The turnaround of justice in the rape of Mukhtaran Mai has forced its government and its citizens to ask tough questions of themselves. The future will wait to see if they choose to acknowledge those questions or whether they will ignore them.

On 22ndJune 2002, in the village of Meerawala in Pakistan, a young boy was sodomized by a bunch of men. When he threatened to tell people what happened, the men accused the boy of raping a girl from their clan and demanded that he would be pardoned if his older sister asked for clemency from the village council. When his sister appeared before the council, the council decreed that she be raped as a punishment.

Men from the village raped Mukhtaran Mai and threatened her family with dire consequences if she took the issue further. A couple of days later, Mukhtaran reported the incident to authorities, certain section of the Pakistani press took the issue up and the authorities were forced to ‘deal’ with this issue.

In August 2002, the case went before the anti-terrorism courts and the four rapists and two of the council jurors were sentenced to death for the rape of Mukhtaran Mai. Some others were also given time in jail. However, in a recent turn of events, the Lahore High Court commuted the death penalty and 13 others have been let free. The Lahore High Court has said that there is little evidence to justify their punishment – little evidence when Mukhtaran was raped in the presence of 150 people many of whom gave evidence.

Meanwhile, Mukhtaran has been placed under house arrest, apparently for her own protection. In addition, her name has been added to the Exit Control List – a list of people that the government of Pakistan does not want traveling out of Pakistan. She was supposed to travel to UK and then the USA on invitation from various human rights groups.

The progress of events brings up many questions. For one, clearly there is a major problem with the process of justice – some have even argued the failure of the courts. What are the pressures exerted on the courts for the ruling to have been overturned? What has been the role of the police in prosecuting the rapists and in bringing evidence? What has been the role of the prosecution – clearly a role of the local government? But the most important question is regarding the role of civil society and of the government in ensuring and demanding justice.

The military government, in its attempts at setting up democratic institutions might claim non-interference with the judicial process. Fair enough. However, why restrict her movement and prevent her from leaving the country. Is it not ironic that the victim has become a prisoner and the oppressors move free? Is that a reflection of the state of society?

What of the citizens? There have been few who have voiced their concerns with the local governments, written to various authorities and tried to support Mukhtaran in this brave new role that she has taken up to ensure that other perpetrators may not get away as easily. However, for most part, the voices coming forth argue that ‘we should not was our linen in public’, that ‘this should not be internationalized since it affects the image of Pakistan’.

Perhaps, this is where we (all of us who live in any nation) need to ask who we are in the context of a nation and what our roles are when there is injustice perpetrated by our government and/or when the government becomes oblivious to oppression and exploitation. Do we stand by and watch, justifying the inhumanity in the name of some sacrosanct creature – an institution by some name? Knowing well that somehow we are protected from such inhumanity? Or believing fervently that we are?

And has the very concept of a nation – its core strength – not been sacrificed when the institutions of the nation cannot provide justice? When those institutions have been co-opted by special interest groups? What then do the patriotic voices claim to protect? A hollow shell whose core has already been eaten away? Indeed, should those patriotic elements not be protecting the very core of the nation?

Mukhtaran Mai’s case raises all these questions – Questions that citizens of Pakistan must answer.

However, these are not questions specific to Pakistan. Guantanamo Bay asks those questions of US citizens. The victims of 1984 and 2002 riots ask the same questions of Indian citizens.

Mukhtaran Mai, along with numerous other victims of oppression by dominant institutions within nation states would like to know how we will answer them!

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