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By: Nafisa Shah
In Larkana, in the village of Gul Mohammad Brohi, a man Suleiman and a
woman Zarina had been killed in the month of August. Investigating the
honour killing issue, we went to the village head, Gul Mohammad Brohi, who
would not openly speak of the incident but after covering up the killings he
directed us to the families involved. We went to Zarina’s family and spoke
to them about the cause of the two killings. "They saw them, and they killed
them," said Zarina’s mother whose sons Ali Hasan, and others had killed
their sister and the alleged paramour. Zarina’s husband was in Dubai. I
asked the mother whether she felt grief and loss over her daughter’s death
who had been killed by her own sons to which she answered: Ama Ghairat mein
dukh kon thindo ahai, with a stone-faced expression, a smile on her lips.
"There is no grief in ghairat. It was haq, a right. And so it was right to
kill. They saw them together, they killed them. Otherwise, who would do this
to one’s own flesh and blood." Three of her sons were in the lock-up and she
was terribly concerned about them. In fact, she along with the other women
in the family kept pointing at the women and the children who were affected
by the sons’ arrest. "Tell them to release them. See how the poor children
are suffering. Our riwaj is only ghairat. We have no television and no
radio." They kept saying when asked if they would give their views on film.
Similar language was expressed in a different village we went to in the
tribal area of Warah. In the village of the Gurget, sub-caste of Chandios,
18-year-old Aminat has been killed along with Azizullah who was a year or
two older, just a few days ago on the 25th of September. Seeing us as
possible mediators, Aminat’s mother-in-law arrived theatrically beating her
chest, proudly showing us the spot of death where Aminat had been hacked to
death by her three sons and Aminat’s brothers-in-law: "Look, it was here she
was killed. We were all here. We saw them together all the time. Now I saw
him scaling the wall, now I saw him entering the house, where-ever I looked
I saw him. I have been robbed, my honour has been robbed, I have been
violated. This was a zulm against me. So I axed her," says the mother-in-law
of Aminat. In the lock-up, Saifal who had been hit by an axe while he killed
Aminat’s paramour Azizullah also expressed the logic of his killing in a
similar manner. "Yes, I did it, father said he saw them, and I did it for
ghairat. It was my right." We heard different stories from the other side.
Pledges that Aminat was innocent, and that Zarina was innocent. But the
dialogue was on the assumption that had they been guilty of bringing
dishonour, then this killing would be justified. Now all the accused are
being released in the case of Aminat and Azizullah by the police who got
their money, and the accused their honour. These stories have now become a
daily fare in the local media. However, little is known about the honour
ethos which provides the rationale and the context for such killings.
Ghairat makes men kill and die. Thousands of vendettas, killings, start with
the issue of honour. Tribal feuds, revenge, migrations, exile, are spurred
by the fights for honour. Tribes fight for decades over women, goats, and
land, all of which symbolize their honour. But honour pervades the state
too, as it explodes nuclear bombs, wreaks destruction, spends massively on
stockpiling arms for it is a matter of honour to be ahead of the enemy. And
increasingly, even in the urban areas seemingly following the rule of law,
the honour value of the tribal system is used and abused to renew enemies,
settle scores, and slaughtering and battering of women continues under this
pretext. Honour has been codified in the psyche that guides the tribal
societies. The Baloch and the Pushtoons have honour codes, enforced since
centuries. But these honour values comprising other aspects formed a
holistic world-view. The present times, however, have brought in distortions
in the value system as the market plays an extremely important role in
redefining honour. The code called riwaj, mayar, or Pukhtoonwali is
internalized by every part of the tribal society unlike the state law — the
constitution — which very few of us know. This is an oral constitution whose
enforcers are the people themselves. Every person would kill and die to
uphold his own honour and that of his tribe.
So, what exactly is the honour code? Some of its features to quote an
officer who compiled the Sibi Gazette, while writing on the Baloch are: to
avenge blood; to fight to death for a person who has taken refuge with him.
The refugee is always maintained by his protector, so long as he remained
under the latter’s roof. An adulterer was, however, generally refused
protection; to defend to the last the property entrusted to him; to be
hospitable and to provide for the safety of the person; to pardon an offence
on the intercession of a woman of the offender’s family, a Syed or a mullah,
an exception in the case of adultery and murder; to refrain from killing a
man who had entered the shrine of a pir so long as he remained within its
precincts; and also a man who, whilst fighting, put down his arms; to cease
fighting when a mullah, a Syed or a woman bearing the Koran on his or her
head intervened; to punish an adulterer with death. Among the Pukhtoons it
is Pukhtoonwali whose characteristics are much the same as above. They are
based on four concepts, malmastiya, obligation to show hospitality, badal,
revenge, nanawatay, asylum, nang honour which is the thread that weaves
them. In the early twentieth century, people of the tribal areas still
remember Ajab Khan who kidnapped a little white mem, daughter of a British
officer he was in a dispute with. When Ajab Khan’s brother tried to molest
the girl in their custody, Ajab Khan shot his brother and killed him for he
had violated the basic tenet of the code, to provide for safety of the
person in custody. But he still demanded his ransom from the officer. Ajab
Khan was a tribal hero, obeying the norms of Pushtoonwali! Although
secularists and liberals dismiss the honour value system calling it
hypocritical, as Sindhi writer and ex-Sessions Judge Jamal Abro would say,
"This is all lies. What about their honour, when they bribe the police, lie
and cheat," honour is a value which for most tribal societies contains in it
a whole system of life, which is stronger even than religion for many tenets
of the religion are violated in the process. Stealth, lying, cheating,
betrayal, are justified in the fight for honour. Killing without
establishing the case as in karo kari and for killings is a norm. Exchange
of women as blood money without considering the will of a woman is a norm as
well. Now the next question to ask is, where does honour reside? I have
different definitions of honour by local chiefs and here I will quote just
one of them from a local Larkana headman Sultan Ahmed Mugheri who says that,
"Ghairat is izzat and this comes with money and property. And if izzat is
violated — then it is justified to kill and die for honour." Others call it
a feeling, which expresses itself when it is violated. Honour, therefore, is
an abstract principle but resides in an object of value. A man’s property,
wealth, and all that is linked with these is the sum total of his honour
value. A woman is also an object of value and therefore is an integral part
of honour of a man, tribe etc. Therefore, when the rights of a woman are
transferred from her father to the man she is marrying, the guardians of
honour shift as well. The value attached to a woman is best illustrated in
the custom of bride price (See box) common in most tribal societies in the
world. Honour is, therefore, a male value derived and viewed against the
index of a woman’s body. A woman is first killed by her relatives or her
husband,and the same people would then attempt to kill her accomplice. One
may argue that there is a social pressure from within that is the driving
force for the act of killing. A man’s ability to protect honour is always
judged. The triggering point of a man’s passionate urge to kill would just
be a comment he would hear in the marketplace. This is called a tano — a
Sindhi word for insinuation and insult mixed together. It renders him
‘socially impotent.’ The tano would be very subtle but for any mard (man) it
would be enough for him to declare war on the culprits. Violence to retrieve
this honour may be a means through which the illusion of wholeness is
reasserted. Although honour is located in material wealth, the language and
expression of honour reside in the body.
Ghairat and izzat reside in the face, the nose, the head — not to forget the
beard in the male. The beard is what the Baloch swear by, and use as oath.
"Haibat, son of Bibrak, made an oath before the Rinds striking his beard
thrice with his left hand," goes the text on one of the Balochi ballads. "I
swear on my head and hair and turban," is another recurring phrase in the
songs. Those who do not have honour have no beards on their faces. "All men
carry beards on their faces, but those who are no men wear them below; they
display them on their knees and heels, and some on the nape of their necks."
The expression of not being able to show face to anyone or similarly the
nose being cut are both expressions of ‘dishonour’. Ghairat is about holding
your head up with pride. Shame makes you bow because you cannot show your
face to anybody anymore. In fact, honour and shame are two parallel states,
honour is masculine, shame feminine. Just as men have honour, women have
shame. A woman’s shame summarizes her public reputation and social position
in much the same manner as honour does for men. By killing those who
threaten honour, there is a revival, almost giving a new life. It is the way
to be able to "hold your head up" where once you were bowing in shame. It is
assumed that the man whose honour is damaged is the aggrieved in the Balochi
honour code, and is the man to whom the woman in question ‘belongs’ — his
mother, daughter, aunt, niece or cousin. The only way the aggrieved can
whiten his honour is to kill — and publicly — the guilty woman and then go
chase to get the man ‘she lured’. Men would indeed first proclaim a woman
kari and then go for the kill. It must be both announced and acted publicly
for it is a demonstration by the man of his ability and power to safeguard
his honour, and in this way to resurrect it. In Kashmore, I was told about a
man who dragged a man he accused of being an adulterer into the marketplace
and slaughtered him there, in full view of the crowd. Beghairat is an
abusive term and men use it for those men who do not kill, or rebuke their
wives and daughters. When I was in the desert of Khirthar in the western
frontiers of Sindh, I asked our host Imam Bux Rind whether they, like Baloch
in other areas, had customary honour killings as punishment for adultery.
Imam Bux answered reflectively: "We are a beigharat (dishonourable) people.
That is why we do not kill our women." But he told me how three women had
been axed in 24 hours on the charge of siyahkari (adultery). This had
happened in Shoran where he had gone to see his chief,Yar Mohammad Rind. One
woman was axed the evening he arrived, one that morning and one on the
previous night. The battle for honour dissolves moral distinctions between
truth and lies, good and bad, the true and the false and becomes the end to
all values. All that may seem wrong, but commitment in the name of honour is
a right and all means are justified. Killing and violence, therefore, are
not crimes, but are defences against dishonour. Those who kill are
courageous guardians of the ultimate value and those who get killed are
guilty of tarnishing the honour of the man, family, tribe and village.
Dishonour may be caused by lies, cheating, betrayal, theft, killing and
concerning honour codes. Yet, the same means may be justified when they are
used to avenge honour. Adultery killings, too, are not just sinister, they
are based on deceit. In fact, deceit, creation of settings to corner the
adulterers shows the commitment to the honour ideal. Women have been brought
back from their hiding on guarantees and killed, men who may have paid
compensation for their life would be killed ten years later. Women are
caught most of the time unaware, as they are going about their daily
routines. Hence Khursheed, a Langha woman from Khairpur, was killed during
her sleep, so were Farida and her young daughter Maujan; Hasina’s sister was
killed when her hands were upholding a load of fodder; Janat’s aunt was
killed when she was making dough, 18-year-old Waziran was watching a play on
television. 13-year-old Sarah was asked to make tea for her brother who
drank it, took a gun, killed the two boys and came back to kill his sister
while she was chaffing wheat. Many times, situations are engineered to
increase the vulnerability of the one who is about to be attacked. In Mali’s
story, the zamindar-landlord she was accused to be in an adulterous
relationship with, was invited for a dinner and while he was eating he was
killed. In another case, the husband was taking his wife to her mother after
a long time, and killed her on the way. In karo kari, death itself becomes
submission and confession of a crime. Those who get killed or those who are
able to escape are guilty. No one need see further. Death of a woman by a
man for adultery is enough to shame the family of the woman. In Kandiaro,
the entire Gormani village, where a young woman and her daughter had been
killed by Punno Gormani in April 1997, was ashamed to speak. Punno was in
prison and women would wish that the "poor thing" would be set free so that
he could come back and take charge of the children he had just orphaned.
Punno had acquired an image of the aggrieved. The three persons killed had
been subdued to death for their ‘perversion.’ And yet the tribal justice
system offers no relief to deceitful and unjust killings. On the contrary,
in the bid to uphold the honour value system, they must defend them. Says
Mustaq Marfani, a local chief’s brother, himself a liberal and a leftist:
"Several years ago, a man killed his old wife so he could fine the accused
and get another wife, my father decided a case in which it was proven that
the man and the women were wrongfully accused and killed, but there was
community pressure, he was helpless and could not declare otherwise. I
myself once fined a man accused of being an adulterer three lakhs,
one-and-half lakh for dishonour and one- and-a-half lakh for the wife the
man lost by killing her as kari." So in the perspective of honour value
system, karo kari is legitimate action. And the victims are not Aminat or
Zarina or Azizullah or Suleiman. The victims are the killers themselves,
Saifal or whoever it may be. Since they had been dishonoured they are
victims and they must avenge for their blackened honour, otherwise their
social prestige is at stake. And it is here that the great contradiction
lies. For what we may think is a murder or a crime against the state, in the
honour value system isn’t a crime at all. On the contrary, it is an act of
punishing those who violate the honour code. So there are two parallel
world-views here. We have the police on the one hand given the task to
enforce the state’s rule of law which says that this killing is, in fact, a
murder and a crime against the state, and we have the tribal mediators and
Syeds acting as an interface between the tribe and the state upholding the
honour code and saying that they killed the accused people, and so avenged
for his lost honour. More than just a punitive redressal of honour, karo
kari is a ritual that is carried unto death. But in doing so it does not
lose the ceremonial aspects of a ritual. Tribes, which do not kill for
adultery, would impose death in ritual and ceremony. Upper Sindh Sindhi
tribes like the Mehars of Larkana and Ghotki just banish the women to
faraway lands. This could be a psychological death of the woman. A woman
sees death and a community from now on may consider her as dead. The
community may never hear again of the woman who is seldom if ever allowed to
come and visit her folk back home. But in a market-driven world,
interestingly, the market can determine if the honour is damaged or not. The
ideal value of honour is distorted and used selectively and politically. The
marketplace make men reverse their statements. In Ghotki, I was narrated an
incident of a woman who was attacked by her brother-in-law, even though the
husband vouched for her purity. The husband stood by her and took the
injured lady all the way to Karachi so that she might recover from the
injuries. But when it was sure that she would be paralyzed from the waist
down for the rest of her life, he revised his earlier statement. He now said
she was, in fact, a kari and his honour had been damaged and he acceded to
the settlement and took another wife from the man they accused with her and
who they had let go alive. Increasingly honour can be redressed by taking
money even from the woman accused of being a kari. In Tangwani area, in
Jacobabad, the woman charged with adultery would be banished outside and a
huge amount of money would be charged from the man co-accused. The relation
between the market and the killings can be gauged from an interesting
amendment in the tribal justice by the Mahar tribe. Ali Gohar Mahar,
responsible for his tribe, says that they have made our own qanoon in which
we have reduced the fine for the karo to 30,000, so that there is little
incentive for men to accuse their wives, banish them, and get a fine in
damages for that. Women are however, resisting this selective use of the
honour value. Their assertion of their rights is evident in an increasing
number of elopement cases, which is both a resistance to their use as a
commodity to be exchanged in kind or cash, and on the other hand an exercise
of their right under the Muslim Personal Laws to marry of their own choice.
Although many Sardars and chiefs have abolished the trend of khoon baha,
some like Khadim Hussain Jatoi, the blind chief of Jatois and Shars, says
that, "If we don’t do that there is no settlement, and we want to do sulh
(make peace), for that we must give women." Elopement seems to be an
increasing trend in our culture. Salma, Riffat and Sehjan, who are survivors
as those who act against the honour system, become symbols of this struggle,
because by eloping with men they wished to marry they threaten the honour
code that regulates this society and at the same time, assert their right
under the personal law, to marry of their own choice. Most women in shelter
homes are there because of the kidnapping cases filed by their parents when
they chose to marry of their own choice. Despite them getting relief from
the courts, the court of the honour system did not forgive them. Hasina, who
I had met in Sukkur Darulaman years ago, had said about her predicament: "I
am free to go with my husband, but what about the customs which never
forgive." The response to the elopement is again determined by the honour
value, even if the act of subversion is outside the domain of the tribe.
Says Gul Khan Afridi, an intellectual from the FATA area rationalizing such
behaviour: "Honour is relative and comparative. If there is no society this
very same honour has no value. Tribal laws and usages have no geographical
boundaries, we still refer most matters to the jirga and not to the courts.
In the city of Karachi, if there were no countrymen of our tribe, maybe it
would be easy for me to." While Riffat and Ahsan, who was injured in the
attempt to restore honour are stashed away in a corner, as they wait for
asylum, their violation of honour is a crime that has still not been
forgiven by Riffat’s tribespeople. They have not been able to restore their
honour since the jirga had announced death of both. We went to the community
in Hussain D’Silva colony, a couple of weeks back, where we were told: "Even
if it takes hundred years, we will take revenge from the children’s
children, whether they are in Germany or somewhere else," the neighbours
say. While the community, bowing in shame, waits to kill, victims of their
own custom, Riffat’s mother, who we also visits in her house on the hilltop,
weeps remembering a daughter who was ‘stolen’ from them. The Afridis had
come to Karachi decades ago, and the community is actively involved in the
civil society issues, especially the trade unions when it was only a little
town. But the honour system is an integral part of their state of being.
Riffat’s mother and sister say that the nikah is not valid because she was
betrothed to someone before. These values ironically are real and persist
even in the most liberal of people. Says Gul Khan Afridi, "As a human being
I will not condone killing of any life. But in a society values are
relative. Even the human rights charter speaks of the dignity of man, people
interpret in their way, dignity and honour is the same. We consider a woman,
mother, wife as our honour and if they dishonour us, the only way to restore
this honour is to kill, and by this method, it is automatically restored.
And such codes exist in other societies as well. In the case of Monica
(Lewinsky) and Clinton, the relationship was not acceptable to the American
public and people say that Diana and Al Fayed were also killed because of
their relationship." The assertion of honour value system in the cities,
which ironically come under the rule of law and the state, is seen by human
rights activists as a failure of state institutions to redress issues. Says
Moazzam Ali: "the jirga system is being used increasingly because of the
sorry state of the courts and judiciary." Until the issue of killing and
revenge is not seen in the context of the overall honour system, attempts at
using our moral codes to condemn such practices would be a lost cry. For
those who kill, their values give them a basis for it. And in the absence of
the strong, fair and neutral role of the state, these values can only
reassert themselves with a new vigour, often sickened by poverty and greed.
n
(Modified from the author's research paper on the Balochi Honour System,
Green College, Oxford.) This article published in "The Review" section of
Daily Dawn Karachi, dated November 19-25, 1998
The ‘Commodification’ Code The other side of honour When Hakima fell ill and
incapacitated after obstructed labour of her eighth child, her husband
exchanged their infant granddaughter for a wife for himself. Now he lives
happily with a wife and Hakima is dead, after suffering years in silence
from fistula and dribbling urine. When Parvez Khatoon married, her father
took a bride price for her in two instalments - one in cash which he would
use to get himself a second wife, one in kind, the daughter which would be
born to Parvez Khatoon. The deal was made with a purho, the word used for an
old man in Sindhi. Parvez Khatoon frustrated with fate ran to the local Syed
for Justice, she was returned and killed. When Parvez died, her father was
seeking justice. But he was more concerned about Pervez’s daughter that was
pledged to him, that was now with her purho husband in hiding, a part of the
debt that was still owing to him. When Mussarat accompanied Pari she was
protesting against her father having make a deal for her marriage and had
even taken a deposit for it. When Samina’s daughter was raped, she did not
want punishment for the aggressor, she just wanted a sangh — a daughter from
the accused’s family for her family. And When Shah Khatoon and Amina were
hacked to death by Shah Khatoon’s husband and brother for ‘running away’,
the distribution money for the settlement in which the killers Amir Ali
Khaskheli and Rafiq Khaskheli were set free, was as follows: Khaskheli
clan’s elder was given Rs 1,50,000 while the elder brother of the accused,
Mohammad Hassan, received 60, 000 because he had sold his taxi to get them
released, accused Amir Ali, 60,000, and the rest of the money was given to
the accused mens’ father Murad Khaskheli. Later a Razinama was signed and
sweets distributed. And.....when a widow is to be remarried in the Pushtoons,
it is called bechna, and kharidna — buying and selling and it the Baloch,
takan mein diyan, (give for money). Exchange of women and brideprice,
offering of women in the mediation as khoon baha, are practices which
commodify women, give them a value which translates itself into honour. In a
system going sick, the market factors have intervened and made an ancient
system more susceptible to greed as the above cases show. Bride price is the
price men pay to other men for buying over rights over a woman, so that now,
the honour value shifts from father to husband. From now on, the husband
shall guard the woman, and she would like his other wealth symbolize honour.
Anthropologists rationalize the custom, saying that the transaction
redistributes wealth but makes no significant change to anyone. Bride price,
as the above cases show is used by the father in Upper Sindh to get a second
wife, or for consumption and settling debts. Although economically this may
be the case, in a social sense, this money paid will now on be used by the
husband as a means to own her. Says Mushtaq Marfani: "After marriage the
husband has all the rights, and his word is the last word. Only he can
declare that she is kari." In the honour system, bride price therefore is
honourable, not just for the father who takes the money, but for the
daughter who would be wed as well. For if she came without bride price she
would be taunted: "The father who does not take money for his daughter is
ridiculed and so is the woman who is taken without money," says Gul Khan
Afridi. — N.S
(This article published in "The Review" section of Daily Dawn
Karachi, dated November 19-25, 1998) |
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