By Ishtiaq Ahmed

Date:17-10-06

Source: Daily Times

The information one gets from human rights organisations from both the Pakistani and Indian Punjab is that sexual harassment of low caste/low community women is widespread

I have had the privilege of freely visiting both sides of the Punjab. The two Punjabs are similar, but also different in many ways, one being the situation of women.

The differences are easily noticeable. East Punjab has been a progressive state within the Indian Union and has done well economically and educationally. Girls and women enjoy much greater freedom of movement in that part and have higher visibility in the social and cultural life of towns and cities.

In my search for oral histories on Punjab’s partition in 1947 my assistant Vicky and I and later Hitesh Gosain and Virinder Singh visited many villages. To my great surprise the doors were almost always open and one could literally walk into any house and talk to the women — young, middle-aged and old. Often we would ask for the male head of the family, and if he were not home we would be told where to find him.

In sharp contrast, when Ahmad Salim and I visited villages in the Pakistani Punjab there was no question of seeing a female face. I don’t know if it was always like this since I am a city bird, having lived all my 26 years in Pakistan in the urban centres.

There is, however, no doubt that more and more girls in the Pakistani Punjab go to school and college and the old Lahore-Rawalpindi Grand Trunk road is filled with girls going to and coming back from school and college. Invariably, they move in groups and are almost always on foot.

I am told that during the Khalistan insurgency women were forced away from the public sphere in East Punjab too. But that has changed for the better. In Pakistan the grip of fundamentalist Islam remains firm and I don’t know when moderate Islam will begin to make a difference to the lives of ordinary people. Arranging one mixed marathon in Gujranwala — once a sleepy old town of pehalwans (wrestlers) and their akharas (wrestling and training arenas) but now a stronghold of gun-totting jihadis and their madrassas — is hardly indicative of any change.

However, common to both Punjabs is the fact that women who belong to the lowest sections of society — low status communities in the Pakistani Punjab and Dalits in the Indian Punjab — continue to be sexually exploited by the affluent and those exercising authority within the rural social structures. Let me give two examples.

I received an urgent appeal issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission that Miss G and her mother M were gang-raped in Kabirwala (a hamlet close to Multan) and the criminals were the henchmen of a provincial law minister. Please note that we were dealing with someone supposed to uphold law and monitor human rights violations in the Pakistani Punjab!

The two unfortunate women belonged to a depressed community or caste called Batti (presumably a different caste altogether from Bhatti who are Rajputs). The mother and daughter were first abducted and then gang-raped. Miss G had managed to educate herself and secured an MA in Education, notwithstanding opposition from the upper castes. She was working as a teacher in a school, but her services were terminated and she and her family were allegedly told to leave Kabirwala by the police and the civil administration.

The second case is that of a Dalit girl, B, of village Burj Jhabbar in Mansa district, East Punjab. She was gang-raped on 6 July 2002. Her father went to the police who initially refused to file an FIR. However, public protests forced the police to register an FIR a month later. It led to convictions of three assaulters, all of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment.

However, the Sarpanch (headman) of the Panchayat and his elder brother, an ex-sarpanch — both local leaders of the Congress party — became sworn enemies of the girl’s father. He was first attacked in August 2005, then again a second time in December 2005 and finally on 5 January 2006 allegedly by minions of the headmen. His arms and one leg were badly injured and had to be amputated. Those involved in the atrocity have not been arrested yet.

Throughout this terrible ordeal the police and the civil administration were most reluctant to help even though the girl’s father belonged to a radical peasant organisation, the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha, and was able to mobilise mass protests and demonstration all the way to the capital Delhi. Even the Indian Zee TV showed a defiant and fearless fellow lying on a cot with his arms and one leg severed from his frail body. An FIR has now been registered against the headman and his brother.

It can be argued that gang rape is rare and one should not pass a harsh judgment on the overall situation in the two Punjabs. But the information one gets from human rights organisations from both the Pakistani and Indian Punjab is that sexual harassment of low caste/low community women is widespread. Short of rape and grievous physical assault, many other injuries and indignities can be inflicted on the poor in the rural areas.

Poverty, low status, and stigma deriving from the caste system in the Indian Punjab and its variant of biradari system on the Pakistani side, combine to deny millions of human beings their basic right to be recognised as human beings. It also renders them vulnerable to unpaid or underpaid labour, and in the case of women to sexual exploitation. That is surely not the type of Punjab we want to idolise and idealise on both sides of the border.

The writer is an associate professor of political science at Stockholm University. He is the author of two books. His email address is Ishtiaq.Ahmed@statsvet.su.se