By Adil Najam
It has been a tradition for as long as I can recall that on the 25th of December a contingent of cadets from the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), Kakul, takes over as the ceremonial honor guards at the mausoleum of the Quaid, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This year, Jinnah’s 130th birth anniversary, was special because the PMA honor guard contingent included eight female cadets and one Sikh cadet.
The two pictures here are from Dawn and Daily Times. Indicative of the importance is the fact that the two newspapers use the titles ‘Winds of Change’ and ‘New Beginning’ to headline the pictures, respectively.
According to an Associated Press report in the Daily Times (27 December, 2006):
Eight female cadets from the Pakistan Army’s elite training academy on Monday became the first female honour guards at the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. State-run television showed the female contingent, clad in khaki cadet slacks, some wielding swords and others holding guns, marching to military tunes with their male colleagues in a ceremony at the mausoleum of Mr Jinnah, the Father of the Nation, in Karachi. In November, for the first time in the history of Pakistan, the Pakistan Military Academy Kakul opened its doors to women. In March, women also broke into the all-male air force when it inducted four women pilots.
Forty-one females joined the army academy to undergo a rigorous six months of military training along with men before being inducted as officers in various branches of the army. President Gen Pervez Musharraf, who attended ceremonies in Karachi marking the 130th birthday of Mr Jinnah, laid flowers at the mausoleum and praised the female cadets who are to graduate next April. “I am really impressed by the girls,� Musharraf said. “This is the future of Pakistan.� Previously, women had only served in the army’s medical corps without being trained at the academy. But the 41 female cadets at PMA will join the army as non-combat officers in the communication, engineering, legal and education branches.
Comments on this issue have already been flowing elsewhere on ATP but I thought these pictures were worth sharing and highlighting here. Readers would remember that earlier this year Aviation Cadet Saira Amin had won the coveted Sword of Honour for best all-round performance at the Air Force Academy in Risalpur and became the first woman pilot to have won the Sword of Honour in any defense academy of Pakistan. I should confess that a few days ago when I had contemplated naming an ‘ATP Pakistani of the Year’ she was one of the people I thought would make a great candidate as a symbol of women breaking into traditionally male-dominated professions.
Salamalikum
[quote post=”492″]I would love to see one day on Pakistaniat, as the picture of the day, a photo of one of these women pinning down a ‘lalookheti’ on the ground[/quote]
Great! Thanks for demeaning a whole section of a society that lives in lalookhat/Liaquatabad or nearby. Sure, lalookhati might be poor and “uncivilized”, but from what I’ve seen the ‘chichora’ people are equally divided among all the districts of Karachi. I’ve seen really worse chichorapan from people living in Defence/Clifton (south) to people living in Surjani Town (north).
And by the way, women have been working in different departments of Pakistan Army,Airforce and Navy for years. There are female [IT,Electrical/electronic]engineers,administrators in different departments of armed forces and they are tributed every year on PTV by telacasting a special program for them. So its not like that women were not in the Army.
It could be considered a positive step if it was not a Stunt. Reality is entirely different as someone already said here that all of such exercises are to send positive signals to outer world and has no intention to do something for the welfare of minorities.
And for those who are getting happy that a pakistani president[Mush here] first time visited Jinnah’s mazar on 25thDec, I asked where had mush been hibernating for last 6 years that he didn’t bother to visit jinnah’s mazar on 25th dec? how come the dictator suddenly realized that he should have visited the mazar now?
Visiting mazar,installing minorities on mazar ,change course,celebrating xmas and dewali, all of these steps are to register name in the good book of few guys at Oval office whoa re yet not satisfied. Such steps are just to fool local awam and when I read comments here and read few articles in papers, I think they have succeeded to fool our awam. Carry on living in imaginary world,nobody is forcing them to come out from fools paradise. Things after 5/6 years itself would clear everything.
Dear Misbah,
If you don’t feel excited doesn’t mean that it does not open a vista for many millions of your Pakistani sisters regardless of religion, caste or creed.
I for one believe this step is a very big positive both for women and minorities.
I think it’s a positive step….not a revolutionary one….but a positive one. The social condition of women in Pakistan is appalling, to say the least. They are second-class citizens in the public arena and have to constantly defend themselves against the apparatuses of both the State and the society. Things will never change until women recongize that they can be able partners in all walks of life. Their own perceptions have to change and they have to stand up for their own rights….no Protection Bill can do that.
What this step, then provides for the women in Karachi is a window where women are seen (for most part by other women) in a position of power. No doubt, they will be subject to abuse by the ‘chichora’ sections of our populace. I would love to see one day on Pakistaniat, as the picture of the day, a photo of one of these women pinning down a ‘lalookheti’ on the ground.
To those who say that this step is a political gimmick, I say I agree with only half your assessment. It’s a gimmick alright, not a political one but a social one.