Performative Protests in Pakistan

By: Asiya Jawed

Participants holding ‘patriarchy’s funeral’ by covering a charpoy with white sheets and carrying it during Aurat March 2019. Photo Credit: Bismah Mughal

Pakistani women have managed to raise their voices in the country’s patriarchal landscape through decades of protest action around a range of issues, and have met with mixed success. With our ongoing history of internecine conflicts and civilian mobilizations for their rights, contentious performance as a protest strategy can prove to be a useful tool.

Contentious performance is a “learned and historically grounded way of making claims on other people” (Tilly 2008).  “People make claims with words such as condemn, oppose, resist, demand, beseech, support and reward. They also make claims with actions such as attacking, expelling, defacing, cursing, cheering, throwing flowers, singing songs, and carrying heroes on their shoulders” (Tilly 2008).These performances become a catalyst for conversation which helps to unify communities and demand justice from the authorities.

Rai (2015) defines political performance as a way to communicate meaning-making related to state institutions, policies, and discourses. Political performances have spurred several conversations in the local as well as global arena which has helped reduce the effects of state censorship against these protest actions.

At the Collective for Social Science Research, we are currently studying women’s leadership and contentious politics, which is the use of unruly and disruptive techniques to demand a change in government policy or to evolve people’s perspectives.  This research is part of the “Action for Empowerment and Accountability” (A4EA) project, a multi-country research programme in collaboration with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS),  focusing on how social and political action impact empowerment and accountability in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings.

After analyzing several episodes of contentious politics and interviewing women involved in the protests, we found that women used performance as a protest strategy in different scenarios through various means. From holding patriarchy’s “janaza” (funeral procession) at the Aurat March to Hazara women not burying their loved ones, the spectrum of protest as performance has been wide and diverse. Art, values, culture, and symbolism have been a part of the range of contentious performances in a society where different forms of expression are increasingly restrained as civic space shrinks.

On 8th March 2019, several activist groups unified to chant slogans, and march together as a way to demand the rights of women and minorities residing in Pakistan. The Aurat March not only took place in metropolitan cities of Pakistan like Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad but also in smaller urban centres such as Hyderabad and Multan. Weeks before the march, these cities were covered with posters, and invitations were sent via social media portals. Non-government organizations like the Fisherfolk Forum, the Lady Health Workers Association, as well as groups representing the Hindu and the Christian communities were mobilized to attend the event.

Sheema Kirmani, a leading women’s rights activist, classical dancer and founder of the theatre group Tehreek-e-Niswan sang and danced under the open skies at Karachi’s Frere Hall along with at least three thousand women, non-binary individuals and people from the trans community, and some men. The slogans and chants at the March varied from highlighting domestic issues to ending militarization. Participants held ‘patriarchy’s funeral’ by covering a charpoy with white sheets and carrying it on their shoulders. In a country where women don’t feel free in civic spaces, becoming pallbearers to patriarchy’s funeral was used as a form of symbolic resistance. This visual repertoire challenging norms and gender discriminatory rules is a prime example of how performance is used as a way to protest.

Using performance as a part of protest action is not a recent strategy. Over a 100,000 Lady Health Workers (LHW) - women hired by the government of Pakistan to provide family planning and reproductive health services in communities across the country - had their salaries compromised for several years. Even though they began protesting in 2008 to force the government to ensure timely payment, the fractured system couldn’t meet their demands. In April 2012, after several small protests, some of the LHWs threatened to commit suicide by setting themselves on fire at a sit-in in Islamabad. The performative nature of this protest drew the attention of authorities to their demands and they began to be met.

In February 2013, ethnic Hazara women used performativity to demand justice for the lives that were lost due to sectarian violence. They refused to bury their loved ones because they were furious with the authorities that failed to capture members of the Sunni militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, who bombed a market, killing 89 people belonging to the minority community. Hazara women carried out a sit-in with the deceased for four days and received widespread media attention.

Moreover, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), which aims to end discrimination against Pashtuns, gained momentum when Naqeebullah Mehsud, an aspiring model from the Pashtun community was killed in a fake encounter in Karachi by then police senior superintendent Rao Anwar. In solidarity with the movement, Pashtuns began wearing the famous red and black cap which was dubbed the ‘Pashteen’ cap after the leader of the movement, Manzoor Pashteen. However, selling the cap is now banned and shopkeepers are being punished if they help promote this symbol of PTM. Anwar was arrested but subsequently released on bail.

Recently, at Karachi Biennale 2019, artist Adeela Suleman put up an installation of 444 concrete pillars, one for each life allegedly taken by Rao Anwar extrajudicially. Her installation, “The Killing Fields of Karachi” was sealed off and banned from public viewing two hours after it went on display. Men belonging to security forces blocked the video featuring Mehsud’s father that was part of the installation. Unknown men vandalized the installation the next day stating that they were simply following orders given from above.  Moreover, the Biennale organizers justified the ban of her installation claiming that it did not honor this year’s thematic requirements. This episode spurred conversation, making civil society members eager to know more about Rao Anwar and PTM, indicating that the use of art is a robust form of protest action in the context of Pakistan’s politics.

Our research shows that women from different socio-economic backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities have come together to stage protest actions to grant them justice. Chanting, threatening to self-immolate and using visual aesthetics are ways in which Pakistani women have carried out creative resistance. Within a climate of shrinking civic space and censorship, women are coming up with increasingly innovative strategies to make their voices heard. 

Women Leaders in Action: Lady Health Workers’ Protests

By Komal Qidwai

A health worker vaccinates a child during a polio vaccination campaign in a rural area in Punjab.
Photo credit: flickr.com

Since 2002, Lady Health Workers (LHWs) have protested against low stipends and delayed payments. The LHW Program, initiated by Benazir Bhutto in 1994, now employs over 100,000 workers. The aim of the program is to provide primary health services to women in rural and urban slum areas through LHWs, who are residents of the community they work for. Until 2012, LHWs were contractual employees. After their regularization in early 2013, they became full-fledged government employees, entitled to benefits, guaranteed payment of salaries, and a clear trajectory for career advancement through a service structure.

LHWs employ a range of protest strategies to have their demands heard. From sit-ins and marches to hunger strikes and self-immolation, these women-led protests have managed to achieve regularization, as well as increases in salaries. LHW’s protest action is one example of women’s involvement in contentious politics in Pakistan, which is currently being researched at the Collective for Social Science Research. We are conducting this study under the A4EA (Action for Empowerment and Accountability) research program, in collaboration with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex.

According to Ivan Gomza, contentious politics refers to political action which operates outside of institutions, such as government bodies. Disadvantaged groups use protests to voice their demands through collective action. Our research is focused on understanding women’s role in this type of political action, including the emergence of women leaders, their demands, and protest strategies.

Along with my colleagues, I interviewed founder and president of the All Pakistan Lady Health Workers’ Welfare Association, Bushra Arain. We learned that initially she struggled for permission to join the program as she faced resistance from her in-laws, extended family and husband. Through our interviews with women leaders in other types of protest action, we found that support from male family members is important for the emergence of women leaders. The same is true for Arain, who had to convince her family to become an LHW.

After joining the program, Arain was quickly promoted to the position of a Lady Health Supervisor. She experienced harassment from male colleagues, such as a doctor who was responsible for training her. She and other supervisors protested/objected and had him removed from the program. At the same time, Arain also realized that the program was helping a large number of people, but its workers were not being paid enough or on time. By 2008, she had formed the LHW Association and in 2010, LHWs across all four provinces protested on the streets, demanding increase in wages and regularization. To mobilize LHWs for collective action, she travelled all over Pakistan, forging connections with workers in different provinces. Her leadership style matches that of many other women leaders from our other interviews – she engages in grass-roots mobilization herself, taking on responsibility and bearing high personal costs such as threats to safety and distance from her children and family.

Many of the LHW street protests are carefully staged. Describing a hunger strike in 2010 outside the Islamabad Press Club, Arain says that there were forty protesters in the sit-in, and every time one would leave, she would be replaced by another. This way, the protestors were able to maintain their numbers. In another sit-in during April, 2012, some of the protestors gave the government an ultimatum - either their demands for regularization be heard by 3 p.m., or they would self-immolate. A lack of government responsiveness pushed twenty-five protestors to sprinkle petrol on themselves, and one driver even sustained burn injuries. This compelled government officials to step in and assure the protestors that their demands would be met.

Staging protests is one of the many organizational strategies LHWs employ. They have also effectively used the courts by filing a petition in the Supreme Court in 2010 for their regularization and increase in salaries. However, it was the cruel treatment of the protestors at the hands of the police in 2011 which finally prompted then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to take suo moto notice of LHWs’ demands. Even after the Supreme Court issued orders for their regularization, there were delays in implementation and LHWs continued protesting to ensure the court orders were followed through. Arain describes this combination of using courts and street protests, “The world saw that (their protest) and pressurized the government.” So creating a spectacle by staging protests induces the government to sit down with the protestors, undertake formal negotiations about their demands, and follow through with necessary action.

However, they could not have filed a petition without legal aid, and Arain claims that advocates such as Qazi Anwar, now president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, helped LHWs draft and file the court petition. Forging alliances, then, is also a key strategy for successful protest action. As early as 2000, before the LHW Association was formed, it was through the help of the All Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA), Aurat Foundation, and the Pakistan Paramedical Association that Arain and her colleagues had the doctor who was allegedly sexually harassing them removed from the LHW program. LHWs also form alliances with influential politicians, such as Marvi Memon. Memon was an MNA from 2008 to 2011, and her presence at their protests during those years afforded the LHWs some protection from police brutality. Even now, LHWs continue to build alliances, such as the Aurat March, and are engaging in protests to improve their conditions.

Apart from having their demands met, engaging in protest action has also led to personal empowerment for many LHWs. Arain, for instance, recalls that at the beginning of her career, she used to cry if she was chided by a person of authority. Now, after threats and beatings, she is not afraid of any backlash. Other women in the Association look at her with reverence, and her charisma certainly plays a role in marking her out as a leader. She has built this credibility over a long period of struggle. Our interviews in relation to other types of protest action reveal that many women at the forefront of protest actions have followed similar trajectories – enduring high personal costs, forming alliances, learning new organizational strategies, and emerging as leaders.

Challenges of Empowerment for Women in Politics: Resources, Voice and Agency

By Zonia Yousuf Baltistani

Source: publicdomainfiles.com

In today’s development context the notion of women’s empowerment has replaced a more confrontational and political discourse of women’s rights. With major development frameworks, like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the demand for gender equality through women’s empowerment and inclusiveness has gained currency; the idea is to leave no one behind.

I believe this approach has transformed empowerment into a creative force; a resourceful power which is used to achieve and to accomplish. Scholars like Naila Kabeer, view empowerment in terms of the means that allow women to make strategic life choices: access to resources, enhanced voice and increased agency. In light of this understanding, how much (or little) has changed for women in politics? How empowered are women in politics in Pakistan?

It is safe to say that changes in the political arena have led to an increased number of resources that woman politicians have at their disposal. The Parliament itself, through an Act, created the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS), which provides research and capacity building services to all parliamentarians. Various workshops and trainings have been conducted by PIPS specifically for female parliamentarians to realize their leadership potentials and enhance their jurisdictive abilities.

The institute not only responds to research requests from parliamentarians but also aids them in the process of making informed legislative decisions by conducting comparative studies, offering bill drafting services, assisting in developing parliamentary committee reports, talking points, background papers and policy briefs. The institute conducts a Parliamentarians Orientation Program for newly elected members to familiarize them with the procedures of the parliament along with more specialized trainings such as annual pre and post budget seminars which aim to better equip the parliamentarians for deliberations on the budget. Female parliamentarians are equal participants in all activities. Further, the political parties in Pakistan are largely structured to have women wings as an inclusionary measure.

Policy changes leading to reserved seats for women, 10 per cent requirement of women’s voter turnout, five per cent reserved general seats for women, creation of gender-centric supporting bodies like the national and provincial Women’s Parliamentary Caucuses and the national and provincial Commissions on the Status of Women, have increased the participation of female politicians leading to more inclusion.

However, our research with 200 female parliamentarians (2013-2018) from the National Assembly, Senate and the Provincial Assemblies revealed that female parliamentarians continue to operate in hostile environments. There is still a considerable amount of silencing and exclusion that these women face within their parties as well as on the floor of the parliament. The following table describes findings from the survey indicating that women in politics are subject to various forms of sex- based discrimination and harassment:

Findings from interviews with key informants uncovered that women parliamentarians are on occasion either physically excluded from meetings and discussions or encounter a suppression of their voices when present. Their voice is minimally included in party polices, even when decisions regarding their own political careers are being made by the party.

Our study divulges that despite the available resources, female politicians continue to lack space and agency (excluding a few exceptions to the norm). The agency of women in Caucuses to legislate on women’s issues is constrained by party policies which is why they might not be able to vote in favor of progressive legislation for women. The unsuccessful attempt to pass the domestic violence bill in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the last government is one such example.

Despite the existence of women’s wings, female politicians are not adequately represented at decision making levels; most political parties do not have women as top leadership. Women wings are used as campaigning bodies for male candidates rather than training grounds for women candidates to run in their own right. The findings from the interviews indicate that women politicians aren’t treated at par with their male counterparts by the party leaders.

The dearth of voice and agency can be causally linked to an absence of accountability within political parties. Even though frameworks to ensure female participation exist, there is a lack of internal accountability mechanisms within political parties. For example, Ayesha Gulalai’s sexual harassment charges were never formally investigated within Parliament or her party. The concept of women’s empowerment, particularly within the political domain, needs to be coupled with the notions of transparency, accountability, democratic decision making and rule of law.

Of Market Queens and Women’s Empowerment

by Ayesha Mysorewala

Street market in Accra, Ghana
Photo credit: Wikimedia commons

I recently visited Ghana for the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health conference 2018 (ANH 2018) to present the findings of our LANSA research paper on the potential of agricultural asset transfers to improve nutrition in Pakistan.

What really struck me about Ghana was the overwhelming presence of women on the streets. In Makola, the largest open-air market in Accra, women and ‘market queens’ dominated the selling space – loudly marketing everything from clothes and jewellery to freshly obtained snails and vegetables.

Pakistani politics: Where are the women?

By Ayesha Khan

Panel discussion.
Left to Right: Dr Saba Gul Khattak, Ms Khawar Mumtaz, Ms Munizae Jahangir (moderator), Ms Bushra Gohar, Dr Nafisa Shah
Photo credit: Collective team

The Collective for Social Science Research (CSSR) and the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) held a launch event for their research studies on women’s political voice in Islamabad on September 27^th 2017. These studies are designed to explore pathways to increasing women’s political participation. The launch is part of a multi-country study on Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and coordinated by the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex.

Who works and why: Detangling women’s agricultural work

by Sidra Mazhar

A woman cuts sugarcane in Mirpurkhas.
Photo credit: Collective team

Throughout the world, women play a very important role in the agricultural sector. In the last few decades, agriculture has undergone a gendered transformation termed the ‘feminization of agriculture’. National level statistics in developing countries show that there has been an increase in female involvement in agriculture accompanied by a steady decline in men’s participation. It is commonly believed that this increased participation in agriculture empowers women economically and socially. However, our LANSA survey on women’s work and nutrition in rural Sindh, where we surveyed new mothers about their work before, during, and after pregnancy, tells a different story.

Does empowerment work really empower?

by Marium Ibrahim

Mural by Chite Yarumo
Translation: We need to recreate a language which shows respect for women .If as men, we walked in the shoes of women we would be outraged.
Photocredit: Pixabay.com

Donor efforts to empower women often start with the reallocation of economic resources between men and women. Projects provide women with capital through in-kind support, loans or grants, or enhance their capacity to use it through trainings or networking efforts. Greater capital is expected to cause a shift in the power dynamics vis-à-vis men, leading to more empowered women. It is undeniable that such programs have led to economic freedom for women, and to better economies. But does having more economic resources necessarily lead to empowerment of women?

Access and Empowerment in the Age of Smartphones

by Ebad Pasha

Mobile phones are increasingly becoming accessible to a wider audience.
Photocredit: greenbookblog.org

The advent of 3G and 4G technologies at affordable rates coupled with abundant availability of low price Chinese mobile phones in the market has meant that an internet capable smartphone is becoming increasingly accessible to the lower and lower-middle income groups in Pakistan. We conducted fieldwork in three low-income neighbourhoods of Lyari, Korangi and Sultanabad late last year for a project interviewing youth of the areas. It revealed that although the technology has not been completely embraced by the lower income groups in Karachi, affordability and literacy were not impediments for smartphone usage.