Jamal Nasir
In the Middle Ages, when leprosy was vanishing from the world, mads got treatment in different ways; one way was torturing them, and a stigma held people alienated. Horrors of madness echo in the mountains of sane society, and labelling someone mad was a way more common thing. In his famous thesis, Madness and Civilization, Foucault elaborated on the method of alienating mads from sane to load a ship of fools, usually referred to as Stultifera Navis, and sailed them into sea; whoever came alive was somehow cured. It was a mechanism to fix the mad. The discourse floated upon the veneers of the irrational episteme of humankind.
The absurdity of discourse ended when psychology and psychoanalysis gave reasonable solutions to this problem. Before psychology, stigmatizing mads, alienating them, and, in extreme cases, killing them was a common notion that was a plausible rationale to the people of the archaic age. It stopped as Freud explored the connection between man’s psychological and physiological dimensions. He, and the whole discourse of psychology, gave a rational solution to the sinister but plausible – at least what they thought as a solution at that time – methods of the Middle Ages. It ultimately diminished one seed of insane reasoning from the earth’s surface.
But seeds of insane reasoning are not a few on this planet. This is why, on observing the archaeology of knowledge, whenever a seed creates a problem, we need a new discourse to eliminate the seeds that eventually enhance our understanding. Honour killing is one of the many seeds. It is insane and morally corrupt reasoning to kill a woman for the sake of biradari’s (kinship) pleasure. The growing cases of honour killing, particularly in Pakistan’s scenario, bring a wholesome worrying situation to the existence of women’s psychological dimension and socio-economic status.
To understand the interplay of Pakistani society’s structure and honour killing, we need to look at a few cases for a comprehensive review of the phenomenon.
Recently, as the case was reported on 24th November, eighteen years old girl was murdered in Kohistan by four men, including her father. When police arrested the culprits of this heinous crime, they said a photo of her, with her boyfriend, went viral on social media, and they killed her on the order of an elder from the village. They killed her because she brought shame to the family and did some damage to their gherat (honour). Later, it was found that the photo was edited before posting on social media.
The most famous case of Qandeel Baloch, where a brother killed his sister for the sake of honour. Qandeel was outspoken about women’s rights and their deprivation in society, but she was dead at her family’s house by her brother. Waseem Azeem, brother of Qandeel, variously admitted to the murder of his own sister and stated that she brought shame to the family, which was unacceptable to us. The structural pattern of Pakistani society, a patriarchal episteme of reality, made a brother kill his sister and didn’t feel a thing about it.
With honour killing, a new disease has engulfed society, rape for honour, where a woman becomes the victim of minor political and subtle caste clashes. Mukhtar Mai became the victim of this heinous crime. More recently, in Mirpurkhas, twenty men kidnapped two teenagers, amid a clash between tribes, and sexually assaulted them. Honour, an important terminology in Pakistani society, has brought trouble to the fundamental rights of being human, and within the sphere of honour, women have had to suffer the most.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s report (HRCP), 218 women in Punjab, 157 in Sindh, 92 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 43 in Balochistan, and 4 in Islamabad, became honour killing victims in 2022. In 2021, 147 women became the victims of honour killings in Punjab, 226 in Sindh, 146 in KPK, and 23 in Balochistan. Collectively, 514 victims in 2022, 542 victims in 2021, and 609 victims in 2022. The statistics show the variation and intensity of honour crimes in different areas of Pakistan. It also insinuates the downward slope but a still-moving image of honour crime in Pakistan.
The growing cases of honour killing and statistics show the concerning situation in Pakistani society. It shows that seeds of insane reasoning are yet to be eliminated from the earth’s surface, and the existence of morally corrupt reasoning still finds its way to pose a threat to humankind. Psychology broke the ties of plausible explanations of treating mads, and the discourse initiated a direction for saving indifferent people. The same is the case with honour killing. Pakistani society needs a discourse to understand the socio-political mechanism of honour killing. We need to understand the irrational and problematic side of killing women for the sake of honour.
Moreover, it lies in the deep structures of Pakistani society, where the interplay of conservative and liberal forces makes it a convoluted matter. The conservative mindset of Pakistani society compels kinship to be got a higher place in the minds of individuals, which cause problem for the sustainability of women. Conservative mindset refuses the elements of modern state policies and relies on the panchayat and jirga system. This conservative mindset hinders understanding the contemporary state’s working system and absorbing the world’s progressive side.
So, there is a need to evaluate this socio-cultural gap and develop a discourse to make individuals understand the functioning of the modern world. Pakistani state does have the laws and policies to counter such crimes, but there is a need to combat this problem at the micro level, which is by developing a discourse to socialize and nurture people to understand the needs of the modern world. Nurturing at the micro level can be adequate to make the seed of insane reasoning go away.
Author is a Research Associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies.
