Artwork by Shehzil Malik

Aurat March and Undisciplined Bodies: Articulating a History of Sexuality in Pakistan

On International Women’s Day, Pakistani women, non-binary people and male allies came out to protest in various parts of the country to participate in what is known as the Aurat March: a local form of the Women’s Day marches that take place around the world. The slogans seen and chanted at Aurat March shocked the whole nation and became the subject of widespread opprobrium (Mohydin, 2019).

Consequently, there was a lot of backlash, specifically over the kinds of placards at display. Slogans such as, “Keep your dick pics to yourself” and “I will warm your food but then you should warm your own bed” were seen to threaten the moral and cultural values of the country by many Pakistanis, including some veteran feminists (Khatri, 2019). Digital media was rife with disparaging comments coming from not only men who felt threatened by the demands made at the March, but also women who criticized the controversial nature of the slogans, and did not see such demands to be accurate representations of ‘indigenous’ forms of feminism. Many also took to social media to harass the organisers and participants of the Aurat March, and sent them rape or death threats (Reuters, 2019).

The Aurat March marks an important moment in the trajectory of feminist resistance in the country, in which battles are now being fought for a new kind of feminist praxis that “breaks the silence” (John and Nair, 1998) around issues of sexual autonomy and agency. The momentum gained and the backlash and death threats received by the participants of the Aurat March raise some important questions regarding how sexuality has historically been constructed in the Pakistani context.

This essay employs the Aurat March as a starting point to interrogate the construction of sexuality in Pakistan, considering how a march for gender equity turned into a heated nationwide debate in a country that sees its women as ‘cultural emblems’ (Chaudhuri, 2000: 127), meant to guard the izzat (honor) of the nation. It outlines how the image of Pakistani womanhood, in particular, has been carefully constructed by the state since the inception of the country, and locates this construction in Pakistan’s colonial past to see how gender roles, as markers of Pakistan’s conservative Islamic culture, are imagined today.

The History and Construction of Sexuality in the Making of Pakistan

Michel Foucault (1978) talks about the social constitution of discourses around sexuality, and deconstructs the “repressive hypothesis” to assert that these discourses are institutionally controlled. I believe that Foucault does not take the range of postcolonial contexts into account in his discussion of Victorian morality, and how it has significantly shaped nation-states outside of western contexts (Menon, 2007: xiv). On this basis, I aim to focus on the “production of historical Others” (Stoler, 1995: 195) in the making of sexualities in Pakistan.

Shahnaz Rouse (2004) charts the gendered politics leading up to Pakistan’s creation. The fact that Pakistan was conceived on the basis of religion shaped existing ‘Muslim’ sexualities significantly in light of the central role of Islam in the independence movement. Sexuality came to occupy a key position within state discourse, albeit covertly, and was influenced with particular regard for the institution of family as per the dictates of Islamic and customary practices. Therefore, sexuality was largely defined as being quintessential to the construction of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, just as long as it was of the productive and familial kind.

This naturalization of heterosexuality, also highlighted by M. Jacqui Alexander (1994) in her work, is not just a colonial process; it requires complicity on the part of postcolonial nation-states that shape productive sexualities to be their very basis. This foundation is then reified through the ongoing process of the sexualization of particular bodies by designating which sexuality is appropriate and acceptable, and which isn’t. Therefore, as Rouse illustrates, in order to understand sexuality as a social process in Pakistan, it is important to look at sexual discourses as being discourses of colonial power. This would help in gauging how sexualities were eventually dismantled or transformed in postcolonial Pakistan.

The colonization process in Pakistan shaped the role of the institution of family in a regressive, heteropatriarchal and classed manner, as a result of the establishment of private property and the consequent restructuring of classes (Rouse, 2004). This shaped heterosexual relations significantly in the subcontinent vis-a-vis the sexual division of labor. The idea of a distinctly Pakistani Muslim womanhood, in particular, was shaped significantly in the postcolonial period, as women became central to the construction and sustenance of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and subsequently became a homogenized symbol of national ‘Muslim’ honor and identity.

This understanding of the quintessential good Muslim Pakistani woman effectively erases the diversity of other gendered experiences in the country, and creates a good versus bad woman dichotomy (Alexander 1994: 13; Stoler 1995: 174) through the weaponization of respectability politics. This dichotomy naturalizes heteropatriarchy through the construction of a monolithic national body tethered to Islamic conservatism. Hence, ‘productive’ sexual relations become essential for ensuring the prosperity of upper and middle class nuclear families over other ‘non-productive’ gendered individuals, whereas other sexualities, particularly working class ones, are rendered incapable of being safe in public spaces (John and Nair, 1996: 15).

Moreover, the British empire introduced laws around modesty, indecency and sodomy in the subcontinent as a part of their “moralizing mission” (Stoler 1995: 179) to control the supposedly ‘deviant’ sexualities of indigenous populations (Gupta, 2011: 146). Shahnaz Khan (2016) notes that British colonizers imposed social controls over more fluid forms of sexuality to impose a “coloniality of gender” and change citizens into “modern consumers” (222). This helped them categorize people according to ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and create maintainable hierarchies for the “allocation of power and resources” (ibid). Eventually, Pakistani men replaced their colonial overlords, whereas ‘lesser’ genders remained subservient to this imperial order.

Colonial rule, therefore, reified the privilege of heterosexual men over all others while historically erasing non-masculinist voices and experiences. This invariably silenced minority groups, thereby subsuming their interests within the broader nationalist construction of the Pakistani state. This is one of the many ways in which sex and the construction of sexualities have been coupled with discourse production and power relations (Foucault, 1978). Foucault’s theorization of ‘biopower’ — the fusion of sex and power — applies to the ways in which Pakistani bodies were gendered and sexualized through a tightly controlled state discourse. Therefore, sexual energies in Pakistan were distilled for the sole task of building an Islamic nation that made no room for diversity.

Modern-Day Pakistan and its Discontents

Due to the ideological tussle that took place in the Islamic postcolonial nation-state after its independence, the nature of the country was repeatedly transformed (Saigol, 2013: 309) at the expense of its minorities. Over time, religion was used as a political bargaining chip to maintain institutional power. This led to myriad ideological and sectarian conflicts, but General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization regime, introduced in the late 1970s, was the one that possibly had the most devastating consequences for gendered subjects in Pakistan. Religious and cultural anxieties were projected onto them through increased social controls (315), to maintain political legitimacy and build appeal for the masses.

Women, in particular, became the main targets of the state as Zia privatized sexual violence with the promulgation of the Hudood Ordinances, thereby eliminating the difference between adultery and rape. Patriarchal controls in the form of clothing restrictions and prevention from participation in public life were now imposed on them (Rouse, 2004: 99). This control over their sexuality eventually became an important component of the Pakistani’s state search for new ideologies to cater to its property-owning, militarized elite, since, as Rouse says, right-wing propaganda is usually more amenable to mass appeal than a capitalist rationale.

Neelam Hussain (2019) recalls the time when feminists came out on the streets in early 1983 to protest against Zia’s draconian legal regime. She states that religious decrees were passed against them to invalidate their marriages and declare their children illegitimate. The protestors were labelled as sex workers, blasphemers and foreign agents, and accused of being elitist and oblivious to the issues that ‘real’ Pakistani women experienced on a day-to-day basis (ibid). Even though it was clear that political parties were either silent or in cahoots with the military government, feminists bravely challenged Zia’s dictatorial regime for being oppressive and making women its primary target (ibid). In the meanwhile, men from lower classes and minority groups were constructed to be a ‘dangerous risk’, thereby justifying increased state control and the privatization of violence with regards to Pakistan’s gendered subjects.

Pakistan’s feminist movement emerged during this time, and focused its energy on addressing the increase in sexualized violence in Pakistan due to Zia’s policies. Everything from legal discourse to the rise in gender-based ‘honor’ crimes stemmed from this deliberate denigration of women. Sex panics were suddenly created to ensure that women remained in the four walls of their home, and cases of sexual violence would hardly result in convictions.

Despite the presence of a burgeoning feminist movement, Saadia Toor (2011) notes that the truncation of Pakistan’s national identity around a conservative kind of Sunni Islam (161) led to a devastating transformation in Pakistan’s progressive politics. It weakened the organized Left, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a visible NGOization of progressive politics in the 1990s during the return of formal democracy after Zia’s demise. The lack of mass mobilization around gender rights left open a large space that was usurped by religious right-wing nationalism. Therefore, feminists now chose “the path of accommodation and negotiation” (162), rather than being involved in grassroots organizing. They were now seen to be making “patriarchal bargains” (Kandiyoti, 1988), instead of fighting for sexual rights at the grassroots level, to negotiate with the constraints imposed on them in the conservative Pakistani context. Hence, by largely focusing on women-centric legal bargains in the face of increased oppression, they were unable to dismantle “the rules of the game” (275).

The Aurat March: A New Historical Moment

The recent Aurat March poses significant challenges for defining the field of sexuality, and the criticism it has received is not different from the criticism Pakistani feminists have been subject to since Zia’s time. Critics have historically attempted to shut down any broad conversation around the subject of sexuality, to set boundaries for who can partake in the discourse and who cannot. The vehement opposition to the march highlights the centrality of sexuality as a site of patriarchal control. The Aurat March publicly indicates the willingness of feminists across Pakistan to build larger coalitions that can work on a shared understanding of sexual rights for all gendered Pakistanis. More importantly, it introduces a critical juncture for feminist struggles around bodily rights and sexual autonomy.

One of the main contentions that arose as a result of the marches was that of the “inappropriate” and “vulgar” nature of the placards (Ebrahim, 2019). The demands were deemed misplaced and out of touch with reality (even though they were mocking real-life situations!), and were not seen to point towards any substantive, concerted changes. Moreover, the assumption that any movement towards sexual emancipation in Muslim communities must be linked to ‘Western’ influence deliberately glosses over the risks that advocacy around sexual agency and rights entail. This shows that debates around sexuality will always be considered to be a colonial import, particularly after the NGOization of feminist causes. Such critiques obscure the problem of shrinking spaces for wider discourses on sexual rights and minority issues, which have stemmed in large part from the rise in neoliberal economic policies and religious conservatism since Zia’s time (Saigol, 2016: 21).

The placards also pointed towards the linkages between sexuality and female dress codes, and between sexuality and the conservative provisions of family laws; these are invaluable glimpses of the ways in which sexuality has been controlled in Pakistan. Sometimes, it can be as insidious as asking women to sit with their legs closed, thereby sexualizing their every move (which was pointed out very aptly on one of the placards that was criticized), or denying the existence of queer people in the country on the basis of ‘Islamic values’. Hence, the demands at the Aurat March signify a GenderQueer approach, as encapsulated by Jyoti Puri (2011) in her analysis of rape and sodomy sections of the Indian Penal Code (203). These anti-normative understandings can be applied to the Pakistani context as well, as they resist the heteronormative basis that Pakistan’s state institutions are built on. As per Alexander, legislation reinvents heterosexuality by creating a subordinate group of queer people. Her point is to show that heterosexual sex, even when violent toward women, is seen as natural, whereas queerness is not (9). Alexander argues that queerphobic legislation conflates violent heterosexuality with queerness, thereby establishing a framework of criminality through which non-normative sexualities are invariably judged. This is the kind of analytical insight that is found in the kind of GenderQueer approach that was visible at the Aurat March, something that could not have been realized during Zia’s time.

Rubina Saigol (2016) has asserted that the most glaring silence in the present-day feminist movement is in relation to the heteronormative family institution, the lynchpin of patriarchy and gender-based oppression (41). The Pakistani feminist movement has refrained from taking up issues of sexuality overtly, particularly with regards to queer politics and activism (ibid). Many of the placards at the Aurat March pointedly questioned the family institution and took the calculated risk of challenging patriarchs at home (ibid). This shows that up till now, an understanding of the tangible achievements of the feminist movement had included the appeasement of middle class morality and norms (ibid) through “patriarchal bargains” (Kandiyoti, 1988), and it therefore refrained from considering the exploration of sexuality and alternative forms of kinship. Moreover, Saigol points out that the fear of being labelled as “western agents”, and being alienated from working class movements, was another legitimate concern. Instead, the movement chose to address more time-sensitive issues, such as discriminatory laws designed to reduce the status and undermine the basic rights of Pakistan’s gendered citizens.

Hence, such forbidden and personal conversations have finally made their way in public spaces, and were reflected on the placards that were criticized. For very long, Pakistan’s gendered subjects have had to self-censor and silence themselves to appear respectable, at the expense of their own victimization. While sexuality is an unstable category that can never be removed from its historicity, raising questions around who can enjoy a safe public existence and who cannot is an important part of any feminist or queer resistance.

What does it mean, then, to return to the past and view history as a determining influence in light of the Aurat March? The remnants of colonialism and the complex dynamics of an emerging Pakistani nationalism will continue to shape the politics of gender and sexuality in the region. This discourse will inform the struggles of the Pakistani feminist movement accordingly, as the ideology of Pakistani nationhood is intrinsically gendered. The past, therefore, is an important tool for uncovering the stories of Pakistani women and non-binary individuals. It is tied to a modern Pakistani nationalist consciousness that should perhaps be reworked so that it is not subsumed by romanticized notions of Islam which shape and control sexuality in the country.

Conclusion: From Violence to Desire and Pleasure

A few days after the Aurat March took place, two teenage Hindu girls were forcibly converted to Islam and married off to Muslim men (Nasir, 2019), but this news slipped under the radar and did not provoke similar sentiments of anger and self-righteousness as the march did. This was also not noticed at the counter-march organized by the women of ‘Minhaj-al-Quran’, who raised slogans calling the participants of the Aurat March women “gali ki kutiya” (bitches of the street) (Hussain, 2019). Given such parallel realities, there is a need to reexamine the Aurat March slogans and connect them to the larger state discourse that sees compliant sexualities as a moral and national imperative. A lot of the slogans ironically pointed towards horrific events that are an everyday consequence for many women across Pakistan, some examples being of husbands who kill their wives for serving them cold dinner, and men who kill their daughters for not making round chapatis.

The juxtaposition of the Aurat March with previous feminist demonstrations in Pakistan highlights both the evolution and the limitations of sexualities in this context,. The march not only challenges dichotomies created around good and bad sexualities, but also existing forms of feminist practices in terms of what is deemed acceptable and what is not. It also demonstrates the need to interrogate existing anti-normative desires more robustly, possibly through a GenderQueer approach. After all, sexual violence cannot be the only starting point for bringing forth questions of sexual desire, and is clearly not enough to address queer or marginalized realities.

Pakistan’s example raises new understandings of citizenship and the state. It illustrates the ways in which gendered constructions emanate from a monolithic conception of an Islamic nation. Ultimately, Muslim societies are not unique in policing sexuality, but nevertheless sexuality remains one of the mainstays through which ‘Muslimness’ in Pakistan is enforced. Thus, it is critical to question the very concept of Muslim sexualities in Pakistan, and who gets to defines them.

Perhaps what surprised people across Pakistan was the irreverence, exhaustion and frustration expressed in the voices raised at the Aurat March: emotions stemming from years of feminist oppression and resistance. This time, state-controlled discourses around sexuality were challenged by the usage of not only anger, but also GenderQueer satire, humour and pithy observations (Hussain, 2019) that challenged deeply held patriarchal views. Not only did the Aurat March politicize personal grievances and brought them to the public sphere, but it also shunned daily sexism by using the same language that Pakistan’s gendered subjects have to bear the brunt of (ibid). Hence, it is important to unearth such “uncomfortable realities” (ibid) to break free from repressive discourses on sexuality in Pakistan.

Bibliography

Academic Literature

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News Articles

1. Ebrahim, Ammar. 2019. ‘The “Womanspreading” Placard That Caused Fury in Pakistan’. BBC News (last accessed 3 May 2019) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-47832236>.
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3. Mohydin, Rimmel. 2019. ‘Let Me Womansplain the Aurat March to You’. DAWN (Prism) (last accessed 3 May 2019) <https://www.dawn.com/news/1469183/let-me-womansplain-the-aurat-march-to-you>.
4. Nasir, Amna. 2019. ‘Hell Hath No Fury Like Men Scorned Over Aurat March In Pakistan’. Feminism in India (last accessed 3 May 2019) <https://feminisminindia.com/2019/03/29/aurat-march-in-pakistan-backlash>.
5. Reuters. 2019. ‘Aurat March Organisers Receive Online Death Threats’. DAWN (last accessed 3 May 2019) <https://www.dawn.com/news/1470144>.
6. Khatri, Sadia. 2019. ‘Should Feminists Claim Aurat March’s ‘Vulgar’ Posters? Yes, Absolutely’. DAWN (Prism) (last accessed 3 May 2019) <https://www.dawn.com/news/1469815>.

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Note: This essay is an assignment I wrote for my Gender Theory module, which is why it does not read like a proper, well thought out article (sorry).