Twenty-five year old Sunita George is a Pakistani Christian. She is a successful model. But then a recent incident has jolted her career and she is forced to rethink about her profession. One day, two bearded men entered the boutique on Zamzama Boulevard where Sunita was browsing with her friends and threatened her to dump the western outfits and follow strict Talibanic diktat — cover your head and stay indoors. If they disobey the orders, chances are that they end up facing a harsher punishment.
Sunita never expected such things to happen in a cosmopolitan city like Karachi which is dotted with a swanky airport, flyovers, and multi-storied shopping malls. Unlike most of rural Pakistan, which is relatively conservative, in Karachi, women wearing jeans, saris and trendy shalwar suits are common. The city also has the highest percentage of middle-class women in the work force. Is this behind targeting this city in the “cleansing drive”?
It’s not only about wearing decent outfits. The radical groups are also against women’s education. Women — many of them married and having approval of their husbands to work — were prevented from going to their work places, badly affecting the social and economic condition of women in the province. The government chose to be a mute spectator.
After Afghanistan, Pakistan probably is the other nation where we find civilisation takes a step back to the pre-historic era. Religious extremism works like plague seizing the mind, body and soul. It is an established fact that whenever and wherever in the world, there have been religious movements, the freedom of women becomes the first casualty. For militants, controlling women’s independence as well as their sexuality becomes the easiest way of showcasing their authority. But in case of Pakistan, it only gives fodder to the pre-existing patriarchal traditions. It seems to suit all and sundry except for those women who have long enjoyed the liberal environments of progressive cities.
The swelling threats in Karachi are forcing young women to dress up more conservatively just to keep a low profile and avoid public gaze. But this is not just about wearing one type of clothes or the other; it is also a question of who should be dictating the Pakistani citizens about what they wear, eat and how they live. Or should anybody be dictating at all? More than mere women’s freedom and cosmopolitanism of a city, the bigger threat is on the authority of a government of a sovereign country. Women’s security and independence directly connects to the law and order situation; one of the basic institutions of an independent terrain.
At one glance, Karachi looks like any other international city. But soon one will witness the other side of this glossy picture when the local residents warn you not to wander alone as you may be subjected to the risk of being looted, pestered or murdered. Just in a week’s time several cases have been registered against educated young men stealing cars from posh colonies, snatching jewellery from women and even murdering anyone for the sake of a few thousands. Is it still intricate to comprehend that more than terrorism, it is lawlessness, unemployment and high inflation which are bigger threats to Pakistan. One concludes that in some way these Talibani dictates are also interrelated to the inadequacies in the law and order system.
The brighter portrait of Pakistan is also shown by its women; undeterred by threats they are fighting for the cause of fellow women, taking part in political processions, demonstrating to the judiciary, speaking their minds on television (a good number of women journalists are entering Pakistani electronic media while some of them have already become household names).
The threshold of tolerance may well and truly be crossed, if the current regime in Pakistan doesn’t come forward and solve the crisis.
— Arfa Khanum Sherwani is a Delhi-based television journalist
