Panchayat marriage orders

Purana Pakistan creeps in again

Purana Pakistan has crept in again. Recently, a panchayat in the town of Rojhan in Rajanpur District interjected with its regressive attitude to claim a moment of negative fame. The members advised a father to marry his daughters, both physicians, to illiterate men in a typical exchange called watta satta in which a son or daughter is traded for a son-in-law or daughter-in-law. The violations in the issuing of this directive are nuanced. With all due respect to any interested bachelors in their community who did not have the opportunity for education, the panchayat members must be held for impinging on the rights of the father and his two educated daughters.

Erroneously mixing regressive traditions with religious decrees is to heavily blame for the sad state of affairs in this country. Extremist views are adopted by both, unlearned and learned strata of society alike as observed in the turbulent history of the country. The panchayat ordered the father to act on its orders because of his refusal to engage in the practice of watta satta, having married off a son a decade ago, whose in-laws were now eyeing his sister for a daughter-in-law. Such bizarre stories, although they might seem like anomalies, need to be followed until justice is served to the respective party. Because of his refusal, the father was held captive and banned from farming his own land, which is punishable by law.

Primitive mindsets that breed support for illegitimate power-hungry groups — such as panchayats and jirgas — and practices such as watta satta to impede women’s rights need to be rubbished. Those who are party to backward and anarchic ideologies should be arrested and taken to task by being schooled on the law of the land while in prison. Every citizen of this land must be held accountable for impinging on another person’s basic rights just as a functional society should operate.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2018.

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