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Pakistan: From religious politics to religious extremism -PART I

Air Cdre Ishfaq Iiahi Choudhury, ndc, psc (Retd)
FOR years, internal situation in Pakistan has been getting from bad to worse. With the bombing of Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on 13 Sept 2008, there is now serious concern about the long-term viability of the state of Pakistan itself. Is it going to be another Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan or Somalia is the question. The worry is many times more because Pakistan happens to be a nuclear-armed state. Any nuclear weapon or fissile material falling in the hands of the terrorists will have disastrous consequence. The North-Western part of the country bordering Afghanistan, known as Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), has been virtually under the control of Islamic Militants, known as Pakistani Taliban. The Taliban are fighting a two-pronged war - in Afghanistan against the Afghan-NATO forces and in Pakistan against the Pakistani military; yet most of the victims of their random attacks are innocent civilians. They have imposed harsh and arbitrary 'Sharia' law on the populace that include random killing and brutal torture. The bombings and assassinations in both the capitals of Afghanistan and Pakistan by the' Taliban mean that they have now extended their areas of operations right up to the capitals. The situation is further complicated by the cross-border operations performed by the Afghan-NATO forces into Pakistan, chasing and attacking the Taliban. Although this had been going on for quite sometime, probably with a nod of approval from the Pakistan government, but with the new elected government in place in Islamabad such news are putting them under increasing pressure. Although commentators are quick to blame President Musharraf for the mess, I would argue that Musharraf continued with a legacy that started with the birth of Pakistan as a nation-state.
Pakistan was the first country in the world created on the basis of religion Israel being the second and only other one. Its founder Mr. M. A. Jinnah argued that Muslims of India constitute a separate nation based on “distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral code, customs and calendar, history and traditions. —" (1944). Jinnah's
vision of Pakistan, however, was a Muslim majority democratic state and not a theocratic one. On the future constitution of Pakistan, he said on 11 August 1947, “You will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would 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.” Again in February 1948, he reiterated, “In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic State -- to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims - Hindus, Christians, and Parsis - but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan.” Things changed with Jinnah's death a few months later. The Basic Principle of the Constitution (Objective Resolution 1949) adopted in 1952 stated that the Quran and Sunnah were to be the sources of all laws in Pakistan, that it would be an Islamic Republic and only a Muslim could be the Head of state. Gradual inroad of religion into Pakistani politics had begun. The politicians in Pakistan increasingly used Islam for achieving their political ends. All the three constitutions of Pakistan (1956, 1962, and 1973) promised to create an Islamic Republic, although the political players had no consensus as to what such a republic would be.
It is interesting to note that the Pakistani politicians, while not known for religiosity, were keen to use Islamic cards to political ends and as such always courted the Mullahs. One figure who stood out against the Mullahs was President Ayub Khan (1958-1969). Ayub Khan, despite violent opposition by the Ulemas promulgated the Muslim Family Law in 1961, which, still today, is the only marriage safety mechanism for Muslim women in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Yet, Ayub and his handpicked Muslim League opposed secular democratic movements by raising the bogey of “Islam in Danger." Ayub's successor, Gen. Yahya used the Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami to carry out large-scale atrocities on the Bengalis during the Liberation War in 1971. In 1974, Mr. Z. A. Bhutto (1972-1976), again not a particularly observant Muslim, declared the Ahmediya community as non-Muslims, threw them out of public life and created restrictions on their religious practices, only to placate the Mullahs.
Islamic parties in British India had little contribution towards the
creation of Pakistan. Leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League that led the Pakistan movement were urban elites nurtured in English traditions. The foremost Islamic religious party then was Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind that supported Indian National Congress and opposed the partition. Maulana Maududi, who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, had opposed partition, but upon his migration to Pakistan started campaigning for a state based on Islamic Sharia. He was sentenced to death in 1953 (commuted later under Saudi pressure) for his alleged involvement in anti-Ahmadiya riots in Punjab. Religious parties with extreme views such as Jamaat-e-Islami could never win the hearts' and minds of the larger populace because traditionally the Muslims of Pakistan, like the rest of Muslims in South Asia, had been followers of Sufi tradition of Islam. Veneration of saints and sufis formed a core belief across Pakistan. This was an anathema to the Jamaat ideology that was based more on the Deobandi tradition. Thus, despite over 95% Muslim population, the religious parties that preached exclusive and often violent brand of Islam did not have a large support base nor had an overt say in power. However, it all changed, when Gen. ZIh-ul-Haq (1976-1988) seized power.
Like most of the rulers of Pakistan since 1947, Gen Zia was a migrant, a refugee from India and as such had no political base. He picked up the Mullahs as his power base creating a Mullah-Military nexus in Pakistan since then. 1\vo years into the power, Zia introduced Sharia Courts to oversee Civil Courts that functioned on Anglo-Saxon Laws. These courts sanctioned brutal punishments such as stoning, amputation of limbs and lashing. Although many of these sentences were turned down by Higher Courts or suspended due to outcry from the Human Rights activists, whenever those were carried out the victims were almost always the poor and downtrodden. In 1977, Zia-ul-Haq made consumption of alcohol by Muslims a punishable offence. Ironically, the consumption of alcohol and. addictive drugs in Pakistan has gone up many times since then. Zia's Islamic law against blasphemy and adultery made a mockery of justice when those were directed against poor minorities or tortured and tormented women. He made a wholesale revision of school textbooks to make those more Islamic. Thus, children were taught that the Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and Christians arc the mortal enemies
and there can be no friendship with the infidels. The Hindus and Sikhs were portrayed as conspiratorial and blood thirsty, while Muslim invaders, such as Sultan Mahmud Ghazni, were heroes, even when they came only to loot and plunder. The children were encouraged to go for holy Jihad in order to defend Islam and Pakistan. These textbooks were not meant for the Madrassas, but for the government sponsored mainstream schools. Thus, a whole generation of youth grew up in an atmosphere of hate and prejudice. All these were being done at a time when there were serious issues of social injustices and inequalities to be addressed at home. Zia's use of Islam was aimed at perpetuating his dictatorship over a populace cowered down by divine justice. His edicts on zakat and ushr alienated the Shia's and sown the seeds of sectarianism in Pakistan. It can be said in retrospect that Zia contributed much to the rise of fundamentalism, obscurantism and retrogression that is threatening Pakistan today. No wonder, Zia-ul-Haq is a despised figure in today's Pakistan.
The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 came as a blessing for President Zia and the power elites of Pakistan. As the Afghan
resistance against the Soviet occupation forces grew, the US found it an opportunity to draw the Soviets into a quagmire Soviet Union's Vietnam. It fell on the CIA to fund, arm and train the Afghan dissidents, then known as Mujahideen. The CIA's partner in Pakistan was the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (1SD. The CIA passed billions of dollars of cash, weapons and explosives through the ISI. Much of these arms and cash were siphoned off by various religious extremists in Pakistan and had been a source of violence and instability since then. Pakistan has since been awash with arms and drugs known as "Kalashnikov culture". Research estimates that in a population of 160 million there are 40 million firearms and 4 million drug users. For any nation, this could be a prescription for death.
Call for Jihad against the communist infidels in Afghanistan attracted Muslim youths from all over the world to the training camps set up in Pakistan's north-west. Thousands of CIA-funded Madrassas or religious schools provided fresh recruits for the Jihad in Afghanistan. These Madrassas Sraduated young men steeped in io doctrine of armed jihad against the enemies of Islam. Interestingly, prior to die 1970s, Pakistan had only
few Madrassas, attached to the mosques or shrines for producing Imams and Muezzins. Pakistan did not have Aliya or Quomi Madrassa system as we have in Bangladesh and in parts of India. By 1980s, however, Madrassas proliferated in Pakistan thanks to the flow of funds from the ME countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. Increasingly, the madrassas went under the control of Jamaat-e-lslami or Jamiat-ul-Ulama-e-Islam (JUI), the two leading religious parties of Pakistan. The madrassas were used as a springboard for Wahabi/Salafi school of Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia. The Sufi and Barelvi schools, two main Sunni traditions in Pakistan, were on retreat. Meanwhile, the minority Shias of Pakistan were alarmed by the growth of Sunni madrassas and the rise of various Sunnijihadi organizations, suchas Lashkar-c-Janghvi, Lashkar-e-toiba, Sipah-e-Sahaba, which went on a killing spree of the Shias. Soon the Shias started opening their Madrassas and had their militant outfits such as Tchrik-e-Jafri, Sipah-e-Muhammad etc. Since mid-80s. violent Shia-Sunni clashes had been on the rise. By one account more than 400 people died of sectarian violence in 2007 alone. This year's toll would be even higher.
The author is a freelancer