This past Monday, Sughra Fatima passed away. She became a prominent symbol of women’s active role in politics in years leading up to partition when she tore down the British flag in front of the Punjab Civil Secretariat in Lahore, and replaced it with the All India Muslim League’s flag. She was 14 at the time and is often mentioned alongside other leading women activists of the period like Fatima Jinnah, Jahanara Shahnawaz and Begum Liaqat Ali Khan.
Fatima Sughra belongs to a period of history significant for Pakistan in general and the country’s women in particular. That was a time of extreme activism by groups — with multiple worldviews and political programmes — geared towards a shared goal of self-determination and an end to colonial rule. For the women of the region, that period saw unprecedented level of political participation including resistance to patriarchal norms like confinement to homes under strict purdah. Yet Fatima Sughra and her ilk inspired countless Muslim women and men to come out on to the streets and make their demands for self-rule heard by the British Empire. After partition, Fatima Sughra remained active in helping with refugees’ rehabilitation and resettlement.
Unfortunately, the movement that led to formation of the new nation-state whose cardinal principles of policy were laid down by the Quaid-e-Azam’s August 11 address to the Constituent Assembly was not to be a preamble to the Pakistan we find today. Patriarchal norms against whom Sughra and her generation of women activists rebelled continue to haunt thousands of women in Pakistan. Those who step outside of these norms are socially ostracised and subjected to brutal customs and state institutions have yet to be effectively used to put an end to these practices.
Yet all is not lost. Women in Pakistan have gained empowerment and representation in state institutions, political parties and civil society organisations. Figures like Benazir Bhutto, Asma Jahangir, Sherry Rehman, Mukhtara Mai, and Malala Yousafzai are only a few examples of those who have made their voices heard against all odds.
We hope that these and other women leaders and activists in Pakistan will continue the struggle started by Sughra and others of her generation – and in the process, pushing against patriarchal norms and facilitating exercise of rights and liberties by Pakistani citizens. *
Published in Daily Times, September 27th 2017.