The real oppression on women is that they must not speak. And doing something as unconventional as writing a book, makes you into a woman who can expose herself, a woman who doesn’t have modesty.

For 13 long years, she lived under constant fear, as the battered sixth wife of a landlord-politician, silently enduring her husband’s beatings, his philandering and his abuse of their children. Till she finally found the courage to leave him and write My Feudal Lord, an analysis of her marriage, exposing feudalism in its true light. Author and reformer, Tehmina Durrani, speaks to SAHAR ALI in Lahore, about the personal tragedy that sparked off an inspired fight against injustice.

“Tehmina, you are nothing any more. Once you were Begum Tehmina Mustafa Khar. Now you are just Tehmina Durrani. When you ring up people, you have to introduce yourself as my ex-wife.” – My Feudal Lord.

I can picture her smiling as I make the faux pas over the phone. “Is this Tehmina Khar?” I ask, referring to her by her long-forsaken married name. But, a past as infamous as hers cannot be abandoned by merely reverting to a maiden name. As Tehmina Durrani well knows.

“It’s taken me a long time to get over that,” she says in her husky voice. Overcome it she has. And Tehmina Durrani’s autobiographical account, My Feudal Lord, exposing her abusive and complex-ridden feudal landlord turned Pakistani politician husband, has made her a household name, not just in Pakistan but also in Europe, where the book was a best-seller. When Khar heard she was writing a book about them, he was furious. Reminding him of his earlier taunt, Durrani replied, “Well, Mustafa, now the world will know you only as Tehmina Durrani’s ex-husband!”

Durrani earned the reputation of being a bold, feminist writer. “Well, I’m a woman, so I naturally write from a feminine perspective,” she reasons. “More than that, I’m interested in reform. My work, whether it’s My Feudal Lord or Blasphemy, or Abdus Sattar Edhi’s narrated autobiography, Mirror To The Blind, is about issues that concern our people, about breaking a silence for a part of society which cannot speak out. I am called bold because these are issues one does not talk about, nor does one talk about one’s own life. I suppose my passion for reform is overwhelming. And, I think, when anything overwhelms you that much, you have a natural boldness because you step out of the realm of fear.” Durrani should know. For 13 years, she lived that fear, as the battered sixth wife of a feudal landlord from the Punjab.

Though Durrani did eventually leave Khar, she wasn’t ‘running away’. In fact, she chose to do the most difficult thing – write an expose of her marriage as a way of showing feudalism in its true light.

Durrani’s courage had established her as a woman who was willing to take on the powerful feudals. Her strength was tested soon enough, “when this acid victim turned up at my doorstep. I thought to myself, ‘My God, this could have been me!’” This led to Durrani taking on the Pakistani government, who would not issue a passport to enable Fakhra Khar to go abroad for treatment. Fakhra was married into the same feudal family, to Mustafa’s son, Bilal. Like Durrani, she too escaped the physical and mental torture but paid a far heavier price. Bilal attacked her with acid, mutilating her for life. After she helped relocate Fakhra and her child abroad, many acid victims started knocking on Durrani’s door. “I’m not an NGO, I’m a writer, I’m an artist,” Durrani points out. She is now bringing into Pakistan the Italian organisation,Smile Again, that is looking after burn victims, so that more than just a handful of girls can get treatment. “When the Interior Minister was not permitting Fakhra to go abroad, I asked him, ‘What would the Prophet Mohammed do if this burnt, faceless human being came to him for justice?’ I cannot expect less from a country that calls itself an Islamic Republic.” Silence condones injustice, breeds subservience and fosters malignant hypocrisy. Mustafa Khar and other feudal lords thrive and multiply on silence. Muslim women must learn to raise their voices against injustice. – My Feudal Lord.