One of the books that I like to occasionally flip through is, in a sense, an anthology of English poetry. Actually, it is a textbook meant for graduate students of American universities. I had picked it up from a stall of old books in Khori Garden in Karachi in the late 90s. Sadly, that ‘bazar’ disappeared a long time ago.
Anyhow, I was excited to discover a short poem titled ‘Sindhi Woman’ in that scholarly introduction to poetry. I see it as a tribute to a woman labourer whom the poet Jon Stallworthy had encountered on a dirty Karachi street. The date of the poem is 1963.
This was something that I readily shared with my literary friends, including the late Asif Farruikhi, who persuaded me to translate it into Urdu. That translation was later published in the Academy of Letters’ quarterly magazine ‘Adabiyaat’ in 2005.
But why should I evoke this memory at this time? Well, it emerged within the range of my thoughts when I decided to make that acid-throwing incident as the peg for my column this week. The idea in my mind was to look at the persistent prevalence of violence against women in Pakistani society – something that news stories underline so frequently.
Let me confess that there is another story, incredibly more shocking, that projects the plight of women who mostly belong to the lower strata of society. But I do not have the heart to talk about it in any detail. So, let me just give a hint about it and move on.
A 64-year-old man went to the police station in Orangi Town, Karachi, on Thursday morning last week. He said that he had killed his 58-year-old wife with an iron rod for not letting him have sex with her. He was calm and had the rod with him. A video of his confession has gone viral on social media.
Looking the other way in utter disgust, we should try to make some sense of what is happening to us. Essentially, there are serious problems in how women are treated in our society. Class issues are also involved. I am not able to judge the status of the #MeToo initiatives in Pakistan or whether we have had any such movement.
Honour killing breaks your heart on a regular basis. With so many powerful influences and incentives expected to drive certain kinds of social change, why do so many of our traditional families, even in urban environments, not accept their daughters as independent human beings?
In this bleak setting, the courage of some women who suffer violence or injustice is really inspiring. This is the message I get from the Quetta incident that happened last Saturday. We hope that Dr Mahnoor Nasir will emerge from this ordeal as a dignified and confident person. I read somewhere that when her air ambulance landed in Karachi, and there was a stretcher for her, she wanted to stand on her feet and walk to show, as the report said, that she was unafraid. Incidentally, this is the message I got from that poem, ‘Sindhi Woman’, written by a British poet and literary critic.
The acid attack on Dr Mahnoor, who works in Quetta’s Civil Hospital, has prompted a national response. First, the authorities acted responsibly and after an employee of the hospital threw acid on her, she was flown to Karachi for treatment. The person who had attacked her with acid was reportedly killed in an encounter after he had fled from the scene. Young doctors in Quetta went on strike to protest against the event.
Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti of Balochistan was in Karachi the next day to visit her at the hospital. A person who had rushed to help Dr Mahnoor when she was attacked and who himself suffered some burn injuries is being applauded as a hero. Thankfully, medical reports about Dr Mahnoor’s condition are very encouraging.
During this week, Dr Mahnoor’s story figured prominently in the media. One participant in TV shows was Masarrat Misbah, a beautician who is known for helping women whose faces are burnt with acid. I am mentioning her because she said that there are more incidents of acid throwing than are reported.
What a strange coincidence it was that the coverage of the Mahnoor story coincided with a landmark verdict of the Supreme Court, issued on Monday, which declared acid attacks more heinous than homicide. The ruling came with the dismissal of the appeal of a person who had been convicted of throwing acid on a young woman in Faisalabad.
Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar, who headed the three-member bench, observed in his judgment that perpetrators seek not only to injure but to destroy the victim’s identity and dignity, leaving a permanent reminder of their crime. The court urged the government to establish a National Acid Survivors’ Rehabilitation Fund.
The court made a very significant observation when it noted that such attacks have frequently been used as instruments of patriarchal control, particularly following rejected marriage proposals, sexual advances, dowry disputes and other forms of gender-based violence. Among other things, the court also recommended various measures to regulate the sale of acid and directed the relevant authorities to report measures taken in response to the judgment.
Coming back to where I began, I feel tempted to reproduce that poem, ‘Sindhi Woman’, though I am not sure if it fully synchronises with the rest of this column.
So, here it goes: “Barefoot through the bazar, / and with the same undulant grace / as the cloth blown back from her face, / she glides with a stone jar / high on her head / and not a ripple in her tread.
“Watching her cross erect / stones, garbage, excrement, and crumbs / of glass in the Karachi slums, / I, with my stoop, reflect / they stand most straight / who learn to walk beneath a weight”.
The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: [email protected]
