Violence against women and the images in Manto’s mirror

More than any other country or people in the world, we in Pakistan need to keep a wary eye on what is happening in Afghanistan. We are directly affected by this sudden rush of events. It is a rare moment in history when a country falls without any resistance and the victors are not ready to assume power, ensuring a spell of insecurity and lawlessness.

There was a great sense of drama in how the Taliban entered Kabul, simultaneously with the flight of the country’s embattled president, Ashraf Ghani. And Kabul Airport presented scenes that will live in our collective memory. Meanwhile, it became possible for some people in Pakistan to acclaim the Taliban victory while others felt insecure about the future of their children.

Given the suspense that is building up in Afghanistan, not without some intimations of violent disorder, the situation is keeping us on the edge of our seats. But in these dire circumstances, Pakistan is totally engrossed in its own social and moral upheaval. The manner in which a woman TikToker was assaulted by a large mob in the grounds of Minar-e-Pakistan on Independence Day has shocked the nation to its core.

Though the incident had taken place in a public place, in the presence of hundreds of people, on the fourteenth of August, it became news three days later, when its video became viral. I confess to not being able to watch all of it, so unbearably disturbing it is. Her clothes were torn. She was thrown up in the air. And it is painful to think that this physical harassment is reported to have continued for more than two hours. During this time, the police emergency number is said to have been called twice – and no one came to her rescue.

It took some time for this act of infamy to sink in. Already, crimes against women in Pakistan have been increasing in number. The latest was the brutal murder of Noor Mukaddam in the elite sanctuary of Islamabad. In fact, the murder – culminating in her beheading – may have set the stage for the national outrage on the Independence Day assault.

Looking at our broken society, replete with deviant behaviour mainly against women, I am reminded of stories that Saadat Hasan Manto was writing in the midst of the madness that had attended Partition in 1947. But that particularly was a dark time when unprecedented communal riots had drained a very large number of ordinary people of their humanity. Manto, in his pithy and graphic short stories, had chronicled that period more accurately than a historian would.

However, I am invoking Manto in another context – and it makes me shudder to proceed with this account. Besides, I would not like to dwell too much on it because I don’t have the heart to do so. In any case, first let me mention a Manto story titled ‘Thanda Gosht’. Though it was about the riots, the story was published in a Lahore magazine in March 1950.

To put it as briefly as possible, it was about the killing of a woman and then the killer abusing the dead body. It was so shocking, and it so violated the senses that Manto was charged with obscenity and a case was registered against him. He defended himself well and the main argument was: “Who am I to remove the clothes of this society which itself is naked”.

Now, an actual incident that was also reported but not so prominently. It happened in Thatta during the night before Independence Day. A 14-year-old girl’s body was taken out of her grave, hours after she was buried at a local graveyard. Her body was found the next morning in the nearby wooded area. She had been raped. This was revealed after a medical examination.

I am offering no more details, not even of a police encounter. What is horrifying is that this is just one more example of the kind of perversions that are repeatedly brought to light. But the refusal of the rulers – at present we should pin the blame on the prime minister – to take the issue seriously is as horrifying as the crimes against women are.

Prime Minister Imran Khan himself has expressed views that would be tantamount to blaming the victims. He boasts of knowing the world better than others and insists, as he did again in his PBS Newshour interview last month, that women in Pakistan are “far more treated with respect and given more dignity”. He is simply not aware of the kind of misogyny that exists in Pakistan.

At this point, I would like to revert to Afghanistan because the threat of what could happen to the educated and emancipated women in that country is also valid for Pakistan, if you have your ear to the ground. The Taliban worldview is widely shared in Pakistan. What we find on the surface in the modern sector is very vulnerable.

There are bound to be many different interpretations of the significance of Taliban’s triumph in Afghanistan. But an immediate reaction that came from Imran Khan would raise some questions. He said that Afghans had broken “the shackles of slavery”. One could also not comprehend his earlier comment that “Pashtun are probably the most xenophobic people on earth”.

Anyhow, the situation in Afghanistan is still critical and Afghan parties have yet to reach a settlement. Concerns are rising about the freedom that women would be allowed by the Taliban. This will be a major setback because the Afghan women had forged ahead, at least in Kabul, in remarkable ways. Similarly, educated young people were beginning to transform the Afghan civil society. All that progress is now in jeopardy.

On Friday, Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa said that Pakistan expects that the Taliban will fulfil promises made to the global community regarding women and human rights. Could Pakistan be a role model for Afghanistan in this context?

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: [email protected]