Get Better Malala!

By: Zaheer Ali Malala, a fourteen-year old girl from a sleepy town of Mingora in the tranquil hills of the Swat district of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province is currently convalescing at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, UK. She gravely needs the good wishes of the entire world to be back on her feet and carry on the extremely noble work she was engaged in before a fanatic of the Pakistani Taliban shot her, on October 9, in the head and neck with the resolute intent to kill her. The soul of Malalai, a fiery lady from Maiwand, a poet, a warrior and the one who fought for the rights of women in the NWFP, after whom the teenaged activist was named, must be anguished at the moment when the two bullets fired by the scoundrel, presumably for upholding the Islamic values, gravely injured Malala. Nevertheless, by now, the spirit of Malalai must relax as Malala is fast responding to the treatment and the heinous attack on her by the enemies of humanity has been universally condemned by all those who respect human values. Most human rights activists were pleasantly surprised when three days after the attack on Malala, a group of 5o ulema in Pakistan issued a fatwa (religious edict) against the Taliban who tried to kill her. It is without doubt a positive development that indicates that the Muslim clerics, at least in Pakistan, are gradually learning to respect human lives and human rights! Nevertheless, a few dim-witted Muslim supremacists who see the hand of the USA, Israel or the Hindu Right in every tragedy that befalls on Muslims the world over, have written letters to the editors of the Urdu newspapers that either the USA or Israeli agents could be behind the attack on Malala to denigrate the name of Islam. In their hatred of the 'others' they have intentionally suppressed the statement of Ihsanullah Ihsan, the chief spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban in which he has clearly claimed responsibility for the attack on Malala because, in view of Pakistani Taliban, 'she is the symbol of obscenity'. Now, one may be tempted to ask, which brand of Islam the Taliban adhere to, which prescribes that working for girls education is a sign of obscenity? The Muslim scholars of the world should be asking this question and if the Taliban fail to furnish a proper reply based on the tenets of Islam, they should be declared a band of renegades, a gang of merciless criminals who should be hounded by all the civilised governments and wiped out. The state of affairs of education in Pakistan just like the present condition of Malala, has always been precarious and the scenario of girls education has been even worse. Article 25-A of the Pakistani Constitution provides that the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 5 to 16 years. Moreover, Art. 37 says that education is a fundamental right of every citizen. However, the reality is that the successive Governments of Pakistan, on an average, have been spending merely 2.7 % of the GDP of the country annually on education. Now, how can the objective of free and compulsory education for all in a country that has almost 18 crore population with a literacy rate of 58% can be accomplished with a mere 2.7 % of the GDP expenditure on the head. The 58% literacy rate does not provide a clear picture of the level of literacy in Pakistan. In urban areas of Punjab and Sind, the literacy rate may even cross 80 % but in the countryside and more so in the provinces like Baluchistan and NWFP the literacy rate is awfully dismal. The figures of female literacy are terribly low. In Swat district, to which Malala belongs, female literacy is reported as low as 4.7 %.

This has been the outcome of the domination of the Taliban in the region who had forcibly shut down more than 400 girls' schools thus forcing more than 40,000 girls to give up their education. It was in this backdrop that Malala came to prominence. During the repressive and barbaric control of Taliban over Swat, the BBC Urdu Service had invited her to write regular blogs depicting the life under Taliban. She did a remarkable job of the given opportunity portraying the factual conditions in a simple way that was natural for a girl of barely 10 years. Though Taliban were hugely upset because of the BBC blogs, they could not identify the writer as Malala was writing under the pseudonym of Gul Makai. The blogs brought her international recognition and honours but at the same time made her vulnerable as the Taliban marked her for execution. They have almost succeeded in their cruel mission. Though there are some really committed members of civil society in Pakistan who are crusading against all odds to uphold human rights and democratic values, the vast majority comprising the educated middle and lower-middle classes who are not likely to subscribe to the kind of Islam that the Taliban intend to implement are spinelessly silent. This spell of silence has stretched for too long. There were countless occasions in the past as well when the moderate voices should have come to the fore and countered the radical Islamists. The international goodwill that Malala has generated for Pakistan and the girls of Pakistan should not go wasted. In one of her blogs Malala has written, "I want to serve humanity." When the Muslims of the world will make it their credo? ______________________________________________________________________________ The author is a Mumbai based political commentator and President of Centre for Promotion of Democracy and Secularism.