In light of the events that have occurred this year alone, the attack on the Quetta Hazaras, the Abbas Town Bombing in Karachi and the burning of Christian homes in Joseph Colony, Lahore, it has become abundantly clear that there is only one cure for Pakistan’s sectarian mess. The country is in desperate need of secular reform.
If Islam had been agreed upon as the state religion by popular consensus through a democratic process then one would have to oblige by the decision of the majority. However, Islam was imposed upon Pakistan by appointed and not elected legislators. And that is where the problem lies. Liaquat Ali Khan was appointed as a minister of Pakistan when the country was born and his cabinet’s Objectives Resolution therefore did not necessarily represent the voice and demands of the new nation. However moderately Islamic, liberal and progressive the Objectives Resolution may seem to be, it was a moment in Pakistan’s history that laid the early social foundations of the country. Such a highly consequential decision should have had confirmed public backing.
Pakistan’s ideology and trajectory in its nascent years had been heavily influenced by a ruling political elite that lacked a strong constituency in the new country. In the contemporary Pakistan that is plagued by sectarianism and minority persecution it is high time Pakistanis bring the debate of secularizing Pakistan into mainstream political dialogue. Pakistan’s Islamic orientation has clearly failed its people, and now the country must explore more progressive policies.
The problem with being an Islamic state is that the views of those outfits that believe in marginalizing minorities and imposing their own opinions are given legitimacy. The country’s recognition of one particular interpretation of Islam is highly ambiguous. Therefore, this confusion leads extremists to take the liberty to enforce what they feel should be the direction for the country. Every interpretation of Islam including those more extreme in nature are legitimized because of the ambiguity that is a fundamental part of Pakistan’s Islamic institution. This gives everyone just cause to decide for themselves just how Islamic they want the state to be. Pakistan needs to delegitimize religious justification for acts of injustice and make them irrelevant in the political sphere. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan used Shariah to justify the attack on Malala. Bhutto exploited Islamic sentiment to profit politically by declaring Ahmadis non-Muslim. Such incidents are an unavoidable corollary of being an Islamic state. This is a troubling reality to come to terms with.
Today, Pakistanis talk about how these injustices were not Islamic in essence, but what the country needs to do is simply deem them violations of basic human rights regardless of whether these wrongdoings are Islamic or not. Pakistan can attempt to implement liberal reforms but unless the state does not become secular there can be no moving forward. Pakistan will continue to be shackled by the argument of the religiosity of its policies. There is sometimes debate on controversial topics like the Blasphemy Law, which is a by-product of the Islamic legacy created by the early political elite. Pakistanis discuss whether this law is even a fundamental part of Islamic doctrine or not. But that is not the discussion that people should be having. A secular state would not question whether the law is mentioned in Islamic doctrine, it would question whether the law is fair or not. There is talk about how to contain the proliferating extremist violence. It is identified that there needs to be a clear-cut government policy and simultaneous army cooperation to tackle militancy. But rarely is there discussion on how to nullify the raison d’etre of these problematic outfits, which is to promote a rigid Islamic state, on Pakistan’s main political forums.
The country faces many obstacles that prevent the discussion of secularization. There is often a misinformed bias against the idea. Some feel that secularism is anti-Islamic bynature. The barriers the country faces today are because people have not been exposed to the idea and that is why it is vital to start having this discussion in the mainstream media. Even though Islam was undemocratically imposed on Pakistan’s governing system, the process should be reversed through democratic means. Access to impartial information and no holds barred political discussion is an integral part of any democracy. This is something Pakistan should aspire to – even if it means touching on uncomfortable territory.
The approach that Pakistan must take in any policy debate should be one of rationalizing whether a specific policy benefits the society. Civil society should not address policy decisions bound by the constraints of religious law. The notion to entirely secularize is asking for a very drastic change, but with every successive religiously motivated violent incident, secularism seems far more appealing. Pakistan can no longer afford to avoid this discussion that has long been on the cards.
- Sharik Bashir
