Zubeida Mustafa: The Quiet Flame That Lit the Way (Editorial)

In an age when women confidently occupy newsrooms, anchor prime-time bulletins, and lead investigations into the most entrenched layers of society, it is easy to overlook how distant this norm once seemed. Today, the presence of women in media—speaking on political violence, healthcare crises, legal reform, and domestic inequities—is routine. But in 1975, it was anything but. That was the year a determined young woman named Zubeida Mustafa stepped into the Karachi offices of Dawn as its first woman on the editorial staff—a solitary presence in a space long dominated by men. Her appointment as Assistant Editor was itself a quiet revolution, but what she did with that space over the decades that followed would become a landmark in Pakistan’s journalistic history.

Despite the support of some progressive colleagues, the environment Zubeida entered was not designed to accommodate a woman’s mobility, visibility, or voice. The assumption lingered that women were better suited to less urgent editorial work, sidelined from political commentary or hard-hitting reporting. Zubeida took that limitation and inverted it into opportunity. If the mainstream press chose to ignore the lives of women, she would illuminate them. She made it her mission to write not only about gender, but about education, health, population policy, and social justice—issues often pushed to the margins but central to national life. Her columns did not plead for space; they carved it out.

Across a career that spanned over three decades at Dawn, Zubeida Mustafa became not just a byline but a conscience in print. Her prose was calm but firm, investigative yet humane, driven not by spectacle but by conviction. As an editorial writer and columnist, she helped shape the public discourse with clarity and a deep moral intelligence. Her efforts led to the inclusion of new sections in the paper, such as the education page and the Books & Authors supplement—platforms that brought neglected subjects into serious public engagement. While many saw health, education, and language policy as “soft” beats, Zubeida understood that they were, in fact, the architecture of justice.

What made her presence all the more significant was the time in which she worked. Zubeida’s journalism matured under authoritarian regimes—Ayub Khan’s managed democracy, and later, the dark censorship of Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship. These were decades when the press was muzzled, and truth came with a cost. She never cowered. She championed democracy, press freedom, and the rights of women and minorities in times when such commitments invited state retaliation. Yet Zubeida was not confrontational for its own sake—her dissent was principled, deeply informed, and always aimed at the public good.

She did not hoard this courage. A generation of women journalists found in Zubeida a mentor and a moral compass. Senator and fellow journalist Sherry Rehman described her as “a guiding light” for those navigating the profession. Zubeida made space where none existed, not only in the newsroom, but in the minds of those who doubted that a woman could be both serious and fearless. She wore neither slogan nor spectacle—only conviction and discipline. Her mentorship was often quiet, but enduring.

Beyond the newsroom, she authored eight books and continued to write well after her official retirement in 2008. In 2012, she became the first Pakistani to receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation. She was honored globally and nationally for her contributions to journalism, population awareness, and human rights. These were not just awards for longevity, but for a lifetime of substance, clarity, and truth-telling.

Zubeida Mustafa passed away in Karachi on Wednesday, at the age of 84. With her passing, journalism in Pakistan loses not just a veteran, but a standard-bearer of its higher calling. The tributes pouring in—from civil society, media circles, and human rights groups—reflect a collective grief, not only for the person lost but for the rare integrity she embodied. The Karachi Press Club rightly called her “an institution,” while readers mourn the disappearance of that quiet, intelligent voice that once made so much visible.

In Zubeida Mustafa, we had a journalist who understood the pulse of society, who refused to sensationalize suffering, and who believed that writing was not a performance but a form of service. As we grapple with a media landscape often driven by noise, spectacle, and eroding standards, her memory stands like a quiet rebuke and a lasting ideal.

She will be remembered not only for what she wrote, but for what she made possible.