IN FIRST PERSON
A tale of suffering and courage
KALPANA SHARMA
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The book is not just about Mukhtar's personal experience. It is about the reality facing millions of women in the subcontinent.
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Mukhtar Mai: In the Name of Honour, Virago 2006, Rs. 395.
YOU would never guess seeing the peaceful face of a beautiful woman on the book's cover that its pages contain descriptions of some of the most brutal forms of violence against women. Mukhtar Mai's story, now known around the world, challenges all our concepts of suffering and revenge.
For those who have not heard of her, Mukhtaran Bibi, as she was earlier called, lived as a 28-year-old divorcee with her parents and brothers in the village of Meerawala in Pakistan's Punjab. They are lower caste Gujars in a village dominated by the higher caste Mastois. Mukhtaran, like the majority of other women in the village, was illiterate and spoke only Saraiki, the local dialect. But through sheer determination, she learnt the Koran by heart and was able to teach it to the village children. Thus, she could live with some dignity in her parental home.
This woman's relatively peaceful and uneventful life changed suddenly one day in June 2002 when her father, uncle and the local mullah persuaded her to accompany them to a meeting of the village council. It had been called because the Mastois alleged that Mukhtaran's young brother had spoken to a Mastoi woman. To placate the Mastois, the men in her family were convinced that if she, an older woman, begged for forgiveness, her brother, who was in police custody, would be released. Instead of accepting an apology, the powerful Mastois decided to punish Mukhtaran's family in the way that men think is most appropriate — by gang raping her. In full view of the entire village, Mukhtaran was dragged by four men to a stable and repeatedly raped. Finally she was thrown out. Her father covered her torn clothes with his shawl and took her back to the village. The brother was not released. The family had to borrow money to pay the fine. This was only the beginning of a tale of unimaginable suffering and courage that is recounted in this book.
Years of struggle
Mukhtaran, who is now known as Mukhtar Mai, decided to file a case against her rapists. The local police fooled her into making a false statement. But she persisted. Luckily for her, a local journalist heard her story and wrote about it. This alerted the national and international press and human rights groups. The first judge before whom she appeared also believed her story. After several years of struggle through courts, she succeeded in getting her rapists and their abettors convicted.
Mukhtar's story is a familiar one in the subcontinent. Similar cases are constantly reported in India and from across the border. On both sides, honour killings, tribal justice, caste panchayats are not uncommon. Most such cases go unreported. The criminal justice system fails the victims. And even when, as in Mukhtar's case, the women do turn to the justice system, they are duped and cheated by the very men who are supposed to protect their rights while the perpetrators of the crime get away scot-free. Mukhtar's story is all the more remarkable against such a reality. She was lucky that her story became public. As a result, she got legal aid. She also got monetary assistance that she has used to set up a school for girls in her village. She is determined that these girls will not be denied the right to an education.
In a simple and direct narrative, Mukhtar tells this story in her book, which has been written by Marie-Therese Cuny in French and thereafter translated into English by Linda Coverdale. The book is not just about Mukhtar's personal experience. It places this against the reality facing millions of women in Pakistan. Even as this book appeared, Pakistani women won a major victory when their campaigning led to the repeal of one of the more repugnant features of the Hudood law where a woman had to get four eyewitnesses to establish that she was raped. Failure to do so would mean being charged with adultery and a term in jail. Mukhtar is just one of the many women who could have faced such an outcome if she had failed to establish that she had been raped. "The real question," she writes, "my country must ask itself is, if the honour of men lies in women, why do men want to rape or kill for honour?"
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