Religion and politics have had a complex interaction throughout history to the present. But in the early decades of the 21st century, the rise of violent extremist ideologies disrupted the very fabric of society and undermined the foundational principles of the Westphalian order (1648): welfarism, secularism, plurality, inclusivity, and democracy.
The separation of the church and the state was one of the cardinal principles of the nation-state system. One can argue that secularism grew out of one of the tenets of the Treaty of Westphalia: “whose region, his religion.” Two nation-states, namely, India and Pakistan, emerged in 1947 after the withdrawal of Great Britain from India. The struggle against the British colonial government took different forms and religion did play an important role in it. Gandhi made use of religious symbols to bring people to the struggle for independence, and the All-India Muslim League employed religion to enlist the support of the Muslims for a separate state.
The Muslims’ demand for a separate homeland saw the day when the British finally left the subcontinent in 1947. As Muslims used Islam as a rallying point in the twin struggle against the British and Hindus, its role in the newly founded state of Pakistan became an issue of intense struggle between the modernists and the conservatives.
It is also a known fact that the founding father of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, never stated that Pakistan would be a theocracy. His various addresses indicated that he envisioned Pakistan as a democratic state where Muslims of the subcontinent would have the freedom to shape their lives by Islamic social and cultural values as they interpreted them.
The absence of a practicable design for the state structure made it easier for the power-wielders to use religion as a tool.
The Quaid understood very well that a democratic state cannot simultaneously be an ideological state, as the latter entails elements of compulsion that contradict democratic principles. It was evident from the public statements of the founding fathers of Pakistan that while Islam held importance, its role in the polity was limited.
In the post-partition period, there was no blueprint prepared for effectively governing the new country. What happened in the initial formative years was contrary to what was envisioned by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
The absence of a practicable design for the structure of the state and for the role of Islam thus made it easier for the power-wielders to use religion as a tool of politics. Moreover, the seeds of religious extremism and intolerance sown by General Ziaul Haq under his project of Islamization and puritanical interpretation of Islam promoted a conservative, harsh, and fundamentalist brand of Islam in Pakistan. Religious extremism, once injected into the bloodstream of a nation, rarely leaves the body politic, as is the case in Pakistan after the death of Zia.
We Pakistanis have a rampant mob mentality that drives aggression and leads to destruction and chaos. It is a bitter truth that the state and society have not given the rights and respect to the minorities that they deserve.
In many cases, those who commit violence against minorities are exonerated for fear of backlash; their worship places are targeted, and incidents targeting them for desecrating the Holy Quran and the personality of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) have become more of a norm than an exception. Minorities are considered second-class citizens, which greatly undermines the pluralistic fabric of society. This demonstrates an extremist mindset.
The national counter-extremism guidelines issued by the government in 2018, start from the very concept of extremism, the document says, that extremism is broadly identified as having absolute belief in one’s truth with an ingrained sense of self-righteousness. The entrenched sense of righteousness enables the holder of belief to grow a judgmental attitude towards other people’s beliefs followed by intolerance”.
A trend of Islamic intolerance towards minorities has been escalating since August 2023, when more than 20 churches and nearly 100 homes were attacked. While incidents of blasphemy allegations are not new in Pakistan, it has become a trend to lynch and kill even before unearthing evidence regarding whether the accused person is guilty or not.
Such heart-wrenching incidents include the lynching of Sri Lankan citizen Priyantha Kumara, a factory manager in Sialkot; the 2017 lynching of Mashal Khan, a student at Abdul Wali Khan University, accused of blasphemy; the rampage and burning of churches and homes in Jaranwala, Faisalabad; and, most recently, the brutal attack on Nazir Masih, a 72-year-old Christian man, with his home and business set on fire in Sargodha. These incidents serve as a reminder of the government’s failure to de-radicalize extremists and promote interfaith harmony.
It is the most crucial responsibility of the government to enact effective policies to address extremism and intolerance, treating minorities as equal citizens. Priorities include promoting interfaith harmony, reforming education to foster critical thinking, and registering religious seminaries while avoiding political manipulation of Islam.
These actions align with democratic principles and foster progress, peace, and prosperity in Pakistan.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Mardan.