Daily Times

Moulana Fazalur Rehman President of JUI(F)has been bickering against the present government for the last one year after losing the electoral battle along with many of his party men in the last General Election. Since he was the only vocal remnant of his class dabbling in politics, therefore sitting idle and brooding over his last defeat is not his cup of tea. He needs some fireworks to come out of his present ignominy, which the initial weaknesses of this government have provided him in abundance. March and Dharna are always available for the politicians to bide their time when they have nothing else to do.

He has now seriously launched his march and ‘dharna’ to the capital to unseat the current Prime Minister without knowing what is his agenda to salvage the dwindling economy of the country. He invited other opposition parties to join him in his march, but initially he was not taken seriously. Most other opposition leaders were facing trial and were also under detention. Moreover they had no combined agenda to launch a common struggle against the government.

Then after some deliberations between the main political parties i.e PML(N) and Pakistan Peoples party, it was decided they were ready to join the march of the Moulana provided he does not use his religious card to boost his campaign. This was a vital matter which was for the first time so openly paraded, and passed to the Moulana as a pre-condition. The Moulana spurned their contention by saying that this country was built for Islam, the constitution unequivocally declared Islam as the state religion and provided that its system will be governed according to the injunction of Quran and Sunna. He contended that how could any campaign be launched without bringing Islam and the focal Islamic provisions of the Constitution to the fore. In other words he rejected the demand of the other parties, and stuck fast to his ideology. The opposition parties had no answer to this stand with the result that they first showed some diffidence to join him, but later as they saw his movement gathering momentum and winning support of rural bourgeois classes of clerics and Madrassa operators, they willy nilly joined him. They agreed to lend their moral and physical support to the Moulana but the nature and manner of their support to this Dharna was not very clear. Moreover each opposition party had its divergent views on the issue of supporting the Moulana.

The point I am trying to make is that for the first time in the history of Pakistan, political parties have publicly shown their aversion to use religious card in their politics. Despite raising the pillars of our empire on religious foundation, we have seen much to our dismay that this pious act has neither improved the general well-being of our poor masses nor given us any boost for progress and prosperity in this fast developing world, nor even raised our image or our reputation in the comity of nations in the outside world.

With some exceptions, many religious parties either sympathize with militant groups or maintain an ambiguous disposition towards these groups

It is a paradox that since the inception of this country, no religious party has ever won enough electoral votes to capture power, nor have even come closer to grabbing power in the past, which sufficiently indicates how far our people have become wiser to know what is good for their welfare and what is not. With the exception of the Jamaat-e-Islami, religious political parties and groups invariably identify with a particular religious denominational or sectarian group; there can be more than one party with the same religious sectarian identity. This shows that the religious parties in Pakistan have played a prominent part in spreading sectarian politics rather than doing any work for achieving our national objectives. No religious party has ever been able to secure more than a few seats in the provincial and national elections. However their performance is better when they enjoy the blessings of a military government.

Several reasons explain their dismal electoral performance. Religious political parties cannot make a credible claim that they are the only saviours of Islam. All the major political parties do not disown Islam. The PML and its various factions, along with the PPP, the PTI, the MQM and others, do not reject the identification of the Pakistani state with Islam. The notion of a secular system in the Marxian sense has never been popular in Pakistan. Most nationwide and regional political parties talk of religious and cultural tolerance and socio-economic justice and the notion of equality with the same vigour and force.

Most religious parties have a religious-sectarian identity that restricts the party to the people with a strong religious-sectarian orientation. Others, who do not share the religious orientations of the party, stay away from it. Religious political parties compete with one another on the basis of religious outlook, sectarian identity and personality of the leader. Even within each sect, there are more than one party, making competition more narrowly focused.

Religious parties have an image problem. Not many people, particularly the educated, trust religious leaders as having enough political acumen and an understanding of the dynamics of domestic and global politics. They tend to join the nationwide or regional political parties in a very large number. The religious parties have to compete with one another to build support from highly conservative religious circles. With some exceptions, many religious parties either sympathize with militant groups or maintain an ambiguous disposition towards these groups. This alienates a good number of people from these parties. The strength of religious parties lies in having street power of loyal activists and madrassa students. The parties that have links with madrassas and mosques tend to develop more political clout.

The history of religious parties in Pakistan reveals that they have always flourished during military regimes because the army men needed civilian support for their legitimacy which the religious parties were too eager to supply. Inside the frame-work of electoral politics, they could never convince the ordinary electorate that they could make and work projects of public welfare nor had the capacity to effectively control poverty and ignorance. Whenever they achieved a modicum of political prominence, they did so under the wings of major political parties as their junior coalition partners. On their own, they have neither the will nor capacity to deliver to the masses. The religious card was as vain and vacuous yesterday as it is today. And the people of Pakistan are far wiser to understand that than before.

The writer is a former member of the Provincial Civil Service, and an author of Moments in Silence