Pakistan is afflicted by religious extremism and radicalisation. Thousands of people have lost their lives in sectarian warfare and to terrorists who have declared war against the Pakistan state. Consequently, the very fabric of the state and society in Pakistan has been jolted with intermittent terror attacks. In order to stem the tide of radicalisation and extremism, a strategy that goes beyond traditional security and intelligence measures is urgently needed. This last article of the series is an exercise in this respect.
To begin with, the claim of Indian Muslims for a separate state was premised on the argument that Muslims constitute a separate nation and, for that reason, they should carve out a separate state where they can perform their religious rituals freely. Such a claim was cultural and religious, and not solely territorial. Moreover, despite the historical fact that Mohammad Ali Jinnah, for political purposes, resorted to the use of religion during the course of the Second World War, he made quick recourse to a secular outlook for the future state and society of Pakistan.
Thus, in his official capacity as head of the Pakistan state, and not necessarily as the leader of a political party and political movement, Mohammad Ali Jinnah made it evident in his August 11, 1947 speech: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.” He further argued that “we are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state…I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in due course Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.”
As the quote highlights, Jinnah’s Pakistan was going to be a secular state in which the Muslim nationalism of the Pakistan movement was to be replaced with Pakistani nationalism. However, in the immediate post-independence period, Jinnah’s vision was hijacked by the Islamists, whose interpretation of Islam was based on medieval morality rather than the liberal and plural contours of a modern state. It is no surprise that from 1948 to 1977, different governments in Pakistan, in order to distinguish Pakistan from India, let loose forces of conservatism based on Islam that kept the forces of change at bay. Zia’s Islamisation process, coupled with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, gave birth to a jihadi culture in Pakistan that has questioned the very foundations of the state since then. The radical Islamists are up in arms against the state, the sectarian minorities and all those liberal voices are struggling to reorganise the state and society according to the vision of its founding father. Such a situation demands extraordinary efforts from the state and civil society for de-radicalisation.
Pakistan, as a state and society, is in a quagmire. In order to defeat terrorist and extremist forces, and stop their recruitment into terrorist outfits, it needs a multi-pronged strategy, both at the ideological and operational level. To begin with, the Pakistani state needs to change its strategic outlook from a purely national security state to a welfare state, grounded in socio-economic equality for all its citizens irrespective of creed, colour, ethnicity and religion. Moreover, in this respect, the ill conceived polices of considering Afghanistan as ‘strategic depth’ and the militants as ‘strategic assets’ should be revised. Such policies have backfired in the past and are most likely to be repeated in the future.
In addition, Pakistan’s ruling ideology is based on religion. According to Article 2 of the 1973 Constitution, Islam is the religion of the state and governments will make efforts to bring all laws in conformity with Islam. Because there is a significant proportion of minorities living in Pakistan, the declaration of Islam as the state religion militates against the very spirit of a secular state in which all communities should be treated equally without any regard to their caste, colour and creed. Such provisions of the Constitution bar any non-Muslim from assuming, for example, the office of the Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan. Therefore, in order to create an equal legal and constitutional framework for its diversified population, such discrepancies should be removed from the Constitution. Moreover, there is a need for the reinterpretation of Islamic texts, according to modern necessities, by the learned jurists of Islam. We have observed that there are certain conservative clerics who have exploited religion through skewed interpretations for their personal and financial benefits. Islam is not a conservative religion. It is there till the last day. Hence, by default, Islamic law in particular has the potential to provide solutions to the various issues of any given society. For this purpose, however, unbiased and objective reinterpretation, as was practically urged by Dr Muhammad Iqbal, is urgently required for Pakistan.
Besides, it is commonly observed that Pakistan is swiftly marching towards radicalisation and extremism. It is not restricted to the madrassas (seminaries) and the lower or middle classes in society. Rather, it has become an elite phenomenon and pop culture in our elite universities. In this respect, Dr Ayesha Siddiqa’s ‘Red Hot Chilli Peppers Islam’ is a timely testimony to such trends in Pakistan. Hence, the radical and extremist mind-set can only be countered by a change in the overall discourse of the state and society. To this end, the state can be effective in promoting plural socio-political and religious values through the media and national curricula, which requires overhaul at the ideological and operational level. In addition, the quality of social sciences and humanities education, which has been very poor for ages, should be accorded a top priority by the government to promote tolerance and other social virtues, along with the training of leadership to shape the nation’s present and future. Last but not least, as members of Pakistani and global civil society, we as individuals should try our best to stay morally sound by being respectful of other religions, ethnicities, colours, castes and political world views. Remember, a civilised society gives birth to civilised politics and a civilised state.
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Dr Ejaz Hussain is an independent political scientist and the author of Military Agency, Politics and the State in Pakistan. He tweets @ejazbhatty. Maqbool Ahmed Wasli is a security and development consultant based in Islamabad. He can be reached at [email protected]