I flipped this over in my mind multiple times. Did I really witness this? A Pakistani drama hero asking a rapist to marry the woman he raped in order to make amends for his actions? Do our drama creators really think a woman needs to marry the person who caused her immense physical, mental and emotional trauma to the point that she wants to take her own life? Is this our way of handing out justice?
The Real Life Story
Dawlat Khan, 25, had been sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2022 by the district court of Buner, in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for the rape of a young deaf woman.
This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in The Guardian 2022
After an intervention by the area jirga, or council of elders, a deal was struck between Khan and the family of the woman, who had a child as a result of the attack. Khan was released on Monday after the deal was accepted by the Peshawar high court.
“The parties have patched up the matter by the intervention of the relative and elder of the family members, which is in the best interest of the parties. The compromise was affected in the best interest of the child and his mother being a special person,” read the court document.
The Fault In the Narrative
Pakistani dramas get many things wrong (and some right), but not this. Not the hero advocating for a marriage between a rapist and a rape survivor – the very survivor (Rania) who was abused by the same man is now being forced to marry her. And if you’re wondering why I’m repeating the story so many times, it’s because I have trouble believing an entire production house, director, script writer and cast could allow this plotpoint to slip through the radar… did no one spot the problem here?
Are actors responsible for the characters they play onscreen, the roles they project, and the people they become when performing a character that often endears itself to fans all over the world? The debate is not new – the more seasoned the actor, the bigger the social media and fan following, the more responsibility they shoulder when they reflect a certain persona onscreen. Because the more people they influence through their actions. Pakistani drama fans make up a mass following of young people who ascribe qualities in real life to the heroes and heroines they see onscreen. If a hero is seen to stalk a girl he finds cute for the sake of love, to hold her hand without asking her, to forcibly expel a wife or sister out of his house, or physically harm her (Hint: Slap her), the story is plays out in multiple homes who might or might not be witnessing a similar real life story line of their own – very similar to the one we see onscreen. Just like Dawlat Khan’s story above. So when this hero, who has amassed quite the following, does teh same onscreen, with a careles flip of a gun, or an aggressive ‘hero-like’ stance, he endorses the actions of every man offscreen who perpetarates this wrong on real women. You cannot shake off the responsibility. Whether we like it or not, Pakistani dramas influence audiences, they are the biggest social messaging tool we have amidst us and they must be handled with care – the utmost care, more like, a warning banner under every problematic scene that reads: do not try this at home.
A Script That Failed to Read the Room
That is not to say an actor can’t play a villain, a negative character who perpetrates all sorts of wrongs on society. Because these too, are real life roles. But when it is our main character, a hero or heroine who is shown as a positive character, walking a problematic tight rope on an issue that should be relegated to the stone ages – a rapist marrying his victim – one has to pull out all the stops. Did no one, absolutely no one, from the drama cast right down to those vetting the script, see anything wrong with the narrative?
How can one be so tone deaf in a world where problematic dialogues are memeified, problematic scenes are held up against a social media filter that screens the tiniest subversion, and problematic plot twists are called out the moment they drop onscreen precisely for what they are – problematic.
Flawed Heroes vs Problematic Messaging
This is not to say that we can’t have grey heroes – heroes or heroines who err at times, who have flawed reasoning and perhaps, interactions with others – that is a different kind of characterization altogether, and not one we see in Sayhaan, who is shown to be a green flag, other than his scarred relationship with his dad. But Sayhaan is fully aware of his father’s misdeeds and acknowledges them to be wrong. The message in Humrahi – Sayhaan putting a gun to the villain’s head, asking him to right a wrong by marrying his victim was perhaps a moment that real life women like Rania (Hajra Yamin’s character who was raped in the drama) have fought against all their lives. The drama, in advocating for this action by the hero, has propagated a terror narrative where the woman is forced to marry her abuser in the name of honour, righting a wrong, or ‘correcting a wrong, inn fact a criminal offense’ to help the abuser escape justice, be held accountable or punished for his misdeeds.
Forcing a woman to marry her abuser is condeming her to a life of perpetual abuse, terroroizing her for life, binding her in a relationship that the world sees as sacred, and that is merely carried out to protect the very man who should be punished not only for his own crimes, but also be held accountable for his actions – a warning message to all other potential rapists. On the other hand, marriage to your victim sends out a damaging message to all potential rapists, that justice will never be served – if you want to be with a girl despite the fact that she has said ‘no’ to your advances, this is a quick fix – once you rape her, you will be forced to marry her and then, you have her for life, and the cherry on top? you skip the jail sentence too, because the families (and supervising jirga), will come to a decision that helps the rapist escape a jail sentence. More power to the abuser.
Did anyone say consent?
Rania had already told her potential rapist she didn’t want to be with him. In response, he decided to kidnap her, tie her up and subsequently, rape her. The script so far seemed to tie up as Sayhaan the hero, drops in Superman-like to save her or punish her abuser. But then comes the sad and shocking twist. “There is only one way out for you” utters Sayhaan. “You have to marry her.”
I’m at a loss for words…
Women in Pakistan have been witness to and victims to this drama twist in real life. Families have ‘patched up’ in order to help the rapists escape a jail sentence. Local jirgas have accepted this compromise and courts have apparently accepted the jirga decisions over the rule of law. Hence, if anyone watching a drama where the rapist has been forced to marry his victim under the guise of justice served, needs to rethink the perspective – it’s not just a drama. On the other side of the screen might be a woman, a real one, a young girl perhaps, whose rapist wasn’t shot dead by mistake, as in Humrahi, but ended up marrying her.
The narrative not only allows the rapist to escape punishment but also tarnishes one of the most sacred unions in our world – marriage.
Humrahi is penned by Zanjabeel Asim, directed by Babbar Javaid and is produced under the BJ Productions banner. The cast ensemble includes Danish Taimoor, Hiba Bukhari, Shahzad Nawaz, Ayub Khosa, Laila Wasti, Nida Mumtaz, and more.
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