Vansh 1

Rahul Vansh
2024-10-0197
SS-102 Pakistan Studies: Culture and Heritage
Instructor: Anam Fatima
December 16, 2021

Essay 01

Analyze any social resistance movement in Pakistan’s history that you think has had a long-

lasting impact on the democratic ideals in Pakistan.

Women's rights have been ignored and suppressed for decades, but owing to the "Aurat March"

Movement, which has become a powerful voice for women's rights, they will no longer be

ignored. The Aurat March has become a symbol of unappreciated women's rights. A women's

collective called "Hum Auratein," WDF, and WAF organize the Aurat March for women's rights

in several cities across Pakistan. Every year on International Women's Day, the Aurat March is a

non-governmental social-political protest that takes place across Pakistan and it sends forth a

crucial message to the world . The Aurat march helped initiate a conversation about women's

rights, which had been neglected for years (Baig). This is no minor achievement in a strictly

Muslim country where many women are afraid to merely go out in public because of the abuse

they witness and bear every day. The March was dismissed by the electorate because of the

blatant tone in which its demands were expressed. Due to their mindset trapped in the bails of

fundamentalist conservatism, many citizens condemn the Aurat March for their slogans without

even grasping the true meaning of their words.

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When it comes to the history of Aurat March, it all started with the Hudood Ordinance, which

was adopted by Zia-ul-Haqq in 1979. The Hudood Ordinance was created to harmonise Pakistani

legislation with a rigid interpretation of Islamic Sharia. However, it would not come as a surprise

that in an inherently patriarchal and traditional society like Pakistan, a strict Sharia

implementation resulted in an inevitable curb on the rights and freedom of women. Zina Law

was embroiled in a slew of issues (Riaz). According to the Beenish Riaz, "The Zina law under

this ordinance was perhaps the most controversial: The law stated that if a woman was raped, she

was to prove her case by producing four Muslim adult male witnesses — a rule so stringent that

no victim could ever step forward."

This is a glaring example of how Sharia was manipulated in ways to facilitate male agency and

suppress women even more. The Hudood law was not fully comprehended since it did not

address the reality of these rules. Consider this scenario: if a woman is raped, she must request

that the rapist wait while she summons four adult male witnesses who can become witnesses to

her rape. It is quite legal to enact such a law without first comprehending the deeper meaning of

Hudood rules. This was merely one of the more prominent examples of the blatant

discrimination against women. In light of all these policies and social norms, it was only a matter

of time before women rose in defiance in one form or another: eventually they did just that in

form of the Aurat March.

           For any civil society activity or organisation that can support social actors' actions and

represent an essential foundation for a civil society, social capital encompasses rules of

behaviour and social and practical linkages between individuals and communities. The primary

components of the Capital of Aurat March are women obtaining their rights and standing up to

injustice by coming out of their homes to obtain their rights in a matriarchal society (Saigol).
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Other factors, like as the sense of human dignity and Western democracy, continue to motivate

men and women to participate in the Aurat March, yet they are not the driving force behind it.

I looked into specific recommendations made by a number of news anchors and pundits

from Pakistan's major respected news outlets. I was astounded to observe how men and women

of various ages perceive the March from such disparate perspectives. Some writers, such as

Khalil-ur-Rehman, were vehemently opposed to the Aurat March, arguing that the slogans

should be changed and the March should not be used for perverted objectives. Supporters of

Aurat March argue that it is about a woman's control over her own body. Adversaries, on the

other hand, have interpreted the word as suggestive, sexual, and contrary to a woman's highly

valued expectation of modesty.

Furthermore, it is remarkable how some people feel it is a western plot to harm Pakistan's

societal norms. They perceive it because of foreign financing to organizations that are distorting

young women's thinking and, as a result, tarnishing Pakistan's image as an Islamic country.

Furthermore, hardline religious parties oppose the Aurat March because they consider it as a

danger to Islam. "The debate has even reached the court in Lahore, where a petition was filed last

month to prevent the march from taking place, alleging that its goal was to "promote anarchy,

vulgarity, blasphemy, and hatred" of Islam," according to the newspaper (Maqsood).

This type of thinking reveals the twisted conservatively-influenced mindset of those who

live in this state. Religious organisations that operate primarily with their communities make up

the majority of civil society organisations and campaigns in Pakistan. Aurat March is not aimed

at any certain culture, ethnicity, gender, or demographic. It unites people of all religions, castes,

genders, cultures, and so on, with the vision of attaining social and economic equality.
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The Aurat March is a protest against the current status quo's reluctance to acknowledge

women's problems. They have been kept to their houses when they have been subjected to abuse

in their workplaces, schools, and police stations. Women are viewed as sex objects by many

people. If a woman speaks up to harassers, she may be labelled a liar who seeks to discredit

people without first doing an investigation. The case of Meesha Shafi is particularly relevant to

those who believe Ali Zafar was falsely accused. Qandeel Baloch's murder by her brother was

considered to be a result of how she presented herself and the social media support she received.

As a result of this trend of false allegations, which Aurat March is working to end, women's

rights have been curtailed.

Observing the amount of criticism the march draws, it would be hard to believe it has any

substantial social impact. However, the amount of support it draws has been increasing

exponentially as well. For such a bold women’s rights movement to survive in patriarchal society

like Pakistan’s for even more than a year, let alone grow in support with every passing day, is an

accomplishment that would have been unfathomable merely a decade ago. And this an

accomplishment that speaks volumes about the change that is now inevitable in Pakistani society,

politics, and democratic norms. With the scale of the movement which is ever-flourishing,

governments have no alternative but to start embracing the movement and acknowledging and

working on the demands put forth by it. Female politicians, like Shireen Mazari, play a big role

in this regard in the Senate and Parliament where the massive success of the movement has given

them courage to speak against patriarchal and conservative fellow Senators and Parliamentarians

and push for bills that address women’s concerns. Thus, the success of the Aurat March has been

making its way into the democratic fronts as well in a ferocity that would have been hard to

fathom a decade ago.

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The Aurat March's major organizers are members of the left wing. They took actions out

of urgency since the need to end the despicable condition of women in Pakistan is long overdue,

and society is yet not ready to accept that. As a result, folks are extremely conservative when it

comes to Aurat March (Alam). The public had a strong reaction to how feminists were the

women who went on strike and couldn't focus on real difficulties that a normal woman faced

from time to time. There is a need to dispel certain common misconceptions about the Aurat

March, and protesters must also consider Pakistani culture. Furthermore, Pakistan's elite class,

which utilize its power to discourage people from inquiring, is a crucial actor in this situation and

obstructs social movements. With the momentum the movement has been gaining, it will likely

not die out any time soon and will only influence social and democratic fronts of the country

even more than before. However, for an issue as urgent as this, it is imperative that politicians

provide more backing and better organization to the March so that the narratives can be

conveyed better to a society like Pakistan’s and the goals can be attained sooner.
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Work Cited

Alam, Zainab. ""Violence against women in politics: The case of Pakistani women’s activism."."

Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict (2021): 21-46. <https://www.jbe-

platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlac.00052.ala>.

Baig, Fatima Zafar, et al. ""Role of Media in Representation of Sociocultural Ideologies in Aurat

March (2019–2020): A Multimodal Discourse Analysis."." International Journal of

English Linguistics (2020): 1-10. <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Muhammad-

Aslam-84/publication/

340003477_Role_of_Media_in_Representation_of_Sociocultural_Ideologies_in_Aurat_

March_2019-2020_A_Multimodal_Discourse_Analysis/links/

5e721eef299bf1571846ef17/Role-of-Media-in-Representatio>.

Maqsood, Neha. The Aurat March ushers in a radical feminist movement in Pakistan. 10 6 2020.

16 12 2021. <https://womensmediacenter.com/women-under-siege/the-aurat-march-

ushers-in-a-radical-feminist-movement-in-pakistan>.

Riaz, Beenish. ""Win the Battle, Lose the War?: Strategies for Repealing the Zina Ordinance in

Pakistan."." Muslim World Journal of Human Rights (2020): 89-103.

<https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mwjhr-2020-0009/html>.

Saigol, Rubina. ""The past, present and future of feminist activism in Pakistan." ." The Herald

(2019): 1-10.

<https://www.academia.edu/download/65790481/The_Past_The_Present_and_The_Futur

e_of_Feminist_Activism_in_Pakistan.pdf>.
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Essay 02:

How did the postcolonial states of India and Pakistan represent the displacement & violence of

Partition in their official narratives and histories??

After a two-century rule, the British departed India, dividing the subcontinent into two separate

nation states: Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Millions of Muslims moved

to West and East Pakistan (the latter now known as Bangladesh), and millions of Sikhs and

Hindus moved in the other direction, resulting in one of the world's greatest migrations the world

has seen (Talbot). Hundreds of thousands of people were never able to make it.

We've heard a lot of this partition story and read a lot of books about partition, but the page from

the "Pakistan Times" featuring news from 1947 explains the genuine experiences of Partition

refugees, their rehabilitation, and property allotments. As reported in the news, the government's

struggle to regulate the massive influx of migrants migrating to Pakistan is exemplified by the 1

lac refugees camping near Wagga. Migrants were provided medical treatment and camps to stay

in while they were passing through Wagga. Partition, on the other hand, resulted in a great deal

of violence. According to the article by William Dalrymple violence created due to migration

was to such extent:

“Gangs of killers set whole villages aflame, hacking to death men and children and the aged

while carrying off young women to be raped. Some British soldiers and journalists who had

witnessed the Nazi death camps claimed Partition’s brutalities were worse: pregnant women had

their breasts cut off and babies hacked out of their bellies; infants were found literally roasted on

spits” (Dalrymple).
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The human dimension of forced migration and partition violence was seldom, if ever, addressed

in post–1947 academic histories of the subcontinent. "For many years, Indian Pakistani

nationalist historical narratives reduced partition to a mere footnote as they dwelt on the success

of independence rather than its price," writes Ian Talbot in his illuminating introduction to

Ahmad Salim's volume on Lahore 1947. "The field was thus left open for communalist

publications to emphasize violence for their own objectives, always with the goal of attributing

guilt to the "other" group," he adds. Historians did not begin to construct a historical narrative on

partition "from beneath" until nearly the Golden Jubilee of Independence.

Many scholars blame the British for the steady breakdown of common cultural norms. When

"the British started to define 'communities' based on religious identity and attach political

representation to them," as Alex von Tunzelmann observes in her history "Indian Summer,"

"many Indians stopped accepting the diversity of their own thoughts and began to ask themselves

in which of the boxes they belonged" (Tamminal). In her highly praised history "The Great

Partition," British scholar Yasmin Khan writes that Partition "stands testament to the follies of

empire, which ruptures community evolution, distorts historical trajectories, and forces violent

state formation from societies that would otherwise have taken different—and unknown—paths."

While refugee shelters have been provided, the cruelty and suffering brought about by partition

should not be disregarded. Urvashi Butalia addressed the terrifying incidents that women faced

during partition in her work "The Other Side of Silence." However, as we saw in the cases of

Nur Begum and the Beauty, these atrocities were silenced to protect family dignity. Refugees

were not allowed to remove their bags after the next news in Pakistan Times. Although it is

obvious that migrants experience a great deal of violence and difficulty on their journey, the
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following newspaper illustrates the other side of Partition, which includes hardships, problems,

and some benefits, such as the allocation of Lahore shops to refugees.

However, we focused on the opposite side of Partition, which included brutality, terrible

exploitation, and the aftermath of partition, throughout the chapters. Furthermore, as reported in

the news, migrant rehabilitation was underway, with a proposed prayer time for Friday and a

meeting of the Evacuation Committee taking place. In addition, the refugees were given shops in

Lahore and were housed in camps. "Refugees were resettled in regions previously inhabited by

non-Muslims, including suburbs such as Krishan Nagar and Sant Nagar," Ian Bolt writes. There

were few freshly created refugee colonies and satellite towns in comparison to many other

cities." This depicts the rehabilitation of refugees following migration in a way that ties us to

news from the time of Partition.

Prakash Tandon was born in 1911 near the Balloki Dam's headworks on the Ravi River in

Pakistani Punjab and attended Government College in Lahore for his schooling. He stated that

“One day, a train crammed with two thousand refugees came from the more predominantly

Muslim areas of Jhelum and beyond. At Gujrat station the train was stopped, and Muslims from

the neighborhood excited by the news of violence in East Punjab, began to attack and loot. There

was indescribable carnage. Several hours later the train moved on, filled with a bloody mess of

corpses, without a soul alive (Raj). At Amritsar, when the train with its load of dead arrived, they

took revenge on a trainload of Muslim refugees. There was also great killing at Sheikhupura, and

on the other side in Jullandhur. The whole Punjab was in conflagration. Six million Hindus and

Sikhs from the West Punjab began to move in one dense mass towards safety, and from the east

of the border a similar mass movement was under way in the opposite direction”.
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Despite the scale of violence that erupted almost equally on both ethnic sides (Muslims on one

side and Hindus and Sikhs on the other), both Pakistan and India consistently blame the other for

the violence. The Pakistani narrative is rigidly centered around the Hindus initiating the violence

despite historical evidence of the violence springing up initially in the Muslim dominant region

of Rawalpindi. And the trains full of dead bodies of Muslim migrants and the completely

scorched Muslim villages allow no credibility to the Indian claim that Muslims were solely

responsible for the violence of Partition.

Moreover, the official narratives of both states conveniently mitigate the suffering of displaced

and traumatized refugees using patriotic rhetoric. As far as the political stance and government

propaganda of both states is concerned, the migrants and refugees had no regrets over the

sacrifices they had made to bring their beloved nations into existence and they would have no

hesitation in sacrificing just as much for its survival. These tall claims grossly undermine the

reality of the refugees. They do not account for the tremendous number of refugees in camps in

both states post partition who would be found sobbing uncontrollably, trembling from pain and

anger, and cursing at their leaders and the nation’s founders as they visited the camp, imploring

them to answer who was responsible for their suffering, their lost homes and lost loved ones.

The official state narratives of both Pakistan and India are filled with an appalling amount of bias

concerning the horrendous violence of partition, with neither willing to assume responsibilities

for the atrocities it committed. On the other hand, the narratives concerning the displacement

issues of refugees is replete with absurdly glorified tales of voluntary sacrifice and unconditional

patriotism. To a large extent, the antagonistic relations between the two states are fueled by their

official narrative teeming with evidence of blame games and ignorance. And no sure step can be
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taken towards reconciliation until these narratives are brought into some degree of conformity

with neutral historical evidence.

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Work Cited

Dalrymple, William. The Great Divide. 29 6 2015. 16 12 2021.

<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple>.

Raj, Richa. " "Of Swadeshi, Self-Reliance and Self-Help."." Moving the Social (2019): 51-72.

62. <https://moving-the-social.ub.rub.de/index.php/MTS/article/view/8386>.

Talbot, Ian. ""LEGACIES OF THE PARTITION FOR INDIA AND PAKISTAN."." Politeja 59

(2019): 7-25. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/26916350>.

Tamminal, Nagaratna B. ""Division of India; Indian and Pakistan Independent Dimensions–An

overview."." IJRAR-International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews (IJRAR)

(2020): 795-803. <https://www.ijrar.org/papers/IJRAR19D1375.pdf>.