To Love or not to love--an email with this title has stirred a furious debate in Pakistan's Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) and also other campuses. A female student had sent the mail to all email ids of the institute's campus mail, signing herself as Tajwar TashfinAwan (seemingly an imaginary identity). This mail led to long thread of mails, some in her support and praise, while others blasting at her.


Image: Let Us Build Pakistan

What did the mail read?

In the email dated 11 September, Tajwar expressed her angst and disapproval of "public display of affection".

I don't know what's wrong with new freshmen, and some seniors too; they have...an uncontrolled need to seek physical consolation from the members of opposite sex...in public and in places where everybody can witness it.

Tajwar supports her statement with some examples and photographs, advising readers to use their discretion.

Sitting in the academic block, a boy constantly rubs a girl's legs, which are already half bare, with his hand inside her caperies.

She says that the "public display of affection" by other students of the institute is having negative impact on her dignity.

...Aunties spread rumors of most of the girls in Lums not being virgin...all over the city.

Tajwar rebukes "fake hypocritical tolerance and liberalism being promoted on campus" and says that if students like her should tolerate uncultured behaviour, why can't those people also reciprocate by not hurting her cultural beliefs? How can the "liberals" avoid hurting her sentiments?

This "tolerance" for each other has to be mutual. If we give some, then these people need to do it, too. Why don't they go back to using the DRs at night? Or behind the sports complex? Or in the hockey fields?

This is for the first time that I see someone advising "public display of affection" in a hockey field. First, a hockey field is as good as college canteen. Second, where will players go?

Further in her mail, Tajwar wants to see people reading holy books in the campus.

I have never seen a religious person reading their holy book out in the open...

In one of the responses to her mail, Ali Hamza makes some constructive suggestions for changing the environment of Lums. (I, personally, like the suggestion for building cabins. It serves both the sides.)

• Hire some people (they should look pious) to sit in the open and read (the) holy book
• Build cabins for privacy so that pious people don't get offended. Administration should charge for these cabins, and the revenue generated should be spent on "Pious people reading the holy book" project
• Distribute "abstinence rings/chastity rings" to promote (?) the importance of virginity

In this entire debate, Fatima Tassadiq makes good use of the dais, pointing out other pressing issues that need to be solved after "gossiping aunties" have been taken care of. One of them is "hostelites being asked to pay Rs10 per item of clothing for laundry".

A debate like this doesn't seem incongruous for an institute in an Islamic country like Pakistan which has lots of debt and is bound to help the US for its support. Occasionally, such debates do start (and gradually subside) in a more developing and progressive country like India. How can we forget moral policing done by the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Shiv Sena activists on every 14 February? Even some police officers have been involved in beating up couples sitting in parks in our country. Also, we remember the "Pink Chaddis" sent to Sri Ram Sene chief in protest of women being beaten up for going to pubs in Mangalore.

Though Tajwar unsuccessfully tries to establish her argument to be free of Islamic beliefs, the entire debate boils down to Islam and anti-Islam. I am not going to increase the word count of this post by giving you gyan.

On a more serious note, the Lums girl in this video is a really good dancer. Isn't she? And don't forget to check out other Lums annual function videos.



This post is based on a Press Trust of India report that cited a blog post by Asif Akhtar. One can also read an article how Sheikh Umer Zaheer read Tajwar's "erotic mail" during his Ramzan fasts.