Inspiration -- Asma Jahangir

Lessons from Asma Jahangir: Rethinking 'Commitment' and Learning to 'See'
by Aliya Hamid Rao
St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, India

At 15 I had no doubts about what I wanted: a great CV so that I could get into any college of my choice. With that in mind I started taking part with great gusto in all the extra-curricular activities that my school in Dhaka offered, and which even remotely interested me. So I ran around, after school hours, volunteering to raise money for acid burn victims and for school equipment for slum children. Sure, I had a vague interest in 'giving back to the community', but more than that I liked how everyone perceived me. With my jam-packed schedule and name on the roll of myriad activities, my teachers thought I was a model student and considered me 'committed'. I reveled in this opinion

What's so wrong with that? Nothing, really. Except then, on a chance flipping of TV channels, I came across a woman who defines the word 'committed.' Meet Asma Jahangir. She helps innumerable people who need her legal advice, that much is clear, but more than that she humanizes the plight of the people she works with. She has gone over and beyond the call of duty and has allocated individual importance to all her cases, illustrated by the fact that literally at the risk of death she harboured the late Samia Sarwar who was seeking divorce from her abusive husband. (Samia was ultimately shot dead at the instigation of her own family in an 'honour killing' to prevent shame falling on the family at having a divorcee for a daughter). Spearheading campaigns in Pakistan to abolish bonded labour, child labour, to eliminate the blasphemy laws, amongst a multitude of other things and now involved in the global endeavour to curb religious intolerance as a UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir has been dedicated to ensuring that no one is deprived of basic human rights.

Upholding fundamental human rights was not the idea with which I initially started volunteering. With the self-satisfaction of my young years I thought I did more than my share of good-deeds in simply volunteering, it never occurred to me to take a personal interest in the people I 'helped.' When I taught slum children on weekends, I did not know any of them individually, I didn't really see them. Once in a while some other worker would tell me that so-and-so had a drunk for a father who physically abused his wife and kids, or that one's mother prostituted herself so she could support her children. I shook my head, tut-tutted, felt aghast, but then I figured that I had done my part by volunteering. There was nothing more I could do.

As I continued following Asma Jahangir and her work, I realized that there is never enough I can do; my part isn't over after dabbling in altruism whenever I feel like it. This point was drilled home when I found that Asma Jahangir has disregarded numerous death-threats, unsuccessful murder attempts and the imminent possibility of incarceration and has marched on doing what she considers right. Her dedication to her commitments and her integrity ensured that she never sold out for selfish gains. A particularly remarkable example is that she turned down the offer to be the first Pakistani female judge, saying: "It would be hypocrisy to defend laws I don't believe in, like capital punishment, the blasphemy law and laws against women and in favor of child labor."

Asma Jahangir's selfless and no-brainer refusal of this opportunity put things in perspective. Like most members of my cynical generation, I had decided that the whole deal of 'changing the world' can be left to the idealists from the 1970s; I am a part of the new world and what I want is to get ahead. If I succeed enough to help others, great, if not, then I won't lose any sleep over it. I had, after all, decided to volunteer only as long as it benefited me, right?

Not quite. Somewhere along the line I had been infused with the zeal and sincerity of social activists, and particularly Asma Jahangir who led by example. When I started working in the research department of an NGO in Delhi I decided that I couldn't make the mistake I had made in Dhaka, of lumping together all those for whom I volunteered. At first the idea of having a lengthy conversation with these marginalized members of society, like ex-drug addicts and HIV/AIDS patients intimidated and overwhelmed me. There were a hundred reasons for me not to talk to them: they might assume I'm arrogant in thinking they need my help or talking about the past may bring up bad memories. But I also knew that volunteering was going to be meaningless until I stopped thinking of everyone en masse and ferreted out their stories; it was going to be futile unless I dove into it whole-heartedly.

So, over the course of a month, I discovered that the dangerous-looking muscular man who always stood at the front gate had a disarming smile, the lady who brought me tea every half-an hour was an eunuch who had left the slum-security of the eunuch community and chosen to chart a new life by working at the NGO, and that the boy sitting next to me, whom I turned to whenever my computer had a glitch, had started working here after undergoing a drug re-habilitation at the NGO. Maybe here I didn't raise money to build shelters, or buy school supplies for impoverished children, but I sure learned that even if some people have problems, or are poor, they are still people. They have ideas, opinions and jokes to share; they have a lot to teach someone who has lived a comfortable life, who has not had to fight for meals, or been denied an education.

It is with this lesson that I'm going to make my foray into the world: Asma Jahangir is not fighting for faceless people, I did not volunteer for some abstract ideal. I have discerned that the battles an activist like Asma Jahangir fights are often a life-and-death issue for people, who may be far removed from my world, but they are individuals with a story to tell. My skepticism has not completely evaporated. But whenever I start wondering how much we can change the world, really, I'm reminded of the optimism of a woman who has battled heinous crimes against humanity and still manages to believe that "eventually things will have to get better. However, the way they will improve is not going to be because of the government or the elite leadership, or the political leadership, or the institutions of our country, most of which have actually crumbled. It will be the people of the country themselves who will bring about the change in society because they have had to struggle to fend for themselves at every level." Armed with this philosophy---that everyone has the potential to better the world according to their vision---I have chosen to pursue higher studies in Gender.

With Asma Jahangir's exemplary attitude in front of me, I too hope to have a jam-packed schedule in life, not to win approval of teachers, or to have a brilliant CV, but rather because there are just that many things I will find myself eager to improve.

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