In the name of the father’s honour, Allah, the nation-state (of no particular order, or are they one of the same?), women are asked to sacrifice themselves. This demand to take part in the preservation/building of the family, religion and the nation can take a nasty violent turn as shown both in the beginning and near the end of Silent Waters, when its female protagonist Ayesha is driven to jump into a well. The well and its silent waters (as the title of the film) are a dominant motif that both symbolizes the oppression and protest of women in the male-centred society. The story of Ayesha begins when she refuses to be killed for the sake of male honour. She refuses her family’s demand that she kill herself by running away from the well and consequently her family. Near the end of the film, she once again runs away from her family (her son) and her Muslim society by as act protestation, that of jumping into the very same well.
The multiple identities of Ayesha all contribute to her being oppression by different parties; and I would argue that her suicide is the only way for her to break free from all these identities and let her become her own boss. If there aren’t many choices for her when she is alive, at least she can choose her moment of death. As a daughter, her life is jeopardized by the so-called honour of the male head of the household. The idea that female victims of rape bring shame to their family begs a questioning of the role of women in their family and in society at large. Shame can be used as a weapon that is more destructive and fatal than guns and bullets and the casualty is often the female sex. When such abstract concepts as honour and shame gain the upper hand, women easily become the victims of dehumanization. Their value lies upon their remaining “pure”; their rape by enemy renders them polluted and thus endangers their family. They can choose either their family’s demand of their suicide or like the case of Ayesha, the only alternative is to run away. But leaving her family also puts her in a vulnerable position—she will have no one to support her life in a hostile environment. She is at the mercy of others. She needs another male figure to rescue her by marrying her. This is further complicated by the political situation. She has to convert to Islam upon the founding of the new Muslim Pakistani nation-state as well. In order to survive, she has to change her identity as circumstances require her.
Her role as a mother doesn’t make her any less vulnerable. Saleem, her son, is all she has. A more understanding and sympathetic son would have enabled her to fare better, but as the story unfolds, we can see that it is her son who gives her the final push to her death. Refusing Saleem’s demand that she should profess her Muslim faith publicly once her association with the Sikh has become known, Ayesha chooses to put the necklace which she has left behind to her old family back around her neck and remove her head scarf. The former symbolizes her connection with the past before Pakistan’s partition from India while the latter symbolizes her conversion to Islam after her escape from her family and the family’s evacuation from what has become a Pakistani region since 1947. However, the Islam she decides to leave may not be the same Islamic faith that she has embraced, no matter how contingently. Throughout Silent Waters, we see a more fundamentalist version of Islam becoming more and more powerful. There is also an increasing intolerance towards that which doesn’t toe the fundamentalist line. If there can only be one version of Islam, then what is not this Islam will be regarded as the Other. And this Other may even be a worse enemy than the more obvious Other, such as the Sikh. This is because one can more readily tolerate those who are completely different than those who are more of a hybrid kind. The “impure” Muslims are worse in the eyes of the fundamentalists because their “impurity” is a sign of treason and betrayal, something unforgivable. Ayesha’s giving sweets to the Sikh pilgrims is interpreted not as a friendly gesture but as a sign of betrayal. After all, the Sikhs are seen as spy and infidel. What makes matter more complicated is the marriage of the Muslim identity to the Pakistani national identity. When one fails to be a “correct” Muslim, one’s national loyalty can also be questioned. The project of nation building based on Islam as the major building block puts Ayesha in an unfavourable position.
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