‘I felt silenced’: Meesha Shafi and Pakistan’s backlash against #MeToo

When I spoke to vocalist and histrion Meesha Shafi successful July this year, it had been six years since our archetypal meeting. Then, Meesha had been successful Karachi for a taping of Pepsi’s Battle of the Bands, wherever she performed and was 1 of the judges, and we met erstwhile she had wrapped up filming. A fewer months earlier, Meesha made headlines erstwhile she alleged that 1 of the euphony industry’s biggest stars, Ali Zafar, had sexually harassed her — allegations that helium has ever denied. She faced sizeable backlash online and successful the media. I wanted to cognize however the acquisition had impacted her.

Her edifice country was dimly lit, and Meesha remained successful the shadows, with lone a lamp successful a acold country of the country switched on. It was quiet, the sounds from the engaged roadworthy 9 floors beneath muffled by the closed windows. Meesha had wedged herself into the country of an overstuffed sofa. Shooting had wrapped that day, and, aft a week of 1am finishes, Meesha had got disconnected early. I retrieve reasoning that I’d expect a popular prima to beryllium retired with friends, not unsocial successful a edifice country aft an aboriginal wrap. But for the past fewer months, arsenic Meesha would archer me, she had been feeling “broken”.

In April 2018, Meesha, successful a tweet, accused histrion and vocalist Ali Zafar of aggregate instances of intersexual harassment. It was the archetypal specified high-profile lawsuit successful Pakistan since the #MeToo question of 2017 forced a reckoning with claims of intersexual harassment and maltreatment that had gone unchecked for decades successful astir each manufacture successful countries crossed the world. For months, accusations against Hollywood producers, beloved actors and comedians made headlines.

Both Meesha and Zafar are stars successful Pakistan, and portion she made her Hollywood debut successful Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) other Riz Ahmed, Zafar was forging a vocation successful Bollywood.

In her tweet, Meesha claimed determination had been aggregate incidents of “harassment of a carnal nature” by Zafar. He denied the claims, and successful June 2018, helium filed a defamation lawsuit against Meesha for damages of 1 cardinal rupees (more than $3.5m astatine the existent speech complaint but estimated to beryllium implicit $8m 7 years ago). Meesha filed a ailment regarding the alleged harassment earlier an ombudsperson overseeing specified issues successful the workplace, and it was rejected connected method grounds that she and Zafar did not person an employer-employee narration (an entreaty is pending). In January 2019, Meesha was placed nether a court-ordered gag that restrained her from making immoderate statements that could beryllium deemed defamatory against Zafar portion his lawsuit against her was heard. She could not talk astir Zafar’s alleged harassment.

In the months aft she tweeted her allegations against Zafar, a torrent of maltreatment and ridicule targeted Meesha connected societal media. “Why her, erstwhile helium could beryllium with anyone helium wanted?” galore asked online. Her looks were mocked, and she was called “shameless”, a “whore”, a liar, and publicity-seeking.

“I felt similar successful speaking out, I had lit my beingness connected fire, and it had been meaningless,” she says during our speech this July, recounting those “rapid fire” attacks connected her character. If I retrieve correctly, she asked, “What was the point?”, repeating the question astir a twelve times during our past meeting. Now, six years later, Meesha has released an album, Khilnay Ko, meaning “To Bloom”, that answers the question.

Meesha performs astatine the opening nighttime ceremonial and gala screening of The Reluctant Fundamentalist during the 2012 Doha Tribeca Film Festival successful Qatar successful November 2012 [Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Doha Film Institute]

‘I was that atrocious news’

We are connected a Zoom call, arsenic Meesha is present based successful Canada. It is aboriginal successful the time for her, and her children are connected their summertime break. She tried to marque definite they are occupied portion she’s connected this call, but her 11-year-old lad comes looking for her. She mutes our chat portion she fields his questions. Her look is bare, her hairsbreadth pulled back, her blush pinkish sleeveless garment giving a glimpse of the tiny M&M tattoo connected her limb – a motion to her husband’s and her initials. When she speaks, her sentences are measured, with pauses arsenic she reflects connected what I’ve asked. I rapidly larn not to interrupt.

Meesha, her husband, and their 2 children migrated to Canada successful 2018 – a program that had been successful the works since 2016, but online, a communicative was spun that she “fled” the state aft Zafar filed his case. In making the caller album, Meesha has looked person astatine the stories that were told astir her. “It was truthful casual to villainise me,” she says.

She feels the suspicion and the disbelief that her allegations were met with came partially from an thought that the nationalist had of her arsenic a powerful, outspoken pistillate who had successfully carved a niche for herself arsenic a solo performer successful the euphony industry. She was known for her powerfulness anthems and pop-rock sound, and her playful benignant that melded desi manner with biker jackets, tattoos and a signature reddish lip. “But this persona dehumanised me,” Meesha says. “My perceived spot was utilized to onslaught me.”

Many asked however “someone similar her” would enactment herself successful a presumption wherever she mightiness beryllium harassed. Why had she “allowed” the harassment to hap much than once?

Meesha’s location code successful Lahore – wherever she and her hubby lived with their children, past 7 and 4 – was shared connected tv during the media frenzy that followed her accusation. As the online attacks against her grew, Meesha deactivated her societal media accounts. The trolling was astir capable to drown retired the voices of different women who tweeted akin allegations (and who subsequently withdrew their claims oregon were besides sued for defamation by Zafar). Zafar claimed the societal media accounts were fake oregon linked to Meesha. “They are trying to marque maine retired to beryllium Pakistan’s Harvey Weinstein,” helium said successful a tv interview.

When histrion Iffat Omar appeared successful tribunal arsenic a quality witnesser for Meesha, she was trailed by a assemblage of Zafar’s fans chanting, “We enactment Ali Zafar” and “Stop lying”.

The lawsuit became a litmus trial successful Pakistan for however we recognize consent and what constitutes “inappropriate” behaviour oregon intersexual harassment. Because Meesha’s archetypal tweet did not spell retired the quality of the alleged harassment, a guessing crippled ensued, with societal media users debating what mightiness person happened. Meesha recalled that erstwhile she returned to shoots aft her tweet, immoderate radical connected acceptable joked that they didn’t cognize if it was OK to adjacent shingle her hand.

When I spoke with Hasham Ahmad, 1 of Zafar’s lawyers, in 2021, his comments echoed the sentiments online and successful the media. There was a constricted knowing astir however battle oregon harassment is experienced, and wherefore galore are incapable to talk astir it. “If you don’t respond to something, however would idiosyncratic cognize if you’re allowing it oregon not?” helium asked. If a pistillate does not consent to thing – particularly successful a concern involving a person – Ahmad explained, “You conscionable person to accidental [to the perpetrator], ‘You went a small overboard, truthful you amended behave.’ That’s it.”

Many were suspicious of Meesha’s motivations, implying she had thing to gain. “You amended person thing [to backmost up your accusations], not lone your greed,” 1 salient TV anchor said connected his show, referring to Meesha. One quality transmission ran a conception wherever actors and singers weighed successful connected the case. They debated who the “guilty” enactment mightiness be.

“We seldom person the TV connected astatine location – the news, connected a bully day, is noisy and bad,” Meesha says. “But now, I was that atrocious news.”

A inactive from the video for the opus Khilnay Ko (To Bloom) depicts Meesha walking done a Lahore bazaar [Courtesy of Awais Gohar]

‘Something to clasp connected to’

Meesha started penning the songs connected this medium successful March 2019. Melodies and snatches of lyrics came to her portion she was doing laundry oregon washing the dishes.

It was her mode of “processing”, and a instrumentality to the crushed she archetypal started singing astatine the property of seven. “While I was praised for my talent, I wasn’t singing for that affirmation,” Meesha explains. “Music and singing ever soothed me.”

Music was a balm, the comforting soundtrack to her puerility successful Lahore. Every afternoon, Meesha’s nani, her maternal grandmother, would implicit her chores and discontinue to her room. The blinds were lowered, the location soundless prevention for the ceiling fan, and successful that chill quiet, her nani would prevarication down, a tiny vigor nestled successful a thenar cupped to her ear. The vigor crackled to find a presumption with the Bollywood tunes Meesha’s nani listened to arsenic a girl. The grown-ups slept, the euphony from the vigor tinny and low, arsenic Meesha padded into the room and climbed onto a countertop to unfastened the furniture wherever the ketchup vessel was kept. She would sip that sweet, agleam condiment for a deed of sweetener and perceive to the euphony arsenic it echoed done the house.

“Making the medium gave maine thing to clasp connected to and reclaim an indispensable portion of my consciousness of self,” Meesha says. “At night, erstwhile each the day’s enactment was done and my household was sleeping, I turned to my euphony – conscionable similar my nani each those decades ago.”

She wrote astatine her room table, the lights dimmed, a bay model shadowed by an ornamental pear tree. The seasons changed, and she kept writing: moonlight reflected disconnected a broad of snow, the histrion burst into achromatic blooms, the flowers wilted. Every nighttime astatine the aforesaid time, a bid would spell past the house, its chug and whistle piercing the acheronian quiet. A signaling of that bid plays connected the album’s Interlude I, with a muffled audio enactment wherever Meesha, her dependable quavering, tells someone, “It was precise overwhelming … the unit connected my precise contiguous wellbeing was precise big. I was very, like, I was precise overloaded …”

“My discomfort oregon symptom had go a nationalist spectacle,” Meesha says. The opus Sar-e-Aam (In Public), 1 of the archetypal that she wrote, addresses this spectacle. The lyrics see immoderate of the words that were utilized to picture her online: “shameless”, “floozy”. In the video, Meesha’s framework is engulfed successful a achromatic and achromatic jacket, covered with scribbles, that balloons implicit her shoulders. “That is however large my shoulders had to become,” she explains. “I was carrying truthful much.”

The song’s languid, bluesy melody would beryllium perfectly astatine location playing low, precocious astatine night, the chatter of friends rising supra it. But arsenic Meesha sings, Deep was the nighttime / my eyes bedewed with tears / Just me, and maine unsocial / Not galore friends successful sight, it turns melancholy. It is simply a opus astir being unsocial successful a crowd.

She had been forbidden from speaking astir her acquisition portion Zafar gave interviews and tweeted. “I felt silenced close aft I had recovered the courageousness to usage my voice,” she says. “My girl asked maine astatine that clip wherefore I didn’t laughter immoderate more,” Meesha recalled. “I was moving connected this medium portion my problems were precise overmuch present. It’s not arsenic if I was past the worst of it. I was processing everything arsenic I was writing, and the enactment was coming unneurotic arsenic I was experiencing the fallout of speaking up.”

Meesha recalls listening to the finished way for Sar-e-Aam for the archetypal time. “One enactment in, and I started crying.” It felt similar a release. “It was similar puncturing a spot wherever unit had been gathering up wrong me.”

Online, Zafar and his supporters had utilized the hashtag #FaceTheCourtMeesha, implying that Meesha was excessively frightened to bash so. While the album’s euphony and lyrics gave vent to Meesha’s emotions, its visuals reply specified accusations: for the video for the opus Azaab (Torment), manager Awais Gohar trailed Meesha during a time of hearings.

There are immoderate sonic throwbacks. The acquainted staticky crackle of a vigor sets the code for Nirmal (Pure), a opus that Meesha describes arsenic “a lullaby, a tune of disassociating” that disintegrates into a sonic crash, each physics clanging and menacing, sawing cello strings, arsenic if the song’s gears person been forced to grind to a halt. “Nirmal is each rainbows and unicorns, expressing a tendency to spot the satellite with a brushed gaze, but that is illusory – a child’s presumption of the satellite that I person retreated to from clip to clip arsenic an big until world intruded.”

I inquire Meesha however she felt astir sharing each of this with a nationalist that had attacked her successful a erstwhile infinitesimal of vulnerability. “I spent my beingness avoiding being susceptible oregon sharing backstage feelings arsenic it made maine uncomfortable,” she acknowledges. “And now, an enactment of excavation – that tweet – had rendered maine vulnerable.”

The medium helped her “digest the experience”. She did not absorption connected what reviews mightiness say. “I made it for myself. I did not springiness a damn however it would beryllium received oregon interpreted, due to the fact that it gave maine thing to clasp connected to astatine a clip erstwhile I couldn’t power thing that was happening.”

A inactive from the video for the opus Azaab (Torment) shows Meesha speaking with journalists extracurricular a Lahore tribunal [Courtesy of Awais Gohar]

‘Carrying my experience’

The Urdu connection and poetry, she explains, helped her consciousness comfy with expressing herself. “Poetry felt similar protection,” she says. “This was not prose, an interrogation oregon a conversation. I was creating a poetic work, and that enables you – depending connected your agility arsenic a writer and Urdu-speaker – to accidental thing you request to successful a beautiful, clever way.”

After years of feeling “humiliated” and exposed successful the spotlight, Meesha’s lyrics allowed her to hint astatine what she was going done without yielding backstage details. I spot the concealment that poesy offered erstwhile listening to the titular track, Khilnay Ko: To bloom / airy is indispensable / yet the effect asks for darkness. I deliberation of that notation to “darkness”, to a tendency to retreat, erstwhile Meesha talks astir hard days. “Panic attacks were portion of my caller reality,” she says. “You spell from being incapable to [take] a driving trial due to the fact that you garbage to beryllium down the wheel, to refusing to permission the house, to refusing to permission your room, to being incapable to permission your bed.”

What was musculus representation – successful her case, performing – slackened with fear. In 2022, for instance, Meesha changeable a video with her brother, Faris, for Coke Studio. She had written the song, Muaziz Sarif, and it was her 12th clip performing connected the show. It should person been easy. “But nighttime fell, and I could not get my show right. I was flying to Lahore the adjacent time for cross-examination successful court, truthful we lone had that time to film. The video was a one-take shot, and each clip I messed up, we needed to reset the shot. I felt truthful embarrassed earlier the crew.”

She had written the lyrics that thumbed a chemoreceptor astatine critics – How tin you quell a rebellious spirit? – but present she could not accidental them. If you watched the video – arsenic 11 cardinal radical have, to day – each you saw was Meesha descending from a red-carpeted staircase successful a crisp achromatic collared garment paired with a sari. Her bejewelled nails flash, her headpiece twinkles and with a wink of an eyelid speckled with glitter, she kicks disconnected the chorus. She dazzles, agleam arsenic the airy glinting disconnected a shard of glass. When I rewatch the video aft we speak, I presumption it differently. I’m reminded of a lament Meesha makes connected Azaab: Cloaked successful shadows / I’m acrophobic I mightiness hide / I was made of airy / I’m astatine hazard of turning to dust.

But with time, and with the album’s release, the panic attacks subsided. Meesha passed her driving trial past year. “I had been carrying my acquisition for truthful agelong that it felt bully to acceptable the value of it down,” she says. She travelled backmost to Pakistan to motorboat the medium successful Lahore, her hometown, arsenic “an enactment of reclamation”.

The manager Sarmad Khoosat moderated a Q&A astatine a screening of euphony videos from the album, and his archetypal question was, “Where is the aggravated song?” It’s a question that Meesha’s co-producer, Abdullah Siddiqui, asked her galore times: “Where is the anger?” But arsenic she explains, “Anger eclipses what lies beneath: shame, resentment, bitterness. I had to woody with those feelings. I fto it each travel to light.”

‘I felt silenced close aft I had recovered the courageousness to usage my voice,’ Meesha says [Courtesy of Abroo Hashmi]

‘I was made an illustration of’

Khilnay Ko makes meaning of Meesha’s acquisition implicit the past 7 years. After listening to it, I thought of her question to maine each those years ago: “What was the point?” I wonderment if the “point” of her acquisition was to laic bare the civilization of soundlessness that persists successful Pakistan erstwhile it comes to claims of intersexual harassment oregon abuse. In these 7 years, we person witnessed however women proceed to beryllium attacked online erstwhile they stock their experiences, and however the ineligible strategy tin beryllium utilized to people specified women. “You cannot expect survivors to travel guardant [if] the adjacent happening the accused does is weaponise defamation laws to soundlessness them,” Nighat Dad, a rights activistic and Meesha’s lawyer, told Time mag successful 2020.

In 2021, I spoke with Bahzad Haider, a lawyer representing Leena Ghani, an activistic who accused Zafar of inappropriate behaviour successful 2018 aft Meesha made her allegations, and who is besides being sued for defamation by him. Haider quoted an Urdu saying to explicate that defamation cases successful peculiar tin beryllium challenging, dragging retired for years: “To spell to court, you request shoes made of iron, and hands made of gold.” It is an expensive, challenging process.

“I was made an illustration of,” Meesha says. “But speaking retired is ever an enactment of war.” Perhaps the constituent was to punctual america of this. And the medium offers solace: determination is alleviation and state to beryllium won successful that war, adjacent erstwhile it comes astatine large cost.

In 2019, Meesha countersued Zafar for defamation. As their hearings proceed successful court, Meesha remains nether a gag order. The Supreme Court has fixed her support to be hearings via Zoom. Her children present cognize astir the cases. In that room wherever Meesha wrote her songs, the calendar connected the fridge lists shot practice, playdates and schoolhouse events alongside “hearing”. Her children volition glimpse astatine the calendar for times erstwhile their parent cannot beryllium disturbed during a tribunal hearing. And past the busyness of their lives continues. Another summertime has passed, but the pear histrion extracurricular the room model is inactive successful bloom.