Harassment, patriarchy and inflation come under fire in Aurat March

KARACHI: Raising voice over the many injustices in society, raising awareness on multiple issues, standing up for each other, Hum Aurtein managed to gather, in no particular order, women, men, transgender persons, workers, peasants, members of minority communities, students and children at the sixth Aurat March in all its unapologetic, unabashed brazenness at the Burns Garden here on Sunday.

There were stories to listen to, faces to read along with interesting posters and placards.

There were also taboos to be broken. One placard had the words ‘Sunno, Samjho, Seekho, Badlo [Listen, understand, learn, change], another read ‘We Are Not Ovary-Acting’. Some other interesting messages on placards included ‘I Want To Exist Without Apology’, ‘Abort the patriarchy’, ‘Anti-hero’ and ‘Bachay Paida Kerne Hain Tau Inn Ki Perverish Bhi Kerna Seekh Lo [You want children, then learn to bring them up also].

The stories were all around you, and not just up on the main stage. Rukhsana Paveen Kho­khar had her eight-month-old daughter, Mashal, in her arms who was looking around inquisitively while taking in her surroundings and the happenings. “I have named her ‘Mashal’ because I want her to light up the path for everyone. Similarly, I have named my other daughter, who is six, Mazaib, meaning bea­utiful like the moon. The moon also lights the night sky,” she expla­ined, adding that her mother, Khandul Mai, was also there at the Aurat March with her.

“My mother struggled a lot to get me educated. I’m the first female in my family who studied right up to master’s. I have a master’s in English literature. Throughout my schooling I stood first in class and in intermediate, BA and MA I passed in the first division. And this despite all the men in my family, save my father who was a poor labourer, being dead set against educating girls,” she said.

People from all walks of life pour their heart out as fiery slogans heat up Burns Garden

Meanwhile, up on the stage there were people coming up to tell you about their struggles, their issues. There were performances, singing of songs, acting out skits and tableaux. There were chairs if you would like to sit on them and watch, there were also carpets spread out on the grass if you would like to sit down on the ground. The Net­work of Organisations Working For People With Disabilities Pakistan, or NOWPDP, had arranged for wheelchairs too, for the disabled or the elderly. You could also just roam around and mingle or watch from under the big shady trees of Burns Garden.

There was an air of ease, of freedom to do as you please, women came dressed in pretty cotton saris, ghararas, ghagras, skirts, pants, jeans, plain shalwar kameez, there were several men with long hair who wore their hair in buns or in pony tails, girls had pink, blue and purple streaks in their hair, many of them were smoked, too, filling their lungs with smoke. Why why not? They were their lungs, they could do whatever they jolly well felt like doing with them bringing up the famous, or infamous most misunderstood slogan from the first Aurat March ‘Mera Jism Meri Marzi’! It was repeated several times up on the stage, too, along with Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s inspiring poem ‘Hum Dekhenge’.

Speaking about the Aurat March, economist Dr Kaiser Bengali, who has attended all the six marches, said that it was an opportunity to express themselves, which was an important pillar of our social ideology. “It tells us how society should be organised, pluralised with freedom,” he said.

Architect and town planner Arif Hasan, who was also there, said that he had so far attended five marches and that the Aurat March was a movement.

“Such movements build up slowly but they should happen as they point out the ills in society which people don’t usually talk about,” he said, adding that the media should also write about these ills to spread the word and raise awareness.

Fatima Majeed from the fisherfolk community came up to talk about the hardships fisherfolks face, about pollution in the seas, about dirty fuel for power generation such as coal.

Labourers and workers lamented loudly about inflation and the rising costs of fuel, Pastor Ghazala Shafique spoke about minority rights, sanitation workers, crimes and injustices against minor girls abducted and made to change their faiths.

Radha Bheel spoke about bonded labour and how girls were chained as they worked. How they are also raped as they work like slaves. “We are fighting against child labour, we are fighting for education, for respect,” she said.

Women from Lyari spoke about how the skin of their hands burn and their nails crack while peeling red chillies, tamarind and garlic. Other women spoke about harassment at the workplace.

Laali from Mirpurkhas came up to talk about the difficulties women of the flood-affected areas have been facing.

Transgender community member Bindiya Rana, Shahzadi Rai, Dr Mehrub Moiz Awan and rapper Jaan-e-Hasina brought up the difficulties faced by their community.

Arzoo Raja, Neha Pervaiz and other teenage Christian girls, who have now been recovered after they married Muslim men as old as their fathers, came up to tell their own stories in the form of a tableau. “I have a body, I have a soul and I have my faith,” they sang.

“We don’t speak about any one woman, we raise voices for all women, from all communities, classes, faith and sects. We raise voice for all genders, too,” said social activist and classical dancer Sheema Kermani.

Finally, there was a small celebration of Holi as all the participants of the Aurat March rubbed colour on each other’s cheeks. Many participants, who felt they have been wronged in any way in life, were also invited to dip their palms in red colour and leave their palm impressions on a long white cloth that had inscribed in red the words ‘The injustice done to you will not be forgotten’.

Chanting slogans then and reading out their charter of demands, the Aurat March then moved out of Burns Garden to march to the Fawwara Chowk.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2023