patriarchal construct along the lines of the family, inconvenient but equally inconvenient is the fact that women appear to have made greater political gains under military regimes than civilian led regimes. This paper examines the possible reasons for the military’s historical support to Pakistani women in the political arena.

Mona Lena Krook³, borrowing from Bari and Zia (1999) and summarizing the history of women’s reserved seats in Pakistan, writes: “Pakistan is probably the first country to reserve seats for women in parliament. In 1954, a 3% quota for women was approved and the 1956 Constitution provided for the reservation of ten seats for a period of ten years for women equally divided between East and West Pakistan. No elections, however, were held under this constitution. General Ayub Khan’s Constitution of 1962 reserved six seats for women in the National Assembly and five in each Provincial Assembly. The 1970 Legal Framework Order increased the reservation to thirteen seats in the National Assembly and the 1973 Constitution increased women’s reserved seats to five percent for ten years or two general elections, whichever was later. In 1981, General Zia-ul-Haq introduced a new legislative council to which he appointed twenty women. This was replaced in 1985 by a National Assembly elected under Martial Law Ordinance 1984, which doubled the percentage of reserved seats for women to 10%. These provisions expired in 1989, when a new bill on reserved seats was proposed but never implemented. Despite intense debate, no new measures were passed before the 1997 election. In 1999, a military coup removed the civilian government, but the military government pledged to hold an election by October 2002. The January 2002 election package reserved sixty seats for women in Parliament as well as 33% of all seats for women in local bodies. Women won a total of 72 seats, bringing their representation in Parliament to 21.1%.”

While Krook’s description indicates that women’s symbolic presence in politics has been a constant, President General Pervez Musharaf’s initiative to grant women representation in Parliament and at the local level has led to the entry of more than 40,000 women in the local government, and provincial and national parliaments. Such a large presence has never before been witnessed in the history of Pakistan and has the potential to lead to a radical shift in women’s political position and voice in the country. Such a move on the part of General Musharraf, like that of his military predecessors General Zia-ul-Haq and General Ayub Khan, not only demonstrates that the military has been more than willing to grant greater political participation to women but that civilian governments in the 1990s have failed women due to their inability to reach an understanding with the opposition about the formula to be followed for making reservations.

Although women’s rights around the world have not been won easily, yet in Pakistan’s case, some battles appear to be easier than others, e.g., the battle for women’s legal rights and equality appears more uphill than the right to quotas, although we have to concede that this too appeared to be an uphill task under the successive civilian regimes of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif during the 1990s.

This paper discusses the creation of quotas for women’s political empowerment by military regimes in Pakistan. It problematizes the fact that compared to civilian regimes, military regimes in Pakistan, generally considered anti-women and anti-rights, have provided more support to Pakistani women through the granting of quotas in the political realm. I conclude that while there are definite limits on the extent and quality of political empowerment (in other words, what is acceptable empowerment within a larger patriarchal context) for women, women’s own resilience and the changes on the ground will pave the way for increased participation and impact on politics, and ultimately on women’s lives.

I examine different explanations for women’s increased representation ranging from women’s agency and military instrumentalism to the worldview of military officers as a social class. I maintain that one factor alone cannot explain the rise of women’s representation in politics under military rule and argue for a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon. Rather than adhering to the predictable explanations forwarded by feminists and human rights activists in Pakistan, I argue that we need to understand the military’s worldview about women in order to understand why it provides quotas to women. I believe that this is a critical aspect of the debate that has not been examined to date and that faces resistance from those who are comfortable with binary ways of seeing the world. Thus, if the military is identified as evil, auto-reflex style, then all its deeds are seen to be evil and condemned before they can ever be examined. This paper will hopefully raise the level of debate about the military and its relationship with women’s rights issues.

The first part of this paper discusses the issue of women’s representation and the legitimacy of a voice as well as the relationship between the women’s movement and the state. We look at the case of the women’s movement, as it is the only articulate source, however limited, of women’s aspirations and demands. Its relationship with the state is important to understand as it provides a lens into its relationship with all governments, whether military or civilian. The second part of this paper explores different explanations for the granting of quotas to women by the military. Specifically it looks into institutional and individual aspects of the military to explain quotas and support to women. This paper concludes that the military’s worldview about women’s place and political empowerment stems from its institutional ethos embedded within the liberal tradition; however, this view has its own set of limitations about women’s place and gender roles.

II. Explanations for Quotas Under Military Rule

I have already pointed out the assumption that military regimes, due to their fundamental character, are generally considered to be anti women at the symbolic level as military ideology negates feminine values. In this section, I explore why reservation of seats for women has consistently risen since the 1950s with the exception of the decade of the 1990s.

Under the Ayub regime (1958-69), a handful of women were elected basic democrats. While Ayub Khan ousted Fatima Jinnah from politics, he reserved 8 seats for women in the National Assembly and five each in the two wings. In 1973, under Z. A. Bhutto (1972-77) the constitution reserved 10 seats for women in a reduced Pakistan and 11 seats were reserved for women in the provincial assemblies. While this dispensation was interrupted in 1977 by General Zia-ul-Haq, in 1985-88, women’s quota was doubled to 20 seats in the national parliament and 27 seats were reserved for them in provincial assemblies. These quotas lapsed in 1990 with the result that between 1990 and 2000, there were no reserved seats for women in the national and provincial assemblies. At the local government level, with the exception of the NWFP government, other provincial governments reserved a small number of seats for women. Once again, in 2000, under another military regime, 33 percent seats were reserved for women in local government while 17 percent representation was ensured through reservation in the national and provincial assemblies and senate. The table below summarizes the different arrangements dispensed by different governments in Pakistan since its creation.

Table 1. Women’s Representation in the Constituent/National and Provincial Assemblies since 1947

A. Agency of the Women’s Movement

Many people have questioned⁵ whether there is such a thing as a women’s movement in Pakistan. This section discusses the degree to which a women’s movement in Pakistan can claim credit for women’s political representation in Pakistan. Although in general women’s organizations that claim to represent the movement ascribe to upholding democratic regimes, yet a study of the historical relationship of the women’s movement in Pakistan demonstrates that the movement has collaborated with any and every regime that it could muster support from. Only under the military rule of Zia-ul-Haq was any friction witnessed. As women are dependent upon governments to grant them their due, they try to traverse a thorny path for actualizing their demands, ensuring that they stay within the acceptable limits with their demands so that these will have legitimacy in the eyes of the mainstream decision-makers and lobbies. Thus, since the 1950s, women’s organizations have voiced demands for socially acceptable rights. They have often chosen to stay away from more radical issues that question the very system under which their rights are usurped.

If we examine the demands of the women’s movement methodically under the three military regimes, namely Ayub Khan’s, General Zia-ul-Haq’s and General Musharaf’s, we will see a clear difference between the articulation of women’s rights and concerns as voiced by the women’s movement. During the 1960s, a liberal women’s rights agenda informed the demands of the women’s movement as articulated by organizations like APWA or women leaders present in the assemblies.

One can depict the 1970s as a transition from liberal agendas to those of equality and greater emancipation for women. The UN Convention on Women in Mexico City in 1975 represented the ethos of women in different contexts: equality for women in the West, peace for women in the communist bloc, and development for women from the Third World. The 1970s saw the emergence of the category ‘Third World women’ on the international development scene; it was the onset of the decade for women and ideas of women in development and women and development were introduced in Pakistan. Women’s groups, many newly formed, were beginning to demand their rights and equal place in the development process by the late 1970s in Pakistan. Around the same time, a women’s division was created by the Zia regime, later upgraded to the status of a ministry.

By the beginning of the 1980s, a drastically different women’s movement compared to the 1960s, manifested itself on the political scene. During President Zia-ul-Haq’s regime, a nascent feminist movement along with a human rights movement took roots albeit under support from international donors and the international feminist movement. It forged alliances with similar movements in the rest of South Asia and made its voice against military rule known inside and outside the borders of Pakistan. While Zia ensured women’s political representation in the national majlis-e-shura and later the parliament of Pakistan, the feminist movement coalesced as the women’s movement to fight against discriminatory legislation introduced by the same regime. Many women’s rights and feminist activists depict women’s principled stance against the military rule and militarization of Zia-ul-Haq as the most valiant symbol of resistance to dictatorship. Thus the measures sanctioned for political empowerment of women were not only ignored, they also receded into the background given the onslaught by the state in the area of legal rights.

Although many assert that the women’s movement was not a movement at all but a coterie of elite western educated women whose own freedoms were threatened by the conservative regime of Zia-ul-Haq, the fact that they were able to muster widespread support from different groups speaks in their favor. In addition, many who defend the movement assert that it is poor and lower middle class women, and not elite women, who were adversely affected by Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime. It was women’s tireless lobbying against discriminatory laws that kept the issue alive instead of being swept under the carpet.

The movement, having established itself without doubt, as a voice of women, had an important role to play in keeping the issue of women’s reserved seats in the limelight throughout the 1990s. During this decade women’s groups lobbied with civilian governments for repeal of discriminatory legislation and increased representation of women in the three tiers of government. They were able to achieve little as the PPP and PML, the two political parties that led governments through the 1990s were unable to agree on a formula for women’s representation through direct or indirect election, on a party or non-party basis.

More recently, there has been muted criticism that when General Musharraf took over in 1999, organizations representing the women’s movement did not take a stand against military rule in the country. In response, many women activists argue that given the adverse circumstances that women face, they try to create a niche for themselves anywhere that they can.⁶ If this means negotiating with military rulers and making limited gains, they will do so, and to their credit. For example, during Zia’s dark days, Begum Zari Sarfaraz negotiated the terms on which she and her team would write their report on the status of women, which was not released until democratic governments gained power in Pakistan. Given that there are few choices, women have had to be hard-nosed to bargain with military regimes for their rights.

Can the women’s movement claim agency and credit for increased women’s representation under military rule and specifically under the current dispensation? Many women’s rights activists were pleasantly surprised when President Musharraf initially declared 50 percent reserved seats across the board at all tiers of government and later reduced these to 33 percent at the local government and 17.5 percent at the provincial and national levels. Furthermore, the last elections also saw the largest-ever number of women contesting and winning elections on general seats as well, thereby taking the overall legislative representation to almost 20 percent. Women’s rights activists assert that the different formulas that have been publicly debated and forwarded/shared with the civilian governments by them and by human rights organizations have played a role in the new dispensation of reserved quotas for women.

On the other hand, there are several gaps in the system of representation introduced by the Musharraf government. Shehla Zia⁷ argued that ‘the system of indirect election of women to reserved seats in the legislative bodies has been unfortunate, preventing their mainstreaming in the political system (since they have no geographical constituencies) and leaving them dependent on the primarily male membership/leadership of political parties (who nominate them to the lists). It has also led to allegations of nepotism in the selection process. Moreover, despite the substantial increase of women legislators, this has not been matched by an increase of women in cabinets, where their representation remains nominal. Similarly, there has been no effort to enhance women’s representation in the public sector (despite commitments in the National Plan of Action) and even the existing 5% quota has not been fulfilled, and its continuance appears to be in doubt.’ Shehla Zia’s indictment clearly points to the inadequate measures and issues of implementation by the military as well as the lack of follow-up on the part of the women’s movement. Pro-active agendas appear to be missing from the women’s groups with regard to what we may call hard-won half victories.

We may conclude that women’s agency was instrumental in obtaining them quotas to a limited degree. Such a conclusion, with its obvious caveat, leaves space for reflection: was it the agency of the women’s movement that pressured the military into granting women political representation, or, was this a pragmatic step on the part of the military regimes to gain instant popularity and applause? In the next section we discuss the issue from a military standpoint.

B. Instrumentalism of the Military

The military by its very nature is neither dependent upon consent nor an institution that is biased toward inclusiveness. Furthermore, it is highly hierarchical and taught to be contemptuous of politicians and civilians—both are perceived to be unruly, unpredictable and undisciplined. They are seen either as threats or as liabilities. Thus, for anyone to expect from the army tolerance and respect for a space that will provide people with rights is to be contradictory. However, some maintain that the character of the military reflects the larger society and as such it is as open or oppressive as the larger Pakistani society. This is a rather sweeping generalization because the larger society is made up of different classes and institutions and while they may share certain cultural similarities, they are quite different in nature from one another.⁸

While the quota problems confronting the civilian governments are laid out in terms of party interests and the granting of seats to the advantage of the specific political party,⁹ such considerations are not critical for military regimes. Conversely, the pressures that military regimes face are of a different nature; these pertain to their legitimacy and right to rule. All types of regimes today must be seen to be promoting democratic principles and safeguarding the rights of the marginalized. Can military regimes escape or disregard such pressures? Below, we examine the different explanations that are popularly extended to explain the military’s support and promotion of women’s political rights.

i.        The ‘Look-Good’ Syndrome—A Foreign Policy Explanation

While there was greater tolerance of military dictators in the 1960s and even the 1970s, such tolerance has steadily decreased within the international community as they indicate lack of democracy and rights for people. Military regimes are thus under pressure to acquire acceptance in the international arena. Although civilian regimes also violate human rights and may adopt anti-people policies, military regimes are under comparatively more pressure to build their international image by making symbolic gestures toward women’s and minority rights. These moves are thus viewed as being closely tied to foreign policy.

Connected to this logic is also the domestic framework within which military rule is imposed. Some analysts point to social change within the country. People have a greater awareness of their rights and are articulate in protesting and resisting military dictatorship, which has become harder to impose in its tyrannical form. To make such rule palatable, the military introduces some policies that make its acceptance as a fair and democratic force compelling. This strategy is especially helpful to the military as it puts the civilian regime that it has replaced appear undemocratic and unjust. In contrast, the military appears to be a champion of the marginalized thus diluting the issues as well as creating distrust of popularly elected governments.

Most of the arguments that connect the military’s look-good syndrome with instrumentalism are powerful and convincing. However, there are aporias: Zia’s anti women laws pre-dated the Jihad in Afghanistan and the need to please the United States. Simultaneously with the issue of projecting a good image abroad, the Islamic punishments that Zia introduced like public lashings, cutting of hands and stoning to death, were moves that certainly did not endear him to anyone internationally. Therefore, a more sophisticated analysis will be required if we are to ascribe increased women’s representation to foreign policy requirements or image building alone.

In conclusion to this subsection, the foreign policy aspect reduces the issue to a simplistic explanation that says that such steps are taken entirely to put forth a positive international and national image. I maintain that this is correct but insufficient to explain the issue of comparatively increased quotas for women under the military leaders than the political leaders.

ii.        Create a New Support Base

This explanation is based on the conception that realpolitik and pragmatism inform the military’s moves. Given that women are a large untapped political constituency, the military tries to win their support through offering limited political change. Such change is not restricted to the political realm alone; it is extended to other areas as well to create a positive image for the armed forces. For instance, when employment with the armed forces was opened up for women candidates under equal opportunity, it meant that they would be eligible to be recruited as commissioned officers and not be restricted to being doctors and nurses in the armed forces. Even with regard to the latter, the military advertised and projected the positive image of women when Dr. Shahida Malik was promoted to the rank of a General in the Pakistan military in 2002.¹⁰ Similarly, women are now allowed to enroll in the Pakistan Airforce aerospace, engineering and fight pilot programs.¹¹ Many analysts assert that by taking such steps the military as a whole believed that it was projecting a progressive and liberal image within and outside the country.

Many feminists advance the argument that when the military supports women in the context of separate reserved seats, it is guided by a similar instrumentalist approach that sees women as a vast untapped resource whom the military can convert into a constituency and support base for itself. In a country of more than 150 million people, approximately half of whom are women, winning women over could constitute an important support base. This explanation is also only partial; in Pakistan’s male dominated public political domain, where men in many instances decide if their women can go out to vote or be appointed against reserved seats¹², the usefulness of such a support base would always be questionable.

iii.        Historical Support to Local Government

Local self-government has not been popular with Pakistan’s civilian rulers for several reasons, ranging from a politics of identity to political party support and manipulation at the local level.¹³ The military has historically supported local self-government because it allows for pressures to be let off at the local level without allowing dissent from known political leaders to emerge at the provincial and federal levels. Such support also supposedly erodes the power basis of powerful politicians by giving a fair chance to the less well-to-do people to contest elections locally as these are affordable and the debates/issues are relevant to the local contexts. Therefore, it is to the military’s advantage to manage some degree of participation at the local level in order to contain dissent and frustration. However, the elections that it allows at the local level till now have been held on a non-party basis. Through these elections, military regimes have so far attempted to sow the seeds of what they euphemistically call ‘alternative leadership.’ SDPI researchers, Shahrukh Rafi Khan and Foqia Sadiq Khan in their assessment of local goverment¹⁴ conclude that local government is dominated by the landed class and thus that the power dynamics on the ground stand little chance of fast-paced positive social change¹⁵. Military governments seldom have incentive to change this situation as their interests coincide with the landed classes. As such, local government reflects the important convergence of class interests and military interests.

In addition, through the holding of elections at the local level, the military attempts to portray itself as a neutral institution in favor of a new leadership that would induct change in favor of the ordinary person in a systematic manner. Through this move, the military tries to build a new support base for itself while maintaining the smokescreen of democracy. For example, women councilors elected to the union councils are resentful of the government’s recent decision in 2005 to halve the total number of union council seats, thereby halving their number as well (while keeping the percentage at the same level). Despite this, a large number of the women councilors continue to support President Musharraf because they believe that he has brought them in. They feel that President Musharraf’s support has enabled them to take on a prominent role in the resolution of local issues, thereby acquiring clout and respect in their communities. They assert that the political leaders of this country were unwilling to introduce such change.¹⁶

C. The Military: A Look Within

While the previous section examines the explanations that pertain to the motivation of the military to use women’s quotas as an instrument of pushing for its’ self interests, the following subsections provide a more comprehensive explanation about such support by contextualizing the military and attempting to understand military ethos. Such an angle sensitizes us to the aspects that we often discount and ignore totally. By highlighting the intricate connections between the creation of the military as a social class, the changes within its own makeup, and its outlook toward women, I am able to point out the linkages between institutional norms, individual initiatives and systemic barriers. I conclude that it is critical to understand the military’s worldview about women to explain its support for quotas. By doing so, I do not intend to take away from the agency of women or the instrumentalist explanations forwarded to explain the military’s support to women but to make the argument more complex and attempt to put forward a critical aspect that has not been discussed in Pakistan’s context earlier.

The subsections within this section therefore explore the military’s constitution of a social class, its changing nature within a larger national and regional political context, the constraints and limitations of different military rulers as well as the military’s worldview about women’s place in national politics.

i.        Military Officers as a Social Class?

How does the military perceive women? This section looks at the dynamics that produce military officers as an almost uniform social class through different arrangements that ensure the continuous reproduction of a particular set of values, attitudes and character that define the military. Overall, the military still manages to instill a value system that identifies it as a different—modern and efficient—institution in the country. The quality of modernity revolves around two major themes: the acquisition of the latest technology, hardware and training, and an ‘informed’ outlook on life. The latter includes a relatively unorthodox attitude toward women. Here, we discuss the signifiers that contribute to shaping and enacting the military through the propping up of a lifestyle that is not accessible to the ordinary Pakistani civilian.

First, the military establishes its exclusivity from the ordinary people it is supposed to defend through various measures: living in army housing or in centrally located cantonments reserved for the British previously; local people could not enter without permission, own land or live in these exclusive areas during colonial times. Very few people even today can own land in the cantonments, highlighting their exclusivity. Military officers and their families were/are provided with various facilities ranging from mess facilities for entertainment, membership of the local club (in the past kept exclusively for the British) where they have access to various sports (squash, tennis, swimming) and other recreational facilities (special film showings, bars, tambola evenings for the family in the past), military hospitals, schools and colleges as well as special shopping centers (CSDs—previously Officer’s Shops) with subsidized goods ranging from cars to flour to foreign imports. Wives were encouraged to accompany their husbands in the evening for social gatherings and to actively participate in family activities (purdah was not observed as the entire corps was considered family) and the welfare of the families of the non-commissioned officers—the sipahis (soldiers). This too is a continuation of the British tradition and role of a military officer’s wife. Further, the Pakistan military inherited the systems introduced and maintained for the British. All officers had ‘batmen’ who were to ensure that the officer’s uniform and shoes met with the minimum standard, a ‘dhobi’ usually in the area would do all the washing. Such arrangements have contributed to a lifestyle that has been labeled as special and different to what is practiced by ordinary people.

Along with these indicators of exclusivity, military personnel undergo training in a military academy where appropriate attire, military strategy, physical fitness and education are imparted to the officers. Even if they came from different class backgrounds, the academy managed to put a stamp of uniformity upon them and inculcated in them some common values and adherence to a particular lifestyle. Thus, within the military, while individual values may have differed, the exposure to the military academy ensured an overall veneer of the military’s stamp and relatively liberal values. And while not all the officers come from the middle classes, they are regimented into some semblance of a class. Further, as they acquire higher positions, the sifting among them takes place and often those with the slightly upper middle class social background with an English-medium education do better and go on to the top.¹⁷ These officers are the ones who are sent abroad for courses and trainings through competitive exams.¹⁸ Experiencing first hand the access to western ideas and lived realities by living abroad provides a wider social vision to many of the personnel sent abroad.

We may conclude that living in their exclusive enclaves, following a particular lifestyle with its different signifiers in everyday contexts ensure that military officers develop and display attitudes that are marked as ‘modern’ and enlightened in our society. The heritage from the British times can also been seen, albeit increasingly less, within the military. The education system combined with the exposure to western ideas of (relative) gender equality in the public context reinforces in the upper ranking officers relatively progressive ideas about women’s place in the political arena. As stated earlier, these ideas are not static; they have undergone change as social values enforced by different governments have changed the fundamental fabric of society. However, the values related to gender equality in the public sphere are not completely eroded till now.

Below we discuss some of the issues that come up for discussion in the context of changes within the military’s own cultural identity.

ii.        Competing Ideologies and a Changing Military Culture

One is cognizant that there are constant changes within the character of the military, i.e., today it is not the colonial military of the 1940s and even 1950s. Its’ liberal outlook has also undergone a change as new competing ideologies have taken center-stage in the Pakistan government rhetoric and recruits to the army are increasingly coming from a different class background.¹⁹ Connected to the emergence of competing ideologies are new, more orthodox, ways of looking at women. How the more liberal and orthodox views on women will eventually shape out remains to be seen in a post 9/11 world.

The military has undergone tremendous change since 1947, especially since the 1970s when Pakistan began to depend upon an inflexible form of Islamic identity to overcome the crisis created by the secession of East Pakistan. According to Cohen,²⁰ the East Pakistan crisis created a mini-generation of its own. According to SDPI researcher Ahmed Salim, the East Pakistan crisis also led to increasing distortions of history in the educational curricula because wide ranging respect and reverence of the military changed overnight into disappointed and stunned silence as the role of the army in Bangladesh and the fact of 93,000 prisoners of war emerged.

There is meager documentation about the changed class and geographic background of military recruits over the past 50 years. In one of the few articles that document the change and shifting class composition of the military officers from pre-Partition times to the present, Talat Aslam writes, “Men from urban lower middle class and modest rural backgrounds have slowly come to dominate the ranks of the army, and the old pucca sahib officer is fast becoming an anachronism.” Quoting an army officer, he writes, “For the old breed of army officer, the army was not a bread-earning vocation, but an institution a gentleman would join to enhance his reputation or keep up a noble family tradition. Today a vast majority are in the army to earn a living and this has had a profound impact on their desire to make good.” More than anything, it is the ethos of the military that has undergone a change since its colonial days.

The shifts in the military’s own culture have reasons. According to Aslam, the critical time at which the class composition of the military began to register change is in the post 1971 era when the old well-to-do families stopped sending their sons to the military. In addition, the strength of the military increased from a small elite force to the fifth largest army in the world, thereby introducing among its ranks a wide variety of individuals who came from the rural poor in search of a wage. The expanded army came to be dominated by Punjabis from the barani (rainfed) areas of the Punjab and parts of the NWFP. A majority of the new recruits brought with them their rural values.²¹

Eqbal Ahmed corroborates the changes in the military. Writing/speaking in 1981 about the Bhutto era (1972-77) he asserts, “A change occurred during this period in the class structure of the officers’ corps of the armed forces. By this time, most British-trained, Sandhurst-graduated, Second World War experienced and decorated soldiers who generally had come from the upper classes, i.e. feudal or haute bourgeoisie, had reached retirement age or else had been kicked out of service. A lot of that happened under Bhutto, some of it under Ayub. And rapid promotions were given to the younger officers who had a very different schooling and class background from that of the retired and first generation. The officers who constituted the command ranks of the armed forces in the 1970s came generally from petit-bourgeois backgrounds, mostly from middle peasant families in four districts of the Rawalpindi division or from East Punjab.”²²

Although Eqbal Ahmed is dismissive of the military top brass, outlining the changed background of the recruits, it appears that there was still some vestige of liberal thought even though it was fast being impacted by the 1970s rise of petro-dollars accompanied by the export of wahabi Islam and other changes in the region generally categorized as the ‘resurgence of Islam’. However, the recruits from the 1970s and 1980s who are now in middle and upper middle positions would be making their mark over the next decade or so. Until that happens, some of the vestiges of the past colonial thinking will continue to inform institutional thinking. Women’s place, as we shall discuss later, subject to changed perceptions, continues to be informed by old liberal ideas injected into the body politic of the military but tempered today by changed conservative identities promoted during the 1980s.

iii.        Ayub Khan, Zia ul Haq, Pervez Musharraf: Modernity and Islam Along a Continuum?

How can we ascribe the issue of women’s seats to military regimes? How are these rationalized within military ranks and social thought? While the three generals whose regimes we try to understand were fundamentally different to one another, the first trying to be modernist, the second attempting to Islamize state and society, and the third a combination of the two with his policy of ‘enlightened moderation’, yet their concepts of women’s place in politics appear to be somewhat similar. Informed by remnants of liberal thinking, they were/are not averse to limited political representation to women so long as women’s overall place and role in society is kept intact, unthreatened.

In the context of class, all three came from middle and upper middle class backgrounds. President Ayub had received training at the Sandhurst Military academy in Britain while Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharaf attended military academy in the United States. Although a majority of the recent generals received their training in the United States due to the military aid programs under different arrangements between the US and Pakistan, the military stuck to many of its’ British colonial traditions. Thus, at the cultural level, the US was not able to influence more than a century of tradition. However, the military took technologically from the US and received training from CIA and American military personnel in counter insurgency and anti communist training. Eqbal Ahmed describes the changes and traces these to the pre-partition days: “Zia-ul-Haq belongs to that second category. These people, who have had one or two years of college, did not go to elite military preparatory schools. They grew up in the heyday of nationalist agitation just before independence, and thus had some introduction to politics. They entered the armed forces at the time when the British were recruiting in large numbers in the last years of the Second World War; else, they enlisted soon after independence as the officers’ corps expanded dramatically. Many of them were from officers’ temporary service, and many were later on given regular commissions when the Pakistan army was expanded after 1947. Not only is their social background different from the previous generation of officers; their political education and professional training were different. These were officers, for example, who had had their advanced training in American institutions; they were given counterinsurgency training and an anti-communist, anti-revolutionary ideological orientation. Fort Bragg is a very good example. General Zia-ul-Haq comes from Fort Bragg. Bhutto promoted some of these and superceded about twelve senior and highly-regarded officers because Mr. Bhutto hand-picked him for his presumed loyalty.”

Admittedly, General Ayub saw himself primarily as someone who was bringing modernity and economic development to the country. During this era, Pakistan chose to become an ally of the United States and played a critical role in the ‘containment policy.’ The Harvard Advisory Group’s influence on Pakistan’s economic planning is unmistakable. President Ayub removed the word Islamic from his constitution (although he restored it a year later) and even ‘persuaded’ mullahs to pronounce his newly introduced laws relating to inheritance and marriage to be within the bounds of religion (The Muslim Families Laws Ordinance 1961). He was generally perceived to be a modernist who was willing to provide space for women to come forward even as he tried to obstruct Fatima Jinnah from contesting election against him as head of state through religious fatwas.

During the Zia heyday, Ayub’s development saga and Z A Bhutto’s Islamic socialism had failed people. Zia relied upon a retrogressive brand of Islamic rhetoric to gain legitimacy. The reasons, ranging from the rise of Islam in the region to in-flow of petrodollars, middle-east remittances and the promotion of the Jihad in Afghanistan by successive US Administrations as well Zia’s own need for legitimacy, put in place changes that have changed the fabric of the military in a fundamental manner. According to Eqbal Ahmed, commenting on the Zia regime in 1981, “In fact, the version of Islam they are offering is much more retrograde because their only reference point is a fundamentalist group, the Jamaat-i-Islami. The Islam of the earlier period – of the constitutionalist period – was at least an Islam that derived from the modernist movement; it referred to the thoughts of Mohammed Iqbal, of Syed Ahmad Khan, of Shibli Nomani, etc. These were modern Muslim thinkers; theirs was at least a contemporary bourgeois Islam. This military regime is trying to espouse a fundamentalist view of Islam…”²³

While the fundamentalist view of Islam haunts the women of Pakistan till today, especially in the form of unjust discriminatory laws, it also appears that three women have been anathema to the military presidents: Fatima Jinnah, Nusrat Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. Although General Ayub had introduced some progressive legal changes as part of his modernist beliefs, he tried to convince the religious lobby to pass a fatwa (religious verdict) that a woman could not be head of state to counter Fatimah Jinnah’s candidacy for President against him. The inclusion of some women in his government as well as the prominent position his daughter enjoyed are said to be his attempts to off-set Fatima Jinnah’s threat to his government. General Zia also attempted to muster a declaration that a woman could not head the state after sending Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the gallows, as he was fearful that Bhutto’s wife or daughter might endanger his position through public support and sympathy. Therefore, he instituted the women’s cell that later developed into a full fledged women’s development ministry, and gave women political representation in the 1985 constitution and Majlis e Shura.²⁴ Similarly, President Musharraf’s move to give women 33 percent representation at the local government level and 17.5 percent at the national and provincial levels is said to be a move to counter Benazir Bhutto’s popularity.

One can assert that the generals have used the rhetoric of Islam (whether bourgeois or fundamentalist) as well as modernity and development to suit their purposes. This appears to be a powerful explanation at the individual level of analysis. It is further collaborated by the general institutional thinking and realpolitik considerations of the time.

iv.        Worldview about Women’s Place

Along with the military personnel’s indicators of exclusivity, women (read: wives) too are part of the larger military family culture and as such enjoy certain privileges and constraints. These constraints and privileges have also undergone change over the past fifty years.

Military wives are encouraged to teach in the local military run school or undertake welfare work for the wives and families of the ordinary soldiers, ORs (Other Ranks) or JCOs. However, to mingle among one another, they have to observe the hierarchy of their husband’s ranks, therefore, a major’s wife may not sit next to a Brigadier’s wife in the presence of a Colonel’s wife as that would be inappropriate. I make these points to underscore the inner character of the military. In the military scheme of things, women belong to the sphere of social welfare or education; they enjoy some privileges but are ultimately subject to the same hierarchies as the men. Similarly, their careers are subordinate to those of their husbands. In fact, their support to the larger military ideology and culture ensures sometimes that the husbands’ promotions are not impeded.²⁵

The wives’ image was constructed along the lines of the colonial begum, who was educated and enlightened and comfortable with western ways. In a sense then, a ‘modern’ woman or wife has all the trappings of respectability and her freedoms circumscribed by the enlightened versions of the concepts of respectability. She had the right to education; she had the right to work (but within limited roles—doctor and teacher predominantly). Her other duty is to raise her children and ensure that they pursue their studies and do well at school since salaried careers are the predominant options available to the children. This is also why many of the military run schools, prominent among them the PAF school system and the Army Public School system are geared toward streamlining children into professional salaried positions.

Further, the wives of many army officers shed the traditional purdah to attend social occasions and formal functions in the army together with their husbands. Women were encouraged to participate in the welfare work of the forces, to look after the families of the ORs through the military organizations such as PAFWA etc. This also ensured quicker climb in the career ladder.²⁶ Thus, like the international character of the military anywhere, wives were the unpaid addendums who had a specific role to perform and an imaginary model to live up to.

There are now changes that appear within the military set up especially since the 1980s when Islamic/Muslim identity appeared to enter the public and institutional scene with the Zia regime’s insistence on the performance of the 5 prayers in offices as a requirement of Muslim men. “Instructions were issued for regular observance of prayers and made arrangements for performing noon prayer (salat ul zuhar) in the government and semi-government offices and educational institutions, during office hours, and at the airports, railway stations and bus stops.”²⁷

So-called religiously sanctioned roles for men and women and codes of conduct became unofficially defined. Flouting devout Muslim values became the order of the day. For instance, token gestures like the inclusion of ‘tilawat’ (recitation from the Hold Quran) before any official function began, the covering of head by women especially on state television became customary. “Although the issue of evidence became central to the concern for women’s legal status, more mundane matters such as mandatory dress codes for women and whether females could compete in international sports competitions were also being argued.”²⁸ By the 1980s organizing and holding ‘milad’ (religious functions primarily with women participants) and other religious ceremonies became unofficially expected of the wives of senior officers (military and civil bureaucrats). In the 1990s this continued with the attendance at ‘darss’ (religious sermons/teaching) where Islamic teachings were discussed. During the 1990s, many Saudi Wahabi inspired outfits like the Al-Huda also became kosher and attendance became a matter of peer pressure. All the high-ranking officers wives and daughters attended darss and the phenomenon gradually became pronounced with many women adopting the Saudi style hijab as well.²⁹ After the ban on alcohol in 1977, gradually the role of the army messes also became greatly reduced in the social lives of officers. These were no longer the places where officers liked to socialize in the evenings. Instead, the officers were now encouraged to spend time with their family and project the image of a good devout Muslim family man. These changes are intricately tied in with the Afghan Jihad and its’ funding that has impacted gender relations in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. The replacement of the mess and the club with the darss and the different retrogressive brand of Islam have taken over two decades to coalesce.

While these trends have begun to be widespread enough to be noticeable, yet some senior officers who received their training in the 1960s in the liberal tradition still fill the top cadre of the military and still subscribe to the views they imbibed over the years. In addition, after the changes initiated by the US in the post 9/11 world, a high degree of projection of religious orthodoxy is no longer the asset it once was. Some military officers assert that there is a reversal of the trends displayed during the 1980s and 1990s under President Musharraf who encourages a more secular worldview within the armed forces.³⁰ However, given the significant cadre that has been trained in that ideology, a transformation to a highly American/Western influenced military is unlikely to take place soon. This is especially so in the changed class background of the current military recruits.

Further, the end of the cold war constructed a new enemy, the Islamic world, as the ‘other.’ “The faith-based massacre of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia and the failure of the international community to respond promptly created a sense of being wronged among middle and upper middle classes.”³¹ Fuelled widely by Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, as well as various international events such as US strikes inside Afghanistan in 1998, in Sudan, threats to Iran from Israel, the invasion of Kuwait, all served to underscore the dependent and vulnerable status of the Muslim world. In conjunction with such events, the continued military operations in Pakistan’s tribal belt have lowered the morale of the armed forces personnel posted there as they believe they are fighting at the behest of American interests against their own people. Further, many have sympathies for the Jihadis who were promoted as part of the Afghan war for over two decades. Thus, in the present complex scenario, there are different tendencies that the military personnel portray; while a sizeable portion of the military represents a conservative worldview, this portion does not yet dominate completely the highest positions of power. In addition, realpolitik considerations compel the military to distance itself from the more intolerant Islamist political parties that are generally held responsible for feulling the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Mujahideen groups in Kashmir. Therefore, we can, for the present, assume that the military is still influenced by the ideas they imbibed in their academies and trainings abroad. This is further encouraged by the post 9/11 realities that required President Musharraf to advocate for ‘enlightened moderation’ even more today.

The conservative trends and changes outlined above took place in tandem with the old way of doing things; some people changed while others quietly stuck to their liberal beliefs and lifestyles. Although a majority might not have converted to the worldview espoused by the Zia government, the backing and writ of the state behind these changes ensured that they impact the national ethos. Thus, there is diversity in how military officers view women’s place. Many still believe that women have a constructive role to play in national development and encourage their wives and daughters to have independent careers whether as doctors, architects or teachers.³² With all the support that they receive, women who have successful careers are still expected to fulfill their roles as military officer’s wives. This includes frequent moves as the husband continues to be posted to different places while the wife and children are like camp followers. It is within these constraints that wives have to weave their lives and careers as well as plan the present and future of their children.

v.        Women’s Political Role: A Continuation of the Status Quo a la the Military Worldview?

In the context of institutions, we would be correct to assert that overall the military has exhibited a liberal approach to women’s political representation rather than an oppressive one. In this section, I argue that just like there are limits on women (military wives) who are encouraged to pursue some degree of independence and emancipation, similarly the limits on women’s political representation exhibit an extension of the same logic. While the military has provided for reservation of women’s seats, it has carefully kept women in their place, i.e., women’s voices have only received importance when these reflect the views or priorities of the regime in power. Thus, when Begum Zari Sarfaraz’s report on the status of women was not complimentary to the government, it was suppressed. Similarly, the recommendation for repeal of Hudood Laws by the National Commission on Women has met with an icy silence by the Musharraf regime.

Women are expected to speak about women’s welfare issues, not thorny political issues touching on democracy and systems of governance. They are expected to couch arguments for their development in the instrumentalist language of improving the future of the country, not as a right that they have as individuals. It thus comes as no surprise that the class character of the women who have entered the provincial and national assembly on reserved seats reflects a high degree of comfort on the part of the military rulers with these women who hail from the ruling class that has developed an understanding with the military regarding the status quo. There is thus an implicit trust that these women, who did not come through a proper democratic process but instead were handpicked, would not speak out against the regime in power. Some of these issues are changing now as reflected by some of the protests lodged by the women MNAs and MPAs in the respective assemblies, especially with regard to violence against women and the insensitive language used by their male colleagues in this context. However, their role with regard to some of the bills such as the honor killings bill and the demand to repeal Hudood Laws has been singularly unsuccessful in the face of the MMA (a coalition of 6 conservative religious political parties) opposition.

In a recent amendment to the local government ordinance, the government has announced a drastic reduction of seats at the union council level-- lowest tier of local government. This will negatively affect women, peasants, workers and minorities’ representation at that level. Specifically, for women it means that their number at the union council level would be halved from 40,000 to 20,000. This number would be further reduced if the government decided to merge two union councils into one if not across the board then certainly in some constituencies thereby damaging the process of democratization.³³

The presence of so many women in local government had a positive impact upon both men and women; the profile of women councilors indicated that a majority were young, many illiterate and unaware of their rights and powers, yet highly motivated to usher in change. There are indications that many were actively involved in community uplift projects as well as proactively taking on local community issues and gaining popularity. Their mere presence has been a source of inspiration to other women. The new decision to halve their numbers, perhaps not directly aimed at curtailing women’s role, certainly depicts an attempt to put the jinni back into the bottle. Whether women are willing to go back and fit right back is a debatable question.

From all appearances one can infer that the military is comfortable with the presence of women; however, when this group begins to assert itself and insists that its’ demands be met, the picture changes. Ultimately, they need to fit in with cultural practices, not bring about drastic change into their lives. If change needs to be incremental while retrogressive attitudes are indirectly encouraged, it only indicates that the military is comfortable with the presence of women but not their demands. Ultimately, they need to be camp followers, much like their sisters living in the cantonments. That women have proved to be more politically astute in the long run is a tribute to women than to the military that propped them.

III. Conclusion: Limits for the Future?

The negation of feminine values is assumed to be more pronounced under military regimes as they depict the (opposite) values of violent masculinities.³⁴ The different social levels at which gender operates, namely the level of subjective identity, the level of institutional practice, the level of ideologies and doctrines, and the symbolic level (Jagori) are thus assumed by feminist theory to be tilted in favor of men. Therefore, it is a paradox that military regimes have given more political representation to women compared to civilian led governments.

Representatives of the women’s movement are uncomfortable with the fact that the relationship of women’s movement with the state reflects an overall attitude and record of cooperation through out Pakistan’s existence with the exception of the Zia years (1977-88) when a direct conflict surfaced. This leads one to conclude that the relationship between women and the state, whether dominated by military or civilian regimes has been one of overall cooperation. The women’s movement has critiqued militarization and considers military regimes to be anathema, yet it continues to cooperate with both civilian and military regimes; what it is able to wrest from either, therefore, depends upon the two different types of regimes rather than being a reflection of the strength of the women’s movement. This adds to the discomfort of feminists in Pakistan who prefer to believe that the women’s movement has been instrumental is wresting rights for women from different regimes.

The inconvenient fact for feminists lies in the convergence of interests between women and military regimes. The latter is demonstrated by the fact that the military has granted women more quotas when their fundamental character is oppressive toward the marginalized. In contrast, the quota problems confronting civilian regimes are primarily laid out in terms of political party interests (the granting of reserved seats can be used to the advantage of a specific political party) being paramount. Military regimes are not curtailed by such considerations. Thus, they can afford to grant women political representation. Such explanations do not suffice to explain the phenomena though.

This paper asserts that the inner character and culture of the military, despite the complex changes that it has experienced since the 1970s supports women’s representation in the political arena. The military sees a relatively progressive role for women and promotes them in order to serve the ‘national interest’ in the best possible manner. Further, military officers are not misogynists—they display a modernist attitude where women are concerned. While individual variations and exceptions exist, the military as an institution does exhibit and implement pro-women policies. Such an attitude is both the result of historical liberal traditions inherited by the military and a pragmatic approach, located within the patriarchal tradition, whereby women’s untapped labor is used for the greater good within the military and at the national level in the legislative assemblies.

It is quite obvious that in the military worldview women’s place, though slightly different to what is propagated by the neo-conservative sections of society, still adheres to predetermined gender roles that are in many ways akin to the military expectation of wives and their unpaid labor in western as well as post-colonial contexts worldwide. Women’s resilience has been underscored on numerous occasions in Pakistan; their untiring efforts against the discriminatory laws of the country, their constant protests at the violence exacerbated against them indicate that they have covered a lot of ground and are not willing to be pushed back. Decidedly, there are limitations that are imposed upon them, whether through structural discrimination (literacy levels or exposure to the public arena or training through political party cadres) or direct intimidation in the political arena (including cases of being stripped naked), the dynamics on the ground signal a change. While the military will continue to want to manage this change, it will have to negotiate this change rather than impose its own limits upon women. The inconvenient fact remains that the military as an institution has given some space to women along with the equally inconvenient fact that women have managed to utilize that space to their advantage.

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¹ I am grateful to Peter DeSouza of CSDS for patiently encouraging me to complete this study and to Edzia Carvalho for coping with constant delays. I am grateful to Kiran Habib and Tazeen Bari for finding data and references. I am also grateful to Karamat Ali, Brigadier (retired) Mohammad Yasin and Barrister Nausheen Ahmed for their helpful comments. This paper has also benefited from the comments of an anonymous reviewer as well as the comments, reactions and discussion at a conference on Women and Governance organized by Rozan in December 2004 in Islamabad.
² See for instance, Fareeha Zafar (1991); Nighat Saeed Khan, Rubina Saigol and Afiya Shehrbano Zia (1994); Nighat Saeed Khan and Afiya Shehrbano Zia (1995); Rubina Saigol and Neelum Hussain (1997).
³ Krook (2003: 25)
⁴ One woman has come to the National Assembly on a reserved seat for non-Muslims (SDPI).
⁵ See, for instance, Sabiha Sumar in S.M. Naseem and Khalid Nadvi (2002), and Khattak (1995)
⁶ Personal conversation with Khawar Mumtaz of Shirkat Gah, October 2004.
⁷ Zia 2004: 12
⁸ Khattak, Newsline 2000
⁹ Some exceptions to such logic exist. According to Nazish Brohi (email communication, January 2005), the Honor Killings Bill divided the members of political parties along gender lines rather than party lines as many men were opposed to the Bill and did not take the official party position.
¹⁰ Qaiser, 2002
¹1 Abbas 2005
¹² Although there was widespread reporting that women were barred from voting and contesting elections in the August 2002 local bodies elections, even in the 2006 elections, major political parties have confessed to having reached agreement not to field any women candidates in far flung districts like Dir. See Dawn, May 23, 2006 page 15.
¹³ For details, see Khattak 1996
¹⁴ Khan and Khan (2003: 37)
¹⁵ Khan and Khan (2003: 37) assert that the concentration of landed power and wealth results in systematic political exclusion.
¹⁶ According to Pattan (an NGO), women hailing from prominent families are winning political support However women from lower middle classes especially those contesting for the Nazim and Naib Nazim seats are being threatened of dire consequences by local power lords (Election Observer: August 2005: 7)
¹⁷ See Cohen (2004: 35 and 54)
¹⁸ Ibid, 64
¹⁹ See Khalid Bin Sayeed quoted in Cohen (1999: 53)
²⁰ Cohen (1999:70)
²¹ According to Yasmin Saikia (personal conversation May 2005), during the 1971 armed action in East Pakistan, many of the rapes were explained by the rural mindset that believed in sex for procreation. Thus the explanation that they were trying to make ‘Muslims’ out of the Bengalis (who were also Muslim) was believed to be their religious duty rather than being considered rape and violence.
²² Eqbal Ahmed 1980
²³ Eqbal Ahmed 1981.
²⁴ General Zia-ul-Haq is portrayed as a strict inflexible devout Muslim who forced his vision of an unjust Islam on the polity. However, anecdotal evidence and personal conversations with people who knew him and had worked for him indicate a different person: for example, one woman told me that her father-in-law, who was a close friend of Zia’s, said that Zia discovered Islam after taking over the reigns of the country. Similarly, Zia’s attitude toward Senator Charlie Wilson and his girlfriend, who met with tribal leaders in her miniskirt, was to indulge him in all possible ways. One commandant of the Khyber Rifles told me that Zia personally called him to say ‘take care of them’ when Charlie Wilson and his girlfriend, a beauty queen from Lousiana, visited Landi Kotal. According to Anjum Niaz (http://www.dialognow.org/node/view/1056) “General Zia-ul-Haq appointed a ‘Society Lady’ Joanne Herring as Pakistan’s honorary Consul in Houston, Texas USA, earlier her husband Bob Herring was offered the post but he declined and gave his wife’s name. “She was Zia’s most trusted American adviser, as per Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, She absolutely had his ear, it was terrible,” “Zia would leave cabinet meetings just to take Joanne’s calls {Page 67-68 in Charlie Wilson’s War}. All this indicates that at a personal level Zia did not espouse the strict values that he ostentatiously portrayed.
²⁵ Personal interview with a top-ranking retired officer
²⁶ Please see Enloe 1989, for similar details regarding the military in western contexts
²⁷ See Appendix II (reference in bibliography) regarding the imposition of various Islamic rituals through government directives.
²⁸ See Pakistan Society
²⁹ According to Hashmi: "If I had started with the under-privileged my message would have been restricted only to them; they would not have been able to influence other sections of society." and "...I come from an urban and academic background, so it makes more sense for me to convey my message to people from a similar background..." See Eman Ahmed
³⁰ Personal conversation with a middle ranking army officer
³¹ Eman Ahmed
³² Such views are reinforced by the economic gains associated with women’s work. In the military, where salaries are still on the lower side, women’s work brings in much needed resources for the family that can make a difference between better lives for the children.
³³ Bari 2005
³⁴ Masculinities are best understood as plural—variable across class, culture, context and time. They are collectively shared concepts that are enacted not only by individuals but by groups and institutions. See Aggleton 2001.