Nigar Ahmad and Pakistan
Let’s look at Nigar Ahmad (1945-2017), whose Wikipedia entry is seriously LACKING.
Ahmad worked for women’s rights in Pakistan, co-founding an organization called the Aurat Foundation. The foundation, under her leadership, campaigned to have women’s household work recognized in the national census. There is a “penalty fee in the Punjab today for any cleric who crosses out any portion of the nikah document, effectively making it illegal to deny a bride her right to divorce or haq mehr.” (x)
Aurat Foundation also won a 33% quota for women’s representation in local government under Pervez Musharraf. To learn more about the foundation, check out their website. To learn more about Nigar Ahmad, check out this tribute by Indian poet Kamla Bhasin.
Feminists like Nigar are cracks in all the walls that divide us: walls of ideologies, disciplines, religions, nationalities. This is why Nigar is both Local and Global, Personal and Political; she is Theory and Practice, she is Pakistani and South Asian, she is yours and she is mine. (see: Bhasin’s tribute)