A secularist spectre is looming over Pak — it’s on board a bus

The religious parties of the city have called for their immediate dismissal while the Governor of Sindh and the transporters who employ them have said that their employment is a step towards bettering their economic conditions and dismissing them would ruin their economic future.

The Sindh Governor, Mohammed Mian Soomro, inaugurated the New Shandaar (Majestic) Metro Bus Service to ply from where thousands of commuters come in every day to the city for work. The service is a collaboration between the Sindh government and private transporters. For the first time in Pakistan, women bus conductors were introduced.

The bus operators say that the reason why they used women bus conductors was because being a luxury bus service, they expected the commuters to be less in number and at the same time conditions conducive for women to work on board the buses.

The bus operators also felt that women conductors would be a help for the hundreds of women who also commute to work from Landhi, and in the absence of any other such service, this bus service would be used more by women. But Abdul Rehman Salafi, the chief of the Jamaat-e-Ahle-Hadees, termed the decision by the government to allow women conductors as “immoral and unacceptable.” Salafi said that the introduction of women bus conductors was against the teachings of Islam and against the provisions of the constitution.

The head of the Jamaat-e-Ahle-Hadees, which is religious organization that preaches following Islam in its purest form, said that the decision is an attempt “to introduce secularism in the country.” He said that “women are being degraded by being used as bus conductors.”

Salafi told a congregation at the Friday prayers in his Masjid-e-Ghurba that if the government was so concerned about the economic well-being of these women, “they should be given jobs as teachers or other noble professions.”

Some women, too, are against the move. Abida Nasrullah, the head of the Women’s Wing of the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami party says that women bus conductors “are being used as a commodity to attract male passengers.” Nasrullah said that women bus conductors are a humiliating profession and not enjoined by Islam.

Dr Pervez Mehmood, the head of the right-wing Shab-e-Milli Party said that his organization would hold a protect against this “act of the government to belittle women.” He threatened to make his followers throng the buses and bring down the women who were indulging in this “immoral activity.”

However, the chairman of the Shandaar Bus Service, Haji Muhammad Iqbal, said that the reason why he employed women as conductors was because “women are the worst sufferers of the unemployment situation in the country.” Haji Iqbal said that people think that these women have to manage heavily congested buses and may be the victims of eve-teasing, “but this is not the case.”

Haji Iqbal said that his fleet comprises 12 air-conditioned buses in which people are allowed to travel seated only. “I don’t know why the mullahs have made this an issue but I am not getting into it,” he remarked.

Masooda Bano, 40, one of the conductors hired by the company said that while the job was a new experience, she was earning a good salary and prayed that the company did not sack her due to pressure from the right-wing parties.

“I know that this military government always succumbs to the blackmail of the religious parties but I pray that this does not happen this time. I am a widow with four children and this is a good opportunity that I have got. I just hope things work out,” she remarked.

Meanwhile, commuters have said that they have enjoyed the new concept in Karachi’s urban transport system. They said that men behave in front of the conductors and there are fewer fights on the buses. One man remarked that although he did not think women should be bus conductors as the public would harass them “too much,” so far he had enjoyed the experience. The Shandaar bus company has also stationed one guard on its buses to avoid any untoward incidents.