Taslima’s Lies, Ismat’s Truth

re: Farzana Bibi`s post # 124

http://www.tribuneindia.com/1999/99feb13/saturday/stamped.htm

Excerpts:

``At least I am convinced that the doors for practising in bigamy were opened the Dharmendra an Hema Malini. Till then, men were wary of condemnation by society at large, from the law and other repercussions. But I do not personally underestimate the impact of films and filmi heroes and heroines on the minds of the Indian people. They look up to filmi folks and films for a righteous path and judicious code of conduct (the noble person respecting the law while the villain is expected to break the law and all norms of society). Bigamy-inclined men saw a role model in Dharmendra and Hema Malini, who not only broke the law but also successfully cocked a snook at it openly.

Here I must share that one of Chandigarh’s extremely talented artists, rather under-employed in an office, and already married with one kid, was all set to marry a fellow artist, seriously arguing: ``If Dharmendra can manage two marriages, why can’t I?`` Of course, he was not counting on law or his low salary. Sense prevailed upon him when some friends intervened. Guess what? The poor wife, till date, is not aware of what was about to happen to her. The artist never took into account, besides law, the social disorder, the pain he would cause, and the illegitimate status of his children from the second woman. Following in the footsteps of Hema Malini and Dharmendra, some wayward husbands tend to ignore the fact that the filmi folks do not have to bother about the economics of life. But under the law of the land, both Hema’s daughters would always remain illegitimate, despite her visibly desperate efforts at socially legitimising them with the surname Deol. ``

``Says Justice R.L. Anand: ``Indulging in bigamy is punishable under the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. Under Section 493, 494 and 495, there is ample scope to deal with these types of offenders. While Section 493 and 495 have a provision for awarding up to 10 years imprisonment, 494 on the other hand, if used, can put the guilty behind bars for 7 years``.

However, there is a lacuna in the laws dealing with bigamy. The courts are not supposed to take any cognisance of this offence if the aggrieved parties choose to remain silent. If the legitimate wife does not object, courts are not to take notice of any such practice. The law does not seem to be geared to the situation, keeping in view the conditioning of the mind of a majority of Indian women, who tend to be easily subjugated, and the social set-up, wherein a woman divorced or confronting her husband in the courts has very fragile support to fall back on.``

Here is a question for Farzana. Would she see it fit to write a letter to the same newspaper ``Asian Age`` protesting against the marriage of Dharmendra and Hema Malini. Belated though this may be, it would make a strong case for a pro-active judiciary to be involved. If she does not do so, she is a fukcing hypocrite and should keep her mouth shut in future regarding bigamy, especially when in her own community, men are allowed to marry more than once.
Here is another vocation for Farzana Bibi:
How about spreading awareness among the muslim men (especially mullahs)that bigamy practised by muslims (and enshrined in the Shariat laws) is harmful to muslim women and should be changed?
Sridhar

Urbashi

Good, well argued, informative posts, thanks for writing them.

#126 by harimau:
Where have I spoken in favour of Muslim men marrying four times? If you support bigamy for the sake of convenience, then you can start such a movement…am sure many men will join you.


Urbashi (#130, 133):

This is the sort of discussion I wanted to begin with, and not deconstruction, from someone who knew the language, the ethos... So, thanks for a closer look than any of us might get, at least on Chowk.

It is tough enough for some of us to grapple with the English translations of her books, now you tell us to read her columns. That is not relevant here. This is why I did not quote anything from her interviews in the article. I have not supported the ban on her book; but to say that by writing about the men (and I don’t care whether it is Muslim men or Hindu men or men from Mars) she is exposing patriarchy is a bit of a stretch. I have suggested that she might be too naïve, among other things, so when you say she feels she has hurt herself the most, it only proves one of my points. She may say that she is not a Muslim or does not belong to any religion, but she writes with that background in mind.

Salam Azad’s name came up because it was around the same time that Nasreen was getting into trouble.

As regards some of the points you have raised, I have responded in several interacts here should you be interested. It is amusing that many who are speaking up for Taslima have problems about my speaking out, even though it is for a far more limited audience. Therefore, I suppose we just have to accept disparate views.

[Perhaps you need to take a look at Ashish Nandy’s recent interview in the Times of India about the failure of the Indian Muslim leadership to realize the differences among Muslims. You don’t need to agree with him, but perhaps you do need to open your mind?]

This is just so strange, for almost all my articles emphasise the same points he is making (incidentally in the early 90’s I had interviewed him for ‘The Sunday Observer’, so these views are not new to me). Since you have brought this up, let me give you a couple of quotes from the TOI interview…

“There is no pan-Indian Muslim leader but there is no pan-Indian Hindu leader either. There are regional and local leaders and there is nothing wrong with that. Ethnic nationalism or religious nationalism smothers the natural process of displacement of traditional leadership. Middle class Muslim nationalism sabotaged the natural process of electoral democratisation. This natural process of democratisation has not taken place in Pakistan too where electoral process is still dominated by the feudal class. Today, we are faced with a new breed of leaders who have not tasted power for centuries and when they do they will remain in power come what may. Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Prasad, Vajpayee are all examples.”

“Is the media responsible for propping up the hardliners?

Yes, to a great extent the media explosion has made leaders out of Togadia and Shahi Imam. They are the media’s gift to us. The secular media is more at fault since it is ignorant and contemptuous of religion. It also looks for easy divisions.”

Ref nazarhayatkhan #132

[On Women`s empowerment

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, in our socities (particularly Pakistan), the women have to fight these battles themselves.NoPresident,Prime Minister, Legislature sticks out his necks for them. Even women MNAs of MMM in the National Assembly do not support the women causes for equality, freedom, justice. They give the same Mulla`s theories.]

I must respectfully disagree with you on this.

Very few social movements for change in the Indian subcontinent have been led by those who were directly affected.

Sati was abolished by the British government under Lord Bentinck.

Child marriages were made illegal by the British government.

These despite the pledge of the British Crown to respect the religious beliefs of Indians after the Mutiny of 1857.

The fight to open the temples to Harijans was led not by Harijans but upper caste Hindus who saw the injustice of it.

If we are to remove the impediments faced by any group within our societies, leaders must come forth from the EXISTING power structure to remove them.

Even in the US, how long did Blacks have to wait for civil rights? Even the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education mandating desegregation was fought well into the early 80s, though under different guises.

It took the leadership of Lyndon Johnson -- and the assassination of John F. Kennedy -- for the US Congress to pass the first civil rights act.

Even now you have women like Phyllis Schlafly -- who herself is well off and thus able to skirt the laws with impunity -- trying to keep women down in the name of social conservatism.

[Once equipped with the tool of good education, they have the motivation and self-interest to take on the constitution, the law, the holy scriptures, the Mulla - by themselves.]

You will find that in our villages our women have a pretty good idea what is right and what is wrong. They don`t need a college education to tell them that. What they need is the support of the police to implement and enforce laws on the books regarding criminal behavior.

What I say goes as much for rural Balochistan as ``enlightened and educated`` Tamil Nadu. Some three months back, an educated woman working as a school teacher in a village sued for divorce from her husband (who is from the same village). The woman and her mother were dragged in front of the village panchayat, made to apologize to all those assembled by bending down and touching their feet, and fined Rs. 25,000. She was then ordered to withdraw the divorce petition. The local police completely ignored the situation. The High Court in Madras took notice of the case (from newspaper reports), had the panchayat leaders arrested and brought before it. The court then ordered the repayment of the fines collected, and when I left India had not yet decided on punishment for the guilty.

No sir, what we need is enforcement of existing criminal laws against those in power. Then we need reform of those laws that discriminate against segments of our society.

Harimau # 125

On Women`s empowerment

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, in our socities (particularly Pakistan), the women have to fight these battles themselves.NoPresident,Prime Minister, Legislature sticks out his necks for them. Even women MNAs of MMM in the National Assembly do not support the women causes for equality, freedom, justice. They give the same Mulla`s theories.

Once equipped with the tool of good education, they have the motivation and self-interest to take on the constitution, the law, the holy scriptures, the Mulla - by themselves.

Further to my earlier post:

1. The title of Nasrin’s autobiography is Amar Meyebela, which translates as My Girlhood. There is no Bengali equivalent for “girlhood”, and the word for “boyhood” is supposed to cover the childhoods of both boys and girls (there is also one gender-neutral word for childhood, “chhotobela”). But girlhood as a word and, most importantly, as a concept does not exist. Thus in coining the word “meyebela” Nasrin emphasizes, among other things, the significance of her being a girl child – something that the South Asian ethos (whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or, as Nasrin shows, Buddhist) has always ignored. A girl asserting herself/her selfhood? No way. Someone can and always will do it for her. Why does she need her own voice? The girl child can always be an object (of pity, sympathy, whatever), but never a subject. Now Nasrin demands that her subjectivity be accepted.
2. She also points out through her title that she is talking not in general terms but about her OWN growing-up years, her OWN discovery of what it means to be female, hence “amar”, my. The South Asian tradition of autobiography generally focuses on the relationship of the writer to the larger socio-political events of the day rather than digging deep into the writer’s psyche. Certainly Bengali women autobiographers generally wrote about the way things had changed socially between the time they were children and the way things are now, and never about what was really going on under the carpet – the quilt, to use Chugtai’s symbol. In fact, most South Asians, whether male or female, are very reticent about things that Nasrin forces her readers to see, particularly the reality behind the family values that we tom-tom to the world as being so fundamental to our society. It’s not a Hindu-vs. -Muslim thing that Nasrin engages in, nor an anti-Muslim tirade, it’s a vehement protest against patriarchal South Asia. Can we honestly say that the things Nasrin talks about don’t happen? We may not like what she says, but can we really deny their truth? We always airbrush inconvenient truths, but the sooner we open our eyes to the kind of abuse that goes on under the cover of “family ties” the better for our society. It’s painful, gut-wrenching, to read what she says, and to realize how true it sounds. She shocks people, she’s brash and refuses to be indirect, and that’s something we can’t accept, especially when it comes from a woman. In fact, when South Asian women want to write about these things they prefer the obliquities of fiction. Kamala Das is the only South Asian woman’s autobiography I’ve read which is nearly as bold as Nasrin’s – but Das wrote hers in English, and an English-reading audience has a more so-called “liberal”, Westernized education, and more exposure to the questions she raises. She doesn’t shock people like Nasrin, who writes in a Bengali that is far removed from polite written discourse, being practically indistinguishable from a mofussil, marginalized small-town oral dialect, so that it becomes the raw voice of the subaltern in pain. If it’s very well crafted, it doesn’t mean it’s inauthentic.
3. Unfortunately the American edition of the English translation has changed the implications of her title. It says “My Bengali Girlhood” – as though it’s only because Nasrin grew up in Bengal that her experiences were what they were. Certainly, at any rate, her circumstances were not those of the average Bengali Hindu in middle-class Kolkata, so the generalization of the English title is unfortunate and misleading, and the subtitle, about growing up female in a Muslim family, also panders to Western stereotypes. It’s obviously been chosen with an eye to the Western market following 9/11.
4. What did Farzana mean by saying that asking a Bengali to eat beef is like asking an Eskimo to live in an igloo? It shows complete and utter ignorance about Bengal. FYI, Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh do eat beef but Bengali Hindus by and large don’t. That’s why it’s so important that her Hindu characters in Lajja decide to eat beef. Farzana doesn’t understand the implications of the statement, “Most of Suranjan’s friends were Muslim. None of them thought he was Hindu.” This certainly doesn’t mean that Nasrin was saying that “a religious person could not have friends from another community”, nor that religious faith necessarily makes you inhuman. Lajja is set in Bangladesh, remember? And that’s a place where Hindus are now a shrinking minority. Suranjan’s immediate family, you’ll recall, have deliberately chosen to stay on, because they believe in the concept of “desh”, home – this is their home/homeland and they don’t want to leave for an Indian Bengal which would be foreign to them. That’s why they try to assimilate as much as they can and carefully and deliberately choose to mix with Muslims rather than ghettoize themselves. That’s what makes what happens to them so tragic. The point is that Nasrin suggests that their going away to India won’t really make for a happy ending. It’s a sad one, for both Suranjan’s family and for Bangladesh. India is certainly not the light at the end of the tunnel for Nasrin. The novel is badly written, but it’s certainly not full of stereotypes from Hindi masala movies. Basically even here Nasrin isn’t attacking Islam so much as power-hungry people – obviously in a Muslim-majority society they would be Muslims, but the Hindus are no less venal. The attack, I have to stress again and again, is against patriarchy, not against Islam or any other religion. Farzana needs to know something about places and cultures not identical to her cosy little Bombay upper-middle-class background, Muslim or otherwise. Perhaps you need to take a look at Ashish Nandy’s recent interview in the Times of India about the failure of the Indian Muslim leadership to realize the differences among Muslims. You don’t need to agree with him, but perhaps you do need to open your mind?
5. You don’t need to compare Nasrin with Salam Azad. Bengal has a long tradition of feminist resistance and protest, especially against the use of religion to reinforce patriarchal norms, that goes back at least to Chandrabati in the 14th century (incidentally, Chandrabati belonged to East Bengal, now Bangladesh). Nasrin therefore belongs to a long line of women writers that includes 20th-century writers like Mahashweta Devi, Rokeya Begum, and the diasporic novelist Dilara Hashem. The only difference is that she writes autobiographies; they write novels. It would be more useful to see her in her own context instead of comparing her to Chugtai or to Salam Azad or any male writer.

re harimau
``Even then, the man is not eligible for a government job. Bigamists cannot be employed by the government according to government regulations.

Er.... except of course the minority that is allowed four wives.``

This is the theme, absolutely not understood by the anti-Hindutva crowd, that bothers so many ordinary, secular Indians about the double standards that Congress tolerated and perhaps encouraged. That a secular India, that too led by the BJP, tolerates the non-sense of the so-called Muslim Personal Law Board is an abomination. Specially so because it continues to violate the spirit of the Supreme Court orders to create a unform code pronto. You guys ought to take care of Imam Bukhari and the rest of that treasonous crowd. Frankly, India has been a bit too tolerant of the kind of folks who throw acid on unveiled women, who want the right to marry and divorce at will without consequences, and who utter treason from the sanctified pulpits of houses of worship. No wonder BJP is attracting more and more of the regular Joes.

Farzana, have you read Nasrin`s Dwikhondito before you sat down to comment on it? Have any of the Chowkies?

Have you in fact read anything by Nasrin at all, except for (perhaps!) a translation (an English one?) of what is perhaps her most poorly written work, Lajja? Do you know what she`s written in the two earlier volumes of her autobiography? Before anyone begins to deconstruct her, or her works (or anybody else’s, for that matter), isn`t it expected that s/he take the trouble to read what’s actually been written, instead of depending upon news reports and journalistic reviews?

Nasrin has also said, remember, that she`s hurt nobody but herself by her revelations about her relationships with men. I don`t see why people are so upset that she should be so frank about this. Double standards? How do readers react when men describe their relationships with women? I remember how outraged people were when she talked of sexual pleasures and bodily functions (shit-and-vomit stuff, someone remarked) in the first two parts of Amar Meyebela. But why can’t she write like this, even if it means offending South Asian aesthetic sensibilities? Perhaps South Asian sensitivities/sensibilities do need a good shaking up once in a while. Maybe it’s time some people realized that a spade spattered with blood is quite literally a bloody shovel. If you think she’s doing it to put down Muslims, or South Asian Muslims (whether Bangladeshi or from Indian Bengal), you’re wrong, she feels equally strongly about any men who have been conditioned by patriarchal society to demean women wherever they come from, and whatever their religious beliefs. Read her other pieces of non-fictional prose, particularly her Selected Columns (Nirbachito Column). You don’t have to rush to criticize her just because she has a Muslim name and writes against some Muslim men! She writes against patriarchal society, and she’s written here about what’s happened in her own life. I don’t see what you have to object to in that. Yes, the American edition of the English translation of the 1st volume of Amar Meyebela did have a subtitle like “Growing Up Female in a Muslim/Bengali Family” (I’m not sure about the exact words), but that wasn’t there in the original Bengali version.

BTW, her last novel - again, very badly written! - Phorashi Premik (The French Lover), is all about Bengali (Hindu) and North Indian male exploitation of women, which is paralleled by similar exploitation in the apparently much more “liberated” and “forward” West. The main problem with this novel is that she had no idea of what middle-class Bengali Hindus in India are like. She simply transposed her own experiences in a very tradition-bound family of a small town in Bangladesh, not even Dhaka, on to that of her Indian Bengali Hindu protagonist`s, who grows up in Kolkata, so that the whole thing becomes thoroughly inauthentic. (I was told, however, by a Bangladeshi friend that Nasrin’s family is very progressive, so perhaps people’s notions of what “progressive” means can vary. Certainly her domineering father, who’d caused her mother and herself and siblings so much misery, was also very particular to get his daughters well educated so that they wouldn’t have to suffer what orthodox Muslim Bangladeshi women had to – there’s something very ambivalent about Nasrin’s delineations of her father Dr Rajab Ali.) But that`s quite another matter.

Nasrin`s great strength is her non-fictional Bengali prose, not her novels. Her Nirbachito Column was very well written indeed, and makes its points succinctly and effectively. She makes it quite clear in her autobiography (Utol Hawa, the 2nd volume) that she was never good at English, which was her biggest bugbear at school and stopped her from doing well even in medical school, so her interviews in English after her self-imposed exile in the West make for very poor reading, sounding pompous and verbose just like all homegrown South Asian English written by people who are unfamiliar with the rhythms and the colloquialisms of the language.

You do know, of course, that Nasrin doesn`t call herself a Muslim, or in fact a follower of any religion? In fact, she`s against all religions as being patriarchal constructs that only degrade/denigrate women? Read her Nirbachito Column. You, or anyone else, can disagree with her, of course, and why not. But first try to read why she believes that. She has her reasons, and I believe that you have to grant her the right to believe what she does. She doesn`t stop you, or anyone else, from having your own opinions on any and every subject, does she? What she demands, on the other hand, is that all of us should have the liberty to speak out, and that there should be no double standards in social relationships. The first two volumes of her autobiography are like Maya Angelou`s in their frankness, and I don`t hear any Black American saying Angelou`s letting down the side (though we do know that Alice Walker got a lot of flak from Black American males after The Color Purple). I`m not saying that Nasrin is the greatest Bengali writer/the greatest woman writer/a great writer/whatever. I`m saying that she believes strongly in certain things and she doesn`t hesitate to express these views, because she thinks she`s justified in holding them and in sharing them. And she writes well when she writes in her own person, and doesn`t try to fictionalize her life. If you think she`s limited in scope, well, of course she is, because she has a purpose to her writing, and she writes only for that purpose. When someone was comparing Nasrin to Rushdie she immediately pointed out that Rushdie was a novelist, while she was a crusader for women`s rights, who used her pen as her weapon. That is, she shouldn’t be judged for her “literary” qualities, but by the strength of her convictions, and her ability to express these convictions like a sharpshooter getting the target every time. Her rapier is very sharp and she manages to draw blood. That’s why I don`t know how you can compare her to Ismat Chugtai at all, just because they were both women, and Muslim by birth. (Of course, I`ve read Chugtai only in translation, and then not all of her, so I`m really no judge, unlike Farzana!). Their purposes in writing were very different. It`s not like comparing apples and oranges; it`s like comparing apples and rice. And I doubt very much whether Nasrin`ll ever recant; her scathing remarks about Rushdie`s apology should preclude that.

I agree that Nasrin does have friends with microphones, but which writer doesn`t if s/he wants to be heard loud and clear? I don`t know whether the men in her life feel humiliated because she`s exposed them, or whether they`re really furious because she`s not telling the truth. But I don`t see why Nasrin should make up these stories about them. She doesn`t need to do that to show how men use women - she`s established that already in the earlier volumes of her autobiography, nor does she need to titillate her readers a la Jackie Collins or Shobha De. What she writes of social and interpersonal relationships is explosive enough without her needing to put in the sex and the gore. Obviously these details are there for a purpose, and this purpose doesn’t seem to be – at least in the earlier two parts of Amar Meyebela, I haven’t been able to read Dwikhondito as yet – just to sell her books, or to put men down even further. She doesn’t need anyone’s sympathy or pity for her to make up these stories. If she really has, then jump on her for lying, not for misrepresenting Muslim life or Muslim men. What I’ve read in the earlier parts of Meyebela is a lot of pain, and a lot of very painful honesty. Why can`t we just take it as a woman in search of her selfhood? A woman trying to find her own identity, even if it makes her call herself a ``nashta meye”, a fallen woman, because she writes of things that a ``bhadra``, respectable, (South Asian) woman shouldn`t even think of.

Once again, first read what Nasrin says, then comment about her. Don’t jump to conclusions on the basis of hearsay. Or on the basis of Lajja. Dwikhondito is no novel, it’s an autobiography, a very very painful one at that, so it should be read like that too.

Ref tahmed32 #122

[The empowerment i referred to was treatment as an equal partner in marriage by the courts - with women thus staying in a marriage not out of economic necessity but because they actually like the guy. and if they dont, family property is equally divided between man and wife and in addition the man is liable for alimony payments unless and until the woman remarries.....]

Off to the gallows with Tahmed!

The Book prescribes three months` alimony for divorced Muslimas. This is the Constitution as handed down by Allah himself. How can anyone say that `the man is liable for alimony payments unless and until the woman remarries`?

We in India even have the Muslim Women`s Protection Act under which talaq`ed Muslim women will be protected from infidel thinking by having their alimony limited to three months. So much for Personal Law for the Muslims and for the Muslim vote bank`s power over the secular Congress.

Ref FarzanaVersey #124

[And isn`t bigamy illegal?]

No.

Hey, you think only the Muslims are entitled to their Personal Laws?

Hindu men are allowed to marry for a second time for the sake of a son. This has to be done with the written consent of the first wife.

Even then, the man is not eligible for a government job. Bigamists cannot be employed by the government according to government regulations.

Er.... except of course the minority that is allowed four wives.

PS. Malaysia outlawed polygamy for Hindu men only around 1997. Even then they recognize previously contracted multiple marriages.

Ref Maasanamuthu #121

[On my recent visit to madras, i found that the care of orphans/disabled/elderly has become mainly the job of NGOs most whom exist without government support. Ours is an uncaring society.]

What are you talking about?

It IS so a caring society. We love our snakes in Tamil Nadu. Remember ``If you see a brahmin and a snake, kill the brahmin first``?

Ref FarzanaVersey #124

[You might be aware of the well-known Indian classical dancer Raja Reddy who is married to two sisters, Radha (who is his partner professioanlly as well) and her sister Kaushalya. No one seems to have any problems with this arrangement as well. What were the compulsions here?]

Maybe there were no compulsions at all. Maybe the two sisters decided they will marry the same man. Not at all uncommon among the Arts set. I know of a couple of sisters who sing Carnatic Music professionally and they decided to marry the same man so that life is simpler. No question of how to split the money, where to live, how to coordinate trips to the music hall, out of town, etc.

You would be better off spending your energies fighting serial matrimony and divorce and the 4-wives-at-a-time polygamy of the 14% minority population of India as opposed to the living arrangements of a few individuals.

Evil thought: were you expecting that Amar Verma, Ragini and Priti would convert to The True Faith and thus not run afoul of any laws regarding polygamy?

nazar #123 there is a retired colonel Aftab who has opened perhaps 60 girls schools in the mianwali area (among the poorest rural areas in pakistan). he gets his funding from nongovernment sources (a lot of it from expat pakistanis), and has a very smart formula: the community provides the room for the school, he provides for cash payments to the teacher. i remember his saying a couple of years back that when he started this that initially the villagers were suspicious and for the first couple of days the girls were accompanied by a couple of men from their families who wanted to see what was going on. now the demand for girls education vastly exceeds the supply.

soysauce (#121):

[Could it be that Ragini made it a pre-condition that the man ought to also marry her disabled sister as a way of ensuring that her sister is not without support?
On my recent visit to madras, i found that the care of orphans/disabled/elderly has become mainly the job of NGOs most whom exist without government support. Ours is an uncaring society.
I`m curious as to why you say this was illegal.]

The father did put forth the suggestion as he was concerned about Priti. But think about it. Amar Verma`s salary is Rs.2,500 and he talked about possible help from the bride`s family. This frightens me. Besides, if the girls are vocal and happy to talk to the press, then surely Priti, despite her physical disability, could have been helped by some NGO to lead a life of dignity rather than depend on the crumbs handed to her.

And isn`t bigamy illegal? But that problem has been sorted out on smart technical grounds. One legal opinion states, ``It would be difficult to prove which of the two is actually the second marriage since the girls are being married simultaneously. Hence, the court cannot nullify the second marriage. Besides, there is no aggrieved party in this case because both sisters have consented to the marriage.``

You might be aware of the well-known Indian classical dancer Raja Reddy who is married to two sisters, Radha (who is his partner professioanlly as well) and her sister Kaushalya. No one seems to have any problems with this arrangement as well. What were the compulsions here?

However, among the marginalised groups in our society, consent is often based on helplessness. I agree with you that most disadvantaged people depend on NGOs. Having worked with the visually-impaired, I can tell you that self-respect is extremely important to them, and they would much rather do something to earn that respect than wait for some samaritan to rescue them. Since you mention Madras, I had visited the SOS village an hour`s drive from Chennai and saw a similar attitude. I might add that I had gone there unannounced and in fact the person in charge was not around, so I got to see the young boys, quite outspoken about their likes and dislikes.

We are an uncaring society... but do-gooders and those who believe that their concept of right is more right can be so very petty. They are riding on the backs of those whose lives and reputations they are out to salvage.

Tehmed32 # 122

I agree with you. The key to the real empowerment of women is ``Education``. In urban areas, the parents, even of lower class, now send their girls to schools.

Bur the majority lives in the villages where the girls still go uneducated. Situation is slowly improving with schools in villages - but these are only for initial classes - and girls schools are only in big villages.

Many of the well-to-do village families shift to the cities for the sole purpose of educating their children. Poorer class stays back & their girls miss out on education.

A lot is still to be done. More money is required into it rather than buying the latest radar!

nazar #116 it is true that if the religious parties come to power, women in pakistan could well be subject to the usual indignities that male chauvinist islamists heap upon them. it may not be as bad as afghanistan (where badly needed lady doctors were not allowed to work and were forced into begging) or saudi arabia, given the general levels of development in these societies, but it will still be rough.

as for the traditional route to power for women that you mention, that is obviously a mockery of true empowerment. after all, this power was limited to WITHIN the household to begin with, did not involve intellectual persuits, and ultimately stemmed from male offspring. this is a parody of power.

The empowerment i referred to was treatment as an equal partner in marriage by the courts - with women thus staying in a marriage not out of economic necessity but because they actually like the guy. and if they dont, family property is equally divided between man and wife and in addition the man is liable for alimony payments unless and until the woman remarries. the divorce rate in pakistan would no doubt go up - and this would be healthy because this would mean the women actually had a choice to get out of marriage without fear of economic hardship.