The street protest in support of the blasphemy law imposed by the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq is the latest attempt by Islamic orthodox and conservative political parties and groups to force their partisan political agenda and intimidate the political circles that do not share their perspective.
The orthodox and conservative religious circles have directly linked the retention of the current blasphemy law with respect for the Holy Prophet. They are casting the issue in black and white any change in the law is being disrespectful. This is a typical case of mixing up the principle of respect with the method of securing respect, which is being done for making their demand emotionally charged for the ordinary Muslims. This raises two questions: Were the Pakistanis disrespectful before the present law was imposed in Pakistan in mid-1980s? What about the Muslim states that do not have a law similar to that of Pakistan?
The earliest leaders of Pakistan, including Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, never argued that a separate state was needed to protect Islam. They described Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims of British India which guaranteed equal rights and status to all citizens irrespective of religion, caste, creed and region.
They viewed Islam as a culture, civilisation and the ethical foundation of the society. They also viewed it as the key influence on the psyche of the Muslims and a source of law and constitution rather than a constitution itself or a set of pre-determined punitive, regulative and extractive legal codes to be enforced by the state. They had no notion of an exclusively sharia-based legal or judicial system.
All Pakistani constitutions have described the states role with reference to Islam as that of an ENABLER rather than an ENFORCEER and that no law would be in conflict with the teaching and principles of Islam. The major shift in the relationship of the Pakistani state with Islam and the latters role with reference to the state establishment came under the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq. The state took the responsibility of enforcing Islam on orthodox and fundamentalist lines upon itself in order to seek political legitimacy with the support of these elements. It used the state apparatus and patronage to promote Islamic orthodoxy and militancy.
If the state adopts Islamic orthodoxy as the main policy plank, it becomes sectarian in nature. Its legitimacy is going to be questioned by those who do not share that Islamic doctrine or school of thought. Either the state should stay above the Islamic schools of thought (Maslaks or Fiqahs), limiting itself to the shared and common issues, or it will breed controversies and politicise the groups subscribing to different schools of Islamic thought. That is what happened during and after the Zia years. The sectarian or Maslak identity became more important than the fact of being a Muslim, causing disharmony and conflict in the society.
Learning from the Zia experience of enforcement of Islam through the state apparatus, different Islamic groups now compete with each other and with mainstream political parties for controlling the state with the objective of enforcing Islamic principles and laws as articulated by them.
These orthodox and hard line Islamic groups were able to access money and weapons in the decade of the 1980s and that gave them much confidence later. They know that they cannot win the elections on the basis of their narrow religious agenda. They adopt other means to pursue their political agendas.
Some groups, often described as militants, have taken to violence as a method for enforcing their visions of Islam. Others may not use violence as a policy but they threaten the government to mobilise their loyalists and madrassa students to disrupt civic life. They also try to intimidate the people who question their agenda and methods. In some case religious decrees are issued against the government or the people who oppose them.
The pro-blasphemy law Islamic groups have threatened those demanding changes in this law or sympathised with the Christian woman sentenced to death by the sessions court by invoking this law. The target of the wrath of Islamic hard liners are, among others, Salmaan Taseer*, Governor the Punjab, who sympathized with the convicted woman and criticised the law, and Sherry Rehman, member of the National Assembly, who moved a bill in the National Assembly for changing the Blasphemy Law. One religious leader announced the reward of Rs 500,000 for killing the woman convicted under the blasphemy law.
If any principle of democracy or provision of the constitution comes in the way of the political agenda of the Islamic hard liners, they invoke Islam to reject it. They have warned the President against using his power to pardon for the convicted woman. The Lahore High Court has helped the cause of hard line Islamic groups by restraining the president from exercising this power till the matter is decided by the court. This is a unique restriction on the president for the power given explicitly by the constitution.
Another controversial development is the decision of the Federal Shariat Court, another institution created by General Zia-ul-Haq, turning down the 2006 amendments in the Hudood Laws that gave some relief from detention to women involved in the rape cases. Assuming that the superior judiciary pursues conservative religious disposition, the hard-line Islamic partisans have moved to the superior judiciary for disqualification of Salmaan Taseer and Sherry Rehman for supporting amendment in the Blasphemy law. Another disqualification appeal has been filed against the Federal Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, for his alleged inability to correctly recite a verse from the Quran.
The capacity of the religious groups to build pressure on the state increases with the accentuated crisis of survival for the PPP-led federal government. These developments raise the spectre of increased religion-based conflict. Can Pakistan afford to become a religious state dominated by narrowly focused and intolerant religious leaders who want to subordinate the state and society to their interpretation of Islam and delink Pakistan from the rest of the world?
*This article was written before yesterdays tragic incident which took Salmaan Taseers life.
The writer is an independent political and defence analyst.