Muslim tradition in India was highly heterogonous and syncretic. The rapprochement between Hindus and Muslims was an elusive idea given the oppositional character of identity embedded in the social setting of the Indian subcontinent. In this peculiar situation, the pioneering role of Muslims in the movement led to the creation of Pakistan.
The transfusion of politico religiosity started with the adoption of the Lahore Resolution when Islam was picked up as an instrumental symbol to gather Muslims under one flag of the Muslim League to raise the homogenous cause for a separate homeland. The inherent contradiction in Pakistan’s movement is that the idea of a separate state, in the name of religion, was opposed — rather outrightly — rejected by the majority of the religious clergy at that time. It was a movement of the elite, deeply motivated with the rationale of economics, a class scared of competition with the Hindus.
The Objective Eesolution of 1949 was a successful manifestation tantamount to the takeover of religiosity in the newly independent state. The slogan of religion that was taken up to motivate and maximise the support base had turned sluggish. The ruling elite was western educated, liberal in cognitive disposition and moderate in thinking, and was ready to take the country ahead in concordance with the modern republics of that time given that Jinnah himself had a confused secular view of Pakistan.
The religious clergy, which opposed the creation of Pakistan, moved to Pakistan on the pretext of partition and became clarion trumpeters for the implementation of sharia in Pakistan. The mindset of this religious clergy can be observed from the draft of the Constitution, which Maulana Maududi, the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) sent to the constitutional committee that was based on purely Islamic traditions and practices, and called for the head of the state to be addressed as amir or khalifa and be the most pious man on the land, hence never to be a practicing politician. The lack of legitimacy to the Islamists was a determining factor that commenced the avenues of oppositional and confrontationist rhetorical politics.
The sloganeering done in the name of religion now appeared as a tormenting factor. The street mobilisations and road agitation of the Islamists in calling for a strict system of sharia served as a raison d’étre to procrastinate constitution making, resultantly hampering the constitutional and political development in Pakistan.
States in their statecraft co-opt some actors and collateralise with them, and deliberately attempt to contain some of the processes. In Pakistan’s history of democracy, religion has been a prominent factor that has been co-opted by most of the regimes chasing of their real political interests. The advent of martial law in 1958 and the democratic roll back somehow receded the role of religion but again Yahya Khan’s desire to cling to power impelled him to join hands with Islamists with the view that Islamists would bag tremendous votes and would enable him to rule the country unconditionally in alliance with the religious political parties, which proved to be an utter disillusionment. Military dictatorships and religious political parties have always been in collaboration with one another. The JI had an alliance with Ziaul Haq and the MMA with Musharraf. The core argument of these parties has always been religion along with politics, whether it is religious politics that stops these forces supporting democratic processes or that religion in itself needs an authoritative regime for its execution and implementation, both in social and political forms. This is the core argument for Islam and politics.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was considered a charismatic leader in the political landscape of Pakistan but the adoption of policies in his tenure led to the surrender of the state before religious clerics. The draft of 1973’s Constitution corroborates this phenomenon, which not only empowered Islamists but earned them tremendous constitutional legitimacy given the state stood up in defining Muslims and non-Muslims, subsequently ruining the societal fabric. This naivety made Islamists a robust voice without electoral mandate. The state’s arrogation to the right to define a Muslim was wrested to the people from varying sects, beliefs and ideas. Throughout the history of Pakistan, the religious political parties have maneuvered in the name of religion and have emerged as a challenge to the theoretical annotation of democracy notwithstanding seemingly working under constitutional parametres.
The worst crises Pakistan experienced in the post-Zia time were the notions of jihad and militancy combined together affecting Pakistan with the worst kind of extremism, terrorism and sectarian outbreak. Democracy in a society denotes the representation of the people and is meant for the welfare of the masses but this vertical stream of religiosity persistently contradicted democracy and the absence of normative acceptance of democracy as a rhetoric is embedded in religiously motivated definitions of the political system.
The trio of predicaments Pakistan apparently is facing is the exacerbated role religious political parties, policy of militarisation and an attempted de-constitutional structure. The normative discourse of democracy is under a contested ideological scaffold. This is the very same rationale for dysfunctional democracy in Pakistan.
The author is a faculty member in the School of Politics and International Relations at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the author of Democracy in Pakistan: From Rhetoric to Reality