Women's empowerment

Slowly but surely the national electoral landscape is undergoing a critical metamorphosis. The contenders to the national power are tapping new and henceforth only sparsely exploited sources. Of these, the one clearly made out but repeatedly missed out is the electoral strength of women of Pakistan. Despite their edge in the electoral numbers their role as a stakeholder in the national affairs has been marginalised - as much by the tradition-ridden negative mindset as by the wealth-driven politics. Thanks to the built-in resistance to change that stems from the very structure of political parties that are invariably dominated and run by men, this pathetic state has gone on for too long unquestioned and uninterrupted. Over time, the men-oriented politics has acquired a sort of monopoly of national power. Women, therefore, could never make it to the elected houses in numbers that match their numerical size. But as the nation's good fortune would have it, it's the obtaining bleakness of the hopelessly disappointing performance of their elected gender counterparts that has started emitting rays of hope for the much-awaited change. Exploitation of this vast source of untapped national power appears to be the prime theme of debate in emerging pre-election scenario. Of course, the credit to bring under sharper focus this henceforth only partially exploited source goes to the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) but the fact remains that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is the first political party in Pakistan which broke this path by aptly recognising this inherent electoral potential and made the best use of it - the massive all-women public rally in Karachi over the weekend addressed by the party chief Altaf Hussain being an evidence. He was right in claiming that the women's rally was probably the largest-ever of its kind in history. The size of a rally in itself is no more a measure to judge the real popularity of a political party, however. The trend of huge rallies in Karachi is not something new; the recently-held PTI and JUI (F) rallies in that very Mazar-i-Quaid were no less massive and festive in mode and responsive in mood. Who doesn't know that the MQM has the capacity and organisational skills to arrange such public meetings, as it has the record of motivating women to come forward and as voters play an active role in politics. That reality should echo through the halls of traditional political parties is the new development. The MQM's detractors may say, and rightly, in cities like Karachi and Lahore organising huge processions and public meetings should be no problem. They may also argue that the size of these gatherings hardly get reflected in the election results. But it is the message flashed by the huge rally that empowered women means a stronger Pakistan is something which is bound to have a ripple effect all over the country. This is a kind of new beginning, not for political considerations only, it has the potential to change our lives. To this academia, media and civil society too have to contribute which given recent developments, indicate, is very much possible. No doubt there has always been a nominal presence of women in the assemblies but that has never in any meaningful way influenced the law-making process - the main reason being that a very small number of women are elected on general seats while the rest of them are there as 'party nominees'. And, in most of the cases, these nominations are doled out to party loyalists or are gifted to elite families. To sum up, women empowerment is easier said than done. It requires plenty of attention, serious work and progress in a number of fields, besides meeting the most formidable challenge of generating an environment conducive to women's active participation in the electoral process. Then, it may be easy to secure their participatory role in the big urban centres but beyond that it remains a problem, for fundamentally it is still a forbidden fruit for women. Courtesy the strongly entrenched tradition and cultural taboos, their role is restricted to the household chores. Obviously the way forward is hard and taxing. But one thing is clear: the women of Pakistan now know where to go from here. Copyright Business Recorder, 2012