PukhtunWomen

Gudiya’s Lament

Last week brought down the curtains on a story that created a media storm in South Asia, and rekindled a debate on how Muslim personal law has been interpreted for Indian Muslim women.

In a silent ward of the Indian Army’s Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi a twenty something old Gudiya died of septicaemia. Gudiya had become a household in the autumn of 2004 when an Indian army soldier Mohammad Arif returned to Uttar Pradesh, India after spending nearly five years as a Prisoner of War in a Pakistani prison.

Mohammad Arif was a sapper for the Indian army and had been posted to Kargil in September 1999 just a fortnight after his wedding. Since then he had been declared missing presumed dead, and in some quarters as a deserter. In the mean time his wife Gudiya had been married off with the consent of her parents as well as her former in-laws to Taufiq, a man from her village. The couple was looking forward to the birth of their first child, when Pakistan released some Prisoners of War, her ‘former’ husband was one of them. His return and expressed desire that his wife be ‘returned’ to him but not the child she had conceived posed a predicament not only for the couple but also the village. T. K. RajaLakshmi writing for the Frontline explained:

Momin, the elected sarpanch of Mundali told Frontline that village residents had greeted Arif with garlands. He also claimed to know what Gudiya felt about the situation. Incidentally, Momin too was present at the panchayat, but preferred not to say anything. And no one in the village suggested that Arif had the option of divorcing Gudiya and marrying someone else. According to Arif, had he done so, he would be a "zero" after returning as a "hero".

Gudiya, after a much publicized ‘mock trial’ (which was also beamed into our living room courtesy satellite television), went on to live with Muhammad Arif, he had by now decided to accept the child fathered by Taufiq and raise it as his own. Gudiya gave birth to a boy soon after. In October 2005, after delivering a still-born baby it was found that Gudiya was suffering from multiple organ failure triggered by an auto-immune disease.

In the entire episode what was evident was that Gudiya through community, religious and family pressures was denied of any agency. At no point was she made aware of her choices, whether it were legal alternatives, religious concessions, or just allowing her to exercise her basic human rights. Popular media chose to narrate the whole sordid story by coaching it as ‘a Shariah issue’ or that she had to ‘follow the dictates of her conservative Muslim community’. Their actions and the verdict that Muslim clerics gave for her made a mockery of Islamic law. As Syeda Hameed, a member of the Indian Planning Commission wrote:

Her ordeal amounts to negation of Islam….
for us, the spirit of Islam and the Shariat lies in the first few
words spoken by Gudiya when she heard that Arif had been found
and was soon to be released. Gudiya, pregnant with their first
child, said she wanted to stay with Taufiq. "Marriage is not child's play, sometimes here sometimes there. I love my husband and will stay with him for life," she said. What is paramount, according to Islamic principles, is Gudiya’s choice. The cruelty and injustice meted out to Gudiya violates
this concept.

It is just not this. What bothers most of us is how Gudiya’s life story is relegated to what newspaper headlines explained as ‘Bizarre love triangle comes to a bitter end.’ This was no ‘tug of love’ as these headlines were implying, this was appropriating the life of an individual to satisfy a community who wanted a just and happy ending for a returning hero— any parties dispossessed from what they aspired for or bereft of even a shred of dignified choice be damned. How dare the ‘hero’ become a ‘zero’?!!!

It is just not Gudiya in central India. Every day numerous Pakistani women lead similar tragic and tormented lives, trying to pacify what is ordained as claims of ‘decent society’. During the process they have to give up any control or claim over their lives. ‘Good women’ are those who will sacrifice their choices for the larger community. Verbal behavior is part of socialization, one learns one’s role in life, including one’s place in the power structure, from the way one speaks and is spoken to. This can be tested for instance by comparing the phrases/ metaphors used to describe good Muslim men and women. What will be the metaphors used for the ‘ideal’ Muslim man?

A mini survey of Pakistani literature and popular media brought up terms like:
Mard-I-mujahid: warrior hero, Shujaat: bravery, jawan Mardi: gallantry, jiyala: headstrong, daleyr: courageous, sarfarosh: willing to sacrifice his life in a just cause, izat aur aabroo ka muhafiz: guardian/protector of chastity, sheyr-e-bahadur: lion-hearted.

For ‘ideal’ women would be terms like: tan-I-pak: pure bodied, ghar ki izzat: home/community’s honor, aabroo: chastity, paykar-I-haya: embodiment of modesty, vareejaana: unrestrained emotions of love.

Definitely does not depict someone who would have stood up in the midst of a meeting of village and religious elders to voice her opinion regarding whom she would like to spend the rest of her life with!! So Gudiya for all purposes was the ideal ‘good woman’ who bowed down to her destiny and lived the life society had decided for her. And I believe that is why the media and her community was comfortable with her—that she lived her life according to the script, a good little Muslim woman not challenging their false sense of what constitutes as honor, justice and national pride. Maybe that is why the crowds turned out for her funeral; everyone loves a tragic heroine and will glorify her noble sacrifice till the end. I wonder what would have happened if Gudiya rather than being the ‘mute’ doll she had been named after, had decided to speak her mind and challenged what her village was pushing her towards. Maybe she wouldn’t have remained the heroine that she was perceived as. Her story wouldn’t have inspired the Bollywood film that is being released in a few months. A brazen Muslim woman doesn’t translate well, in celluloid they have to be the whimpering sort. I don’t mean to burden her soul any more but I wish the exercise of quite a different choice and consequently different circumstances could have been one of many first steps towards redefining what is perceived as virtue and worth. It would have encouraged certain people to step out of the box for a moment and become a trifle cynical towards what we have considered as coming ‘naturally’ to Muslim women