Where are the Questioning Minds?

Harish-hyd: #159, #170; Majumdar: #177; and Netizen:

Thanks for trying to get my point across to Mantolives (Yassir Hamdani, Doesn`t he remind you of Arafat at Washington meeting when he scuttled the great peace potential of Clinton?). Frankly, I have despaired of getting the point across to him. I think the situation is unsalvadgeable. I am sorry, that you are hearing what you are for getting him to understand the trivial point I had tried to make.

I thought that Hamdani was knowledgeable about History and its development but apparently, hemay have read History but understood little of it.

As for Gandhi Ji, so many trivial analyses have been made of the Man of the Millennium that another one from Hamdani is forgettable.

#184 by Mantolives

[According to Harish Hyd 95% of the Muslims in the world are ofcourse hypocrites when they talk of women`s empowerment because somehow by following the religious bar on women marrying outside the faith they are automatically disqualified from such claims.]

Of course a resounding Yes! But not just Muslims, 95% of Hindus are hypocrites as well, for they violate the very basic meaning of the word ``empower`` by not allowing women the freedom to think for themselves. You are either pregnant or you are not. You can`t be both, can you Yasser?

#182 by Mantolives

[Jinnah`s decision to oppose his daughter`s wedding to a Parsi (just like Nehru`s decision to oppose his daughter`s wedding) might be hypocritical for the simple reason that he himself had contracted such a wedding... but it by no means has any bearing on his fighting for women`s empowerment.]

If this is what you believe, then I`m afraid you haven`t understood the meaning of the word ``empowerment``. ``To empower`` means conferring the power on the weak the right to think and act as they deem fit. Please look up a dictionary if it helps.

[Like I pointed out you are missing the issue completely]

You argued that Jinnah was scared that his rivals may take advantage of his daughter`s wedding and label him a Kafir, while the fact is that never in his life was he scared of a far more Kafir-esque fact (that he loved Ham sandwiches and enjoyed his Whisky), which to most practising Muslims was not only disgusting, but also an unforgivable sin.

[... but then thats the old Indian way of arguing...]

If speaking logically is the Indian way, what is the Paki way? Is it the opposite?

[Jinnah`s wife was an active part of society... his daughter was well educated and an active part of society... his sister was an active part of society... Gandhi on the other hand stopped the women in his life to participate actively in national life... Jinnah`s wife walked side by side her husband... Gandhi`s wife walked three steps behind him.]

That doesn`t disprove the fact that Jinnah said one thing for public consumption while practising exactly the opposite. A hypocrite`s words carry no weight.

The difference between Gandhi and Jinnah

“This civilization is irreligion, and it has taken such a hold on the people in Europe who are in it appear to be half mad. They lack real physical strength or courage. They keep up their energy by intoxication. They can hardly be happy in solitude. Women, who should be the queens of households, wander in the streets or they slave away in factories. For the sake of a pittance, half a million women in England alone are labouring under in factories or similar institutions. This awful fact is one of the causes of the daily growing suffragette movement`` : Mohandas KaramChand Gandhi


And


No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you. We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of their houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable conditions in which our women have to live. You should take your women along with you as comrades in every sphere of life.`` Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Founder of Pakistan)


--

According to Harish Hyd 95% of the Muslims in the world are ofcourse hypocrites when they talk of women`s empowerment because somehow by following the religious bar on women marrying outside the faith they are automatically disqualified from such claims.

And all this obfuscation to defend Gandhi who was a self admitted misogynist in the Maulana Israr mould?

Only Harish Hyd!

Harish Hyd,

Nope I am afraid your conclusions are just plain wrong.

Jinnah`s decision to oppose his daughter`s wedding to a Parsi (just like Nehru`s decision to oppose his daughter`s wedding) might be hypocritical for the simple reason that he himself had contracted such a wedding... but it by no means has any bearing on his fighting for women`s empowerment.

Like I pointed out you are missing the issue completely... but then thats the old Indian way of arguing...

Jinnah`s wife was an active part of society... his daughter was well educated and an active part of society... his sister was an active part of society... Gandhi on the other hand stopped the women in his life to participate actively in national life... Jinnah`s wife walked side by side her husband... Gandhi`s wife walked three steps behind him.

#178 by Mantolives

[You are deliberately distorting the point]

What did I distort? You`re the one who claimed that I said Jinnah stopped Dina`s marriage to a non-Muslim which I never said.

[... If Jinnah did not stop his daughter`s wedding and merely disliked it then what is your problem with it?]

And did Gandhi prevent women from taking active part in whatever field they wished to? Yet you (and Miss Aisha) have problems with that.

[So he addressed her as Mrs Wadia (a claim that Dina Wadia contested in her interview in Christopher Mitchell`s documentary) - how does that show that he did not promote women in politics, social life and economics?]

I said how can a man who opposes his daughter`s wedding to a non-Muslim (which he himself had done some years ago) ever talk about empowerment of women? And if he does, he`s merely being a hypocrite.

[The lame excuse you are talking about is a fact. JUH and Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam were calling him Kafir-e-Azam all through out this period.]

So are you agreeing that Jinnah was afraid of being labeled a Kafir? You expect us to believe that a man who was never afraid of his eating and drinking habits was suddenly scared of being labeled a Kafir when his daughter wanted to marry a non-Muslim? If indeed what you say is true, doesn`t speak too highly of the man, does it? Just because someone (of Jinnah`s stature) is scared of being called a Kafir, he prevents his daughter from marrying the man she loved?

[The issue here is not whether Jinnah and Nehru disliked their daughter`s weddings or whether Gandhi almost got a heart attack to learn of his son`s conversion...]

Gandhi`s reservations on his son`s conversion to Islam were not baseless. This is what he said in a letter, and you can find the entire letter here.

``If his acceptance was from the heart and free from any worldly considerations, I should have no quarrel. For I believe Islam to be as true a religion as my own.``

[The issue here is whether Jinnah, Nehru and Gandhi stood for complete participation of women in Economy, Politics..]

How can a man who doesn`t acknowledge his daughter`s right to marry a man of her choice be sincere about participation of women in all spheres of life? At least Gandhi was not guilty of hypocrisy. He only said what he believed in, and not one for public consumption and another in practice.

Yes.

This brings me to my original objection to this article:

The author claims that British promoted patriarchy in South Asia... when they actually improved the lot of the women in South Asia...

Islam and Hinduism as systems are both staunchly patriarchal and grounded in the tradition of male domination. Before the British came, women in South Asia lived in woeful conditions....

It was only after British introduced modern laws and brought Muhammadan and Hindu laws in strict conformity with English Jurisprudence that it was possible to liberate women of South Asia.

Re: # 178

Didn`t Gandhi oppose the suffrage movement as ``ravanna raj`` and Jinnah support it?

Harish hyd,

You are deliberately distorting the point ... If Jinnah did not stop his daughter`s wedding and merely disliked it then what is your problem with it? So he addressed her as Mrs Wadia (a claim that Dina Wadia contested in her interview in Christopher Mitchell`s documentary) - how does that show that he did not promote women in politics, social life and economics? The lame excuse you are talking about is a fact. JUH and Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam were calling him Kafir-e-Azam all through out this period.

The issue here is not whether Jinnah and Nehru disliked their daughter`s weddings or whether Gandhi almost got a heart attack to learn of his son`s conversion... The issue here is whether Jinnah, Nehru and Gandhi stood for complete participation of women in Economy, Politics..

Jinnah and Nehru seemed to be inspired completely by the western model and supported women`s rights in all spheres... Gandhi on the other hand did not...

Kapeesh?


Majumdar..

It is how he worded ``equal in love`` which shows that he indeed thinks that.

Re #165

Dear Manto:


He wrote:

``She may not share my interests in Physics, Philososphy, and Mathematics but we both consider each other equal in love!!! ``

... those two last words ``in love`` indicate a freudian slip.

The whole sentence is representative of a patriarchal ethic ... where the South Asian Male is doing Physics, Philosophy and Mathematics with his wife doing the nice wifely duty of doing Puja Paat in the morning and putting through Karwa Chauth because the laat sahab Mahatma Inquirer can declare ``oh she is my equal in love- so what if she can`t do Physics thats because she is a woman.``


It is not fair to call the man a misogynist/patriarchist just because he claims that his wife does not share his interest in Physics, Philiosophy or Maths. Many women and in fact most men don’t either. I for instance have limited interest in Physics and Maths and none whatsoever in Philosophy . But yes if the issuer of the statement claims that all women don’t or are by and large incapable of appreciating these subjects, then he is a MCP.

#173 by Mantolives

[Please show us where Jinnah stopped his daughter from marrying the Parsi gentleman ?]

First show me where I used the word “stopped”. Again, you are deliberately misquoting me by using words that I never uttered.

[Jinnah was opposed to his daughter`s wedding for whatever reason (mostly political because already the Congress Allies - the Majlis-e-Ahrar and JUH- were declaring him ``Kafir-e-Azam`` for having married a ``Kafira``]

Jinnah could happily eat pork and drink Whisky and not be afraid of the consequences, yet when his daughter wanted to marry a Parsi, he suddenly became fearful of what the “Congress” allies would label him? You see the lame excuse you’re trying to pass off as a valid reason?

[Infact he accepted her decision to do so and later used to carry his grandchildren`s photographs in his wallet.]

The fact that Jinnah always addressed his daughter as Mrs. Wadia shows that he never forgave his daughter.
[Nehru also was opposed to his daughter`s wedding and infact even created hurdles in her wedding life unlike Jinnah... and Gandhi- for all his hypocrisy - reacted very violently to his son`s conversion to Hinduism.]

Let’s leave out Nehru who even I accept opposed his daughter’s wedding. Gandhi didn’t like his son’s conversion to Islam, but what do you mean by “reacted violently”. Did he engineer riots? Did he pick up a gun and shoot his son?

I wrote this article before I discovered the truth about Gandhi`s misogyny so please don`t be excited about the statement I make vis a vis women`s inclusion in Gandhian freedom movement...


http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=115710



Feminist dimension of the Pakistan Movement
Monday August 15, 2005 (0532 PST)

Yasser Latif Hamdani
yasser.hamdani@gmail.com


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Nationalism and Feminism in Asia have gone hand in hand historically. Populist Nationalism could not afford to ignore the women. It was the women who thus formed the vanguard of popular movements, struggles, electoral battles and even war. So is true of South Asia. Annie Besant, the famous English theosophist, could be regarded as one of the pioneers of women’s participation in politics. So too were women like Srojini Naidu and Ruttie Jinnah, Jinnah’s wife, who rose to fame as quick-witted Indian Nationalists. Amongst the conservative Muslims we saw Ali Brothers’ mother Bi Amman jump into the fray at ripe old age in the non-cooperation and Khilafat movement. Later Gandhian freedom struggle also saw active women’s participation. Kasturba Gandhi, Kamla Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Arun Asaf Ali are some of the names of the more famous women in the Indian freedom struggle. This was not all. It was in Lahore in 1931 that the Asian Women’s Movement was born. That first conference of barely 20 activists today has grown into a vibrant movement with network all over Asia. However by and large Muslim women remained oblivious to such developments.

It was the exponential rise of progressive Muslim nationalism of the Aligarh variety in 1930s, based on the twin planks of modernity and reform brought the common Muslim woman out of seclusion and into mainstream. It was around this time that Shaista Ikramullah became the first Muslim woman to earn a PhD and Abida Sultan became the third woman pilot in the entire Islamic world. Both were ardent Muslim Leaguers and later served Pakistan in several official and unofficial capacities. But more than this it was the Muslim League and its leadership that for the first time asked the common Muslim women to shun “chador” and “char dewari” to become part and parcel of the political struggle. It had all begun with the Muslim League resolution in 1932 promising complete and total political equality to women. Later the League became more active in supporting Muslim women’s liberation. For one thing Mahomed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, had been an activist for the Suffrage movement in his student days in London. He was genuinely distressed to see the state of women in the Muslim community something which he alluded to on several occasions. He famously said:

``No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.`` (taken from the US Library of Congress report ``Pakistan - A Country Study``)

In order to reinforce this notion he made sure his sister was always by his side during his campaigns and political engagements. He no doubt realized more than anyone else in the Muslim community how essential women’s participation was to his struggle. After all women’s participation meant doubling the number of voters and twice the number of agitators. Anis Haroon writes in his essay that women threw off their dopattas and made flags out of them for the movement. Thus Jinnah galvanized the Muslim women into a lean mean fighting machine and enlisted the feminists amongst Muslims to work for the cause of Muslim women and to break the shackles of the religio-feudal order that had reinforced Chador and Char devari particularly in the areas of Punjab and NWFP. The effect was electric. Muslim women came out in large numbers attending Muslim League meetings, talking against the maulvis and agitating against the Unionist government. In the closing stages of the civil disobedience movement in Punjab more than 500 Muslim League women courted arrest in one day. It was here that the most famous incident of the Pakistan movement saw a young woman, Fatima Sughra, jump the fence of the Lahore secretariat, climb up onto the top, throw away the British Union Jack and hoist the Muslim League flag up instead. In NWFP where Purdah is still unheard of, Muslim League women courted arrest while protesting against Dr Khan Sahab’s ministry without a Purdah.

Brilliant young women poets and writers like Mumtaz Shahnawaz were amongst the agitators. Mumtaz Shahnawaz, whose mother Jahanara Shahnawaz was a stalwart of the Pakistan movement and the first woman in Asia to preside over a legislative session, has left behind a touching novel on the crucial events of partition called “Heart Divided”. Written from the Muslim League perspective, it tells the story of the struggle for Pakistan and the women’s sacrifices for the nation state.
Mumtaz Shahnawaz died at the age of 35 in a plane crash months after the creation of Pakistan, en route to New York to represent Pakistan at the UN General Assembly. Before leaving for New York, she had told her mother to work towards making Pakistan a progressive state, the reason why they had toiled and struggled for its creation. Her death was mourned not just by Jinnah but Nehru and Atlee as well who she knew very well.

There was a strong feminist dimension in the Pakistan movement. Women like Shaista Ikramullah, Jahanara Shahnawaz, Mumtaz Shahnawaz and Salma Tassadaque were attracted to it because of the potential it held for women. They got an opportunity to organize and liberate Muslim women the four walls of their homes. Through out the Pakistan movement, the League leadership relied on the women in their ranks to take their message forward to the common people as well as the media. Indeed when the need arose to counter Congress’ propaganda in the United States it was Jahanara Shahnawaz who was dispatched and there she managed to convert many to the Muslim League’s point of view. After the creation of Pakistan these women fought and a long and drawn out battle with the religious conservatives for their rights. With Jinnah’s patronage they had formed the Muslim Women’s National guard, during the Pakistan movement, which later became the Pakistan National Guard. It was a civil defence organization for women that protected women during the riots of 1947. After Jinnah’s death, the Women’s National Guard came under scrutiny of the Mullahs and conservatives. The main criticism that was leveled against the organization was that its members went around unveiled and armed. Some how that threatened the patriarchy of the Mullahs, the majority of whom had opposed the creation of Pakistan in the first place.

For three decades however Pakistani women seemed to make progress towards complete equality. The Muslim Family Law Ordinance all but banned polygamy. All constitutions of the republic affirmed complete equality of women. In fact all three constitutions promoted activism and affirmative action to bring about complete equality. All was proceeding as planned, even as Pakistan got more consciously Islamic under Bhutto, till the women’s movement in Pakistan hit a brickwall called Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime. The hudood ordinance and the tampering with the evidence act, halted the progress made from 1947-1977. Overt Islamisation via state patronage of the Jamat-e-Islami brand of Islam laid the foundations of progressive isolation of women in Pakistan. With this, the nationalist discourse in Pakistan took a completely opposite direction from the feminist discourse, which is why even today under the enlightened moderation of General Musharraf the women’s movement is in dissent of the nation state. But that is another story.

End.

``Clever move to sidetrack the original point.``

No my friend you are the one sidetracking the original point. The original point is whether a national leader promoted women`s rights, active participation in national and economic life, etc or not? Jinnah clearly did. Gandhi did not.

The fact that Jinnah might have been opposed to his daughter`s marriage to a Parsi is meaningless given that he did not stop her from marrying a parsi... and later accepted the whole thing as is. And Nehru and Gandhi clearly did much worse ... and they were supposedly speaking for ``composite nationalism``.

A clever trick... to defend Gandhi by deflecting criticism.


What do you mean ``accord`` ?

Please show us where Jinnah stopped his daughter from marrying the Parsi gentleman ?

Jinnah was opposed to his daughter`s wedding for whatever reason (mostly political because already the Congress Allies - the Majlis-e-Ahrar and JUH- were declaring him ``Kafir-e-Azam`` for having married a ``Kafira`` ) However Jinnah made no effort to stop her wedding. Infact he accepted her decision to do so and later used to carry his grandchildren`s photographs in his wallet.

This is a very weak argument Harish... Nehru also was opposed to his daughter`s wedding and infact even created hurdles in her wedding life unlike Jinnah... and Gandhi- for all his hypocrisy - reacted very violently to his son`s conversion to Hinduism.

#168 by Mantolives on February 6, 2006 10:58pm PT

[Ah the old trick. Abuse Jinnah because Gandhi is being exposed]

Gandhi ``being`` exposed? Gandhi IS exposed. Whetever there is to know about him is already known.

[because Jinnah did not stop his daughter, sister or wife from going and pursuing active public lives... Jinnah, like all nationalist leaders, believed that women`s participation in national and political life is a must for a nation to succeed and progress.]

Clever move to sidetrack the original point. The point is not whether he stopped his daughter, but that he opposed her marriage to a non-Muslim. In that he behaved exactly like other religious fanatics who favor marriages only among their own. In creating Pakistan, he only reaffirmed what was till then a suspicion masked by his overtly western behavior: that he was a communalist to the hilt.

[Gandhi on the other hand was a misogynist bigot who, by his own admission, was extremely jealous when his wife- not much to look at mind you- talked to his friends or got out of the house.]

What does that tell you? That the man was honest to a fault, unlike Jinnah who spoke about freedom of women, yet would not accord that to his own daughter who was doing only what he himself had done.