The Hum Tv drama ‘Qarz e Jaan’ has received a lot of backlash from the internet for attempting to humanise one of their characters who is a rapist and harasser. The show stars Yumna Zaidi, Usama Khan and Nameer Khan in titular roles as it depicts the journey of a woman Nashwa (played by Zaidi) who lives in a conservative family and dreams of becoming a lawyer, and make enough money to build a separate home for her single mother Bisma (played by Tazeen Hussain). In the recent episodes, Nashwa is succesful in pushing her grandmother and uncle to allow her mother to marry for the second time to her childhood love Asim (played by Faisal Rehman), but in exchange she’s forced to sacrifice her own independence by marrying her cousin Ammar (played by Nameer).
Bisma and her husband are outraged by the decision but Nashwa reveals that the nikkah had taken place in secret and she hid it from her mother because of her uncle’s threat to murder both of them had they attempted to rebel once more.
In episode 27, Nashwa tells her mother that she accepted the decision to marry Ammar because she believed that he was a misunderstood person who needed proper guidance in his life which his family had failed to do so.
We would like to remind audiences that this is the same Ammar who was involved in gang-raping a girl Maheen, and then tossed her out in the streets so that she might not survive. Nashwa and her colleagues are ready to represent Maheen to help her get justice, but she immediately withdraws her case after Ammar sends her private videos he had taken during the criminal act.
We’re shocked that the show runners have opted to paint such a man as a misunderstood villain and in doing so have destroyed every potential good thing that had appealed audiences to the show in the first thing.
Also in episode 28, Nashwa attempts to ‘fix’ Ammar by urging him to start therapy for his drug abuse problems and when he refuses she urges him to seek out help for his psychological issues.
Social media users were outraged by the recent two episodes of ‘Qarz e Jaan’ because of how they destroyed any of the progress done by the female lead in the previous episodes, only to have her ready to marry a rapist so that she could ‘fix’ him. And we know that many critics might argue that Ammar deserves redemption because he was abused by his father throughout his childhood but how does that in any way justify abuse against women? As journalist Sabah Bano Malik tweeted, humanising abusers this way is why so few women find justice against their rapists and how many men go on to have thriving careers despite being sexual abusers.
We have to question the logic of drama writers because if it was their plan all along to redeem Ammar, then why include the rape storyline in the first place? This is only sending a message to audiences that women will eventually fail to seek justice against their abusers.
“I need people to stop forgetting that the character Ammar is a rapist, a blackmailer, an abusive awful human being – and it’s cool he’s 3 dimensional but it’s horrifying how you all romanticize someone WHO RAPED SOMEONE #QarzEJaan”, she wrote.
Other users felt that the drama had ruined its appeal by humanising someone like Ammar.
“The issue isnt even burhan or nashwa or the realism of the court case, the issue is how the writer has destroyed all other characters to whitewash a rapist, to show him in a sympathetic light as if he was just a drug addict and did not unforgivably brutalize a women,” a user wrote.
Many had begun to drop the show, saying they felt no choice to do so after the poor handling of the rape story line.
Qarz e Jaan had started off strong because it spoke about topics that we rarely see within Pakistani dramas: a woman rebelling against her conservative family by joining the legal profession, a single mother’s struggles and how she went against traditional customs by marrying her childhood love. We are shocked how the drama took a nose dive and rebelled against any of the stances it took by having its female lead try to fix the same man who harassed her on multiple occasions, and whose victim she wanted to represent in legal courts. It’s horrifying to see how regardless of the numerous efforts women will make to encourage more positive representation in dramas, our shows will resort to the same sexist storylines in order to get more ratings.
