These jirga decisions include: the execution of women for ‘immorality’, and even for perfectly legal and religious marriages with men from other tribes; the giving or exchange of minor girls in compensation as part of the settlement of feuds; and, more rarely, orders of gang-rape as a punishment. This last, however, is almost always limited to actions by one local y dominant kinship group to teach another one its place – as in the particularly monstrous case of the rape in 2002 of Mukhtar Mai, a woman of the Guj ar biradiri in the Muzaffargarh district of southern Punjab, on the orders of a jirga of the Mastoi, a local Baloch tribe. This is a tactic often used by superior castes in India as wel to crush and humiliate the lower castes.
This issue raises yet again the question of whether Pakistan is real y (as most observers believe) insufficiently democratic, or whether on the contrary it is in fact too democratic for its own good – in so far as the views of a largely il iterate, obscurantist and often violent population are in a position to prevail over those of the educated elites, and the state is too weak to enforce its own official law.
For it should be remembered that in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Europe, key advances in judicial progress, and administration in general, which laid the foundations for modern European civilization, were carried out by smal enlightened aristocratic and bourgeois elites. These often had to use authoritarian methods to crush the resistance of the mass of the population. They certainly never believed for a moment that the masses should be consulted about elite actions.
This issue also raises the question of the difference between a truly ‘feudal’ elite and one based on the leadership of kinship groups. A truly feudal elite – and one which did not have to stand in elections – might eventual y summon up the wil to be true to its own modern education and ensure that measures protecting women (of which there are plenty in law) are actual y enforced. An elite dependent on the consensus of kinship groups to be elected to parliament cannot do so – especial y because even in the most autocratic Pakistani culture, that of the Baloch tribes, there is in the end almost always some rival would-be chieftain waiting within the chieftain’s family to chal enge him if his support in the tribe dwindles.
The reality of al this was brought home to me by the Sardar of one tribe in Balochistan – a Pathan tribe, but which, unlike the Pathans of the NWFP and FATA, had been heavily influenced by autocratic Baloch traditions. If his very candid and al -too-human account of his approach seems less than heroic, I invite you, dear Reader, to ask yourself whether you or I would real y do so much better.
This Sardar is a ‘Nawabzada’, the descendant of a tribal chieftain who fought against the British, but later compromised with them and was given the title of ‘Nawab’ – another sign of the old Frontier tradition whereby yesterday’s enemy is today’s al y, and vice versa.
His tribe straddles the Afghan frontier, but in Afghanistan his influence, though present, is greatly reduced. The Sardar’s grandfather sat in the Pakistani Constituent Assembly of 1947.
The wal s of the Sardar’s mansion in Quetta are festooned with the heads of mountain goats and photographs of ancestors bristling with guns, swords and facial hair. The resemblance in terms of both hair and general expression was rather marked. The Sardar’s own facial hair is more limited – a moustache and a pair of smal sideburns, which together with his long curling hair gave evidence of student years in London in the late 1960s. He spoke of his time in London with deep regret as ‘the happiest time of my life’, but with a disarming smile, admitted that ‘in the end, I just could not bear to live my whole life in a place where, when I walk down the street, people do not bow and say, ‘Salaam aleikum, Sardar Sahib’.
The Sardar described his judicial role as fol ows: In my tribe, the poorest man if he gets into trouble wil be helped by his fel ow tribesmen, led by me and my cousins. Even if he drives a rickshaw or sel s boot polish he can look anyone in the eyes because he has a chief and a powerful tribe behind him ...
Every month, hundreds of people come to me or my cousins to have their problems solved. If it is a simple case, we make decisions ourselves. If more difficult, we cal a jirga, and from the jirga people are chosen as a committee to look into the case. We choose people depending on the nature of the case.
If it is a transport problem, we choose people with transport experience. If business, then businessmen. If the parties to the case want it to be judged according to the Shariah, we include a mul ah. We make the judgment, and we enforce it.
For example, a few months ago one boy from the tribe kil ed another boy. We are arranging compensation. They are both from our tribe, so that was quite easy. A more difficult case recently was when one of our women was raped by two young men from another tribe. We caught the men, and our tribal jirga met, and cal ed witnesses according to the Shariah and modern law. We consulted with the elders of the other tribe.
They offered money compensation but we can only take this in cases of murder or wounding. To take it in cases of the rape of our women would disgrace us. Then they said, you can kil the older boy, but please spare the younger one. So we decided to kil the older boy, and slit the nose and ears of the younger one ... The older one was twenty-something, the younger is sixteen ...
‘Rough justice,’ I suggested.
Yes, but if we had gone to the government law it would have taken years, and in that time they would have been free to roam the streets raping more girls and laughing at us. Relations between the tribes would have got worse and worse, and maybe in the end many people would have been kil ed. This is our tribal system which has existed for ages. If it had been bad, it would have been abandoned by the people. It is a hard decision, but we need to make sure that no one wil think of kil ing or raping our people again ...
This system helps keep the peace and stops feuds getting out of hand. For example, we have just settled a feud with another tribe in south Punjab, over land. Six years ago, there was a clash. Two people were kil ed on each side, and four of our men are in jail in Multan for this. Our jirga has negotiated a settlement with the other tribe, and they agreed to drop the charges. So this week we are going to Multan to bring our men from jail. We wil give a feast for the jirga of the other tribe at which we wil formal y forgive each other, and in two weeks, they wil give a feast for us.
‘Is this according to Pakistani law?’ I asked.
There is no law! If there were a real law in this country, why would al these people come to me for help? I don’t go looking for this work. I have important business in Karachi that I have to leave behind to do this. People come to my cousins and me because they respect us, not just because of our titles but because they know our character and know that we are fair. I depend on my people’s respect only. After al , I have no official position, and no support from the police or the courts ...
I asked him about the punishment of women in ‘honour’ cases, and how far – since he had previously spoken bitterly about the backwardness and lack of education of his fel ow-countrymen – he was able to bring his own more enlightened views to bear.
Sometimes there is no need to set up a committee of the jirga.
If it is a very simple case and I know what the tribe thinks, I can just say, ‘This is the decision!’ But issues involving women are never simple, and I always have to think about what the opinion of the tribe wil be. The tribal set-up is very hard, not just towards women but towards men as wel . Remember, no one in this country has real rights ...
Because I have travel ed and am educated, taking these decisions over women is not easy for me. I have to think and think about how to handle them. There are certain things I wil not permit. For example, the first decision I made on becoming Sardar was that I wil not al ow the giving of girls in compensation. That is stil very common in our system but I wil not al ow it. I wil order money given instead, if necessary much more money.
Also I wil not punish a girl for wanting to marry or not to marry someone, as long as it is a proper marriage. If a couple run away together to get married without their parents’ permission, I wil put pressure on the parents to agree to the marriage, not to kil them. I may fine the boy’s family though so as to save the face of the girl’s family.
With such female problems I am very cautious. To be honest I try to avoid them whenever I can. If I can solve them without bloodshed, then I do so. Otherwise I send the case to my cousins to decide.
‘And do they share your more enlightened principles?’ I asked.
Wel , that is up to them. But I do try, you know, when possible, and this has sometimes involved me in arguments with my own tribe. I can say in the end to the jirga and the parties in a case: ‘I don’t agree to your verdict. This is my decision and if you don’t like it, you can go to state law.’ But I can’t do this often or no one would obey me any more. I only do it sometimes in women’s cases, because after al I am a father with daughters. If it’s a business issue and I disagree with the jirga, I won’t take a stand – after al , businessmen can always get their money back somehow ...
I cannot say whether this Sardar did in fact try hard in ‘women’s cases’; but at least he seemed aware that he ought to. As wil be seen in Chapter 8, the other Sardars I met in Balochistan simply defended tribal custom tout court; they also claimed to be modern and educated men, and – of course – ‘good democrats’.
THE POLICE
The problems affecting the police and the official judicial system in Pakistan are so many and so great that it is hard adequately to describe them, but one single word that explains many of the others is yet again ‘kinship’. In the words of a police officer in central Punjab: Families and clans here stick together, so if you real y want to arrest one person here and prosecute him successful y, you may need to arrest ten, or threaten to arrest them – the original suspect plus three for perjury, three for bribing the police and judges, and three for intimidating witnesses. And if the family has any influence, the only result wil be to get yourself transferred to another district. So I’m afraid that it is often much easier just not to arrest anyone.
Take the FIR [First Information Report] system. If two individuals or families clash, and someone is kil ed, the dead man’s family wil lodge an FIR with one police station saying that he was wantonly murdered, and the other family wil lodge an FIR with another police station saying that they were attacked and acted in self-defence – and they may be tel ing the truth. The police and the courts have to judge between them on the basis of evidence, every bit of which is probably false in one direction or another. So either the case goes on for ever, or it is resolved in favour of which side has more power and influence.
If it’s an especial y bad case and you are sure of what happened, you may be able to bargain with the family or with local politicians to give you the man you want. But then of course you wil have to give them something in return, or let one of their members off in some other case. This is typical give and take – what we cal here lena dena.
The problem for the police and the courts begins with lying.
Astonishingly – at least, it astonished me – it is not permitted in Pakistani courts to swear on the Koran (that is, the Book itself, not in the words of the Koran) when giving evidence. I asked Sayyid Mansur Ahmed, vice-president of the Karachi Bar Association, why ever not.
‘It’s very simple,’ he replied with a cheerful smile. ‘Most people would swear and then lie anyway. That would bring religion into disrepute – and you are not supposed to do that in Pakistan.’
British officials working in the field recognized this problem and attributed it to their own system, drawing a contrast yet again with traditional local jirgas and panchayats where, since everyone knows everyone else and the basic facts of the case, outrageous lying is pointless. In the words of General Sir Wil iam Sleeman, commander of the campaign to suppress thuggee:
I believe that as little falsehood is spoken by the people of India, in their vil age communities, as in any part of the world with an equal area and population. It is in our courts of justice where falsehoods prevail most, and the longer they have been anywhere established, the greater the degree of falsehood that prevails in them.13
Denzil Ibbetson, the great colonial administrator and ethnographer of the Punjab, writes of the ordinary Baloch being natural y frank and honest in his statements, ‘except where corrupted by our courts’.
Once again, the people doing the lying and manipulating would in most cases not feel that they were acting immoral y; rather, that they were obeying the higher moral law of loyalty to kin. And, once again, there is no essential difference in this regard between the big ‘feudal’
politician and the smal tenant farmer. They al , each according to their station and resources, do their utmost to help relatives and al ies by deceiving, corrupting or pressuring the police and the courts. Pressure can be directly physical (especial y in the case of the Islamist extremist groups) but more often it comes through political influence.