Suppression of Aurat March: How patriarchy, power and religion assault on women’s rights
Some images refuse to fade with time. That image was difficult to ignore then, and remains difficult to erase from our minds today. Pakistani police using force against 75-year-old activist Sheema Kermani continues to haunt the conscience of civilised societies and humanity to this day. Her unlawful and disrespectful detention drew strong criticism of the police authorities and the government from across the spectrum.
What was her crime? Murder, violence, vandalism or incitement? None of these. She just wanted the government to issue permission for the Aurat March, an annual peaceful event on feminism in Pakistan. If Pakistan’s one of the most respected artists and women’s rights campaigners was subjected to such ill-treatment, one can just imagine the plight of women activists and protesters in the country. In the name of maintaining law and order, the Pakistani agencies stooped to the level of preventing Kermani from holding a press conference.
Police justified their action by saying it was just the detention of Kermani for a couple of hours. As the incident led to an uproar, a few police personnel were suspended. While it may look like a local dispute, it reveals the broader problem of shrinking space for civil activism, dissent, and freedom of speech, particularly when that activism is led by women. While the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan guarantees freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, these rights appear to have remained decorative promises.
Why are women activists often targetted by the police authorities? Are they involved in some kind of mischief or, simply, as is every autocratic government’s popular rhetoric, anti-national activities. The answer is no. These women are fighting against gender-based violence, discrimination and seeking equal rights.
Is this not guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan? But some religious groups, conservative politicians, and the bureaucracy find this offensive and provocative. They perceive the demands for bodily autonomy, freedom from violence, forced marriage, and harassment raised by women activists as embodiments of ‘harmful’ Western liberal ideas rather than those rooted religion-influenced local culture.
In recent years, women activists have continued facing increased scrutiny. Online threats and harassment, disinformation campaigns, legal complaints, bureaucratic hurdles in getting permission for rallies, and even physical attacks by pro-patriarchical activists have become common. But what is alarming is the proactive role being played by the government of Pakistan to curb the women’s rights movement.
Many women activists have explained different modes of harassment employed by the government agencies to harass them in the name of law and public order. Their demonstrations are often lebelled as foreign-funded or anti-cultural. Besides legal and bureaucratic pressure, government agencies have been found to have resorted to surveillance of activists following the demonstrations. Some have even been detained, like what happened to Kermani, and even booked under severe criminal laws.
Patriarchy that is deeply rooted in the socio-religious character of Pakistan appears to be the primary factor. Women’s demands for equal inheritance rights, freedom from domestic violence, reproductive autonomy, and the right to occupy public spaces without restrictions, sit uneasily with Pakistan’s patriarchal social order, particularly its male-dominated bureaucracy, political class, and security establishment.
Women’s rights movements in Pakistan, especially the Aurat March, have been affected by misinformation and disinformation through doctored videos, altered placards, false social media claims, and misleading portrayals of slogans, among others. There has hardly been any action from government agencies.Shockingly, the Islamabad government failed miserably to protect women activists from physical abuse during demonstrations.
When any downtrodden community struggles and fights for its rights, the state’s response matters. So comes in the limelight the role of Islamabad government. Leave support aside, women activists often find government officials and politicians being critical of their cause and demands. These women activists are denied even their basic rights to hold protests as the government uses every possible trick to ban peaceful demonstrations and peaceful assemblies.
Moreover, there is immense pressure from radical Islamist groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), which find the slogans and demands of Aurat march in conflict with religious values and in violation of traditional family set-up. In a country where the Blasphemy law dominates over everything else, such extremist groups can easily carry out character assasination of women’s rights movements, provoke public emotions, and get legal cases registered against activists with ease.
The suppression of the Aurat March and broader women rights movements arises from the interaction of several ill-factors infesting Pakistani socio-political structure. Aurat March has become one of Pakistan’s most contested civil society movements, and it is gaining traction in the country, no matter how hard authorities try to suppress it. Ultimately, it has exposed the limits of public dissent, the role of patriarchy and religion in controlling women, and the real face of constitutional freedoms in contemporary Pakistan.
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