Hindu marriage laws
THE negligible implementation of the Hindu Marriage Act, 2017, applicable in Punjab, Balochistan and KP, reeks of our institutionalised prejudice. (Sindh has its own law on the subject.) Last week, at an event organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, activists expressed concern that marginalised sections were ignorant about laws that protect them, such as the opacity in the Hindu Marriage Act about who is authorised to solemnise Hindu nuptials. Signed into law six years ago, the edict’s journey has been paradoxical. Although a comprehensive document which breaks with severe traditions on many counts, its implementation has so far merely replaced a marriage photograph with a certificate. The majority of women from a frozen-out community in Pakistan continue to live without official documentation, consent and inheritance, and submit to underage marriage as well as social and domestic violence.
Meanwhile, where the law rescues Hindu women from stringent social confines, the Act’s clause 12(iii) declares that a marriage will be annulled if any of the spouses convert to another religion. This enables rampant exploitation and gives cover to the crimes of kidnapping and forced conversions of married women validated by fake certificates to prove consent to law-enforcement authorities. Moreover, the caste matrix is intrinsic to the Hindu community. Inter-caste marriages take place in the shadow of persecution, especially for the woman regardless of her place in the hierarchy. These intricacies require lawmakers to revisit the law and guarantee protection, equity and freedom to women in particular and lower-caste men. Pakistan took 69 years to legalise the most important social contract in a society for its Hindu citizens. The law needs to be pushed forward with other legislation centred around security and crime control. The state has come under repeated international flak for its record of failure in protecting and empowering minorities. Ground realities need to transform with the implementation of minority laws and widespread awareness to reflect change.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2023
Facing hunger
PAKISTAN’S hunger problem has been worsening for the last several years. There are multiple reasons for this deterioration, including but not limited to acute food shortages and increasing poverty both in the rural and urban areas. Last year, Pakistan was ranked 92nd by the Global Hunger Index out of 116 countries and placed alongside nations with a “level of hunger that is serious”. Almost 13pc of the country’s population is reported by the index to be undernourished. At least 7pc of children under five years are described as wasted and 37.6pc as stunted, with 6.7pc dying before reaching their fifth birthday. The World Food Programme had estimated that 43pc of Pakistanis are food-insecure, and 18pc of those face acute food insecurity.
In this backdrop, a UN-backed report says that an additional 8.6m people in the rural districts of the three provinces faced a serious food crisis during the last quarter of 2022 in the wake of the worst monsoon floods that hit the country in more than a decade, affecting 33m people from mostly poor households. A large number of such people — 5.2m — live in nine Sindh districts, 1.8m in seven KP districts and 1.6m in 12 districts of Balochistan. This should not be surprising because several reports by international agencies and non-profits working in the flood-affected areas had been warning of the developing food crisis even before the waters started receding. Especially vulnerable in this crisis are women and children. It can be said that the constantly growing food insecurity exacerbated by the floods is perhaps the biggest challenge confronting Pakistanis. The gravity of the situation can be assessed from recent events in which several people died in stampedes in different parts of the country while collecting free wheat flour during Ramazan. The war against hunger cannot be won just by providing free wheat flour and other staples. That is just a political gimmick. If the country is to achieve food security for all, the government would have to revamp agriculture, control surging prices to curb food inflation that is spiking to record highs, tackle poverty through the creation of jobs by encouraging private investment — particularly in agro-based industries — financially empower women, etc. This cannot be achieved overnight. But food insecurity and hunger will continue to worsen unless the government starts to deal with the problem.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2023
An unlikely nexus
THE enemy of my enemy is my friend, goes the ancient proverb which likely explains many an improbable alliance between disparate groups fighting a common enemy. The same logic would explain the contention that the TTP are forging a nexus with Baloch separatists (and with militant groups in Balochistan and KP), a view that has found space since several months on mainstream and social media.
Most recently, it was aired at a consultation in Islamabad on Pakistan’s policy options on Afghanistan. However, despite a spike in violence by both TTP and Baloch separatists across the country, no concrete evidence has yet been presented on such an alliance taking shape, let alone an instance being cited where the two militant actors have cooperated in any capacity.
Baloch separatist groups have maintained a tactical silence on possible collusion with the TTP; after all, why debunk claims that make them appear a more formidable foe? The TTP, meanwhile, has been actively promoting the claim that it has forged a nexus with Baloch militant outfits.
In December, it announced that a group led by Mazar Baloch had pledged allegiance to the TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud and that this would strengthen the TTP in Balochistan.
Since the umbrella organisation announced the end of the ceasefire agreed with the government, there has been a perceptible shift in its narrative towards a more political and nationalist rhetoric — likely an attempt to gain more acceptance among the Pakhtun population.
Its appeal to Baloch nationalist sentiment also fits into the same strategy, as a propaganda tactic. Experts at the aforementioned consultation in Islamabad also noted that the TTP and other local militant groups were filling the vacuum left by mainstream and nationalist political parties in KP.
In Balochistan, the exclusively security-centric lens through which the province has long been viewed, and which is also responsible for the lack of a truly representative government there, has created a fertile landscape for all manner of violent extremist outfits to proliferate and wreak havoc on the people.
These groups — some of which were once given carte blanche to hunt down Baloch separatists — are the TTP’s natural allies. The Baloch separatists, notwithstanding their demonstrated capacity for violence, are on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. One common factor, however, is that Afghanistan has become a safe space for both these adversaries of Pakistan.
But, as history is witness, contradictory alliances do happen: the lack of conclusive evidence at this point does not preclude the possibility of some sort of ‘working arrangement’ between the TTP and the Baloch separatists in the future. To prevent this, the state must without delay take the only path that has the prospect of long-term dividends — empower Balochistan in the true spirit of the 18th Amendment.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2023