Moni Mohsin's The Impeccable Integrity of Ruby R Is A Clever Satire, An Excerpt:

Moni Mohsin's The Impeccable Integrity of Ruby R. cleverly satirizes the use of social media as a political propaganda and provides a thoughtful take on the MeToo debate all while delivering quicksilver dialogues. An excerpt:

Ruby took the paper from Uzma and slowly re-read the piece. She had flicked through it on her phone on the way to work. It alleged that Integrity was not the morally pristine party it claimed to be, for it was funded by shady people involved in all manners of unethical and illegal trades, ranging from human trafficking to land mafias and drugs. And that far from being naive recipients of unknown donors’ largesse, Saif Haq and his inner circle at Integrity had assiduously courted them for their money.

The report was extremely damaging, but the tone was not inflammatory. There was solid research backing every assertion. Photographs of Saif embracing Iqbal Butt and laughing uproariously at the home of another equally unsavoury character mentioned in the body accompanied the article. The image of Saif lounging on a settee, enjoying the pleasures of a Havana cigar alongside the crooked entrepreneur at the general’s son’s wedding, was also reused.

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But the article’s possible veracity was not the point, at least, not at Integrity. What mattered at the secretariat was that someone had dared to smear a man who had risen from poverty, by his own sweat and resolve, to become a champion of the poor and oppressed. Why would anyone want to wound such a man and attack his party? The only explanation was that they were in cahoots with a venal, self-serving elite that shored up a corrupt, degenerate edifice of power. They did not, in short, have the interest of the nation at heart, which made them complicit in its destruction. It made them traitors. True patriots did not engage with traitors; they decimated them. So, that day, Ruby became a true patriot.

Long ago, someone—was it her father?—had told Ruby that her conscience was like a solid glass cube enclosed in a tight iron cylinder lodged inside her heart. The cube would rotate every time she knowingly wronged someone. In the beginning, every rotation would be agonizing as the cube’s sharp edges smashed and splintered against the cylinder. But if she sinned again and again, the cube would rotate more frequently. Gradually, its sides would chip away and a time would come when the cube’s edges would disappear altogether. The cube would then be as smooth and rounded as its enclosing cylinder. Then it would spin effortlessly, painlessly no matter how great her crime.

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Ruby could not claim, in all honesty, that she didn’t suffer whenever she launched yet another personal salvo against Farah, but as the days wore on and her actions became routine, a certain numbness set in. In the beginning, it had been excruciatingly hard and every time she attacked Farah, or encouraged someone else to do so, she was filled with self-loathing and shame. Her language had been insipid back then, her condemnations timid. But egged on by Saif’s daily texts, in which he heaped praise and gratitude on her, called her his amulet against evil, his warrior queen, his brave heart, his love, her language on social media became uglier and her threats more vicious. Of course, she didn’t put her name to any of her posts—that would have been cruel—but she knew that Farah was aware that she was part of the cavalry, if not the actual general leading the charge against her.

Farah’s story became a sensation. Even if it had been a stage play, the cast of characters couldn’t have been more intriguing: a charismatic leader with a dying wife, a bunch of powerful and shady businessmen, a resolute publisher with a tarnished history and a young crusading journalist. Splitting the nation down the middle into two camps, both of whom called themselves patriots and the other traitors, the story dominated television, radio, newspapers and social media.

At the centre of the storm, Farah was bombarded with requests for interviews and pitched in dogfights with Shabana and Faisal on live television. Online, she was savaged by not just Ruby and her crew but an army of Saif’s Rottweilers too. But she was not without her supporters: many members of the public, young women in particular, who were outraged by the sexual violence in the virtual attacks on Farah, fought her corner with equal ferocity. Farah’s colleagues and publisher were staunch in their support for her, as were Usman, Faisal and Jamal in Saif’s.

Saif, himself, spoke only once. He recorded a short statement for transmission on his favourite news channel in the hospital’s waiting room. (Samar’s doctor had refused Saif’s request to allow the three-man camera crew into the intensive care unit.) Looking haggard and sad, Saif spoke with great dignity and self-restraint on the need for responsible journalism.

‘I pray,’ he said, ‘with all my heart for the moral correction of this misguided young woman who has chosen to trash the reputations of our upstanding, philanthropic citizens at the behest of malign, corrupt elements. I disagree most vehemently with her article, but I am still pained to hear of the sort of abuse to which she has been subjected. That kind of misbehaviour has no place in our Eastern values. All young women, no matter how provocative their actions and how great their misdemeanours, remain our sisters, our daughters. And as such, are entitled to our reverence. No, I cannot comment on who the mastermind behind this scurrilous article is. Whether Miss Mujahid is a spy furthering the agenda of a hidden hand that seeks to destabilize our nation, or a tool of corrupt elites who would keep our countrymen downtrodden and poor, it is a matter for our noble services to investigate. My wife is ailing. I must return to her bedside.’

Despite all the hate directed at her, or perhaps because of it, Farah became an overnight celebrity. Her cause was taken up by feminists and women’s rights campaigners both at home and abroad. She became an emblem of the pushback against patriarchy and was invited to speak at human rights conferences and seminars hosted by famous feminists. Since one of the men she had accused of being part of an extortion racket was a bearded gentleman who funded a brace of religious schools founded in his late father’s name, Farah was also at the receiving end of the ire of a council of mullahs who denounced her as an immoral woman in thrall to Western depravity. She was ordered to ‘pack up her bags’ forthwith and leave for the lascivious West, where debauched people like her belonged. There was no place for her in this Godfearing, pious society.

Foreign news agencies contacted Farah, eager for her story, and showered her with offers of op-eds. To her bemusement, Farah found herself being celebrated as a standard bearer of the modern Muslim woman’s fight to be heard. She was also flooded with invitations from literary festivals and was requested to recount her experiences of intersectionality as a Muslim woman of colour.

Idly surfing the channels one evening, Ruby stumbled across a news programme in which Farah’s story was being discussed by a panel consisting entirely of male commentators. Ruby watched for a minute or two, but disgusted by their paranoid conspiracy theories and smirking insinuations, she switched off the television and retreated to her bedroom. During the day, surrounded by colleagues in the office, she could affect nonchalance. But at night, alone in her room, Ruby was plagued by demons. Despite her best efforts to justify her behaviour—that she had done it for her country and for Saif who was its certain saviour—she still felt wretched about Farah.

Excerpted with permission  from The Impeccable Integrity of Ruby R. by Moni Mohsin and published by Penguin Random House.

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