Indian actress Swara Bhaskar called Pakistan a “failing state” on an Indian talk show while promoting her film “Veere Di Wedding,” which has been banned in Pakistan. States cannot fail for merely banning films, they fail because of something much more insidious — the policing of women, the control of their bodies and the impunity with which they harm their bodies and dignity. By these standards, Pakistan of course has a ghastly record: Honor killings alone average 1,000 a year, while laws and their implementation remain weak.
India, however, has no fork to stick in Pakistan’s eyes. Under no banner can it claim a better status or even slightly higher moral ground. When it comes to the status of women in South Asia generally, we are more similar than different. If India is better off in inclusion in the workplace, Pakistan is better off in rape data, and if India is worse off in rituals like “sati,” Pakistan is worse off in feudal areas, where women are denied agency so land is kept among family men.
What strikes me as very deeply troubling is when an empowered woman from one part of “town” shames a woman from another part when, frankly, the shame is ours collectively. Birth location is nothing to brag about. Rarely is a South Asian man non-toxic in his masculinity and rarely are South Asian states benevolent toward women. This India-Pakistan war rhetoric has cost women the most — lost sons, raped daughters, murdered husbands and stolen wealth — so let the women themselves, at the least, cry halt on propagating jingoism.
Fifty civil servants in India wrote in protest to what they thought was the Narendra Modi government’s callous indifference to the rape of an eight-year-old Kashmiri girl. “In post-Independence India, this is our darkest hour and we find the response of our government and the leaders of our political parties inadequate and feeble,” they wrote. In this girl’s rape case, police, priests and influential local Hindus deliberately sent a message to the minority Muslim nomad community in Kathua. It was as much a hate crime as it was a rape.
Women’s solidarity networks cannot work when there is a shaming contest based on nationalism. States, both India and Pakistan, are terribly complacent when it comes to protecting women.
Aisha Sarwari
If women are treated with hate in India — take the infamous Delhi rape case of 2012 — what then of intersectional or multi-disadvantaged women? Mere firewood. Society in this area wages war on women relentlessly. Patriarchy is often blamed, but when the state covers it up it is not patriarchy — it is a crime against humanity. Government officials were complicit in hiding the details of how this child was abducted for days, drugged, gang-raped in a temple, murdered with a blunt stone and thrown in a bush.
The victim’s lawyer, Deepika Singh Rawat, has documented this cover-up, but has since faced death threats and extreme harassment. Relentless in her fight, Rawat is what we need so desperately. I also wonder what her answer would be if she was asked to give an example of a failing state.
Feminism should be the Rawat kind of feminism: Revolutionary. It doesn’t beg for dog treats in exchange for playing dead. It doesn’t ask for concessions — it shows the proverbial high-heeled shoe to the world’s most militarized zone. Her feminism doesn’t look at her birth religion, location or her caste. These are the secular values that both India and Pakistan have lost. The difference: One has a label of secular and the other does not.
Merely rebranding feminism — for example with fun films where women have amazing choices — is not what the radical feminists set out to achieve. Rebranding women’s rights to make them soft and unthreatening enough for more people to partake will not protect young minority women from being harmed. It will just expand the cult of feminism.
Women’s solidarity networks cannot work when there is a shaming contest based on nationalism. States, both India and Pakistan, are terribly complacent when it comes to protecting women. Making films about how women can gain empowerment by choosing what they want is all well and good, and even admirable, but truly speaking the truth to those in power, even in the midst of war, is what makes women heroic. The lead role of Rawat is what more women need to play on both sides of town, off screen and on.
Aisha Sarwari is the co-founder of the Women’s Advancement Hub, a grassroots platform for women to amplify their voices. She has been working on women’s rights in Pakistan for more than 15 years. Twitter: @AishaFSarwari
