It is almost exactly eight years since I came to Pakistan after having lived and worked in the US for close to 30 years. Initially, I went through a difficult period of readjustment. What literally kept me going was my work in King Edward Medical College (KEMC), the company of my late father, a chance to expound on matters of all sort in these pages and of course, the mangoes and the Lahori food that is, as they would say in the old country, ‘to die for’. Yes, the dirt, the dust and the heat all made life difficult but in time, I got used to them. However, the one thing I had the least trouble getting used to was the people.
While in the US and this is now the immediate post 9/11 period, much was said about Pakistan being a dangerous place to live. Sectarian violence, especially killing of Shia doctors, was much in the news at that time as was the entire stuff about the rise of religious extremism. Being a Shia by birth and a ‘liberal’ sort by inclination, my friends and family in the US felt that I would be ‘at risk’ in a society that was considerably more polarised than it was when I left in 1971. Since my arrival, every couple of years I have done a ‘look back’ to see how much effect the increased level of religiosity has had on my ability to function both as an individual as well as a professional. Interestingly enough, very little.
During my years in the US, except for family, friends from my college days and a few new friends in the Pakistani American community, I must admit that by and large, I found the so-called Pakistani liberals an entirely undependable bunch. My best professional relationships were with Jews and Italian Americans. As far as personal friendship outside of my professional circles is concerned, my wife and I still cherish those that in the Pakistani context would be called ‘conservative’ Muslims, not the hijabi-salafi sorts that are a relatively new phenomenon in the US, but rather those who came from conservative Pakistani families but grew up in the relatively tolerant environment that existed in the Pakistan of the 1960s and the1970s.
When I started working in the KEMC, I interacted with different sorts and here I must admit that those that supported me wholeheartedly after they figured out that I was not out to make money through ‘corrupt practices’ were the ‘Islamist’ sorts. Of these, supporters of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) were most prominent. Interestingly, none of them ever made a big deal about why I was never there for the Friday congregational prayers.
The only slight hitch I had was with a colleague who was a JI supporter. Initially, he was always a little reserved with me, but then one day while having a chat with him I asked him what year he graduated from the KEMC. After I found out the year, I told him that he was a classmate of my cousin. He literally jumped up in excitement and said, “But then you are a Punjabi!” Because of my name and my rather ‘chaste’ Urdu, he thought that I belonged to a Karachi-based party and when he found out that I did not, he was from then onwards one of my staunchest supporters in the KEMC!
The point then is that over the years I have been entirely comfortable working with people that are clearly conservative Muslims. I always feel a little dismayed when members of the so-called ‘liberal elite’ in Pakistan as well as many in the English language media behave as if conservative Muslims are the ones preventing Pakistan from becoming a ‘modern and viable’ democratic country. From a political perspective, the ‘Islamist’ parties and extremist organisations do feed directly or indirectly into sectarian violence as well as discrimination against minorities, especially those belonging to the Ahmedi community. Based upon my personal experience and considering the small percentage of votes that these parties get during general elections, it does seem to me that extremist religious positions are not very popular with the public.
Liberalism and conservatism are not as well defined in Pakistan as for instance in the US. This point becomes pretty obvious if we look at the public support available to the Pakistan Tehreek-Insaaf (PTI) and its leader, Imran Khan. Many PTI supporters, especially among the youth as well as the middle classes, could well be described as ‘liberal’ by many conservative Muslims. At the same time, the PTI has substantial support among the more conservative sections of society. This suggests that the liberal-conservative divide is more a matter of lifestyle and educational background rather than of politics. True, political liberalism or what is now called progressivism is however a relatively rare commodity in Pakistan.
This does not mean that basic liberal concepts need to be abandoned by all political parties that wish to succeed in the upcoming elections. Liberals as well as conservative Muslims can agree on many things and these are the ones that need to be emphasised. Individual rights including religious rights of minorities, poverty alleviation, the rule of law, public safety, transparent governance, universal access to education, equality of opportunity, merit based appointments in the public sector, proper oversight of business and democracy within political parties are ideas that most Pakistanis are willing to support. Frankly, most of these are also parts of any liberal agenda.
My basic contention is then a simple one. Just because a person is a practising Muslim does not in any way mean that the same person cannot be a political liberal. In my personal experience at least, many conservative Muslims are quite liberal in their politics. And that perhaps is the reason why I still believe that Pakistan has a chance to evolve into a functioning ‘liberal’ democracy.
The writer has practised and taught medicine in the US and in Pakistan. He can be reached at [email protected]