Pakistan Press on Gender Gaps in Muslim World, Rape Survivor and Partition: New Age Islam's Selection, 13 October 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Bureau
13 October
2020
• Gender Gaps Are Higher In the Muslim World
By Nikhat Sattar
• The System and Rape Survivor
By Arifa Noor
• Partition Short-Changed the Poor
By Jawed Naqvi
• Bad Omens in Afghanistan
By Sikandar Noorani
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Gender Gaps Are Higher In the Muslim World
By Nikhat Sattar
13 Oct 2020
IT took
decades for women and men from conflict zones to advocate, lobby and urge world
leaders in the UN Security Council (UNSC) to adopt Resolution 1325: Women,
Peace and Security (WPS) on Oct 31, 2020. All 15 member states agreed, with
none abstaining or voting against it. It called upon states in conflict to
prevent women’s rights violations, facilitate their participation in
peace-related agreements and post-conflict reconstruction, and protect them
against sexual violence during war.
The
resolution underscores the long-term impact of conflicts on women and their
agency in building and maintaining peace at all levels. This year’s UNSC Open
Debate will extend over three days and take stock of where the world stands on
implementation of the resolution’s agenda.
The WPS
agenda is closely linked to the status of women in the world. The level of
their education, opportunities available to them to develop their potential and
contribute to economic and social development, positions they occupy at
decision-making levels and their independence and ability to make decisions
determine the extent to which states are serious about Resolution 1325.
Of 195
country leaders, currently only 22 are women. This is a distinct improvement
over 1995, when the UN adopted its resolution on gender equality and women empowerment,
but it is still very low. It is no coincidence that conflict, inequity and
intolerance mar a world where the voices that would otherwise argue for
peacebuilding and dialogue are stifled or not heard.
Gender gaps
are higher in the Muslim world, which has been facing extreme conflict. In many
such countries, women are living in a survival and dependency mode, despite
possessing the agency to partake fully in building fruitful, peaceful lives for
those around them and the larger world. In some countries, eg Pakistan, the
increase in the number of women in the assemblies is often due to their status
as relatives of influential politicians. They remain silent or speak with the
voice of their men.
Women are often
the first to sense signals of impending conflict and violence but are excluded
from steps that could lead to de-escalation of tensions. Their understanding of
peace is different from that of men: they do not see it as the mere absence of
war. For them, peace covers the whole gamut of a safe, secure life for their
families and community. For sustainable peace, they view harmony, human rights
and diversity as essential elements of the environment. Peace does not exist
for them if it is unsafe to step out of the house, send their daughters to
school, participate in public events and engage in debate. Women listen to all
sides, however painful they might be, give voice to communities and bring a
humanitarian aspect to peacebuilding approaches.
Since WPS
1325, some progress has been made, but it is limited. Progress is almost
invisible despite nine additional resolutions and 80 national action plans.
Only three per cent of peace negotiations have included women whereas it is a
fact that women-inclusive peace settlements are more sustainable. Even though
women are key players in post-conflict rehabilitation of families, earning
livelihoods if their male breadwinners have been killed or imprisoned, they are
excluded from discussions on policies and programmes. Where women have
attempted to come together to discuss their involvement in peace, they have
been warned off, causing fear of repercussions against their person and
families. Power and war games are played inside and between states at the cost
of their people, especially women, without consideration of human and other
costs.
To
accelerate progress, the UN has identified six priority areas: ensure
accountability of countries for implementation of the 1325 agenda; facilitate
women’s meaningful participation and decision-making in peace processes and
their implementation; protect women’s rights defenders; support women’s
participation in economic decision-making in post-conflict situations; increase
the number of women in peacekeeping missions and national security services and
invest in the WPS agenda and in women peacebuilders. All six are critical to
bringing women into the peacebuilding arena and creating an enabling
environment for them to be heard and their opinions valued and implemented.
Women need
to be recognised as peacebuilders and sustainers; to be selected at senior
peace- and security-related positions; included in numbers in peace mediation
and negotiation teams; to be part of rebuilding and reconstruction teams and as
monitors of implementation of peace settlements. Women are already working
quietly at community or sub-national levels. This work needs to be highlighted
and upscaled and their efforts need to be encouraged.
If the
world wants peace, it must have women in equal numbers, if not more, at all
levels of peacebuilding.
----
Nikhat Sattar is a freelance contributor.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1584811/building-peace
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The System and Rape Survivor
By Arifa Noor
13 Oct 2020
“Normally
people in our social set-up are unwilling to take cases of rape to courts
because of the belief that publicity in the case will attract and would affect
the reputation and honour of the family and more particularly, the woman.
However, wherever resort to courts is unavoidable … a general possibility that
the girl was a willing party to the occurrence, would hardly be admitted or
conceded. In fact, it is not uncommon that a woman, who was a willing party,
acts as a ravished woman, if she is surprised when in amorous courtship,
lovemaking or in the embrace of a man she has not repulsed.” — Federal Shariat
Court judgement
WRITING is
not easy, to be honest. Every week it requires coming up with an issue and then
an argument. Once this stage is over, the construction begins, brick by brick.
What will be the beginning, the opening sentence; when and how will the
arguments be woven in and in what order and then what will be said in the end.
Will the conclusion simply sum up the earlier arguments or should a twist be
added? And then there is the precision of newspaper space — all of the above
has to be done within a specific word count and a tight deadline!
All of this
is a pain and a half for those of us to whom writing doesn’t come naturally.
(Oh, do I envy Mohammad Hanif!)
But once in
a while, one stumbles on an issue that makes this exercise redundant for the
facts in themselves are enough. ‘Craft’ or ‘form’ becomes redundant. Such is
the case this week thanks to a book, Disputed Legacies, edited by Neelum
Hussain.
A
compilation of essays on sexual violence in Pakistan, the book was a timely
read at a time when the motorway case is still fresh in our memories, even
though banned from television screens. Its essays on the law and its
practitioners make it clear that the problem is so much bigger than we realise.
If the system is geared and set up to weed out the ‘false’ accusations of rape
rather than punish those who commit this crime, it is no wonder we manage to
catch few offenders and convict even fewer. The figures presented in the book
say that only one of every 15 cases goes to trial; the majority are settled!
But why
does the book make such a preposterous claim, one can imagine readers asking.
Because, for one the medical jurisprudence books used in Pakistan were written
before independence and focus on the local culture in which ‘female duplicity’
had to be guarded against. Hence, medical evidence focused on disproving ‘false
charges’. And this requires finding evidence of resistance.
“It is not
possible for a single man to hold sexual intercourse with a healthy adult
female in full possession of her senses against her will, unless she is taken
unawares, thrown accidentally on the ground … as to render her completely
helpless, or unless she swoons away from fright or exhaustion after long
resistance,” says a textbook still in use here. In other words, without the
evidence of resistance, there is little evidence of rape.
But let’s
not single out another link in the chain. False accusations is a matter of
belief in the entire system, it seems. We have a term for women — habitual —
who make such complaints.
An
additional sessions judge is quoted as having said, “married women who bring
cases are all politically motivated cases; they make up stories; nothing has
happened to them and if something has happened it is with their consent.” The
judge is a woman.
And a
female sub inspector is confident that “shakal se hi pata chal raha tha keh yeh
habitual hai [it is discernible from her face].” A male chief chemical examiner
says, “When women come with evidence, we know it’s a fake [rape] case.”
No wonder
the book is littered with excerpts from judgements such as the following:
“These … facts strongly tend to show that Mst P.A. was used to sexual
intercourse and that the sexual intercourse that the petitioner allegedly had
with her … was not the first sexual intercourse that she had had. I am,
therefore, of the view … that Mst P.A. was a consenting party to the act of
sexual intercourse with the petitioner. In my view, the inevitable result of
this finding should have been that Mst. P. A. had left with the petitioner of
her own accord and that nobody abducted her.” (Lahore High Court judgement,
1989)
Conversely,
a rape has been seen as genuine if making it public and reporting the crime
would bring harm to the woman. Consider the case in which a married woman was
raped by a relative who had enmity with the survivor’s husband. The court
ruled: “The victim was an elderly lady and had four daughters and six sons … it
is impossible to believe that she will put her honour and of her entire family
at stake by lodging a false case against her relative.”
What if the
court does not think the rape accusation hurts the ‘honour’ of the survivor?
Perhaps it’s best to not think of the answer.
But
sometimes individuals can overcome the obstacles. One such survivor was
Mukhtaran Mai — a poor rural woman, who had been married and was not a virgin.
And yet her story was so widely known that her case reached the highest court
of the land.
But it is
no surprise to find scepticism regarding her accusations in the majority
judgement; one aspect was the late registration of the complaint. It said: “In
a case of an unmarried virgin victim of a young age, whose future may get
stigmatised, if such a disclosure is made, if some time is taken by the family
to ponder over the matter, that situation cannot be held at par with a grownup
lady, who is a divorcee for the last many years; the element of delaying the
matter to avoid badnami may also not be relevant in this case because the
incident according to the prosecution’s own stance was known to a large number
of people and there was no point in keeping it a secret from everyone.”
Some pieces
just write themselves.
----
Arifa
Nooris a journalist.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1584813/the-system-rape-survivor
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Partition Short-Changed the Poor
By Jawed Naqvi
13 Oct 2020
BEFORE the
advent of free-market policies of 1991, the battle cry of India’s masses
fighting poverty and unemployment targeted the big business. “Ye Tata-Birla Ki Sarkar Nahi Chalegi, Nahi
Chalegi.” (This Tata-Birla government must go.) After 1991, the levers to
control a perennially anti-poor economy passed into foreign hands — the IMF,
for example.
One hasn’t
heard of the Tata-Birla slogans in a long time for other reasons too though
there are sharp references surfacing in the media — and more stridently from
Rahul Gandhi — to the Ambani-Adani duo, seen as profiting from their proximity
to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Gone are
the days in Pakistan also when the promise of bread, cloth and house could sway
the masses. Now, when a farmer commits suicide in Pakistan’s Punjab there’s
only a whispered link if at all given for his plight — usury, otherwise banned
in Islam. (I’ve preserved the anguished letter to the editor the late Tahira
Mazhar Ali Khan wrote about the tragic state of farmers in Pakistan’s Punjab.)
In India,
people often see Hindu fascism in abstract terms, as Pakistanis talk of the
military being the de facto power behind the throne. Many Indians see fascism
as some rarefied doctrine of racial and religious hatred not hinged in the
logic of hard economics. They are missing the Tata-Birla idiom as the
fountainhead of the malaise, which spawns authoritarianism.
The hand of
India’s big business was there for all to see in the selection of a Gujarat
chief minister as the prospective candidate to be prime minister. Far less
widely known, even if it is intensely discussed in academic circles, is the
role that Indian tycoons of every religious stripe played in enforcing the
Partition in 1947.
Now, a
kindly academic has shared an all-encompassing analysis by eminent social
scientist Raghabendra Chattopadhyay on the subject. The study, not very
recent, shows how even prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had to surrender before
the clout of Indian businesses right before Partition, when they rallied
against the “socialist budget” presented for the interim government of 1946-47
by Muslim League’s finance minister Liaquat Ali Khan.
The League
was not planning to join the interim government headed by Nehru but was
persuaded by Lord Wavell, the viceroy, to yield. Wavell suggested the home
affairs for Khan. Sardar Patel would not hear of it. The Congress, according to
Chattopadhyay, then offered Liaquat Ali Khan the finance portfolio, held at the
time by a seasoned economist, Dr. John Mathai. The Congress believed finance
was too technical a subject, and would ensure that the League “made a fool of
themselves”. Khan surprised the Congress by producing proposals rooted in
Nehru’s avowed socialist stance.
The Muslim
League performed so well that the Congress was later to regret its own
decision. “It is not only that Liaquat used the key position of finance
effectively enough to intervene in the work of all those departments which were
headed by the Congress members, but he gave a ‘shock’ when he presented the
Budget for the year 1947-48 to the Legislative Assembly.”
Removal of
economic inequalities and transition to a socialist pattern of society were stated
as the two major objectives of Congress policy since at least 1929. Its
election manifesto of 1946 also reflected this emphasis. Moreover, during and
after the war, says Chattopadhyay, the Congress, through its leaders like Nehru
and Maulana Azad, had publicly denounced those industrialists and businessmen
who had taken advantage of the war situation to make money through
profiteering. It had in fact demanded strong action from the government against
these people who had not only earned excess profit during the war but also
evaded a large amount of income tax by avoiding disclosure of their earnings.
“Liaquat
Ali Khan apparently took the Congress at its word and framed a budget
ostensibly based on Congress declarations,” says Chattopadhyay. “He introduced
proposals to impose new taxes on business activities and to appoint a
Commission to inquire into allegations regarding unpaid taxes and devise
possible means of their recovery from businessmen and industrialists.”
Khan openly
admitted that but for the statements that Jawaharlal had made, he might never
have thought about the matter.
He
persuaded the viceroy to allow a reduction in the defence outlay, which
otherwise constituted more than 60 per cent of the expenditure. He saved about
Rs50 crores from defence. This curtailment enabled an increase in the budget
for civil expenditure by Rs30 crores in a total of Rs327.88 crores.
“But it was
in the revenue side of the budget that Liaquat could show his acumen,” says
Chattopadhyay. In deference to the longstanding demand of Indian nationalists,
Liaquat proposed the abolition of the salt tax. To meet the budgetary deficit,
he proposed some new taxes, direct as well as indirect, aimed at extracting
revenue from big business, both Indian and foreign-owned. The most important of
these was a special income tax of 25pc on business profits exceeding Rs100,000
per annum.
The budget
really riled the entire business community, both Indian and British, who were
soon up in arms against Liaquat. The stock exchanges in Calcutta, Bombay and
Madras were closed indefinitely in protest against the tax proposals. The big
business houses, and the press under their control, denounced the budget as a
“murderous one” intended to destroy the economy by choking off all business
activities in the country. It was not possible henceforth for Indian business
to see a future with the Muslim League. In the final analysis though, it was
the poor on both sides that suffered from the enforced aloofness between Nehru
and Liaquat Ali Khan. They were two bizarrely estranged kindred spirits.
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Jawed Naqvi is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1584812/partition-short-changed-the-poor
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Bad Omens In Afghanistan
By Sikandar Noorani
October 13,
2020
As usual
American president Donald Trump provided a lot of eye catching stuff in recent
couple of days. Besides frequently striking at rival candidate in presidential
campaign Joe Biden, he tweeted about return of troops from Afghanistan by this
Christmas. Timing of this casual Trump style tweet on a very important matter
means a lot. There are few sensitive inter-connected factors which can neither
be neglected nor be openly dissected to explore the hidden intents of stake
holders. First, Washington’s point man for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, is
busy in hectic shuttle diplomacy and seen visiting Kabul, Dushanbe, Delhi, Doha
and Islamabad. He was in Pakistan twice this month and also met COAS General
Qamar Javed Bajwa during last tour.This diplomatic vigor reflects the true
American desperation to step out of nineteen years long Afghan campaign.
Second, the grand dialogue process has not yet formally started despite initial
fanfare last month. The Taliban and rest of the Afghan representatives
including Kabul government are still debating upon future governance mechanism.
Choice of
sharia jurisprudence including personal laws for Shias vis-a vis religious
minorities and Taliban’s insistence to accept February peace deal with US as
key document to begin with dialogues are the two main unresolved points. Third,
Kabul government’s representatives are busy at three fronts in the back drop of
ongoing Doha dialogues. Head of national reconciliation council Abdullah
Abdullah has started visiting important stakeholders ie Pakistan, India, China,
Turkey and neighboring Central Asian states. President Ashraf Ghani also made a
trajectory to Qatar after attending royal funeral at Kuwait. With these two
high profile tours, Kabul government representatives are formally engaged in Doha
dialogues and endeavouring to flatten the differences on agenda setting.Fourth,
Taliban delegation showed no interest in meeting with President Ashraf Ghani
during his Doha tour which took place on the invitation of Qatari Emir. Right
from the outset, Taliban have pressed to project their identity as sole stake
holder of Afghanistan. Taliban’s Peace deal with the US earlier this year and
recent appearance in Doha dialogues against rest of the players are two
significant endorsements of their dominance in Afghan arena. Fifth, there is an
alarming surge in violence across the Afghanistan and rivals are blaming each
other for the loss of men and material. Deadly clashes between Afghan forces
and militants took many precious lives. Reportedly, few airstrikes by Afghan
forces struck non-militant civilians. Finding out the real perpetrators of
these recent violent strikes or fixing the exact responsibility is not easy.
Fifth, it is obvious that Abdullah and Ghani, despite being part of Kabul
government, have serious conflict of the interests. This division will keep
weakening the position of the Kabul government in all phases of dialogues.
Peace spoiler forces find great manoeuvring space in this divide of the Kabul
government. Sixth, Pakistan’s positive role in peace process has once again
emerged significantly as proved with visits of Taliban delegation, Abdullah
Abdullah and Zalmay Khalilzad. This stabilizing role has brought Pakistan in
the cross hair of peace spoiler forces. Seventh, prolonged Afghan crisis cannot
be delinked with existing tug of war between global players. Reshaping of
alliances and resetting of objectives in the region have deep impact on the
situation unpredictably evolving in Afghanistan.Out of so many aspects,above
sevenfactors need to be kept in focus while analyzing various complex scenarios
in Afghanistan. Pakistan has openly put its all weight in favor of peace and
stability. PM’s article published in Washington Post was a timely wake up call
to the international community and an effective reminder to US about the
serious consequences of hasty or unplanned troops’ withdrawal. Two major
victims of four decades long crisis, Afghanistan and Pakistan, need a unified
strategy to break the vicious cycle of unrest and violence. Zalmay Khalilzad is
repeatedly talking about a Pak-Afghan side agreement to strengthen the ongoing
peace process. Gulf of mistrust between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been
persistently exploited by the peace spoiling forces. This is about time to
expose the sponsors of hard-core terrorists who played havoc with the peace of
Afghanistan and Pakistan. New Delhi’s obsession to convert Afghanistan in a hub
of anti-Pak proxies is as old as the partition of 1947. Despite many Indian
backed provocative moves on western borders, Pakistan has adopted a principled
stance to support the restoration of peace process by engaging all quarters of
Afghan society. Recent visit of Abdullah Abdullah with an admirable positive
tone clearly reflects rising realization in Kabul about Pakistan’s role,
sacrifices and genuine intent. Trump’s tweet about troops withdrawal is being
interpreted as an election stunt to gain public support. A nineteen years long
campaign worth $ 975 billion with 2400 dead and 20000 injured soldiers needs to
be wrapped up in an orderly manner. Afghanistan and Pakistan paid a heavy price
of past hasty disappearance of US from the same arena. Contentious issues are
still unresolved. Deadlock on agenda setting for Doha dialogues and end of
violence are obviously the most disturbing areas. While striving hard for the
peace, Pakistan is also concerned about presence of hardcore terrorist outfits
and splinter groups on afghan soil under Indian umbrella. A hasty US
withdrawal, divided Kabul government, Indian sponsored proxies vis-a vis
multiple terrorist groups on Afghan soil and stalled dialogue process are not
good omens for the entire region.
----
Sikandar Noorani is a freelance
https://dailytimes.com.pk/677086/bad-omens-in-afghanistan/
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