Stand up and be counted

LAHORE: Feminist speakers held a session at the SAARC Writers Conference on Friday. They lauded women who had stood outside of their traditional social networks in order to write, and looked forward to more women being able to do so. Zahida Hina is a recipient of the SAARC literary award and a writer of short stories. She addressed the conference in Urdu. In her speech she drew attention to the many women writers of South Asia. Ms Hina spoke of Meera Bai who, 450 years ago, left her husband and the comfort of her home to write poems, that went on to be enshrined in Sikhism as bhajans. She also told the conference of Tahira Quratulain who, 150 years ago, gave up a crown so that she could continue to write. She paid tribute to Mahasweta Devi and Arundhati Roy for pointing their pens in defiance at imperial powers. Zobaida Gulshan Ara, formerly a teacher in Bangladesh and now director of the Children’s Academy, traced an historical overview of feminist writers in South Asian countries. Sri Kamleshwar, the only man on the panel and an Indian author, told the conference that women have started to find themselves outside of their bodies, their husbands, customs, religions, and families. He told a story about an Indo-Pakistan war in which Indian forces entered and captured a Pakistani village where everyone else had fled except for a young girl who was about to get married. “The captain of the Indian army forces committed zina with her,” he said. “She never said anything to him and he said to her that he had spared her life and thus saved her.” But then Pakistani forces defeated the Indians and entered the village to take over. “The Pakistani captain did the same thing to that girl,” he said, “and she was left wondering, who was the attacker?” Women have to constantly wonder the same question today, he said. —Staff Report

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