Daily Times

In these times of rising geopolitical chaos, the need for mutual understanding among cultures has never been more urgent. Religious differences are seen as fuel for violence and warfare. The nexus of religion and nationalism has left a trail of violence and bloodshed in history. In the 16th and the early 17th centuries, religious nationalism pitted Catholics against Protestants. In recent times it has Jews and Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites, Hindus and Muslims, battling on opposite sides. The conflicts have worsened with struggles for power and claims on natural resources.

The faith-based conflicts, once started, are very difficult to stop because of the strong feelings they awaken. Today’s opportunistic leaders cynically use the slogan of God and the country. It is a divisive tool to stay in power. Religious nationalist groups globally share a common attribute. They actively encourage discrimination against religious minorities, even if it leads to chaos and disorder. Even when appealing to a sense of national community, they have the opposite effect of dividing societies. The Thirty Years’ War in Europe had dreadful costs for central Europe, with around 20% of the German population being killed and the same situation is now happening in the Indian subcontinent. The colonial project of ‘divide et impera’ (divide and rule) fomented religious antagonisms to facilitate continued imperial rule and reached its tragic culmination in 1947.

The current struggle against religious nationalism in India offers a forward. India’s secular nationalism, eclipsed by Hindu majoritarian nationalism, is fighting back. Indians across class, ethnic, gender, caste, and religious lines have taken to the streets in a struggle against imposing a Hindu nation. Under the slogan of ‘Everything is fine’ Hindutva brigade has been given a shot in the arm. Many high-ranking officials in the Indian state machinery, starting from the prime minister, are Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh abbreviated as (RSS), are involved in Mass murder, genocide in Kashmir and Delhi, communal violence which has now become the hallmark of the Indian government. These religious nationalist movements are also responses to a perceived failure in secular nationalism. The land of Gandhi and Nehru may yet uphold its democratic, secular principles under grave threat from regressive forces.

Regrettably, it is too late for Muslim majority countries like Pakistan, who have long succumbed to the evils of religious nationalism. The dire warnings on the outcome of India abandoning its minorities, coming from Pakistan’s leaders and commentators, seem insincere and twisted. Pakistan’s poor record in the treatment of its minorities or those accused like under its unjust blasphemy laws hardly qualifies it to offer advice or criticism. Religion in Pakistan is no longer a private, spiritual experience, something everyone is expected to independently study and interpret before propagating beliefs. It is an open casket in the middle of a public square that people can toss their ill-founded, unverified views into, abusing the fact that their words may be taken as the Divine rule. That a religion best understood through the study of scripture is used as collateral by people who do not reference any ayat or hadith when preaching and imposing their version of Islam. Instead, they leave the bewildered, terrified people who are more confused, passing fatwas left and right without verifying where Islam and their personal opinions diverge.

This use of religion to gain ulterior motives must be stopped if we are ever going to feel safe again

We are surrounded by extremist groups who term Shia followers non-Muslims without quoting where they derive this ‘Islamic’ inspiration. They wreak havoc in our cities and homes and citizens who have coexisted in peace for years fear for their lives due to religious affiliation. Worst of all, we read through our Arabic holy scripture without learning the language or referencing the translations. We complete our Qurans, often without comprehending what any of the words we pronounced faithfully actually meant, not only breeding but encouraging further ignorance. We do not consider ourselves qualified enough to investigate what Islam has to say on an individual basis. And as we surrender to ‘leaders’ who do not reference written Islamic teachings in their religious judgments or live by the rules they endorse, we are in danger of never knowing what our faith really stands for.

Pakistan was founded with religion as its centripetal, uniting force so that people could learn and practice religion freely. But using Islam as a stage for political agendas or blatant intolerance is unacceptable and we need to confront this as a nation. There is a severe lack of symmetry between living as a Muslim in an Islamic republic and not knowing what Islam actually says because we follow leaders, not teachings. It is this imbalance that has spiraled out of control.

When states are not governed in their entirety, international or regional order itself begins to disintegrate. Blank spaces denoting lawlessness come to dominate parts of the map. Domestic and International conflicts reinforce each other. In wars of religion domestic and international conflicts have reinforced against each other. Political, sectarian, tribal, territorial, ideological, and traditional national-interest disputes merge. Religion is weaponized in the service of geopolitical objectives; civilians are marked for extermination based on their sectarian affiliation. Where states are able to preserve their authority, they consider their authority without limits, justified by the necessities of survival; where states disintegrate, they become fields for the contests of surrounding powers in which authority too often is achieved through total disregard for human well-being and dignity.

This use of religion to gain ulterior motives must be stopped if we are ever going to feel safe again. It is human instinct to guard the faith we come from and live according to its tenets. Ultimately, common sense has to prevail even if genuine tolerance may prove elusive for centuries. Against all the odds, sometimes half-measures are better than none. The way forward is a global secular community with religion removed from politics. The state can serve as a neutral guardian of religious and human rights. Muslim societies, in particular, should accept the principles of separation of church and state, democracy, human rights, religious pluralism, and civil society.

The writer is Legal Practitioner and Columnist can be reached at shahrukhmehboob4@gmail.com