No country for minorities

We are an increasingly intolerant society

The arrest of 11 year old Rifta Masih accused of blasphemy is yet another example of the widespread intolerance in the country. That the girl suffered from Down Syndrome was considered irrelevant by the police. The blasphemy law introduced by Zia has provided a handle to zealots to persecute members of the minority communities. The law is based on the unrealistic presumption that there are people in this country who are out to malign the Holy Prophet and desecrate the Quran. In a country with 95 percent Muslims, this is simply inconceivable.

People have been falsely accused of blasphemy for a number of reasons. Property disputes, professional jealousy or political differences have led innocent people to be labeled as blasphemers. The mere accusation is enough to serve as a death warrant. Numerous people have been killed without being given the chance to defend themselves in a court. An entire Christian village was burnt down in Gojra simply on the instigation of a cleric who said a Christian woman had consigned pages of Koran to fire.

Despite the minorities being the major victim of the accusations, numerous Muslims have also been wrongly accused and made to face mob justice. A Jamaa-e-Islami activist was killed in Gujranwala and his dead body dragged in the streets. A factory owner in Lahore was killed because he threw aside a calendar bearing Quranic verses. A businessman was arrested because he dropped a visiting card with a Muslim name. A deranged man accused of sacrilege was mercilessly beaten and burnt alive by a mob in South Punjab.

There is no tolerance for minorities. An Ahmadi or a Shia can be killed by banned outfits which continue to function under new names. In 2010, 94 Ahmadis were gunned down when two of their places of worship were attacked by terrorists simultaneously.

Shias continue to be another target. Hundreds of them have died in Karachi, Quetta, Gilgit and Fata since 2008 in attacks on their religious processions and imam bargahs. The targeting of the Hazaras in Quetta is being conducted with such eerie regularity that it amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Despite scores of Hindus from Sindh and Quetta leaving Pakistan recently, the government continues to deny that they have left the country for good. The claim has been exposed by the erstwhile Indian home minister Chidambaram that 764 Pakistanis were given Indian citizenship during the past three years.

The minorities have served Pakistan in all vital spheres of life including education, administration, health, and defence. But such is the level of intolerance that the establishment is not willing to own people like Nobel Laureate Dr Abdus Salam who helped and guided numerous Pakistani scientists at the International Center for Theoretical Physics.

The minorities see no future for themselves in Pakistan. There is a trend among them to migrate. The less educated seek new pastures through illegal channels and face risks. The highly educated migrate to through legal channels. Pakistan is thus being deprived of some of its brilliant citizens.

While religious minorities are the principal target of intolerance in Pakistan, the phenomenon is in fact multi-dimensional. There is hardly any section of society free from the malaise. The political parties are tainted with the phenomenon. It is widely understood that some of the target killings in Karachi are motivated by political rivalry. One can notice intolerance in the tone of the media anchors and in newspaper opinion pieces. Intolerance has permeated down from the elite to the streets. Vigilante actions are on the increase. Instead of being handed over to police, the criminal is sometime handed down mob justice. Reports have frequently appeared regarding thieves having been publicly lynched. Intolerance in Pakistan is a multi-dimensional phenomenon which is capable of consuming the society.

Politicians have supported the backward thinking for short term political gains ignoring the long term consequences. Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims to appease the Mullahs who later on were on the forefront of the anti-Bhutto movement.

Zia associated himself with the extremist streak to seek legitimacy. He further bolstered extremism by making laws that are still used to persecute the minorities. He authorized the ISI to create organizations which employed terrorist tactics against ethnic or sectarian rivals. He changed the army’s motto to Jihad fi Sabil lillah and encouraged radical tendencies in the armed forces. Under him, the security agencies trained extremist elements and encouraged the religious seminaries to inculcate militancy and sectarian extremism among their students. He welcomed private funding from Saudi Arabia for opening a chain of Salafist seminaries propagating communal hatred and incited animosity against the West.

Zia brought about changes in educational curriculum to produce a radicalized generation. The books taught that Hindus are the enemies of Pakistan and India is a deceitful and permanent antagonist.

Religious parties and their allies like the PML-N even now threaten to whip up public sentiment if any attempt is made to rescind or modify the religious laws that militate against the minorities.

Musharraf promised to modify the blasphemy laws but compromised with the religious parties on keeping the laws intact. He also allowed the extremist organizations to work under new names

The PPP which claims of doing a lot for the minorities has retained the blasphemy laws on the statute book during its third tenure also. It is not willing to risk even a few votes for the sake of the minorities.

The Supreme Court has preferred to look the other way as minorities go through one pogrom after another.

Quite a few journalists associated with the print and electronic media believe in the lies contained in the text books they read as students. Most consider India an eternal enemy, justify the actions of the militants and consider minorities as second-rate citizens.

This explains why intolerance continues to spread and corrode national unity.

The writer is a former academic and a political analyst.