Daily Times

What is happening in Islamabad with Faizabad Dharna, still ongoing at the time of the writing article, is a disturbing development, which needs to be appreciated better by the powers that be in our country.

Barelvi Sunnis were long held to be the Low Church or softer face of Sunni Islam in Pakistan. This does not mean of course that their views regarding Ahmadis for example were any different but that by and large they were willing to live and let live. Now they are baying for blood. Where even the 1974 Assembly that declared Ahmadis Non-Muslims for the purposes of law and constitution, a move that will forever poison the well in this country with takfir, undertook to ensure their religious freedom and fundamental rights, the dharna protesters in Faizabad will not rest till Ahmadis are made to wear something akin to a Jewish yellow star from Nazi era.

There is no denying that this mindset is all-pervasive. Do not be fooled by the relatively lower numbers in attendance. Last year we saw the same thing happen at Lahore’s Hafeez Center. Then again when a civil servant who doubles as a TV personality began his hate campaign against this community in his television program earlier this year and was rightly sent a show cause notice by PEMRA, a mob of lawyers attacked PEMRA’s council of complaints and tried to manhandle the members of the body for daring to send a show cause notice. It is amazing how a relatively small community numbering at most half a million in all of Pakistan is deemed to be such a threat by the country’s Sunni Muslim majority which even by the most conservative estimate numbers above 150 million. No honest person can deny the remarkable contributions made to our national life by this tiny Ahmadi community. I have written about these in detail in my previous articles and I would spare the regular reader repetition.

Nation after nation condemned Pakistan’s discriminatory laws against Ahmadis and religious minorities during the recently concluded Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights

Times are changing though and we in Pakistan must realise that no nation is an island unto itself in this increasingly globalised world. Nation after nation condemned Pakistan’s discriminatory laws against Ahmadis and religious minorities during the recently concluded Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (UNOCHR). These laws that Pakistan promulgated in the 1980s also vitiate the very notion of equal citizenship in a modern nation state that was promised explicitly by the founders of this country. This is especially true in the case of Ahmadis who were ensured by Jinnah himself that their religious status as Muslims would never come under question in Pakistan. Indeed the founding father had advised Muslims not to raise sectarian issues of this kind as the same would not benefit anyone but would lead to division. For this he was attacked by the religious parties repeatedly who called him the great infidel. The Ahmadi issue was conveniently raised by these religious parties to split the vote bank of the Muslim League but they failed to do so in 1946 elections because Ahmadis stood with the League to the last man.

In 1953 the religious parties saw a fresh opportunity and started a countrywide movement against Ahmadis again. This time around they were patronised certain opportunistic politicians in Punjab who wanted to bring down the government of Khawaja Nazimuddin in the center. In 1974 Ahmadis again became victims of this vicious power play and were conveniently sacrificed by their erstwhile ally Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto himself fell victim to the same game in 1977 with the Nizam-e-Mustafa Movement in almost identical manner. It is a great irony that Bhutto who boasted of having resolved the 90 year old religious dispute himself had his Muslim credentials questioned in open court. This dangerous game persists till today.

Given this history, it is impossible to contend that the dharna in Faizabad is an independent outpouring of sentiment over a mere formality vis-à-vis an oath in the election forms which means nothing at all. The real target lies elsewhere. Rather one imagines this to be part of a fresh new power play, which would mean further marginalisation of Pakistani Ahmadis who are, as always, collateral damage in this sort of thing. Even more surprising was the order by the Islamabad High Court, which seemed to suggest that the government should accede to the protesters and provide them with a list of Ahmadis in its service. That would be tantamount to painting a target on their heads. Such orders mean ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Let us consider a few hard truths. Pakistan is not exactly a popular country around the world. We are accused of providing safe haven to some of the world’s most notorious terrorists. Indeed the most notorious of them was caught hiding under our noses. The world is concerned about our treatment of minorities, which we must frankly admit is woeful. Our record in women’s rights and other areas of human development is equally bad. We are seen as a crazy maniacal people who will willingly cut the nose to spite the face. The US which had given us the Major Non-NATO Ally status in 2004 is steadily moving in the opposite direction. Make no mistake about it. Even China will not tolerate us becoming a liability globally. It has its hands full with North Korea. In these circumstances what message does the blockade of the main artery between Islamabad, the Federal Capital, and Rawalpindi, the military headquarters, give to the world given our status as a nuclear power? It tells a sorry tale of a state that has lost control.

So for the sake of Pakistan I hope and pray that there are elements in our civil and military leadership who are willing to stem the rot at even this late a stage. They must act in unison not just against the few dharna protesters in Faizabad but against the mindset that keeps Pakistan hostage and a victim to its own internal contradictions. Pakistan must rise up as a responsible nation state that can show the world that it is able to put its own house in order.

The writer is a practising lawyer. He blogs at http://globallegalforum.blogspot.com and his twitter handle is @therealylh

Published in Daily Times, November 20^th 2017.