Tooba Syed

Tooba Syed (Urdu: طوبیٰ سید, Born: May 29, 1991 - ) is a Pakistani feminist, grassroot political organizer and gender researcher. She is the secretary information and publishing of the feminist organization Women Democratic Front and Awami Workers Party, Punjab. She teaches as faculty at Centre of excellence for Gender Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Syed did bachelors in dental surgery, dentistry during 2010 – 2015 from Riphah International University, Islamabad. She practiced dentistry in Islamic International Dental Hospital from 2014-2015 and then started public health research and teaching. In 2017, she worked with the Pakistan National Council of the Arts,Ministry of Information as a project officer. She is teaching at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad since 2017 as lecturer in Centre of excellence for Gender Studies.

Ideology

As a feminist, political worker and organizer, Syed is interested in feminist theory, its practice, issues of women, gender and politics of South Asia.

Politics

Syed was involved in grassroot organizing since her college days. Syed occasionally writes in Dawn News about political organizing and issues of politics and gender.

Awami Workers Party

As a political worker, she is associated with the Awami Workers Party, a left-wing party since 2013. She became politically active after her first interaction with the AWP in 2012, during a protest organized in solidarity with the missing Baloch people. She joined AWP in 2013 and participated in arranging study circles at Quaid-i-Azam University with her fellow party workers. She also served AWP as women secretary of Rawalpindi-Islamabad cabinet.

During her political struggle with AWP, she organized an anti-eviction housing rights movement in Islamabad’s kachhi abadis with the All Pakistan Alliance for Katchi Abadis (slums) and did advocacy and policy work too when Capital Development Authority decided to demolish twelve such settlements in the capital. The All-Pakistan Alliance for Katchi Abadis was an attempt to mobilise slum dwellers to stand up for their rights of low-cost housing instead of falling prey to land mafias and political manipulation.

Syed, during her political journey has also organized the landless peasants movement and Okara’s women’s resistance movement.

Under the banner of AWP, she arranges political schools to deepen the understanding of methods of organizing progressive political resistance in Pakistan along with social, economic and political structures of inequality and oppression.

While joining the anti-war train march to Karachi for their second workers’ congress on October 15–16, 2016, Syed said: “AWP is the political alternative. It stands against all kinds of discrimination, be it class-based, gender-based, or religion based, no war but class war”.

Syed has raised her voice for student issues as well.

Syed was elected as secretary information, AWP Punjab unit in its third congress held on January 17, 2020 in Faisalabad.

General Elections 2018

During 2018 Pakistani general election, while campaigning for AWP contestants, Ammar Rashid (NA-53) and Ismat Shahjahan (NA-54), Syed put her tireless efforts. She said: “We are doing door-to-door visits and market rounds. Our campaign is based on the idea of reaching out to as many people as possible. Both our candidates have been on the road all day since the campaign started to make sure that they can themselves answer voters’ questions regarding our politics and manifesto. Many people have reached out to us, especially young people, to join our campaign and to expand it their areas. It is a people’s campaign that runs on the work and labour of volunteers. We are up against big money in a country where there is a lot of cynicism when it comes to politics. We are basing our campaign around hope and the need and relevance of an alternative in today’s Pakistan.”

Syed believes in the importance of feminists working together with the left as it will protect them from threat of right-wing fascism. Syed while working on the history and politics of feminist movements in Pakistan, laments the lack of second generation of leadership of women’s movement after 1980s. She said: “With the recent developments in the feminist movement and politics in the country, I think what it has done for us is open up a space where generations of feminists can come together and learn from each other. There is still a long way to go. Bridges will have to be made to work together for the emancipation of women and people of all genders. One of the reasons why there is such a gap between feminists themselves.” According to Syed, feminist alliances between different organizations is the only way to bridge the gap: “There is a lot that the older generations have to transfer to us in terms of organising and strategy.” “In a country like Pakistan, a strong political movement encompassing and addressing all forms of oppression including class, gender, caste, religion and ethnicity is the only way to go forward. With the older feminists focusing on state and younger feminists shifting the narrative towards the home, I think we have together theorised patriarchy in Pakistan through our varying and evolving positions over time.”

As part of the South Asian feminist network, she also works with South Asian women’s groups such as Sangat and collectives.

Syed, supported the metoo movement in Pakistan while describing the incident of Khaisore,she said, “It is an issue of feminism and it should be taken up as such. If #MeToo is about all women then the woman of Khaisore who spoke up should be the face of the movement in the country.”

While describing Sheema Kermani’s Dhamal in Sehwan, after attack (Feb, 2017) on shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Syed said, “Women know what violence is, and what it feels like when your freedom is taken away, that’s why they rise up like this.”

Syed, as AWP worker, organized the event on International Women’s Day, 2017 and invited renowned south Asian feminist Kamla Bhasin who is also a South Asian feminism activist and writer.

Women Democratic Front

Syed is the secretary information of the socialist-feminist women collective and organization Women Democratic Front which was founded along with other AWP workers from across country with an aim to involve the working-class women in political struggle and ensure their representation from federal to basic unit levels.

Under the banner of WDF, Syed condemned the recent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government order of banning media coverage of all events in females’ schools across KP province. She said: “The achievements of the girls will not be shared on social media and with the public in the name of “protection”, “modesty”and pardah”.

Aurat March 2018

Syed was among the organizers of Aurat March 2018, which was organized due to widespread structural violence, gender inequality and organized crime against women in Pakistan. The same day Women Democratic Front (WDF), as socialist-feminist organization, was launched.

Aurat Azadi march 2019

Syed, as a WDF member, also organized the Aurat Azadi March 2019, in Islamabad. She said about march: “[The march was held to] heal collectively from the wounds inflicted on us by capitalism, patriarchy, militarism, religious fundamentalism and imperialism.”

Syed said: “It has been particularly interesting to witness bourgeoisie men engage in an entirely selective class critique when it comes to women — an intellectual inconsistency that has never been more transparent. The critique is particularly insincere because it puts the entire burden of working-class representation on the shoulders of middle-class women [activists] instead of having a nuanced debate about concerted efforts to weaken the left [in] the country’s wider political spectrum.”

Aurat Azadi March 2020

Syed was part of organizing team for the Aurat Azadi March 2020 in Islamabad.