People and Society in Kishwar Naheed’s I am not That Woman

Abstract

Kishwar Naheed has been a courageous and sovereign expression in sustenance of the talents in Pakistan and has functioned firm to resuscitate vanishing crafts in remote areas, for the past 45 years, Kishwar Naheed was born into a conventional household that educated its sons well and daughters always at receiving ends. Kishwar asserted on advanced learning, she did her masters, and also wrote poetry. She had gone for choice marriage and had to leave her family. She became a civil servant, a career which she followed for 38 years.  She was referred on leave for five years when the country was under martial law, she went to court to protest her suspension, and was reinstated. She was briefly in prison in February 1983, along with other women protesters, for protesting against the proposed Law of Evidence that was discriminatory to women. Kishwar used her leave to promote home-based free enterprise among rural women and recover dying crafts in Pakistan’s remote areas. As a writer, too, Kishwar was in distress under martial law. Two of her books were banned, and she was also briefly arrested on charges of spreading antisocial elements. In 1998, Kishwar, then employed as manager general of philosophy, resigned from the service when the minister of philosophy protested to a traditional dance commemoration in the country. This innovator in feminist and confronting literature has produced nine volumes of poetry, Kishwar, who lives in Islamabad, also works as consultant with Action Aid and the Asian Development Bank. My paper aims to focus upon Kishwar’s concept of People and their relation to Society. Through the structural construct the repression and ultimately the emancipation of women.

Politics, Feminism, Sovereign, Emancipation