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By Root 1491 0

if a proper judicial system is established here in Sindh ... Western education changes attitudes to some extent, but people still feel a strong attachment to their tribe. It does make some of the sardars more relaxed though, less likely to demand retaliation at the drop of a hat. Junaid [his younger brother], when he presides over jirgas, tries to take a moderate line, and to seek compromise with other tribes instead of blood. Other sardars and tribal notables do the same. That is why, although the jirgas here are not officially recognized, the government and police use them all the time to settle disputes, and prevent them getting out of hand. On the whole the feudals are more favourable to bring tribal feuds to an end, because they are not carried away by emotion, and see that in the end no one wins. Also, a Kalashnikov can kill more people in a week than were previously killed in a year, so things can more easily get out of hand. All the same, no sardar, however rich, can afford to be seen as a coward by his people ...

Agha Tariq, PPP Development Minister, shot a man from a Mughal family in broad daylight 500 metres from here. He had a love marriage with a girl from Tariq’s family without permission – the girl has disappeared, so they must have killed her too. To kill Tariq or someone from his family in return, the Mughals would have to have tribal backing to protect them and give evidence for them. But they are basically a middle-class service family. The brother is in customs in Karachi. They are wealthy and well-connected in Karachi and even Islamabad, but they don’t have the local influence and prestige necessary to get away with killing, even in revenge. So they filed a case in court, but Tariq and all his followers got sworn alibis – some were supposedly in hospital, some even got the police to swear that they were in gaol at the time for traffic offences. They’ll never be convicted. And they won’t be unpopular with the people here because of it either – people respect men who defend their family’s honour. Even in jail such people are respected more by the other criminals, as people who have done the right thing, maintained their honour.

And the speaker, by the way, was no rural thug, but a senior official of a European-based bank.

Customary laws differ considerably among the different regions and ethnicities of Pakistan. Within the same village too, judgments according to customary law can take place at different levels and in different fora, according to the case in question. Everywhere, however, the basic unit is the same, just as it is in Pakistani rural and to a lesser extent urban societies: the ‘patriarchal’ extended family: ‘patriarchal’, though as innumerable Pakistani and Indian daughters-in-law are bitterly aware, behind the patriarchal façade, the grey eminence, the greatest tyrant and the most ruthless enforcer of custom in these families is quite often the senior female.

According to the traditional ideal, all cases involving only members of one extended family should be settled within that family, and by a patriarch relying on the consensus of the family. A situation in which different members of the same extended family appeal to outside judicial authority – whether state or communal – in disputes among themselves is generally felt to be a disgrace for the family as a whole. Disputes between extended families should also ideally be settled by negotiations between their wise and experienced patriarchs.

When it comes to issues of sexual behaviour and family ‘honour’, a majority of cases are in fact settled at this level – all too often by the death of the woman concerned at the hands of her own family. According to all the customary codes, when this happens wider justice has no role to play at all; and alas, across most of Pakistan the state authorities receive little or no help from local communities in pursuing these cases, most of which go unreported (the same is true across very large parts of India).

If however a case involves people from different extended families (or relations within