Daily Times

Poor Immy. He almost went to the ball. Indeed, all the stars were aligned just so. The collective opposition had been left on the back-foot. Their one-point agenda to oust the Prime Minister and all his good (wo)men all but forgotten in the name of in-house bickering.

If only that pesky caller hadn’t asked Kaptaan about his team’s performance in tackling sexual violence and rape, especially against minors. In that instant, it seems that his Fairy Godmother allowed her magic wand to lie limp , leaving the fairest of them all to fend for himself. The stardust is still settling.

His words were cruelly taken out of context, mis-translated even; at least that’s the way Immy’s coterie tells it. Certainly, as everyone and their cat knows, Pakistan’s media isn’t immune to such missteps. Past experience has, at times, proved fatal. All the more reason, then, for the Information ministry to step in and set the record straight. Yet here in this hard country, successive governments have long viewed the fourth estate as little more than a personal public relations wing. And non-compliance provokes self-serving censure. For the state has demonstrated little interest in helping the media evolve beyond imposed parameters of censorship.

Khan’s cabal has also insisted that what their chieftain meant, paw on heart, was that the rise of vulgarity and immodesty, including increased access to pornography, has an untoward knock-on effect and results in rampant sexual misconduct. Fair enough. Except that there was no need to talk about India, the West and imported obscenity. Not only does this provide an unwelcome reminder of the recent U-turns on resumption of trade ties on the eastern front — it conveniently ignores the most potent threat to justice and protection of women and minors.

The religious right, continues to enjoy unbridled power, despite the myth of the country’s (interrupted) commitment to parliamentary democracy. For when the likes of TLP (Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan) able to take to the streets and demand that the highest court in the land revisit it verdict in a well-known blasphemy case — and the state duly capitulates — the pretence of doing better than Middle Eastern theocracies rings deafeningly hollow. Or when the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), in the midst of a global pandemic, declares a government public health slogan un-Islamic and successfully demands that it be changed — man, woman and cat have lost the battle.

Unless Immy musters the gumption to challenge the religious right to protect the most vulnerable — any denunciation of western hedonism becomes redundant

None of which bodes well for the future. The ruling PTI already had to concede defeat back in 2019 when it failed to win National Assembly support for a private member’s bill — tabled by one of its own MNAs — seeking to criminalise child marriages for under 18-year-olds. Humiliatingly, the party faced revolt from amid its own ranks; including a sitting federal minister for Parliamentary Affairs who lambasted the proposed legislation for being un-Islamic. The CII had thwarted similar moves in the past, asserting that a girl is eligible for marriage once she hits puberty. Thus when the PTI caved before the religious right — it also surrendered the rights of the girl child. As did the PMLN before it.

If Kaptaan is serious about protecting women and children from rape, he will have to address the problem from within; including revisiting the issue of underage marriage. Linked to is this, regardless of inevitable backlash, is eventual recognition of the age of consent in order to prosecute statutory rape offences. Yet to effect this would require de-criminalising pre-marital sex. Sadly, this will be a non-stater. Immy has seen to that with all his chatter about lewdness. Though he would do well to remember that it’s relatively easy to pass a presidential ordinance — however flawed — when the vast majority of the public are rightly outraged at a gang-rape on a motorway. Even if the senior police officer who proceeded to blame the victim for travelling at night without a male chaperone should have, by rights, been in the dock for incitement to rape.

Thus one only one question remains. Does Immy have the gumption to place the omnipresent cat among the pigeons and challenge the religious right to a head-on collision. In the name of upholding inalienable rights, particularly for the most vulnerable. If not, then any denunciation of western hedonism with its apparent tilt towards sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, becomes redundant. For what Pakistan is facing is far, far worse. And when rape becomes endemic, the time for introspection has arrived. Something that Khan himself acknowledged back in 2014, while being interviewed for Britain’s Channel Four documentary, Pakistan’s Hidden Shame; focusing on the sexual abuse of underage boys in Peshawar.

If the head of government — selected or otherwise — is impotent in the face of a violent and resurgent religious right, the game is over. Even if it’s not cricket. Let’s cross our paws and hope that Immy’s other glass slipper drops.

The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at miranda.dailytimes@gmail.com and tweets @humeiwei