our American masters did not like even the slightest interference in their plans and dubbed the Pakistan Times a Communist paper. Mazhar was then the editor and Mian Iftikharuddin the properietor - Mian Sahib died soon after. Mazhar was not allowed to write in any paper, and the saddest thing was that 99 percent of the newspapers welcomed censorship - the same newspapers which now talk of democracy and the rule of the people! The meanest thing the government did was to pass orders to intern Tariq, our then 15-year-old son, in his village because he had condemned the system of basic democracy, a farcical system started by Ayub Khan. The usual plan of martial law regimes is to create fear in people and then buy them over; those who cannot be bought over become the enemy of the country. Recently I was invited to receive a national award on Mazhar’s behalf, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, for his services to the country. I refused immediately because since we have been "traitors" since Partition, receiving this medal was meaningless.

Friends, we have suffered under martial law regimes, our country suffered and the poor of the country suffered even more. I remember during the Ayub days some of your journalists quite liked the atmosphere and were wishing for a change in India, but you have a democratic set up, and your army is different in this respect. Those who travelled to our side were impressed, because they did not see what was happening to us.

Few stood for justice

I won’t go into this subject any more, because it is too painful, but I will mention the dictators who were responsible for ruining our country. General Yahya Khan came next and he created havoc in Bangladesh in 1971. It was a great tragedy where the army did its best to suppress the people who had won the general election. Our media kept people in West Pakistan unaware of the atrocities committed, and till the last day, when the army was about to surrender and the BBC was giving a running commentary on it, our people believed that we were about to conquer Bangladesh. Those of us who protested mildly were condemned, both by our people and the government. Our organisation, the Democratic Women’s Association (DWA), went out with handbills to tell people what was happening and that if the army continued in this manner, we would lose East Pakistan. Nobody was prepared to come out with us. People considered us traitors; we were arrested, our houses were searched, but when we appeared before the magistrate and he asked us to apologise, none of us would. All the women who were arrested were from working class and lower-middle-class families. The elitist women took a different point of view; they thought that with the massive rapes the next generation of Bengalis would be better looking! We were very few who stood for justice. After the fall of Dhaka there was deep depression in Lahore because people had always been fed lies. When Pakistan TV eventually showed the Pakistani Army surrendering and the Jamaat-i Islami stoned the TV station, some highly educated friends rang me up to somehow have these TV programmes stopped because they couldn’t bear it. We could not bear this humiliation, but we could not feel ashamed of what we had been doing in Bangladesh. Here I pause and ask: what is education, when those who were educated didn’t utter a word in sympathy with East Bengal, did not condemn the atrocities or the rapes, and yet our uneducated and poor women from mohallas had greater regard for human rights? Our education system must add "human rights" as a subject in their curriculum so that our children are educated in a true sense.

That was a shameful period in the history of Pakistan; the whole world condemned it. Pakistanis were looked down upon, we were snubbed at restaurants abroad where they would not allow us in. Very often the airport authorities saw our passports and told us to wait for hours on end, and so on. On the other hand, our soldiers were told that they were fighting Hindus and when they reached Dhaka they saw more mosques than in Lahore or Peshawar. The cream of Bangladesh intellectuals were slaughtered two days before surrender. We tolerated all this. We have got into the habit of tolerating all that we should not and of condemning what that is truthful.

Zia Ruined Pakistan

The third dictatorship, that of General Zia-ul Haq, brought great misery, especially to women and minorities. Ahmedis were further crushed. Christians, Hindus, Parsees, and others were shoved into separate electorates. Small ethnic groups were encouraged to fight against non-Muslims. Zia’s "Islamisation" of rituals was considered to be "righteous," and those following these practices held forth as exemplary, whatever their character or actual conduct. Zia had his pictures taken with smugglers and other dubious people because they were supposedly "God fearing;" these people who made millions, then gave a few thousand for building an orphanage to show that they were generous people who helped the poor! The real motives were hidden under these rituals - rituals that hide a multitude of sins and are tantamount to deception, hypocrisy and fraud. The essential moral behaviour of truth, courage, honesty and sincerity is suppressed and thrown out. Therefore these religious rituals, shorn of real morality, easily become political instruments in the hands of oppressors, exploiters and the powerful ruling classes who further develop them as the ideology of a State. The political process of Islamisation initiated by Zia, with the wholehearted support of landlords and bureaucrats, was a great deception to fool the masses. Under the cover of Islamisation, real and genuine concepts of democracy, such as equality, truth, justice and welfare are turned into false concepts. Zia interpreted the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet to suit his interests. Hence instead of bringing people closer to Islam, he alienated them. People started saying, "We do not want Zia’s Islam."

Zia’s main target was the PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) and for the sake of destroying that party he created many dangerous dogmas. He created the Mohajjir Qaumi Mahaz to combat Bhuttoism and created ethnic strife in the province of Sindh. Zia was concerned not with the future of Pakistan but with remaining in power; in the process he destroyed Pakistan step by step. He allowed drugs, he handed over Kalashnikov rifles to fundamentalists to use as they wished, he was determined to undermine the status of women. Before Zia came to power there was no drug problem in Pakistan. After he left we had millions of drug addicts, especially among the youth. Zia ruined the entire social fabric and created a valueless society, which only wanted quick money. Students in our universities were not allowed to ask questions, women teachers in university were not allowed to smile - one woman professor was threatened because she had taken students on a trip where her picture appeared with her smiling. Universities were run by the Jamaat-e Islami; they were loaded with guns and ammunition. The Afghan war brought Zia and the fundamentalists even closer, and all these religious moralists never once preached against violence against women, or drug mafias or the new Kalashnikov culture which had developed and ruined our youth. Hundreds of innocent people were lashed at public places, and microphones put before their mouths so that others could hear their screams.

When I was in jail along with some other women, we heard that they had brought in a youth of 15 who was to receive 20 lashes. I was told he was the son of one of our women workers who was with me in jail. We did not tell her. This lady’s husband had gone to the court to get an order that nobody under 18 could be lashed, but before he arrived with the order at 9:00 a.m. a major had come and lashed the boy, who was taken to the hospital. Then we told his mother. He did not steal or hit anyone or even condemn the armed forces (which in Pakistan is a crime). He had only shouted "Bhutto Zindabad - long live Bhutto."

Zia’s rule left the nation more than half-dead. He ruled us for nearly 12 years, and Americans who shout for democratic rights never uttered a word against his dictatorship. The Afghan war helped his dictatorship. The fundamentalists were America’s greatest allies; Islamabad became the biggest CIA station and what our intelligence agencies did not know they learnt from their senior masters. Weapons were openly carried from Karachi to Peshawar, and the same trucks carried back heroin for "jihad" with the permission of the CIA and our government. Everything was forgiven because our great dictator was fighting Communism.

The American administration pursues human rights selectively and changes the definition according to whether a country is obedient to them or not. Zia usurped power; he was fine. Khomeini won a popular revolution against the Shah, and he was bad. I am just giving examples of American justice.

Women fight for rights

What did the alliance between the fundamentalists and the Zia regime mean for women? One of the areas which had disturbed the fundamentalists was that of family laws. The gains made by women in this realm, however insignificant they might have been, came under attack during the Zia regime. Not only were previously won rights brought into question, but the mullahs became instrumental in extending the scope of shariah law. Thus, new rules of evidence and retribution have been promulgated and these adversely effect women and threaten to take them back to the medieval ages, to a period in history that corresponds to the emergence of Islam. All venues affecting women were under question: dress, choice in marriage, divorce, inheritance, education - the list is endless.

This alliance between the fundamentalists and the State, which subsequently permitted conservative religious groups to espouse an anti-feminist ideology and completely manipulate State policy with respect to women, brought to the forefront of women’s consciousness in Pakistan, the question of their rights and the mechanisms by which these might be achieved.

Since 1981, Pakistani women have been striving heroically and unceasingly to stem the tide of State policy as it detrimentally affects their status and position in society. Women decided to form a unified women’s organisation to combat Zia’s policies. The new organisation, Women’s Action Forum (WAF), combined all women’s groups to unite in the struggle for their rights. Women demonstrated their solidarity and their purpose to fight back with all their strength. In this connection lots of women went to jail and hundreds demonstrated against Zia’s martial law regime and ideas.

The WAF has achieved some positive results. First, it has drawn sympathy and support from many segments of the population that have been feeling deprived and repressed since the inception of the Zia regime. This level of awareness and concern about women’s issues was previously unheard of in Pakistan. Secondly, the WAF brought the issues of women to the attention of all political parties, so that they had to pay serious attention to women’s demands. Of course we need to go on pressing the parties to include women in their highest posts and give party tickets to them. Thirdly, it has created a national organisation of women, which talk about much more than just mews and bazaars. The WAF made women get involved in the political process around women’s issues. Women’s struggle is no longer restricted to a few women or to reforms that can only be taken advantage of by a few privileged women. Through the process of constant struggle, more fundamental issues are being raised and addressed in a concerted fashion for the first time in Pakistan’s history.

In terms of the possibilities for women’s rights to be acceded to, it should by now be clear to any and all interested in the issue that the question of women’s rights belongs essentially to the realm of democratic and human rights. Given the fragility of the democratic process in Pakistan, the only groups with a long-term stake in the institutionalisation of such rights are the most depressed strata in Pakistan society - that is, the producing classes. These are also the only classes capable of creating a genuine democracy in the Pakistani context. It is to an alliance with these classes that women must turn if they are to ensure their rights. This is by no means an easy task. Women must also demand a secular society as the DWA, the WAF and other organisations do. As long as religion continues to be interlinked with the State any gains we achieve will be incomplete. Today there is much more awareness about women’s rights than 50 years ago. Women are ready to play their role. In spite of all the objections from the fundamentalists, in spite of the threats from the Taliban which are frightening, families are keen to educate their girls and let them work because it has become a necessity. No lower-middle-class household can be run without both partners working; there is a big change in our attitudes.

Minorities is another issue for human rights activists. In the movement for the restoration of democracy many Christians and non-Muslims were involved, but their participation went unacknowledged. A new Islamic law of evidence was put into effect in 1984. According to one provision of this law, the worth of evidence by non-Muslims and women was reduced by half. Blasphemy laws were incorporated into the Pakistan Penal Code in 1986. The Federal Shariat Court ruled a mandatory punishment of death for showing disrespect to the Prophet Mohammad. The first death sentences were awarded to Chand Barket and Gul Masih. Salamat Masih, a Christian boy of 15, was accused of writing some blasphemous sentences on a piece of paper and throwing it into a mosque. However, the writing was so beautiful that it could not possibly have been the work of this illiterate boy. I was personally in the courtroom when Salamat Masih’s case under the blasphemy law was being argued. He was acquitted but the three accused had to go into exile. Following the demolition of Babri mosque some churches were attacked and hundreds of Hindu temples were demolished by Muslim extremists. A federal minister supervised the demolition in Lahore. Two years ago an Ahmadia boy was arrested because he had the Kalima written on his motorcycle. He told the police that he had just bought the motorcycle from a second-hand shop and was not responsible for the Kalima, but being an Ahmadia he had no right to have the Kalima, so he was arrested. Recently, a whole village of Christians was demolished, and people turned out of their homes where they had been living for many decades. The main purpose was to grab the land. These are only a few of the incidents that took place.

Rampant corruption

Corruption is not a new phenomenon in Pakistan, it started soon after Partition. It started when the evacuee property came up for division. I personally think that it destroyed all respect for those who were at the helm of affairs in our country. Property left by Hindus was distributed among friends and relatives of local Muslims and often those who came from across the border got very little of the share. This was the beginning of corruption in our country. To say that Benazir’s government was corrupt or Nawaz Sharif’s govermnent is corrupt is forgetting the past. Of course, compared to today’s corruption that seems mild; corruption has spread in our country like wildfire. Nothing is achieved today without payment, and the poor who cannot afford to pay seldom get their work done. Now, after 50 years, corruption has become a way of life and nobody is particularly resentful about it. We have lost respect for serious, honest conduct. Today corruption is so rampant it is a part of our thinking, our conscience, our way of living. We only notice it when it enters our day-to-day living and we are scared.

Today, when we look at our two countries we find a very similar situation. I was recently in Australia and was discussing the political situation there with some Australian women. Three ministers had resigned there recently because they could not account for 1,200 pounds, 300 pounds and about the same amount for the third minister. I immediately turned around and without thinking said, "Why are they resigning for such a little amount?" They all turned around with a look of shock and said, "Why not? They are corrupt." In both our countries we talk of millions having disappeared and not accounted for. Pakistani banks are empty, people are seldom told the truth, the mafia runs the government. No government which comes to power can condemn and take action because they have similar characters in their own. Truth has been controlled; we are loaded with lies daily. Ill-gotten wealth has made thick layers over the surface where we can hardly locate reality.

Struggle continues

What sort of Golden Jubilee are we celebrating when people are not a party to it? People are not interested in functions at five-star hotels where we announce without shame how prosperous and happy our country is. Celebrations for the 50th anniversary should have been spontaneous, but people hardly showed any interest because they were hungry. The country was going from bad to worse, nothing was done for the masses. Our leaders were busy accumulating wealth. Right from the first month of Partition we realised that the Muslim League could not deliver the goods - as Faiz said very aptly, yeh daag daag ujaalaa.* What gives us hope, however, is that the people of Pakistan have been struggling continuously for a just, equitable and peaceful society. I am convinced that they will continue doing so. I also hope that our two countries can respect each other and allow us to fight our common struggles together.

What we need is solidarity, peace, friendship, freedom to meet each other and understanding - which can only come by our borders becoming softer and visas becoming easier to get. Fifty years is a long time and we must get together to solve our problems, learn from each other without mistrust. This can be possible only if we meet each other often and exchange views, and if we see the struggles of our people as common struggles by citizens of sovereign nations.Ñ

------------------------------------

* "This strain-covered daybreak, this night-bitter dawn, this is not that dawn of which there was expectation." (translated by Victor Kiernan) These are the opening lines of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem "Subah Aazaadi" (August 1947), which speaks of the long awaited clear morning of freedom and the disappointment of awakening to one that is still clouded with darkness: yeh daag daag ujaalaa/yeh shab ghazidaa sehar/wo intezaar thaa jiskaa/yeh wo sehar to nahin.