DRAFTED in 1972, approved by parliament in April 1973, and ratified on Aug 14, 1973, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 was the first constitution to be promulgated by a democratically elected government through a unanimous consensus of all major political parties. Though Pakistan’s constitutional history is often memorialised in terms of the number of times it has gone through unconstitutional interventions, what is often overlooked is the erasure of the valuable and significant contribution of women in the writing of the Constitution.

When the Constitution was finally signed by the representatives of “We, the People” who drafted it, the signatories on that remarkable document included three women. They were: Begum Nasim Jahan from Lahore, Dr Ashraf Abbasi from Larkana, and Jennifer Jehanzeba Musa Qazi from Pishin, Balochistan.

Born to Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz, who founded the Punjab Provincial Women’s Muslim League in 1935 and was one of the two women to be elected to Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly, Begum Nasim was a founding member of the PPP and played an integral role in mobilising women to exercise their right to vote in the 1970 elections. She led a historic march against the clerics who opposed the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961, as being against the injunctions of Islam. (The law provided statutory protection to women with regard to marriage and discouraged polygamy.) Dr Ashraf, on the other hand, entered politics in 1962 as a member of the West Pakistan Assembly and joined PPP in 1970, before becoming the first woman deputy speaker of the National Assembly.

Three women were among the signatories of the 1973 Constitution.

While Begum Nasim and Dr Ashraf had the distinct commonality of being members of the PPP, Jennifer Jehanzeba, or ‘Mummy Jennifer’ as they called her, started her political journey by joining the National Awami Party led by Abdul Wali Khan. In the 1970 elections, she stood unopposed from Pishin and vocally represented her chronically underdeveloped and marginalised region.

As legal scholar and academic Maryam S. Khan puts it, with such a small representation, there was nothing like a women’s caucus in the Assembly. But evidently, this did not come in the way of a strong convergence on the demand for the ‘constitutional guarantee of representation’ for women in all constitutional bodies, including the National Assembly, the Senate, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) and local government. In fact, the idea of local government surfaced for the first time in the 1973 Constitution as a unique proposal from Begum Nasim. Being a prerequisite of a parliamentary democracy, it required considerable devolution of power and resources to the administrative sub-units for a ‘grassroots democracy’. Her successful proposal led to the creation of a third tier of government. This paved the way from mere encouragement of local government institutions (Article 32) to an imposition of constitutional duty (Article 140A as enacted through the 18th Amendment) to establish local governments, which has been remarkably encouraging for Pakistan’s constitutional democracy.

Begum Nasim and Dr Ashraf’s advocacy for greater political participation of women is reflected in their strong opposition to the lack of any women’s representation in the Senate. As proponents of the inclusion of women in constitutional bodies, they played a pivotal role in ensuring the allocation of 10 reserved seats for women in the National Assembly through indirect election for a period of 10 years, and that at least one of the members to be appointed to the CII would be a woman.

One of the most significant contributions to the newly enacted document was the insertion of two new clauses under the equality provision (Article 25), which provided that there shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex alone, and the other reserving to the state the power to make any special provision for the protection of women and children. At the same time, two directives were added as part of the principles of policy. These mandated the state to take steps to ensure full participation of women in all spheres of national life and prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex. Consequently, these provisions formed the genesis of women’s rights guaranteed in the Constitution.

Together, these women played their part in shaping women’s rights in order to foster a system that is truly inclusive. Now, more than ever, it would be fair to see a more progressive judicial interpretation of these provisions, for which these women fought tirelessly. Precisely half a century later, it is time to reflect, recognise and remember our founding mothers, and how our founding document came to be.

The writer is a lawyer from Sargodha and currently based in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2023