International Women Stage Directors

Pakistan

Pakistan Claire Pamment Women stage directors in postcolonial Pakistan (1947– ) have played active roles in college and amateur theatre circuits, which have provided important avenues for experimentation in the absence of theatre training academies and university courses. Ironically, it was in the late 1970s, when new discriminatory laws against women were enforced, that women directors began to come into the spotlight. Some women actors took up direction in the emerging popular comedy theatre. Others, in reaction to the new laws, created a political theatre. As such, women directors in Pakistan reflect an exciting diversity of approaches in challenging both theatrical innovation and women’s rights. Women’s Rights: Historical Context The first phase of the women’s rights movement emerged during pre-partition Pakistan and was led by colonial missionaries with the support of members of the Indian elite in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Together, they implemented moral reforms and advocated women’s education to restrict cultural-religious practices they deemed oppressive, such as sati (the sacrificial burning of widows), child brides, dowry law, prohibitions of widow remarriage, purdah (literally, veiling), and polygamy. They also chastised the tawaifs (courtesans) and devadāsīs (temple dancers), whom they derogatorily dubbed as “nautch girls,” meaning dancing girls. Although elite women had participated in the colonial schools and colleges set up in the nineteenth century, traditionally only the courtesans and temple dancers were the beneficiaries of a broad education, which had included reading, writing, singing, dancing, and other arts (Srinivasan 165). Through the anti-nautch movement, circa 1893–1947, the once-respectable and educated courtesans and temple dancers were explosively targeted. They were declared ordinary prostitutes, and a leading missionary of the movement, Jenny Fuller, notes that these women were to be pushed “outside of decent society” while their arts were to be “redeem[ed] and rescue[d]” by elite girls and housewives (136, 130). The ramifications of these reforms are reflected in the scorn assigned to early actresses, and similar stigmatization continues to assert prejudice over contemporary female dancers and comediennes of the popular Punjabi theatre. Education and political participation of women played an increasingly critical role in the early twentieth century through the nationalist movement that was to lead to the creation of Pakistan. Early female role models of the Pakistan movement included elite, educated women, who variously took up important political and educational positions in the new nation-state. Crusader for women’s rights and politician Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan set up the All Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA) in 1949, a charity for women’s welfare that continues to be an important lobbying body for social and legal reforms (see Mumtaz and Shaheed). From the relatively emancipated position that women had experienced in the early decades of Pakistan, conditions suddenly changed after General Zia-ul-Haq overthrew the elected Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party government in 1977, imposing martial law and assuming the post of president from 1978 to 1988. Under Zia’s governance, Prime Minister Bhutto was sentenced to hanging and Sharia law (Islamic jurisprudence) was imposed. The new laws were highly discriminatory against women, especially the Hudood Ordinance, which blurred the distinction between adultery and rape.1 In a strict period of media censorship, theatre activity in colleges was suppressed, women were banned from singing or dancing in public forums, and female television actors and presenters were forced to cover their heads. In protest against the political dictatorship and particularly the discrimination against women, female activists united in 1979 under Tehrik-e-Niswan (The Women’s Movement) in Karachi, and in 1983 under the larger umbrella of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF), which formed cells in Pakistan’s major cities. The WAF asserted considerable pressure on the government to repeal a number of its cases against women by protesting against discrimination and violence against women. Tehrik-e-Niswan and WAF both used performing arts as part of their campaigns, spearheaded by prominent theatre directors and practitioners such as Sheema Kermani, Farrukh Nigar Aziz, Madeeha Gauhar, Huma Safdar, Nasreen Azhar, and Sania Saeed. Conditions for women’s rights improved after General Zia’s regime, but even under the governments of 1988–1989 and 1993–1996, headed by Pakistan’s first woman prime minster, Benazir Bhutto, the ordinances remained in place, though they were rarely enforced. In the early twenty-first century the influence of Islamist parties grew further, 224 Claire Pamment [18.116.63.236] Project MUSE (2024-04-24...