The need for change

Speaking at a government organised women's convention in Islamabad on Tuesday, President General Pervez Musharraf defended the recently passed women's protection law, countering its opponents' criticism. "Hudood Allah," he averred, "cannot be changed as they are divine, but the Hudood Ordinance is man-made and it can be changed."
Indeed, the Ordinance was issued by a military ruler, General Zia-ul-Haq, to promote his political agenda, and hence should be open to change. Besides, there is a constitutional body, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), whose responsibility it is to determine whether or not a particular law is in consonance with the teachings of Islam.
In the present case, the CII, as General Musharraf pointed out, had declared the bill to be in accordance with Islamic laws, which should have been enough to satisfy its critics. There is also need to revive the respected Islamic tradition of 'Ijtehad' to meet the needs of our time.
As a matter of fact, while some of our literalist Ulema insist on reverting back to the practices and traditions as they existed during early days of Islam, they have embraced new ones without a thought. The prison system as we know it, for instance, was not in existence during early Islamic rule, which necessitated some of the punishments included in Zia-ul-Haq's Hudood laws.
It makes little sense, therefore, to have the two parallel penal systems. Logic demands that either the modern prison system is scrapped or the Hudood punishments are dispensed with.
Unfortunately, both the government and those in Opposition, who voiced their rejection of the women's protection bill, have been viewing it through the prism of politics. Aside from the CII, the Parliamentary Standing Committee's recommendations also supported the government position, yet it decided to set up an Ulema committee to make its own suggestions, and actually accepted some of them in disregard of those made by the two august constitutional bodies.
Even after the passage of the bill, ruling party president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has been holding talks with religious parties' representatives asking for fresh proposals for change, and actually receiving several suggestions. This could be defended on the ground that building consensus on any controversial issue is part of a democratic culture.
Cynics though point out, and quite convincingly too, that the whole exercise was aimed at keeping the Opposition divided. On their part, the religious parties, which rely mostly on retrogressive interpretations of religious teachings to promote their political programme, feel compelled to take conservative positions of which reinforcing anti-women prejudices is an important element.
But being a particularly oppressed section of the society, women tend to welcome steps towards liberalisation even though they may not be conscious of the intellectual explanations for such steps.
An interesting example of this inclination came to the fore during the 1970 elections, the freest so far, in which aside from economics, women's social empowerment emerged as a big issue with the religious parties threatening to repeal the Family Laws in the event of electoral victory.
The PPP won the support of not only an overwhelming majority of the poor but also women, who feared losing whatever protection the Family Laws offered them. It is also true though that the people in this country are inclined to separate religion from politics at election time and do not vote in significant numbers for the religious parties.
While claiming credit for the pro-women law and criticising its opponents as "hypocrites" and "extremists", General Musharraf took the opportunity to urge the voters, women in particular, to "Remember, you have to vote for moderates. Reject those who do not want to see you progressing."
He also promised to pass a new bill which aims at addressing six important issues regarding women's rights: inheritance rights, forced marriages, marriages with the Quran, 'Vani', selling of women, and divorce laws. Needless to say, the government must be extended unquestioned support for this bill's passage. It is a national shame that these cruel practices have remained in force for as long as they have.