IN THE CASE OF qatl-i-amd, an adult sane wali may, at any time on accepting badal-i-sulh, compound his right of qisas; Provided that giving a female in marriage shall not be a valid badal-i- sulh. (Sec 310(1), Pakistan Penal Code).

Human rights activists can derive some consolation from the fact that their campaigns against the denial of women’s rights have raised Pakistani elite’s consciousness of these matters and sometimes prompt response is possible. The latest instance is the Mianwali case in which the offering of eight girls as badal-i- sulh is being sought to be upset through suo motu proceedings initiated by the chief justice of the country and an executive order issued by the Punjab governor. And Aitzaz Ahsan has made an impassioned appeal for preventing any more of Meerwalas.

While these interventions are welcome, it is necessary to ensure that the focus of public anger is not confined to this case alone and that an attack is mounted on the root cause of a grave injustice to women, particularly little girls.

Two special features of this case need to be noted.

First, the compromise negotiated in this case relates to a trial under the penal code and not to proceedings before a jirga or community gathering. Thus, the normal law is being subverted through extra-legal arrangements. Therefore, while examining the practice of giving away women in marriage as badal-i-sulh the non-formal forms of settlement also need to be scrutinised. Secondly, in this case the terms of compromise negotiated between two persons sentenced to death for murder and the victims’ families became public. If the victim party had chosen to cover up the nefarious deal under a common statement that they have forgiven the killers, the matter might have been hushed up in the manner many murder cases are believed to be compounded. Both of these issues need to be critically examined by the custodians of the justice system, including the Law Commission.

However, it is time attention was paid to the giving away of girls in marriage as badal-i-sulh by jirgas and community forums.

Some time ago the Peshawar High Court decided a case in which an infant girl belonging to a murderer’s family was given in marriage to boy of the victim family. The girl was left with her parents for 25 years. Her husband declined to take her to his home and argued that as a badal-i-sulh wife she had no rights and he was free to dispose of her as he wished. The wife, after 25 years, started proceedings for dissolution of marriage and secured a decree in her favour. The husband came in appeal before the Peshawar High Court. The honourable judge not only upheld the decree in the woman’s favour but also pleaded for abolition of the ‘sawara’ custom, under which girls have been offered in settlement of tribal feuds in the Frontier region for decades. The judge also referred to Sec 310(1) of the PPC, which prohibits the offering of girls as badal-i-sulh and noted that no punishment had been prescribed for violations of this law.

No notice was taken by the masters of the Pakistani people’s destiny.

About two years ago, settlement of a feud was reported from Rajanpur district in the Punjab. At a tribal gathering attended by tribal and political notables of the area a six-year-old girl was given away in badal-i-sulh. The case was duly reported by the newspapers and the community was outraged.

These reports had no effect on the custodians of the state.

Last year a 6-year-old girl was given away in marriage to a much older man as badal-i-sulh in Jharak, Sindh. The newspapers protested against the horrible deal.

No notice was taken by the rulers.

The essential fact is that whether women are given away in forced marriage, often at a tender age, to settle disputes through normal courts or whether this is done at non-formal forums, the state cannot repel the charge of connivance with perpetrators of foul deeds. We have seen that jirgas where verdicts against women are passed are attended by political notables, district officials and now by Nazims, too. This amounts to official sanction for extra-legal forums of settling disputes. This must stop, otherwise the jirga system will continue to spread across the land, as has been happening over the past decade.

Take the present case. The Mianwali district authorities saw nothing wrong in the affair until the Supreme Court Chief Justice and the Punjab Governor took notice. In future too the administration will not react to such human rights abuses unless giving away of girls to end feuds started by their patriarchs is made a crime, which at the moment it is not. Thus:

1. The Pakistan Penal Code should be amended to make the offering of woman as badal-i-sulh a cognizable offence, carrying a stiff punishment.

2. The law of Qisas and Diyat needs to be reviewed. By removing murder from the list of offences against society and making it compoundable, the state has cleared the way for abuse of law. Murders are committed with confidence in the killers’ ability to win reprieve through a law that favours them.

3. The state must realise that by allowing total freedom to jirgas and similar forums it is helping the consolidation of a parallel system of justice. The situation is worse than what we had when jirga jurisdiction was limited under regulatory laws. If the state finds itself incapable of abolishing the jirga system it must at least, take steps to ensure that the powers of the jirgas are restricted so that they do not take and enforce decisions that are egregious abuses of human rights and cause indescribable anguish to the people and some embarrassment to state institutions.

4. The excesses against women cannot end until the laws that legitimise discrimination and cruelty against them, such as the Hudood ordinances in particular, are repealed.

5. The wrong that is done to women in Pakistan is not merely a law and order, or even a legal, issue. Determined affirmative action by the state is needed to change the social attitudes, to empower women, and to end gender imbalances.

ACCORDING to Islam, virtues fall into two broad categories i.e. those which are means, e.g., magnanimity, patience, repentance, truthfulness, and those which are means as well as ends, e.g., absolute reliance on God (tawakkul) and thankful praise (shukr) unto Him.

Magnanimity, like other virtues of the first category mentioned, is related to the present state of the working of one’s heart. It is an act which benefits persons other than those from whom the act proceeds without any obligation. The holy Quran mentions three types of believers with regard to pious conduct. Those who practise justice and fair-mindedness in their dealings belong to the group of Salihun (the righteous ones). In addition to this, if they observe magnanimity, they will be Muqarrabun (the near ones to God), and if they devoutly attend to their religious duties along with the above, they will be Siddiqun (the truthful ones).

As a matter of principle, Islamic civil code requires to treat one and all on the basis of truth and justice. Whoever has been oppressed, high or low, lord or common, patrician or plebeian, Arab or non-Arab has a right to retaliation equal to the harm done:

“...Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth and wounds equal for equal...” (Al-Ma’idah: 45).

By enforcing this equality, Islam has appreciably mitigated the horrors of the pre-Islamic custom of retaliation. It is just to meet the ends of justice and does, in no way, envisage returning evil for evil which in fact applied to the blood feuds of the Days of Ignorance. At another place in the holy Quran, this measure of equality is elaborated thus:

“O you who believe! The Law of Equality in punishment is prescribed to you in case of a murder: the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the woman for the woman...” (Al-Baqarah: 178).

However, Islam professes magnanimity and irrespective of faith, race, region, or colour, it honours the entire humanity. Mankind is raised to a position of dignity above the brute creation on the one hand and the angels, on the other. Then, man has been created in the best of mould, symmetry, form, nature and constitution. Hence, Allah exalted him higher than all other creations. In the Quran, the Almighty proclaims:

“And indeed We have honoured the children of Adam...” (Bani Isra’il: 70)

“And (remember) when We said to the angels: Prostrate yourselves before Adam...” (Al-Baqarah: 34)

Verily We created man of the best stature” (At-teen: 4)

Islam regards this honour as the birth-right of all persons and it is the duty of the state to protect this right without distinction. Islamic law takes man to even higher place and requires that decisions regarding reward and punishment of human actions will be taken by the Almighty not on the basis of their outward appearance but in accordance with their intention.

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “Actions are to be judged only by intentions.” At another place he observed, “The intention of the believer is better than his action.” Interpreting this Tradition, Imam Ghazali argued, “Intention without action is superior to action without intention since action without intention is not worship though intention without action is worship.”

This leads to the inference that the catalyst behind good actions is the desire for nearness to Allah unadulterated by any worldly or selfish motive. When action is motivated by this (one) force alone, the state of the self is called Ikhlas (single-mindedness in purpose) i.e. seeking the countenance of God ignoring all material objectives. The Quran commands:

“O you who believe! bow down and prostrate yourselves and worship your Lord and do good that you maybe successful.” (Al-Hajj: 77)

The Quran praises those “...who repress anger, and who pardon men; Verily Allah loves the good-doer.” (Aal-e-‘Imran: 134) Indeed a great heart can only pardon and confess mistakes. Hazrat Ali said that the following words were inscribed on the sword of the Holy Prophet: “Pardon one who does harm to you; join him who cuts you off, do good to him who does evil to you and speak the truth although it be against you.”

Hazrat Abu Hurairah reported the Prophet as saying, “Moses, son of Imran had asked, O my Lord! Who is the most honourable of Thy servants to Thee? He said: He who pardons when he is in a position of power.” The Almighty Allah forgives what is wrong and is able to fully appreciate and judge the value of our good deeds whether we make them known or hide them from others. The Quran ordains:

“Whether you (mankind) make open (by good words of thanks) a good deed (done to you in the form of a favour by someone) or conceal it or cover evil with pardon. Verily: Allah is ever oft-pardoning, All-powerful.” (An-Nisa: 149)

Islam practises what it preaches. It demands of every individual to always remember that he is part of the universe which is the creation of the most gracious, most merciful Creator whose blessings extend to all and sundry. Therefore, every one ought to make himself the manifestation of His attribute of mercy. Islamic legislation takes its magnanimity to perfection when it brings men, animals, plants and even inanimate objects, the earth, the heavens, to the slavery of God and obedience to the law of nature. The Quran declares:

“The seven heavens and the earth and all that is therein glorify Him and there is not a thing but celebrate His praise. But you understand not their praise. Truly He is oft-forbearing, most-forgiving.” (Bani Israi’l: 44)

The Prophet (peace be upon him) set an inimitable example of magnanimity on the occasion of the historical bloodless conquest of Makkah leading some ten thousand companions. The city which had treated him so cruelly for thirteen years, driven him and his faithful band to seek refuge amongst almost strangers, which had sworn his life and the lives of his devoted disciples, lay at his feet. His old persecutors, relentless and ruthless, were now completely at his mercy. But in the hour of his triumph, every evil suffered was forgotten, every injury inflicted was forgiven and a general amnesty was proclaimed. Tears in his eyes, the holy Prophet (peace be upon him) addressed the people of the vanquished city: “I will speak to you as Yusuf (A.S.) had spoken to his brothers:

“...No reproach on you this day, may Allah forgive you, and He is the most merciful of those who show mercy!” (Yusuf: 92).

POWER has been surely devolved in Karachi. But, then, power always has its own peculiar form and manifestations, which may be slowly sinking into the city’s psyche. While the cost of living continues to rise steadily, new taxes and cess are being sneaked in behind the smokescreen of the existing ones.

With private-public partnership being the dominant theme, power seems to be refusing to stop even at the level of elected Nazimeen. In fact, it appears to have profusely trickled down to the many tiers of bureaucracy in the city’s local government and cantonment boards and many of their contractors roving all over the city.

The most touching of stories doing the rounds in Karachi these days are not about legal and illegal abductions, car hijacking, water shortage or ephemeral electricity that we have got thoroughly used to, the latest injury comes from being ripped off, seven or eight times each day, in the name of charged parking and public transport during some eighteen or twenty hours that an average Karachiite is forced to be out on the street while trying to survive.

Every street outside the city parks, playgrounds, hospitals, or business districts’ bylanes and the barricaded service lanes of the seaside esplanade appear to have been illegally converted into charged-parking zones, crawling with “authorized contractors” giving red nose to unsuspecting citizen.

A motorist narrated his ordeal that he had to undergo last week. He had the misfortune of visiting Progressive Plaza behind the PIDC building last Wednesday and his ordeal began when he engaged one of those men parking vehicles in Karachi’s business districts. Looking at the completely filled parking spaces and before handing over the vehicle, he inquired where his car would be parked. One of the parked vehicles should make room for his vehicle, came the answer. However, on his return half an hour later, he was shocked to hear that he was supposed to pay twice the normal charge of Rs10. The two Seraiki bouncers (appearing to be brothers) and their third comrade-in-arms told him that they had been authorized by the City District Government Karachi to extricate the due sum. His feeble attempts to resist paying separately for parking and parking slot were met with threats of dire consequences. With an imposing mobile parked nearby, he quietly paid in full yet received only one receipt for Rs10 bearing the seal and numbers A10634 of Bismillah Group.

That same evening another Karachiite having the misfortune of visiting Uni- Lever offices adjacent to Avari Towers met with a somewhat similar fate. After having been refused facility at the near-empty basement parking ‘for security reasons’ and unable to find a decent parking space, he decided to leave his car on the footpath on the other side of the road next to the kachra kundi (dustbin) at the mercy of heroin addicts heaving nearby or at the risk of being craned away by the authorities.

As he got out of his vehicle, a gentleman claiming authority bestowed by the cantonment board slapped a receipt of Rs10 for charged parking. When the unfortunate visitor tried to reason out that charged parking should only apply to properly designated and marked parking spaces, he too was threatened with dire consequences. Finding himself surrounded by many uniformed and un- uniformed men he realized he had no option but to quietly pay. The amusing thing about these incidents is that both receipts accepted no responsibility for safety of vehicle.

Even after 55 years of independence we have failed to develop a decent parking facility in the city. Hotels, banks and other commercial centres are officially declining parking facilities for ‘security reasons.’ Obviously, this is not something temporary and in the environment of exploding bombs and flying bullets one fears that the existing parking facilities in the city are going to be converted into warehouses or shops and offices, with the tacit approval of the corrupt amongst the authorities.

Mere charged parking on footpaths and near municipal dustbins is not a solution to Karachi’s traffic or parking problem. Unfortunately, the city can neither solve its financial woes nor the charged-parking scam appears to be helping to regulate traffic in commercial or congested areas. The city’s total income from charged parking was less than two per cent of its last year’s revenues and this may go down further this year. However, it may soon become the biggest source of corruption in the local bodies since the abolition of octroi in June 1999.

While the federal government and local authorities haggle over the type and mechanism of a public transport system, Karachi must find a solution to the ever-increasing pressure on its parking spaces. It is about time that the city authorities seriously begin considering development of multi-storied parking plazas at least in commercial centres.

The defunct KMC had tried to develop multi-storied parking plazas, but even the first of its intended joint ventures with the PSO, behind the head offices of the state-sector giant in Clifton, failed due to the greed of the city’s powerful builders’ mafia. The plot for the intended amenity was, instead, commercialized and ultimately pawned off to a well-connected builder. That story if elaborated may well fall in the purview of state treason and should rather be left at that.

A public parking plaza with ground plus four stories on one acre of land can hold up to five hundred vehicles at one time. The education department’s property near Merewether Tower, or an acre out of the six belonging to the Pakistan Postal Services on I. I. Chundrigar Road, or the abandoned two and a half acre of the Pakistan Sports’ Board on M. A. Jinnah Road, or an acre out of more than eleven housing the PWD barracks in Saddar, or the redundant ejector plot near Empress Market, or the KMC flats or its sprawling bungalows at Teen Talwar, or an acre out of Jheel Park near Tariq Road, could well be numerous readily available government properties suitable for the urgently needed parking plazas in the city.

The so-called argument of high cost of construction and low financial returns is not relevant anymore as the city has failed to provide a decent public transport to its people. A right of nearly a million owners and their families to safely park their precious vehicles is as important as a glass of drinking water.

AFFLICTIONS alone do not come together. Literary events too have this tragic predilection. Earlier there was a spate of events featuring Faiz. The attention these days is on Saadat Hassan Manto. The Academy of Letters held a well attended seminar on Manto some days back that Intezar Hussain wrote about in his Dawn column last week. He was one of the speakers there and had not liked Mansha Yaad’s dismissive categorization of Manto as a realist. That they were all in those days. But Manto was a phenomenon of an altogether different chemistry. Besides being a realist, he was also a rebellious soul. Fearless and blunt, he was no camp-follower of any group. His relentless, uncompromisingly independent outlook piqued all kinds of like-minded people. None on the right and few on the left were able to take kindly to this loner trait in him.

Smuttiness was not the only charge against him. In fact it was an excuse for he endangered more than prudish morals. The threat perception encompassed the thicker masks of the establishment on which the society’s smooth functioning depended. Patriotic feeling was then strong and highly strung up about national issues. But Manto could feel differently on sensitive matters like Partition on which liberals of all persuasions and progressives of most hues tended to have consensual views. His exclusion from publications of Progressive Writers Association along with Quratulain Hyder points to this total fear psychosis that swamped both the establishment and the intellectual front. It was not just Manto’s ‘fohoshnigari’.

This very aspect of Manto’s independent response to Partition has been discussed in a very probing and thoughtful article by Rukhsana Ahmad in the latest issue of Pakistani Literature, an Academy of Letters publication devoted to new English writings from Pakistan featuring essays on literary issues, short fiction and poetry.

Rukhsana Ahmad quotes Alok Bhalla’s observation on Manto’s growing perception that “the teleological drive” of the entire nationalist past is towards the carnage of the Partition” ... the Partition, he (Manto) is convinced, is not an unfortunate rupture in historical time but a continuation of it. “The paralysing confusion that Manto faced on arrival in Pakistan is described in his own words:

“It felt as though several films were running on the screen simultaneously all mixed up I couldn’t comprehend where I was. I would sit on a chair all day, lost in thoughts but when I attempted to write I found my head filled with confusion. Despite several attempts I could not separate India from Pakistan and Pakistan from India. Again and again I would be thrown by a question that presented itself: Is Pakistani literature going to be separate too from now on? And if it will, then how? Who owns all that was written in undivided India? Is that going to be divided too.”

This controversial issue of divisibility of literature on grounds of culture, religion and politics is discussed in another article in the same issue of Pakistani Literature that Intezar Hussain wrote in 1996 entitled The problem of Pakistani identity and writers. Intezar Hussain traces the controversy from its beginning when the concept of “Pakistani Adab” was formulated by writers like Dr Taseer, Hassan Askari and Mumtaz Shirin. Progressive writers had spurned it. Faiz had asked why the issue was not raised before Partition. Culture, he thought, was a facet of evolution of identity, implying we were a new nation. Askari warned against that thinking. “If we forget the aspect of oldness of Pakistan, we will not be able to keep East Pakistan and West Pakistan within one state for long.”

But the new nation idea had a kind of magic, Intezar Hussain explains, citing Faiz in its support. Askari explained his old nation concept in terms of evolution of an Indo-Islamic culture that Gilani Kamran thought helped shape the awareness of a national identity and led to Pakistan. It was a composite of common history, common cultural consciousness and a common heritage. But that granted, why has this identity become controversial after the birth of Pakistan, asks Intezar Hussain. There is much weight in his answer to this question. The Muslim identity had grown in contrast with the Hindu milieu. With the loss of that reference, the identity grew blurred. Regional contours started surfacing. To seek oneness we went back to Moenjodero which meant owning a large non-Muslim past and disowning East Pakistan. Faiz ultimately resolved the dilemma by declaring religion to be the basis of our culture. But this could not hold for long when Bangladesh came into being. So what have we from Manto’s “paralyzing confusion” to Faiz’s shifting views on the question of national identity. In the words of Dr Wazir Agha, ours is a state of cultural anarchy, “saqafti ghadar”.

Zulfikar Ghose in his very illuminating essay, Orwell and I dwells on a narrower aspect of nationalism — “the great imbecility that afflicts humanity” — that tends to colour the norms English literature produced by non-white people is judged by. The very fact of its categorization as African, Asian or Third World writing ensures its lower placement in the order of literary importance. You are read out of curiosity then, and sometimes looked up for reference in an anthology, your burial ground. Post colonial guilt may get you a place even if you are inferior to your white contemporaries. But the fact of your untouchability remains. You are in demand because you can be labelled.

Pakistani Literature that features some of our prominent English language writers like Bapsi Sidhwa, Muneeza Shamsie, M Salim-ur-Rahman, Kamila Shamsie, Razeshta Sethna, Daud Kamal, Alamgir Hashmi, Raja Changez Sultan, Harris Khalique, Adrian Hussain, Ejaz Rahim and several new writers and poets, will be read with enthusiasm in Pakistan as the lure of recognition abroad coaxes many contemporaries here to know what others are doing. But the thought that our genius in the English language is measured under labels and that we are read out of curiosity, for reference, and recognized out of post-colonial guilt is more than a bit damping. Ghose’s comforting words that time would reveal the merit ultimately provide no solace. Yet, if you want your Booker now, get your copy of Pakistani Literature. You have to know who you are pitted against.