By Hafizur Rahman
Gender bias is one of the buzzwords of these times in the field of discrimination, especially with modern young women blessed with an intellect. Of course women in Pakistan are discriminated against, and terribly so. But instead of looking at the plight of the poor where this discrimination is at its worst, our enlightened young men and women seek areas where the term can be fashionably applied.
Some time ago there was a letter by a young man called Ahmed Shafi (I am presuming that he was young) in one of the national English dailies, provoked by a statement by the federal minister for women development on what the government was doing to end gender discrimination in the country. Addressing the minister, he said, “Because of your gender neither you nor your daughter would be eligible to apply to most faculty positions or academic programs at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. What steps have you taken to persuade the IIU to abide by the constitution which expressly forbids discrimination on gender basis?”
Ahmed Shafi was writing from Karachi, and that could be one reason why he was not properly informed about the Islamic University. Although the IIU is not only a national institution an international university in the real sense of the word, people in Islamabad are more familiar with it and its character than people in the rest of Pakistan. During the many years Malik Meraj Khalid was Rector of the university I became an interested visitor there. That is what has prompted me to write on gender bias and its presence or absence in the IIU.
I feel obliged to do so if the important questions on the subject raised by Ahmed Shafi are to be debated. The Islamic University is not a purely religious institution because it also offers opportunity for Masters in economics, business administration, law, computer science, Arabic and English literature. At the same time the university is not co-educational in the generally accepted meaning of the term, but it is also not exclusively for male students.
Women can join for study in any subject, repeat, any subject. They are not barred, but in keeping with prevailing social conditions, they have a separate section; in fact a separate campus, and are able to avail themselves of the scholarly services of its highly qualified faculty. For instance, in the economics faculty the IIU has probably more US-trained Ph.Ds than any other university in Pakistan. I think what Ahmed Shafi wanted to know was why the university was not co-educational in charter and why women students did not intermingle with their brother students. For this the IIU can have no explanation, nor will any sensible person in Pakistan ask such a question. To find an answer Ahmed Shafi had better study the psyche of the nation, if he is not aware of it already. One cannot say what the choice of the girls would be, but it is their parents and guardians who decide what their wards will study, and in what conditions in an institution that is basically meant to be Islamic in character.
Ideals and idealistic views are commendable for they are the motive force for progress, and the world would indeed be a sad place without them. But one has to be realistic and pragmatic too. The long-discussed proposal to have a separate women’s university has already materialized in the shape of the Fatima Jinnah Women’s University in Rawalpindi. The same question that Ahmed Shafi has posed in respect of the IIU can also be put to the Punjab government which started this university. Does he think it is gender bias that prevents the admission of men students in that institution?
Leave the IIU and the FJWU aside. In order to make it a test case, that the gender bias should not operate in Pakistan, would Ahmed Shafi try and seek admission in the Fatima Jinnah Medical College in Lahore? Or, for that matter in any school or college in the country meant exclusively for girls, and go to the High Court in a constitutional petition if his application is refused? even the federal minister for women development won’t be able to help him get in. Maybe he doesn’t know that even in Oxford and Cambridge there are separate women’s colleges.
All this of course does not imply that conditions are perfect in Pakistan so far as equal treatment of men and women, as prescribed in the constitution, is concerned. Even in areas where the constitution cannot reach to enforce itself, discrimination is openly practiced. Take only one example - the family and the home. We may shout from the housetops that Islam gives the same rights to men and women, but we, as a nation, are chary of being justice-minded and even-handed with our own sons and daughters.
Leaving aside the modern enlightened sections of our society, you will see that among the middle class and the poor a daughter is like a second class citizen and has to make way for her brother where privileges and facilities are concerned. For example, the son can marry whom he likes, but the daughter cannot. If resources are limited, it is the girl who will be kept from going to school, howsoever eager and bright she may be. She does not even get the same food as the boys in the family.
Coming back to the International Islamic University, I have been impressed by the fact that it is producing so many women ulema every year, those of its entrants who qualify in Usuluddin, i.e. Islamic Studies. They may not be preaching in mosques as imams and khateebs, but, as I wrote some months ago, they are a positive sign of the Islamic tenet that religious education is as necessary for Muslim women as for Muslim men. Unfortunately this has been ignored by Muslim societies so far.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that, at the under-construction new campus in Sector H-10, priority is being given to the women’s campus and the hostels for girl students so that they should get out of the distant and rather alien atmosphere of the Madina-tul-Hujjaj on Peshawar Road where they are currently housed and taught. I hope Ahmed Shafi is pleased with this “discrimination.”