A test-case

An urgent need to revisit the causes of regression

The case of the little Rimsha, a ten-year old Christian girl suffering from the Down syndrome who has been arrested for having blasphemed the Quran, presents a stark challenge for the entire society. How she is dealt with in the face of unremitting pressure from the fundamentalist rogues of whom there is no scarcity in the country would be of immediate concern to all human rights organisations as well as the sane segments within the society. Even more important would be the challenge of dealing with the expanding repertoire of regression that has taken a firm grip of the society inflicting indelible ugly scars on its face.

The origin of this slide can be traced to the framing of the Objectives Resolution, but it was given an unholy impetus by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who declared the Ahmadis non-Muslims to appease the religious electorate. While this may actually have paved his way to the gallows, there was no stopping after that as tyrant Zia made this into a mission and introduced the Blasphemy Law and the Hadood Ordinance which have since bloodied it internally and shamed it internationally. Both are unsavoury implants which the country finds difficult to handle in the face of increasing international criticism and growing internal fundamentalism. In spite of discernible awareness about the massive down-side of these laws, there is no concerted effort visible to bring about a change. In its absence, the tentacles of obscurantism are digging deeper, thus further obliterating any prospects of remedy.

There have been instances of gross misuse of these laws whereby whole communities of non-Muslims have either been killed or scared away from their home and hearth by the marauding religious zealots. The recent migration of over two-hundred Hindu families from Sindh to India escaping rape and persecution has sent shudders down the spine of countless people who believe in the higher ideal of peaceful co-existence among all people irrespective of their religious, ethnic, cultural or social alignments – an ideal so eloquently enshrined in the Quaid’s maiden address to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947.

If Pakistan were to progress and its people were to embrace any prospect of salvation, it has to begin by releasing itself from the tentacles of relentless religious fanaticism. Steps must be urgently initiated to check the spate of madrassahs that are indoctrinating hundreds of thousands of people in hate. Generations have already been lost to this criminal onslaught while more are likely to suffer a similar fate if immediate remedies are not infused. But, the question is: who is going to do it? Who has the conviction and also the courage to go the whole hog?

Weakened through bouts of hereditary corruption, the political leadership, across the spectrum, is the root-cause of the maladies that afflict the society: lack of competence, institutional collapse, gross illiteracy, rampant economic enslavement, absence of employment opportunities, lack of religious and social security, increasing threats to life and property and a future that is, at best, a blank! The vast network of government schools that presented the only means of education for the teeming poverty-stricken millions have liquidated in the face of governmental ineptness and neglect, increasingly replaced by religious schools that are funded to produce fanatical millions to drive the fear of God among the people. These are unmistakable symptoms of decay that, apparently, appears unstoppable. Because of multifarious compulsions mostly related to ensuring daily survival, this sickly spectacle is finding an increasing number of converts who are willing to do their masters’ bidding for the few morsels that they are given in return.

While the ten-year old Rimsha suffers in incarceration, the civil society stays quiet for its own brand of fears. The Amnesty International has termed the case as reflecting “erosion of the rule of law”. That is as much an understatement as any can be. It is no longer a question of an erosion of the rule of law. The rule of law simply does not exist in Pakistan – thanks to the marauding gangs of criminals that have traditionally ascended the mantle of authority in the country. They simply come, plunder the state coffers and resources and decamp with a few billions stashed away in Swiss and other accounts without a fear of accountability. They have their local cohorts and their international patrons to protect them. They are not concerned about the consequences of their ill-fated steps that people will have to reap through generations. To ensure their personal gains, they don’t hesitate to plunge the country further into the back alleys of obscurantism, taking it closer to being stamped with a pariah status.

The decline is steep. Cosmetic attenuations are no longer relevant. They are not going to work. Lip-service condemnations provide no remedy. For too long the people have been deceived in the crafty articulations of what may provide a cure for their intense ailments. In the process, the malady has gone beyond the antibiotics. It now calls for an extensive surgery. It calls for revisiting the original causes of this ailment and re-evaluating them in the contemporary perspective. The Objectives Resolution from where it all started has to be revisited. We have to revisit the Blasphemy Law, the Hadood Ordinance and any other law that would be in conflict with the concept of human freedom yardsticks. We have to ensure that everyone living in Pakistan, irrespective of religious, social or cultural affiliations, feels equally secure, is not subjected to any discrimination and is provided compatible opportunities.

This can be easily construed as a wish-list – a wish-list of things that need to be undertaken with no one around to take on the challenging task. But, in the event a re-appraisal is not unfurled urgently to evaluate the ailments that plague the societal evolution, the regression that has already taken a firm grip of the country would dig deeper annihilating any prospects that it may still harbour of extricating itself from this accentuating agony. Rimsha may be the test-case for initiating this journey to salvation.

The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected]