Karachi Chronicle: Another Oscar

For Pakistan it was a moment to be proud that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won a second Oscar for a documentary film highlighting a pressing social issue: honour killing. Sindh Assembly was prompt in paying tribute to the Oscar winner on the same day she won. Karachiites in particular were basking in reflected glory, since the filmmaker happens to be a resident of this city. Now that self-congratulation is over, it is time to wonder if Pakistan government will enact an anti-honour killing law, which has been languishing in the Senate since 2014.
Will this law help change the old social order, which is too deeply ingrained in this country, with the exception of Karachi? Of course the Senate should stop dragging its feet and promulgate the law on so-called honour killings, but will anyone have the will and desire to implement the law? No documentary, no global awareness can pressurise people to change the way they think.
Why is Karachi different? Because the old social order of the country does not affect it. It is the product of a new social order in line with modern aspirations. arguably, it has the support of the only native population among whom honour killing does not exist-- the matriarchal Baloch of Lyari.
Lahore's modernity is a physical facade, evident in the grand new city plan, the buildings, Orange line et al. The mindset of the majority (including the government) is rooted in the old social order which supports fanaticism and sponsors the right of males to treat females as they please. There have been acid attacks and honour killing in all sections of society from the affluent class to the poorest of the poor.
So-called honour killings exist throughout the Muslim world, even in the most modern Muslim country: Turkey. But here, too, such killings not prevail among the modernised urban citizens. Author Elif Shafak in her recent novel 'Honour' (widely read in Pakistan) shows how the rural mindset continues to dictate action even when a family moves to London and the young live like any other modern citizen of the metropolis.
This is also the case of plebian Pakistanis, lacking refinement and culture, who live in the developed world. The young Turk who kills his mother because she is having an affair ends in jail. There the law takes effect. Here a law never prevails because so-called honour killings are largely condoned.
But is there no hope the country will be rid of this horrible social crime? It seems not because nobody is afraid of authority, that is, the law, the judiciary, the government, the police.
In Sindh's history there is, however, a chapter when honour killing was reduced to almost nil. This was in the days of Company Raj. (You can read about it in books like 'Sindh before Napier'). The British were puzzled that so many women, young women, died by 'accidentally' falling on a knife or loosing their footing off the roof. On investigation the crime of honour-killing was exposed.
The unique manner in which the British managed to control honour killing was by threatening to hang the headman of a village if young women died 'accidentally'.
The headmen, waderas, dithered at their fate and of the scrouge of so-called honour killing disappeared. It reared its ugly head in the province once the country became Independent. You may look up the records and you will note a sharp rise, growing each passing year since 1947.
So it means this province, at least, has had some experience of living almost free of honour killing. It was actually in the Zia era that the crime's graph leapt upwards. The Press reported; the subject was hotly discussed and debated among journalists. That is when I realised the mindset of the people had not changed, when a colleague from Larkana who had recently joined the Karachi Press, stated emotionally that it was the duty of society to defend its honour. Did he note the shocked expressing in my eyes, and the eyes of other Karachiites who heard him? It did have a chastening effect. As he settled down in Karachi his attitude changed. Today he would not speak of honour killing as justifiable.
But I still wonder if in his heart of hearts he continues to think differently from us. He has daughters, but I do not think he would resort to so-called honour killing if one of them falls in love with someone outside their biradari. At least of that I am certain. What I wonder is whether he would be able to justify his modernised outlook to his family in Larkana.