As Moharram approaches, news reports are beginning to filter in about the probability of renewed sectarian violence. A worrying dimension in recent years has to do with the Indian ‘hand’ in formenting such conflict, presumably in retaliation against the Pakistani ‘hand’ in Kashmir.
The government will do no more than try to enforce its usual precautionary measures. Pillion-riding will be banned for a month and police patrols will be increased briefly at potential ‘troubled spots’. Leaders of various sects will be called in and told to behave. For the record, a few ‘raids’ will be conducted by the administration to ‘unearth’ small arms. A number of ‘objectionable’ pamphlets and handbills will be duly ‘banned’ by a simple Gazette notification, some walls will be scrubbed-clean and here and there a couple of ‘militants’ from the leading sects will be picked up and bunged into ‘protective custody’ for a week or two. Once Moharram is over without ‘too much bloodshed’, Deputy Commissioners will heave a sigh of relief and life will be allowed to return to ‘normal’.
In effect, ‘normal’ life means that the various sectarian political groups and parties are free to kill one another with abandon and to terrorise the population. It means that they are free to acquire deadly weapons (‘prohibited’ is the more apt word apparently), free to publish and distribute their poisonous tracts, free to organise and conduct illicit trades (drugs is big business), free to receive ‘donations’ from foreign governments — in short, they are free to break every conceivable law in the land because no government has ever had the will to thward their putrid passions. In consequence, more lives are lost during the year through religious violence than during Moharram.
Why can’t anything be done about armed fundamentalists whose barbarous mentality and diabolic methods mock the very notion of a tolerant and ‘civilised’ society? Why have they been allowed to spread their vicious tentacles into every nook and corner of this country?
Part of the reason may have to do with out political history: cynical political leaders — like Z A Bhutto, Zia ul Haq and Nawaz Sharif — have desperately clutched at the coat-tails of the fundamentalists when their governments have been rocked by a crisis of confidence or political legitimacy. Much irreparable damage has been done to the notion of the modern state by infusing political meaning into our faith. Part of the reason has to do with the continuing failure of governments to provide education and jobs to the swelling tide of the unemployeed which has become a fertile breeding ground for alienation and religious revivalism. It is too late to put the genie of fundamentalism back into the bottle?
If you talk to Nawaz Sharif in private, he will fervently argue that the blasphemy laws are totally misplaced, conveniently ignoring the fact that his government blithely strengthed the same laws during its stint in power, first in Punjab and then in Islamabad. “Why, even the Holy prophet (PBUH)”, he will tell you with disarming sincerity, “didn’t pass such strictures in his lifetime”. Then, with obvious pride, Mr Sharif will claim credit for routing the fundos at the last polls. Yet when it comes to lending a helping hand to Benazir Bhutto in her feeable efforts to amend the blasphemy laws and make them marginally less unacceptable, Mr Sharif is all sound and fury in his defence of “Islam”.
Talking publicly to Iqbal Haider, our inimitable law minister, can be an even more frustrating experience, especially for the earful monitories. “All this hoohaa by the Biships about human rights is counter-productive”, he bristles indignantly, “the Indians will exploit it to weaken our case over Kashmir”. In private, of course, the former human-rights activist readily concedes that the blasphemy laws should be scrapped, even as he admits rather sheepishly that his ‘social-democratic’ government doesn’t have the wherewithal to do so.
In both cases, the triumph of hypocrisy over truth, of cynicism over morality, is complete.
In theory, of course, all may not necessarily be lost. Just as bad governmets and reckless oppositions have steadily given in to the fundamentalists, a good government and a responsible opposition can join hands to drive the fundos out of business over time. It is a question of will, of putting the country first.
In practice, however, the opposition is true. Mr Sharif will go to any lengths to bring the government down, including allying with the fundos all over again and demeaning his ‘achievement’ in the last elections. In turn, Mr Bhutto wants all the reins of power and will twise the constitution, if necessary, to achieve her purpose. Neither is losing any sleep over the deepening faultlines which crisscross the landscape of our country.
Religious fundamentalism and sectarianism is even more incompatible with the modern nation-state than incipient ethnicity. If the mainstream political parties continue to ignore its implications, the genie will devour the state in time to come. Something should be done about achieving a minimum consenus on how to put it back into the bottle. And quickly.