What makes Bushra Bibi such a polarising figure in Pakistani politics?

Few figures in Pakistan’s political landscape pique as much interest or controversy as Bushra Bibi — the third wife of former prime minister Imran Khan.

Over the last few years, her prominence in Imran’s narrative has provoked allegations ranging from sorcery to her alleged ‘illness of ambition’. On November 26, Bushra’s entry into politics became overt when she led the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s dharna to D-Chowk.

The reactions to this move confirm Pakistan’s entrenched misogyny but also, the limits of gendered piety politics. It confirms how women’s political purposes and public presence remain permanently suspect, and men are seen as innocent ‘milk-of-human-kindness’ victims of female scheming. Further, it has clarified that gendered pietist agency is not docile for long but is a decoy to deflect from gender equality and a modesty/ haya-based stabiliser of patriarchy.

On the Bushra factor, liberals and conservatives find common ground but diverge sharply in reasoning. Progressives argue that objecting to the gendered backlash against Bushra reflects naivety and susceptibility to Imran’s populism (suggesting her gender is now irrelevant). Conservatives, on the other hand, mock her for perceived non-compliance with her stated Sharia aspirations and criticise her slightly exposed arms while waving alongside na-mehrams at the protest rally. Meanwhile, the spectrum radicals dismiss everyone’s ‘obsession’ at how street level disruption and anti-establishment sentiment will empower far-right movements — even as land disputes in Kurram escalate into sectarian carnage. Across the board, the demand for scapegoats and retribution intensifies.

Piety is political

Pakistan’s sacred geographies intertwine gender, politics, and piety. The shrine of Piro, a 19th-century female Sufi poet and sexually defiant saint, was erased from Kasur after 1947, reflecting discomfort with her identity as a lower-caste courtesan and Hindu-affiliated figure. In contrast, Bibi Pak Daman’s shrine in Lahore remains a significant site, despite sectarian disputes after its 1967 state takeover.

Figures like Bushra bibi, with her Sufi persuasion, complicate politics — shrine or secular — by unsettling male dominance. It’s not just her marriage to Imran or her rumoured influence over his political decisions, but even her sway at Baba Farid’s shrine that has provoked debates on gender and spiritual authority.

Bushra has been variably labelled a murshid [spiritual guide], a witch-doctor, and a suspected proxy state agent. Many across the ideological divide share suspicions about her rumoured connections with sections of the establishment. Ironically, Imran, who was in fact elevated by the same establishment, remains the unimpeachable supra patriot. In any case, which party has not retained backchannel relations with state powers for negotiations and deal-making?

The gendered nature of political framing — especially, Bushra’s and Imran’s piety politics — simply confirms that inevitably, women claiming agency through religion end up finding little reward as women when challenging patriarchal norms. Treachery tops the list of male suspicions when women assert autonomy.

In the decade following the attacks of 9/11, piety movements in Pakistan became increasingly gendered with the rise in popularity of Farhat Hashmi’s religious schooling network, Al Huda. Piety is different from orthodoxy but resides on the same spectrum of religious politics, and on the gender question, these overlap and work collaboratively. So, by example, Al Huda emphasises religious education to build pious families and Islamic nations, while Lashkar-i-Tayyaba mothers advocate for sacrificing sons as martyrs for Islam. The women of Jamia Hafsa took this further, breaking traditional roles to lead aggressive moral-cleansing campaigns — targeting women as objects of redemption. The momentum has built up into collectives of several pietist women’s movements across the ideological board and who convene each year to oppose the annual Aurat Marches and their fahaash [immodest] feminist and sexual politics.

Varyingly, these movements and actors have been either dismissed as state sponsored religious imposters or, sanitised by scholars who insist on these women’s postcolonial authenticity. Critics pejoratively deny the agency of pietist women and have portrayed them as ‘burqa brigades’ and pawns manipulated by male leadership.

Conversely, the sympathising post-secularists have defended piety politics as appropriate alternatives to ‘liberal-secular’ western feminism and made careers as scholars and policy makers, recommending the instrumentalisation of faith-based approaches to counter religious militancy. There is no accountability for the effects of these “imported” or Western donor-backed, Muslim-tailored “theories of change”, which have gradually supplanted locally rooted resistance strategies — justified under the guise of culturally authentic solutions.

Intersectional sexism

At the time of their marriage, rumours circulated about Bushra’s alleged dream-bearing divine instructions that tied her union with Khan to his eventual rise as prime minister. This narrative fed into stereotypes about women scheming to ensnare men in marriage. More significantly, it underscored the role of oneirocentrism — dream-centred belief systems — as a core element of religion. Connecting visions/ revelations to the social or political is at the heart of the piety experience and in the wave of Islamic populism across the Muslim world, pietist celebrities cleanse their historical slates of polygamy, divorce, or transgressive sexual behaviour by acquiring a pietist persona and pursuits. Yet, the Pakistani elite and the lumpen alike, remain sceptical about Imran’s choice of what he calls his ‘soul-mate for life’.

Bushra’s full veil and performed modesty — which equates women’s virtue with morality — frames her as a relic of conservatism and a symbol of the Islamic state’s gendered moral order. Accurately so, since there is no such thing as an empty signifier, especially in an Islamic Republic, and conservative women have proudly embraced the veil and modesty as self-identifiers. Yet, Bushra also endures conservative disdain akin to the hostility faced by women in public life since Fatima Jinnah’s time.

The scrutiny of political Bushra mirrors that of women like Benazir Bhutto, who faced attacks on her pregnancies, personal life, and leadership. When Benazir became prime minister the first time, feminists hotly debated her choice to cover her head with the dupatta. As activists, these women had battled on the streets to resist General Zia’s attempt to impose an conservative dress code on women and so, they perceived this as a defeatist compromise. However, Benazir’s spirituality didn’t stop her from championing women’s causes and advancing liberal reforms, including signing the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1995 despite vociferous opposition from the Jamaat-i-Islami.

Over the years, increasing women in power has fostered some change and yet, women like Sherry Rehman and Maryam Nawaz, are persistently sexualised; Punjab minister Zille Huma was murdered for her perceived lack of modesty. Misogyny transcends ideology and is often perpetuated by other women who subscribe to patriarchal norms for advantage or male approval.

The iddat case against Bushra underscored how Pakistan’s routine exploitation of female sexuality cuts across classes. Court proceedings dissected her menstrual cycle and sexual history — a routine indignity for underprivileged women. Initially praised as pure and pious by her former husband Maneka, Bushra was later labeled disobedient (nashiza) by him, reflecting patriarchal norms that weaponise women’s personal choices for public shaming.

Ironically, feminist-driven reforms to discriminatory Zina laws (which were resisted by Imran in 2006) shielded Bushra and Imran in the iddat case, sparing them additional charges of adultery. Such liberal concessions often benefit elites while ordinary women remain vulnerable. Parties win legal relief for their own leaders but refuse to reform unequal family laws.

From Benazir Bhutto’s “Daughter of the East” branding to Maryam Nawaz’s “naani” persona, women in power are alternately fetishised as nurturing figures or vilified as threats. Bushra is subject to the same pious/ evil paradox. After the violent suppression of the D-Chowk protests and her fleeing the turmoil with KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, not only were there many sexist comments about her running away with ‘yet another man’, but she also become a convenient scapegoat for the failures of the PTI’s male leadership.

Postfeminist futures

Arguably, Imran Khan has mobilised more urban middle-class women into public spaces (not the same as political office) than any other Pakistani leader. Unlike Benazir Bhutto’s empathetic appeal to gender equality, Imran’s supporters admire his masculine charisma and perceived moral leadership. PTI women supporters have demonstrated defiance against military generals, echoing the strategies and courage of the Women’s Action Forum feminists of the 1980s. Although rooted in vastly different political ideologies, both movements exemplify fearless resistance to a militarised state.

Imran’s populism uses the inclusionary/ exclusionary model and by definition this sustains itself via polarity and division while undermining pluralism and equality. Populist leaders rarely need to defend their overt sexism, as women within their movements often reinterpret and endorse their patriarchal rhetoric. This strategy, evident in the global rise of such leaders, proves far more effective in normalising and legitimising discriminatory attitudes as ‘natural’ and ‘common sense’.

Bushra’s piety complements Imran’s narrative of moral reform, echoing global trends like the US “tradwives” movement that frames submission as empowerment. Bushra, and Imran’s female followers represent this postfeminist phase in Pakistan — dismissing feminism as “Western” and reframing empowerment through religious morality. The harmonising of Islam and feminism has remained unresolved and unproven — the strategic momentum built by secular feminists was drowned out by Musharraf’s millennials whose entire politics consisted of accusations and personalised, random, competitive, under-developed notions yelled across social media.

Feminists do not align blindly with women who are proxies of patriarchal practices. Bushra’s Sharia ambitions, alongside Imran, confirms the distance between female empowerment within conservative bounds, and more secular ideals of equality across genders, classes, and religions.

The erasure of Piro’s shrine and the rise of figures like Bushra represent how women’s piety has shifted from being symbolic of South Asian pluralism to a tool to be used by women for religio-political influence. Pakistan’s future will likely remain shaped by the interplay of piety, populism, and postfeminism. Progressives must navigate these complexities to promote equality by transcending conservatism and restrictive piety, and without undermining electoral mandates or democracy.

Header image: This file photo shows former premier Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi outside a court in 2023. — AFP