29ff), thus underscoring the principle of the appro-
priation of women through the community and the
state. Ever since, marriages across the borders are
fraught with danger and the looming threat of espe-
cially rural women being imprisoned as illegal
immigrants.- On 8 October 2003, Shazia Khaskheli, a bank
officer’s daughter and her husband, Mohammad
Hassan Solangi, originally from the lowly fisher-
man (machi) caste, were tortured and murdered in
the presence of thousands. It was one more case of
“honor killings”^2 (karo kari) in Sind, Pakistan,
where the first three months of 1999 and the first
nine months of 2003 saw 132 and 176 women
respectively (and dozens of men) thus murdered.
According to figures obtained from the Human
Rights Commission and the Pakistan and Sindh
Graduates Association 286 women were similarly
killed in 1999 in Punjab. Official statistics pre-
sented before the Pakistani Senate in July 2004 put
the total number of lives lost through such killings
between 1998 and 2004 at 4,000 (Dawn 2004).
The murdered (and the hundreds of other forcibly
divorced) women had soiled the honor of their fam-
ilies and communities, by flouting social norms
(Shazia had married beyond her tribe and a lower
caste man as well). Among many communities in
Pakistan and Azad Kashmir marriage entails trans-
fer of all rights over the woman from her natal to
her conjugal family, including that of killing her,
often on the slightest suspicion of marital infidelity.
Such infidelity constitutes an attack on the hus-
band’s honor and he must retaliate by killing the
woman and her presumed lover (Ahmed and
Ahmed 1981). Her natal family has the right of
revenge, by killing a kinsman of the murderer, or
demanding a young girl of his family as marital
compensation. If the infidelity is genuine, the mur-
dered woman’s family gains in status by forgiving
the murderer. The Pakistani law of Qisas and Diyat
(concerning physical injury, manslaughter, and
murder) permits the victim’s heirs to decide the fate
of the murderer, thus accepting that women may be
murdered and/or used as objects of compensation.
The December 2003 court ruling in Multan (Pakis-
tan) ordering a man’s public blinding and impris-
onment for having blinded his fiancé with acid – an
increasingly frequent occurrence in both Pakistan
and Bangladesh – also indicates such tacit approval
of gender-related “custom.” - Some 20,000 women languish in Pakistani
prisons, charged with adultery under the Hudood
Ordinances 1979 (Burney 1999, Jahangir and
Jilani 1990) promulgated as part of the govern-
ment’s declared “Islamization program.” Many are
342 kinship, descent systems and state
rape victims, charged with adultery for failing to
provide four male witnesses on their behalf. Others
were charged in revenge, by their parents for mar-
rying against their will, or by their divorced hus-
bands because they wished to remarry; yet others
are charged by brothers or neighbors to deprive
them of their property. Ongoing efforts to repeal
these laws, which include death by stoning, are
meeting with great opposition.- A current controversy in Indian administered
Jammu and Kashmir concerns the rights of women
who marry outside this region. At stake is their sta-
tus, guaranteed by the Kashmiri constitution, as
“permanent residents” (or “state subjects”) of the
territory, that enables them to inherit immovable
property and obtain state employment within the
territory. While the non-state subject wife of a male
state subject can acquire such rights as long as she
resides in the territory, the position of female state
subjects who marry non-state subjects appears
uncertain. Most Kashmiris perceive this issue as
essential to their specific political identity, as is
evident from its current manipulation by various
Kashmiri and Indian political parties. - In precolonial and colonial South Asia com-
munity-specific customary laws prevailed over
creed-specific personal laws. Thus, in Baluchistan,
lub, promised to a wife on divorce (unless she was
barren, unfaithful, or remarried) was managed by
her agnates and inherited by her children. In Indian-
administered rural Kashmir customary laws still
regulate most lives, despite recent transforming
attempts by groups adhering to more scriptural
readings of Islam. In practice, customary and per-
sonal laws in India vary depending on region and
community, but formally, the Muslim Personal Law
(MPL), based on the Shariat Act 1937 and on what
was known as the Anglo-Mohammedan Law, regu-
lates the civil concerns of Muslim Indians. The
ongoing debate in India about a uniform civil code
(UCC) received much publicity with the so-called
Shah Bano case (Rao 1992) and reflects the discur-
sive importance of Islam in the formation of the
postcolonial Indian state. Article 44 of the Indian
constitution advocates as a directive principle that
the state endeavor in future to secure a UCC, pri-
marily through social evolution (Dhagamwar 1989,
Faruqi 1985, Mahmood 1977, 1995, Parashar
1992, Wahiduddin Khan 2001). Today, some favor
the enactment of an UCC to promote “gender
equality,” and/or “national integration.” Others
see it as an onslaught by fanatical Hindutva hege-
monists on Muslim religious identity, especially in a
state whose rulers and educated elite increasingly
flout the constitutional principles of secularism and