Indo-pak relations are fundamentally anti-feminist!

Gender and Politics in South Asia: An analysis of India and Pakistan As in other parts of the world issue of gender is equally critical in South Asia and women of this region face same imbalanced behaviors as in rest of the world. Society’s cultures and religions of South Asia constitute an environment unfriendly and biased towards women and sometimes cruel in causing discriminatory rituals against women of this region. Religion has been used as a tool in South Asia for suppression of women and they have been treated as sub human. Devastating situation of poor literacy and medical care for women in South Asia is also one of miseries created and neglected by the corrupt regimes. Focusing more on political empowerment it is evident that women remained head of states in most of the countries of the South Asia, such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Despite they remained popular figure in the masses, an ordinary woman remains subject to violence and discrimination with fewer opportunities to flourish and survive with dignity. Fig. 1 “Women Percentage in Legislature” below shows comparative participation of South Asian women in politics with less than 10 percent women in legislature in the region as a whole and Pakistan as leading state with more women in legislature. Table indicates how utmost 1/5th of the total legislative body are women only in one country of South Asia and 2% in Bangladesh with less than 10% in the largest claimed democracy of the world. Though this lesser representation of women in the national parliaments strengthens the feminist argument of gender biased, by meeting all bitter realities and pitfalls for women, this region has done nothing better rather it remained in bottom half of the list, but when it comes to power politics, the women in power, particularly in India and Pakistan left no scope for advocates of cooperative nature of women. <<table omitted>> Coming to the focal point, Pakistan and India are two major states of south Asia having rivalry against each other and had fought three wars within 24 years of their existence. Over all environment in these rival states remained as it was in Europe of late 18th century that was extreme nationalism even at the cost of others. In such political and divisionary foreign policy oriented strategies women in power couldn’t serve the assumed purpose and pre-occupied political situation prevailed that resulted war and continuity of international crisis on border. This highlights that as in other parts of the world the South Asian politics too exposed in terms of gendered politics. Despite fragile peace and less optimism in setting up good relations in two neighbors, women in power did nothing but to follow suit of the existing patterns and dismayed feminist peace scholars. Came into office of prime minister in 1966, Indira Gandhi not only applied violence and use of force on international front but also quite often in domestic issues. Daring, decisive and bold, she never hesitated to apply means of force to achieve desired objectives. Creation of Bangladesh in 1971, brought climax of her political career and she rode on the crest of popularity during that time (Bhattacharjee, 2012). Maneuvered successfully to dismember Pakistan and detonation of atom bomb in 1974, both are the practical examples to challenge the notion of cooperative woman rather conflictual one. India on its way to stable democracy faced the national emergency, a form of constitutional crisis in aftermaths of High Court decision against the Prime Minister in office, alleged her of electoral malpractice in 1971 elections thereby declaring 1971 parliamentary elections in Rae Bareilly null and void. The masses came out in the streets and demanded for her resignation but brutally dealt by the government, press was under strict censorship and constitutional rights were abrogated (Gandhi, 1985). She had the option to go for peaceful means to mitigate this crisis by appealing the supreme court and wait for the final verdict rather, she again opted alternative means. Some 145000 people were in prison under this emergency and democratic rights were denied by the government (Ali, 1991). In June, 1984 Operation “Blue Star”, was an outcome of her order to put an assault on the “Golden Temple” the holiest place of the Sikhs. This was heinous practice of state violence against civilians, tough there were few anti-state forces present in the temple but collateral damage was highest, left more than 1000 people dead. From the military perspective Gen. SK Sinha, clearly rejected military operation as a last resort in his words, The Army Action was not the ‘last resort’ as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would have us to believe... It had been in her mind for more than 18 months... Shortly after the Akali agitation of 1982, the Army began rehearsals of a commando raid near Chakrata Contonment in the Doon Valley, where a complete replica of the Golden Temple complex had been built... Another training involving Aviation Research Centre Commandos was given in the Sarsawa area and Yamuna bed in helicopters converted into gunships. (Operation-Blue-Star, 2013). Choices made by Mrs. Gandhi were purely at her own will and she deliberately opted for violence and potential use of military operation against the Sikhs. As in her own words, I don’t give a damn if the Golden Temple and whole of Amritsar are destroyed, I want Bhindranwale dead. (Operation-Blue-Star, 2013) Additionally Mizoram, Nagaland and Kashmir were dealt with iron hand and conflict resolving approach was never peaceful and application of negotiation and dialogue was outlawed. In office of Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto made merely any difference to change or modify the impression of security state about Pakistan. Although her liberal rhetoric and democratic perceptions were popular in the west, she continued nuclear program of Pakistan. Two visits to North Korea were made in 1990 & 1996 and was alleged to be the carrier of information sharing for missile technology with Pyongyang (Frantz & Collins, 2007). As premier in both terms, the movement for self-determination in Kashmir was at zenith, this movement was supported politically, diplomatically and morally by the government of Pakistan. It was same time when the office of Prime Minster authorized Interior Minister to install Taliban Government in the war-ridden Afghanistan mainly to seek strategic depth for defense and to control situation there (Chitkara, 1996). This was entirely opposite to the democratic believes and installment of fundamental regime in a state like Afghanistan proved lethal in coming future. In domestic political issue, only in Karachi the commercial capital of Pakistan more than 1000 people were killed in violence and same number of people were killed by security forces and law enforcement agencies in 1995, whereas political solution of the situation was quite possible (Gayer, 2014) Exclusively on the basis of political divergence with the leading parity in Karachi i.e. Mutahidda Qomi Movement civil death were allowed and violence was practiced under the protection of state legitimacy. Both terms in office were infame with respect to charges about corruption and in 1995 Pakistan was in the both end of the list of most corrupt sates. Popular slogan of Pakistan People’s Party “Roti, Kapra aur Makan” mean food, clothing and shelter were never materialized instead, and hunger, unemployment and bad governance were the hallmark of that government.