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The Other Half:Absurd Tales |
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Dear Ones,
Read on for Kalpana Sharma's moving tribute to the late Saneeya
Hussain,and the word she created: absurdistan". In her feature, Kalpana
cites recent absurdities in Pakistan and India, but as we are sadly
aware the Absurdistans of the globe are not restricted to South Asia,
and their victims are universally and overwhelmingly women and children.
Note too the photograph indicating that a female police officer assaulted Asma
Jahangir via her neck and throat during the fundamentalist disruption
of the May 14 "mixed marathon". Outrageous and highly dangerous! -
Lynette
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The Hindu Sunday Magazine - May 29 2005
THE OTHER HALF
Absurd tales
By Kalpana Sharma
The image of Saneeya Hussain constantly comes to mind when one reads about recent developments in Pakistan.
OBSTACLE RACE: Police stop a mini-marathon in Lahore. Asma Jehangir is second from left. PHOTO: REUTERS
A PAKISTANI friend recently suggested that her country's name should be
changed to "Absurdistan". She was commenting on the state of affairs in
Pakistan where women are being stopped from participating in a
marathon. We have seen photographs in our papers of that feisty human
rights campaigner, Asma Jehangir, defying the police and the mullahs by
organising and participating in a symbolic protest marathon in Lahore.
The friend who made that comment is not around to see this absurd
reaction of the Pakistani authorities to a public race and a peaceful
protest. She died on April 20 in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Saneeya Hussain was
the kind of Pakistani woman who defied established norms but also set a
standard that is an inspiration for people of any nationality. It is
rare these days to find people who rise above national identities and
are concerned about issues that are universal. It is even more unusual
to come across people who have the courage of their convictions to take
risks, go for new challenges at an age when most people expect them to
"settle" down. Saneeya was just such a person. She stepped out of
mainstream journalism at a point in her career where she would have
made it to the top. She opted instead to join an organisation that
trained and encouraged journalists to write on environmental issues. If
there is a solid crop of good environmental journalists in Pakistan
today, the credit for that goes largely to Saneeya Hussain.
Many accomplishments
This was only one of her many accomplishments. Saneeya worked with the
communications team of the World Commission on Dams that surveyed the
ecological and social challenges posed by large dams based in Cape
Town, South Africa. From there she again moved to unfamiliar shores
when she married Brazilian environmentalist Luis Ferraz and moved to
Sao Paolo. Before she could settle in, she was lured into taking the
job of executive director of Panos South Asia in Kathmandu, an
organisation that works with the media on developmental issues, an area
close to Saneeya's heart.
Asthma finally forced her leave Kathmandu and Nepal. Last year, Saneeya
moved back to Brazil. She followed events in South Asia closely, hence
her comment in March to a friend about Pakistan. But on April 7, the
asthma that she had battled all her life finally got the better of her.
After an unexpected and severe attack, she slipped into deep coma and
on April 20 she slipped away. Her passing has revealed an extraordinary
network of friends across the world who knew this remarkable woman for
various periods of time and who had all been infected by her zest and
commitment.
The image of this striking, tall woman, with flowing hair constantly
comes to mind when one reads these recent developments in her country.
Why should the State react in this extreme way to a peaceful protest by
women and men to do something that is by no measure of the imagination
illegal? The recent clash in Lahore was a fallout of the events that
followed the decision of the Sports Board of Punjab to organise
marathons in different cities of the State in anticipation of the
Lahore Marathon scheduled for January 2006. What should have been a
routine event, turned into a major battleground between clerics, who
insist that women should not run on the streets, and people who thought
this was their right. In Gujranwala, the marathon armed vigilantes
hurled petrol bombs and attacked the participants. Although some of the
miscreants were arrested, they were later released without being
charged.
As a protest against this disruption, Asma Jehangir, former chair of
the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, and the Joint Action Committee
for People's Rights decided to hold a symbolic marathon in Lahore on
May 15. The distance that they planned to run was less than a
kilometre. What followed defies all logic. The Punjab police first
tried to stop the race from starting. Then they locked the gates of the
stadium from where people were planning to run. They went further and
surrounded the office of Asma Jehangir where many of the participants
had gathered. When the women and men found another way out, the police,
according to an eye-witness, "used batons/lathis, hit out, abused,
dragged women by the hair, tore clothes (including Asma's saying they
were assigned to do just that) and flung people into the standing
police vans."
On May 21, the same group ran another marathon, once again defying the
police. One salutes the courage of these women and men and their
determination not to accept such brutal behaviour by the state.
In India
There are so many "absurdistans" in this country, too. In Mumbai, the
manner in which the police disrupted a peaceful demonstration by
thousands of dishoused slum dwellers last month is almost a carbon copy
of what happened in Lahore. The demonstrators, rendered homeless by the
State government's ruthless demolition drive at the end of last year,
sat down on the road when they found they could not enter Azad Maidan,
the designated place for all such demonstrations. Instead of finding a
way to steer the crowd into the maidan, the police resorted to a brutal
lathi charge in which dozens were injured, including a child who later
died. When such force is used to suppress peaceful protest, is it not
absurd?
Thank you, Saneeya, for giving us a word "absurdistan" that most aptly describes the state in both our countries.
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