Pakistan: Pakistan's Founding Mothers

The women of Pakistan have generally remained the silent, ignored and suppressed voices of history and have never been featured as vanguards of popular movements. The history of Pakistan's struggle for independence has mostly focused on male nationalist leaders or founding fathers but not on the sacrifices and accomplishments of the "great founding mothers", who appeared merely as wives, sisters or daughters. These pioneers of the Pakistan Movement were, mostly legends of courage and compassion. Examining their traditional role, their social and political awakening and their active part in the political life of Pakistan before and since 1947, one uncovers determined, committed, firebrand women advocating a revolution. Whether it was a struggle to achieve their just right to education, right to inheritance, the end of polygamy, for voting rights or waging a struggle to achieve their homeland, women were present at all levels as vigorous and outspoken campaigners for self-rule and equal rights in a modern, progressive nation state.

The level of their participation in the independence movement was immense and it won't be wrong to say that without their contributions, the history of Pakistan could have been very different, from the one today and our men could not have achieved Pakistan on their own. Their roles have been downplayed, mainly because of the practice of inequality, religious restrictions, and social and cultural constraints, conservatism, educational drawbacks, economic limitations and due to the retrogressive role of forces, impeding the progress of Pakistan.

Progressive nationalism based on reform and modernity brought Muslim women out of seclusion and into the mainstream. Their transformation from the silent spectator to passionate political workers was extraordinary. 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 Muslim Leaguers, who shunned chadar and char dewari to become part and parcel of the political struggle, to attain Pakistan. The Muslim League resolution, in 1932 pledged equality to women.

Jinnah galvanised the Muslim League women to break the shackles of the religio-feudal order that had enforced restrictions on them. When Begum Shah Nawaz told the AIML Council at Lucknow in October 1937 that she had set up a Punjab Muslim Women's League, Jinnah stood up and said that he did not believe in separate men and women's organisations, but in their working together from the Primary League upwards. When the question of purdah (veil) was raised by a section at Patna, Jinnah intervened to emphasise that, "It is absolutely essential for us to give every opportunity to our women to participate in our struggle for life and death. Women can do a good deal within their homes, even in purdah." On another occasion, Jinnah asserted, "No nation can make any progress without the co-operation of women. If women support their men as they did in the days of the prophet of Islam (PBUH) we should soon realise our goal."

The Pakistan movement in 1946-47 saw the biggest ever mobilisation of Muslim women, standing confidently and marching with Jinnah as equals, women came out in large numbers joining Muslim League, protesting against the maulvis and agitating against the Unionist government. Their strength meant doubling the number of votes and agitators. They courted arrest, threw off their dupattas making flags out of them. During the civil disobedience movement in Punjab, more than 500 Muslim League women courted arrest, in a single day. Women took out processions, in Lahore day after day, for a whole month, undergoing all sorts of hazards, bravely facing teargas, lathi-charge, beatings, arrests, and imprisonment. Young women poets and writers like Mumtaz Shahnawaz were among the agitators. One of the prisoners, the intrepid Mumtaz Shah Nawaz, made a green flag out of her own dupatta, surreptitiously climbed up the jail building and hoisted it on top, shouting "Allah-o-Akbar" and "Pakistan Zindabad". Two weeks later a young woman, Fatima Sughra, climbed up the massive iron-gate, pulled down the fluttering Union Jack, the symbol of imperial power, and replaced it with the green Muslim League flag, made out of her own dupatta, in the presence of a strong police contingent.

The women in NWFP launched a secret organisation called a "War Council", and ingeniously set up an underground radio station called Pakistan Broadcasting Radio Station, which continued to be on air, till Pakistan's emergence. They scaled ladders and climbed buildings, to hoist the Muslim League flag at various public places. It was during the civil disobedience movement that Begum Shah Nawaz, Fatima Begum, Begum Kakaa Khal, Miss Hassan Ara Hafeez Ullah and others were lathi charged and put behind bars. When they were released from jail on 29th February 1947 and were protesting on the railway bridge in Peshawar, the driver of the train did not stop the train, consequently the women lost their balance and fell down from the bridge and were seriously injured. But nothing deterred their spirit and they courageously continued fighting for independence, by putting up a heroic fight.

In Punjab, Lady Maratab Ali formed the Women's Committee and enrolled hundreds of women as its members. Miss Fatima Jinnah, Begum Muhammad Ali Johar, Begum Shahnawaz, Lady Haroon, Begum Rana Liaqat Ali Khan and Begum Salma Tassadduque Hussain addressed huge meetings throughout the provinces, to educate people about the freedom movement. Shaista Ikramullah, Jahanara Shahnawaz, Mumtaz Shahnawaz and Salma Tassadaque organised and liberated Muslim women from the walls of their homes. The League relied on the women in their ranks to take their message forward to the common people and to the media. The educated and elite women played a vital role in the regeneration of their fellow females and propagated the ideology of Pakistan and the national objectives, in the uneducated women particularly in the rural areas. They inspired, groomed and guided Muslim women on all fronts. Canvassing from door to door they raised funds, organised meetings and processions, pulled men voters to the polling booths, to obtain a favourable verdict on Pakistan. They also raised funds, organised relief work, in times of crises and set up institutions for the advancement of women in political, educational and economic fields.

On Jinnah's insistence the Muslim Women Students Federation (1941) and the Women National Guards (1942) were launched, in a concerted attempt to mobilise the womenfolk, alongside the men folk, in the struggle for Pakistan. All this signified the breaking down of the male-female segregation and the male dominated patriarchal mindset, which had ruled the sub-continental Muslim societal structure, for centuries. The Muslim Women's National Guard, a civil defence organisation protected women during the riots of 1947. After Jinnah's death the WNG ceased to exist because the mullahs and conservatives criticised the fact that its members went around armed and unveiled.

By: Nosheen Saeed, Information Secretary of the women's wing of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML).

Source: www.thenews.com.pk

13 August 2007