Handedness: Left behind, no more

Why we use the hand we do and what it says about us.

There are a million little secrets locked inside your brain. Who are you? How do you feel? Why do you enjoy crunching complex numbers more than scribbling poetry? It can all be explained by the way your brain is structured. Same goes for the hand that you are most comfortable using to pick up a spoon or a pencil, making you either right-handed, like the reported 90 per cent of the world’s population, or left-handed, clumped with the remaining 10 per cent.

Like our closest primate relatives, humans are asymmetrical beings and whether we are right-or left handed is best explained by the symmetry of our brain. Scientists have found a correlation between a network of genes and handedness that establishes left-right asymmetry while one is still an embryo. But like all other aspects of human behaviour, whether you are left-handed or right-handed, it is a combination of nature (genes) and other environmental factors. However, the extent of influence of each factor remains disputed among researchers.



One thing that has remained relatively uniform, though, is the negativity that has traditionally been associated with left-handers across the world. The word ‘left’ is originally derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘lyft’ meaning weak and has often been linked with awkwardness and clumsiness. Throughout the Muslim world, the left hand is used for personal hygiene, after urination and defecation, while the right hand, which is considered ‘cleaner’, is reserved for eating, handling food and social interactions like handshakes. In Scotland, it is considered a bad omen to meet a left-hander when setting off for a journey. In Ghana, pointing, gesturing or exchanging things using your left hand is also considered rude.

The dominant culture in Pakistan is somewhat similar. Children are discouraged from performing day-to-day tasks such as eating and writing with their left hand, with religion being cited as the most common explanation.

This poses a serious problem for left-handers like Badar Ahmad, who is left-handed by birth. “Every time I went to a wedding or family gathering and started to eat, I would get disapproving looks and sometimes even a lecture from family elders about how it is un-Islamic and a gunaah (sin) to use my left hand,” he says. “It was almost impossible to make them understand why using my left hand was most natural for me.”

It was the limited awareness about what being left-handed means, the challenges such people face and their untapped potential that motivated Fasahat Mohiuddin Mohi to start the Left Handers Club in Pakistan in August, 2012. Affiliated with the Left Handers Club in the UK, the group currently comprises 240 members, even though the official number of left-handers in the country is estimated to be much higher. “During my matriculation exams, when I wrote with my left hand, they told me I was cheating,” says Mohi who is the president of the club. By creating a platform like this he aims to correct these misconceptions. To encourage people to join, the membership criterion has been kept simple and hassle-free. All you need to do is fill out a form and send two pictures along with a copy of your national identity card.



By raising awareness, Mohi aims to ease some of the problems that left-handers in the country repeatedly face. “For years, I was told by teachers and even my parents to try writing with my right hand. It made me feel like I was doing something wrong all the time,” says Aroosa Adil who struggled with these pressures. “People need to be educated on the science of being left-handed so that children don’t have to suffer from unnecessary stress.” And sometimes these cultural and societal pressures can take drastic form, forcing left-handers to convert to the other hand.

The practise is not limited to Pakistan. A study conducted in Taiwan in 2007 showed that 59.3% of the children who were part of the study had been forcefully converted into right-handers. In America, it was common to punish children for using their left hand until corporal punishment was banned. Forced conversions are known to have significant impact on the child’s development and can lead to learning and speech disorders, dyslexia and stuttering in some cases. Along with developmental problems, even small day-to-day things such as scissor, pens, watches, guitars, letter heads and school desks are not provided according to their specifications.

Mohi argues that left-handers have immense potential but lack recognition for it. He claims that 80 members of the medical staff at Aga Khan Hospital, Karachi, are left-handers — evidence of their talent. “Even 13 US presidents are left-handed,” says Ali Hassan Sajid, the public relations officer for Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and a left-hander himself.

Chris Mancus of University College London argues in his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand that the numbers of left-handers is rising globally and have produced an above average quota of high achievers over time. He states that their brains are structured differently in a manner that enhances their range of abilities but there are others who dispute this claim.

“Even some of the world’s biggest leaders like Barack Obama and Bill Gates use their left hand,” says Mohi. When he saw Obama signing a contract with his left hand for the first time, he felt an instant connection. “Hey, he writes like me! That was the first thing that came to my mind.” It was this sense of affinity that motivated the club members to request the American president for a meeting. To their surprise, their email got a response. According to Mohi, Obama has agreed to meet the club in 2017, but the exact date and location have yet to be decided. They have also written to Bill Gates to request him for a meeting but are still waiting to hear back.

For the club, this is just one of the many ways to facilitate networking opportunities for left-handers within and outside Pakistan and to educate the world about their sinistrality. After all, it may be time for them to stop being ‘left’ behind.

1. In some cultures, left-handedness is seen positively. For example, in Buddhism, the left hand represents wisdom. Peoples of the Andes consider left-handers to possess special spiritual abilities, including magic and healing. In Russian, levsha or being a left-hander became synonymous with being a skilled craftsman.

2. The International Left Handers Day is celebrated globally on August 13 to mark their sinistrality and to educate the public on the challenges and rewards of being a left-hander.

3. If both parents of a child are left-handed, there is a 25 to 26 per cent chance of the child being left-handed as well. However, this means that nearly 75% of the effect can be explained by environmental factors.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, December 8^th, 2013.