Plumbing the depths of feudalism
Shahan Huq spots courage in a tale of conviction
Mukhtar Mai, also known as Mukhtaran Bibi, was subjected to gang rape in the village of Meerwala in Pakistan's Punjab province on the recommendations of a village council in 2002. It was an incident as horrible in its perpetration as it was powerful in its ramifications. Mukhtar Bibi, like so many others before her in Pakistan and elsewhere, could have opted for the traditional suicide after the shame that was heaped on her even as a whole village watched, tongue-tied, what was being done to her by men on the higher perches of feudalism in her country. No one lifted a finger, no one said a word, there was none to protest the scandalous behaviour of the Mastoi tribe. Mukhtar was only a Gujar, a member of a community that had for ages been poor and therefore resigned to its fate, which again was what people like the Mastois made of it. It was no fault of Mukhtar Mai's that saw such shame descend on her. Her twelve year old brother had earlier been accused of having engaged in sexual relations with the twenty-something Salma who, understandably, was a Mastoi. No one among the Mastois could explain how a twelve year old could seduce a woman much older than him. The village mullah, the natural fear of God working in him, went all the way to pacify the Mastois. He knew that these ferocious men were lying and yet demanding that the Gujars be punished for a crime that was of a patently dubious nature. When the Mastois demanded that Mukhtar appear before them and seek forgiveness for her brother's alleged bad behaviour, he knew what they were up to. He walked off, leaving the village council free to order the young woman, a divorcee in her early thirties, to appear before them. Mukhtar, who since her divorce had been teaching the Quran to the children of her village, did appear before all those fiery-looking strangers. She left many hours later, half-naked, raped repeatedly and fell into numb silence in the confines of her home. And it is in that long silence that her decision to fight back begins. Her story gets around to the local press, which loses little time in disseminating it to all of Pakistan. And from there, the tale of the hideous cruelty inflicted on her travels out to the world outside Pakistan's frontiers, throwing up in turn a wave of revulsion against her rapists and against the local authorities whose timidity before the Mastois, indeed before an entrenched feudal order, gives rise to fresh scandal. Mukhtar Bibi's attempts to convince the police of the violation of her body by the powerful men of her village cuts little ice. The officer at the police station takes her thumb print on a blank sheet of paper and then puts in her statement from his own perspective. It is a kind judge who dismisses that 'statement' and has her narrate the entire story to him. One would have thought that that would be enough for Mukhtar to come by justice. But the men of the Mastoi clan do not give up easily. They have the police at their beck and call. It is, as Mukhtar Mai says in this narration of her ordeal, the media that keep her spirits going and her story alive. Human rights and women's organisations in Pakistan take up her cause. Her cousin Naseem, a lawyer, travels all over the province educating her in all the legal intricacies she needs to master if she means to triumph over her assailants. Meanwhile, charitable organisations as well as the government come forth to help her. Donations from well-meaning individuals pour into her hands, which enables her to set up a school for girls in Meerwala. This work is fundamentally a mirror image of the suffering which women still go through in Pakistan, especially in areas where tribalism or decidedly marked streaks of it continue to define social existence. For Mukhtar Mai, for women in her social circumstances, being a woman has always meant being a commodity to be used at random by men. It has also meant a social structure where the writ of the government has never run deep, or has never run at all. The police, generally corrupt and almost always in the pay of local feudal chieftains, have never cared to record the grievances of the poor. Not even judges, excluding a handful, have shown themselves to be aware of the plight of the poor. The judge who turns the trial of Mukhtar's rapists into an interrogation of the plaintiff herself, thereby shaming her a second time, has little compunction in releasing the rapists and having the police accompany them home. It is only Mukhtar's resilience and the public outcry over the judge's behaviour that lead to the re-arrest of the criminals. But even as the victim moves heaven and earth in her demand for justice, a concerted smear campaign goes on against her. She must prove, through the presence of at least four witnesses, that she was indeed raped. A howl of protest greets the announcement, which prompts the authorities to withdraw the measure. The Canadian ambassador to Pakistan visits Mukhtar Mai's school in Meerwala and promises to see to it that justice is done in the matter of her rapists. Mukhtar is feted in Europe and in Washington, places where she boldly condemns the system that allows women like her to be made into objects men will enjoy in all their sexual perversity. She refuses to take things lying down. Unlike Shazia Khalid, the young doctor-wife-mother raped in her quarters in a remote region of Baluchistan by a military officer and eventually convinced to leave the country and settle in Britain, Mukhtar Mai remains adamant about remaining in Pakistan and reclaiming her honour. Mukhtar Mai is both victim and celebrity. Her courage in taking on an entire establishment that has had scant respect for women and so proving that not every woman is willing to stay quiet in the face of shame has proved infectious in encouraging other brutalised women into bravery. Abroad, she may already have become an icon for people who see in her struggle some early light at the end of what remains a long tunnel of suffering for Pakistan's women.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments