2. Critically analyze the similarities and differences embodied in the works of APWA and WAF.

APWA

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When General Zia-ul Haq overthrew the government of Bhutto in July 1977 and imposed martial law he brought in the
so called 'Islamization' programme. Whatever little women had gained from the previous governments was taken away
under Zia's Islamization programme initiated in 1979. There were protests from women against the policies of Zia, and
women's resistance finally resulted in the formation of Women Action Forum (WAF) in 1981. WAF or Khawateen- e-Amal
is a counciousness-raising organization aimed at enabling women to fight for their rights at a time when the
retrogressive Islamization policies of the military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq were beginning to have a very adverse impact
on Pakistani women. Initially, WAF functioned as an umbrella organization encompassing a range of women's
organizations, groups and individuals. It organized several major countrywide movements, deploying a side variety of
resistance techniques: street agitations, press campaigns, pamphlet warfare, dharna and non-cooperation. The leadership of WAF
came from educated, elite wotfren who saw the imposition of Shari'at laws as a pretext for subjugating women. The WAF
played a central role in exposing the abuse of religion under the Zia regime, and presented progressive, women-centered
interpretations of Islam, as alternatives to Zia-ul-Haq 's interpretations. Its members led public protests in the mid- 1 980s against the
law of evidence. The WAF launched public protest against martial law and the Islamization programme of Zia-ul-Haq and
campaigned against the Hudood Ordinance, the law of Evidence and the Qisas and Diyat Laws. WAF became one of the
main forums of women's struggle against Zia-ul-Haq 's Islamization politics.4 The oppression of women was a^part of the
overall political strategy of the regime, which wished to perpetuate the rule of the orthodox sections of society. Indeed, as
has been argued, the imposition of the Shari'at laws and the accompanying marginalization of women were politically
expedient measures, and had little to do with religious beliefs

6 Women Action Form was intended to serve as a platform and forum for women and women's organizations. These women
came mainly from urban elitist background; and there were several politically-motivated wom from the left-wing political
groups and trade unions, as well. The movement spread widely to include women from different professions and
classes;lawyers, teachers, nurses, medical professionals, and even ordinary illiterate women.

The debate on the role and status of women was triggered in March 1982 with directives to wear chadar. It was around this time that a
major controversy occurred over the pronouncements of Dr. Israr Ahmad (who in an interview with the Urdu language daily
Jang,) expressed the opinion that all working women should be retired and pensioned off. 7 Although many Maulvis 8
had expressed similar reactionary views, this statement provoked an angry outcry from women. Women in WAF took up
cudgels against the Maulvis and the state, and campaigned against efforts to confine women to domestic spaces.

While women suffered gross iniquities through such measures, the most obvious, and publicized, discrimination against
women became evident in the application of zina (the Hudood Ordinance). After 1 979, the year that this law was promulgated,
prisons, which have traditionally had a small number of female inmates, were crowded with women
charged or sentenced under zina ordinance.9 The ordinance was misused
by men, mostly women's husbands and other family members.10

The emphasis in General Zia's Islamization policies on depriving women of their rights was due to several reasons. Firstly,
women's issues tend to evoke a strongly emotional response in the public since they are connected to the notion of izzat
(honour); secondly, it is much easier to place restrictions on women in order to be able to claim the Islamization of society
than to make substantial changes in the social structure; and thirdly, women are a weaker section of society. 11

It was against the backdrop of violent state measures against women that WAF was born in 1 98 1 . It was largely due to WAF that the
women's question was brought to the national level. It is true that the number of active supporters willing to take to the streets under
martial law was limited, but few other organizations or lobbies have managed to even equal the record of WAF, and
certainly none has taken to the streets as frequently as WAF. The women supported the WAF in other ways or forms such as
the jalsas and meetings and signature campaigns. Larger rumber of women and men sympathized with the women's struggle
but their support, cannot be easily quantified.12

test.13 By its charter, WAF defined itself as being a non-political, non-hierarchical lobby-cum-pressure group, whose main
objective was to raise consciousness and to promote and protect the rights of women in Pakistan. It sought to overcome the
weakness resulting from the disunity among women that made them victims of the Islamization process. WAF also aimed to
raise consciousness, primarily among women, about their rights, status and the discriminatory laws, instituted to weaken
them further legally and sociaííly. The methods by which these aims were realized included consciousness-raising,
workshops, meetings, seminars, media publicity and lobbying with policy-making bodies. Like any other organization, WAF
has been moulded by the activists who formed and developed it, which in turn has affected both its methods of work and
outreach capacity. WAF was initiated by urban professional women generally belonging to the middle-and-upper class.
Since most of WAF 's activists were professional working women, younger women who have as yet to enter the urban working
force were excluded.

Until February, 1983, when WAF, Lahore, made considerable

changes in its strategies, WAF used the press to its full advantage. Its
definition of itself as a non-political body meant that the restrictions in
the press which applied to political parties did not apply to WAF. Its
statements and resolutions on all issues were printed in the press and
given due prominence. Thus press was used by WAF both as a consciousness raising device and a mobilization
technique. Other methods used by WAF included meetings, seminars and panel discussions on wide-ranging topics. But after
February 1983, WAF radically changed its mobilization tactics. By this time, both evidence and the Qisas and Diyat bill
were there threatening to further the rights of women. In February 12, 1983, the PWLA for a demonstration; its aim was to
walk down the Mall Road in to the High Court to present a petition of protest to the chief The WAF rallied its forces in
response to the call from PWLA formidable demonstration was brutally suppressed by the state gave WAF national and
international publicity. From this tim Lahore regularly took to the streets; holdings protest marche picketing the Governor's
House.16 During 1983 and 1984, WA up a steady barrage of activism to maintain pressure o

WAF opposed the Hudood ordinance and the Law of Evidence. These women activists faced Martial Law authorities on the
streets, were tear-gassed and lathi-charged by the police. Through picketing demonstrations, letters, telegrammes and print-
media campaigns, WAF carried on a sustained campaign against the state's discriminatory laws, and took up the issue of
women's right to participate in spectator sports, work, stand for public office and have equality in all spheres of public and private
life.

WAF 's impact can be judged by the fact that it has provid mode for other women's organizations. It has brought various w
organizations under one umbrella on issues concerning women. T the joint effort of WAF and other women's organizations other
sec of society, such as trade unions and professional groups, acknowledging the rights of women. While WAF might
have failed in reversing the Islamization of the state, and the accompan marginalization of women, it has played a
hugely significant bringing issues concerning women, and the civil and political rights of women, to the Centre of national
politics

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In Pakistan, the main vehicle for early female social activism, APWA (the All-Pakistan Women's Association), enjoyed
intimate connections with the new state: it owed its creation in 1949 in large part to the efforts of the then prime minister's
wife, Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan (the 'dynamo in silk'6 ) , and it relied on a core membership drawn from the female
relatives of politicians and civil servants. Apart from anything else, this closeness ensured tha

it threw its organisational weight beh women and children that the new Pakistani authorities could both sanction and bless. APWA
has rightly been criticised for being an elite organisation and consequently restricted in terms of its vision and
activities. According to Jalal, the women who concerned themselves with extracting concessions from the state in the years
immediately following 1947 belonged mostly to the dominant classes, and it was precisely their privileged
background that ensured that APWA's demands would be neither too radical nor too embarrassing for the authorities.
In other words, APWA during this period cooperated with the new Pakistani state in order to preserve the class privileges of
its membership, and she identifies the restricted origins of this so-called 'feminist' vanguard as a decisive factor in how
women's issues came to be articulated at the level of the state in Pakistan.7

A somewhat less critical assessment of APWA during this early period, however, might give its members more credit
than Jalal does for keeping women's issues on the political agenda during difficult nation-building years. While
the organisation may not have lobbied for radical change, and was instead prepared on the whole to work within
the system rather than to challenge it, women associated with it did help to shape policies that were controversial for
the time, certainly as far as conservative or more orthodox Pakistani opinion was concerned. Scholars in the ig6os and
1970s, such as Abbot and then Chipp, while they pointed to the possibility of disagreement among APWA members,
suggested that it was primarily APWA's lobbying that led to an official enquiry (the Rashid Commission on
Marriage and Family Laws), its 1956 report and later the passing of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (MFLO) in
1961.8 This interpretation of

events has subsequently been reinforced by later writers.9 But while

APWA members undoubtedly pressed for the reform of marriage laws

from the mid-1950s, the picture is arguably more complex than the

one presented in the existing secondary liter

The resolutions passed at APWA's first meeting called for free and compulsory primary education for women; a
women's bureau to collect statistics on working women; maternity and child welfare centres; a college for nurses and a
prohibition on children begging. More generally, the meeting made it clear that Pakistani women, in their different ways,
were expected by APWA to 'fight till the end' to defend Pakistan's interests. On the one hand, the status of women
had to be enhanced if Pakistan was going to be able to claim to be a modern Muslim state. On the other hand,
women's rights clearly had
to be articulated in such a way that would not undermine the 'Muslim- ness', or Islamic identity, of the new state, since this
was after all the basis on which its creation had been supported and sanctioned

chi.51 The close ties between APWA and the state were also reflected in its

organisational framework which developed into what was al parallel bureaucratic structure of officers and organs: that
is, na Patron, Founder Life President, Governing Body, National Chairm Chairman of the National Executive
Committee, National Exe Committee, Regional Units, Overseas APWA Units and Affi Bodies. The Patron, for
instance, had to be the wife of the of state, or the head of state himself could be invited to ass this honorary
position. Similarly, the governor of each of Pak provinces became APWA's local patron, while the wives of the chief
administrators in each district nearly always were honorary chiefs at the grass roots level.52

Thus, while APWA was not an official organisation, the extremely close links that it possessed with governments of
the day affected how it interacted with the state and what it interpreted its duties to be. Throughout this early,
transitional period, Begum Liaquat Ali Khan consistently stressed APWA's national responsibilities. For her, it
was women who could do the most to make or break a
nation. Taking advantage of opportunities such as that provided by the annual commemoration of Jinnah's death,
APWA would hold meetings at which appeals were made to the women of Pakistan to create 'faith, unity and
discipline' among their ranks, and to be ready always to serve the country

1954? however, proved to be a significant year as far as discussions about connections between women and citizenship
were concerned. The unsettled political atmosphere created by discussions over the constitution and the holding
of elections in East Pakistan in the spring raised dilemmas for APWA and its policy of distancing itself deliberately from
overt political activity. Hence, Begum Aminullah, wife of the Punjab Governor and APWA member, in her speech to
the Purdah Club in Lahore in February 1954 tried to re-assert that the Association was most definitely not a
politi

primary sphere of interest remained, improvin

of women and children. Yet, 'though politics w

she considered it 'imperative5 that women clea

meaning of democracy and exercised their righ

She conceded that it had now become APWA's re

home to women their duties as 'good citizens',

'a real political consciousness'.69 'Good citizenshi

similarly stressed by Begum Liaquat Ali Khan a

of women organised by the Karachi branch of A

'Founder's Week' programme later the same mo

argued on this occasion, had an important part

citizenship an active, efficient and dynamic force,

ill-understood or passive ideal.70 Likewise, APWA's

held in Sukkur (Sindh), again in February, st

cultivate what it termed 'responsible citizenship

womenfolk, and it urged the Pakistani authorities

from abroad to train a cadre of women in leadership

of not just social but political rights as well. Indeed

that the Sukkur meeting marked the beginning of

APWA's work from its emergency beginnings to

task of building up 'an active and intelligent public of a better life and a better nation'.71
To many of those who participated in these d 1950s, it was very important that Pakistani women should enjoy the
same rights as Pakistani men. social conservatism were believed to prevent them part in the political life of the
nation, so these

blamed for undermining the position of women in precisely in this context that disquiet

APWA itself next addressed the question of the status of women, including the specific problems posed by
polygamy, at a conference that it organised in Karachi in February 1955. Although it expressed satisfaction that women in
Pakistan enjoyed equal rights to men in the political field (at least as far as the franchise was concerned), it
advised women to exercise their voting rights in such a way that 'really deserving' people were elected. It also called on
the government to ensure that marital disputes in courts were resolved more quickly. While it acknowledged that
the status of women derived from a combination of both written laws and unwritten, but equally binding, rules of
custom, usage and convention, it blamed the latter for the comparatively low status of Pakistani women. However,
with a female literacy rate of only four percent, however well-placed women were, legally-speaking they were bound to
remain ignorant of their rights. Hence, the meeting demanded further educational provision for girls including free
schooling up to matri income

This article takes as its starting point the very public furore created by the second - that is, polygamous - marriage of
Pakistan's prime minister, Muhammad Ali Bogra, in 1955,4 reactions to which formed part of the process that resulted in
the reform of Muslim family laws under Ayub Khan at the beginning of t

kers. President of APWA's Karachi branch, Begum Chaudhri Muhammad A 13 took the lead, urging that women form a
newr organisation specifically charged with seeking to safeguard their legal rig

The protest quickly spread from Karachi to other cities. The

Hyderabad branch of APWA, for instance, added its voice to the clamour on 26 April, urging women to launch
a strong campaign to fight polygamy.1