Islam and the politics of Pakistan
Here is a brief take on my version of the role of Islam in our polity. First, I would like to mention a book on governance and violence in Pakistan by Dr Sagheer Hussain, of Bahauddin University, in which he also deals with this subject. Simplifying what he states and thereby no doubt doing great injustice to the learned doctor’s treatise, his contention is that before partition, our institutions (judiciary, police, bureaucracy and army) received considerable exposure to rational democratic discourse under the British. But here there is a dichotomy since basically these institutions were inculcated with and believed in an authoritarian system of governance, as also was the case with feudal politicians.
Another aspect of this perspective is that ours is a hybrid society, in the sense that the population is attuned to democratic discourse at various levels but basically we are a traditional society and have not completely assimilated or accepted democratic norms and values. Modern research has shown that such societies are most prone to violence. Furthermore, Dr Sagheer maintains that before partition the Muslims of the non-majority Muslim provinces of northern India felt much more threatened by Hindu domination than the Muslim majority western provinces. Thus the former created the All India Muslim League (AIML), claimed that the Muslims were one integrated block and had to have separate arrangements than to be with the Hindus after the British left. They propagated an Islamic national discourse to strengthen their stand. This discourse continued after partition. I would like to add here that it was not only the Mohajirs who introduced the Islamic discourse, but in the election campaign in Punjab in 1946, pirs and religious elements flocked to the AIML and considerably overshadowed the more secular supporters. They adopted as their own Allama Iqbal’s dream and the concept of a separate Muslim state, which they envisaged as an idealistic religious state. It was in this campaign that the slogan started: Pakistan ka matlaab kya? La ilaha Ill-Allah.
I would like to make a digression here. The Islamic aspect of this discourse is based on the doctrinaire interpretations of religion that came about with the Islamic revival in the subcontinent in northern India in the beginning of the last century — Barelvi, Deobandi and other sects. However, if you compare it to the Islam of the Golden Age and Ottomans you will find many differences. The latter was much more tolerant, understood statecraft and dealt with provinces in a fair manner. Because of this, our current stratum of religious belief was redefined at a time of colonial domination. There is greater emphasis on identification, preservation of culture and an assertive show of religion; also there is greater intolerance of other religions and sects, and rejection of anything considered western.
When the Mohajirs migrated to Pakistan, they enjoyed a privileged position because of their political representation in the Muslim League (although their politicians had lost their electorates) and the officer cadre in the state institutions, by which they built a strong position for themselves in commerce as well. Thus they were very much part of the power structure and the mainstream.
Digressing a bit, again referring to Dr Saghir Hussain, regarding the controversy on whether the Quaid was an Islamist or parliamentarian, obviously he was very much exposed to democratic rational discourse, but we see the tactics he adopted in the 1946 elections in Punjab, in which success was the only consideration and he espoused all the convenient slogans of socialism, student mobilisation, democracy and majorly Islam. He almost single-handedly created this country and thereafter was governor general.
The Mohajirs continued to propagate the Islamic national discourse to maintain their privileged position. The institutions were very secular. However, they too used the Islamic national discourse to suppress and discourage dissension in the provinces of East Pakistan, Sindh and Balochistan. However, in those days there was no assertive proselytising of any manner and the minorities were treated with respect and felt secure. Karachi was a harmonious multicultural society. It should be noted that in Ghulam Muhammad’s constitution of 1956, the operative part of the Objectives Resolution was done away with though it was voted back by the Assembly. And Ayub Khan’s 1962 Constitution did away with the resolution altogether. Ayub Khan can by all accounts be deemed a secularist.
Here is the most important digression of all. After partition, the mainstream, through the institutions, decided it was the custodian of this country and relegated the politicians (and the East Pakistan majority population) to secondary status, keeping them only to give legitimacy to the various governments (and martial law). They ruled in an autocratic manner from the west wing and treated the provinces in a criminal manner, suppressing regional culture, factionalising their elite, exploiting East Pakistan and Balochistan atrociously; in short, treating them like a colony without the impressive pomp and circumstance, the artful finesse and condescending beneficence of the British. The tragedy is that we did not learn a lesson from the secession of the east wing nor from the prolonged insurgency in Balochistan nor Sindh.
The mainstream political parties kowtow to a popular simplistic belief to support anything that claims to be religious
Here is a brief take on my version of the role of Islam in our polity. First, I would like to mention a book on governance and violence in Pakistan by Dr Sagheer Hussain, of Bahauddin University, in which he also deals with this subject. Simplifying what he states and thereby no doubt doing great injustice to the learned doctor’s treatise, his contention is that before partition, our institutions (judiciary, police, bureaucracy and army) received considerable exposure to rational democratic discourse under the British. But here there is a dichotomy since basically these institutions were inculcated with and believed in an authoritarian system of governance, as also was the case with feudal politicians.
Another aspect of this perspective is that ours is a hybrid society, in the sense that the population is attuned to democratic discourse at various levels but basically we are a traditional society and have not completely assimilated or accepted democratic norms and values. Modern research has shown that such societies are most prone to violence. Furthermore, Dr Sagheer maintains that before partition the Muslims of the non-majority Muslim provinces of northern India felt much more threatened by Hindu domination than the Muslim majority western provinces. Thus the former created the All India Muslim League (AIML), claimed that the Muslims were one integrated block and had to have separate arrangements than to be with the Hindus after the British left. They propagated an Islamic national discourse to strengthen their stand. This discourse continued after partition. I would like to add here that it was not only the Mohajirs who introduced the Islamic discourse, but in the election campaign in Punjab in 1946, pirs and religious elements flocked to the AIML and considerably overshadowed the more secular supporters. They adopted as their own Allama Iqbal’s dream and the concept of a separate Muslim state, which they envisaged as an idealistic religious state. It was in this campaign that the slogan started: Pakistan ka matlaab kya? La ilaha Ill-Allah.
I would like to make a digression here. The Islamic aspect of this discourse is based on the doctrinaire interpretations of religion that came about with the Islamic revival in the subcontinent in northern India in the beginning of the last century — Barelvi, Deobandi and other sects. However, if you compare it to the Islam of the Golden Age and Ottomans you will find many differences. The latter was much more tolerant, understood statecraft and dealt with provinces in a fair manner. Because of this, our current stratum of religious belief was redefined at a time of colonial domination. There is greater emphasis on identification, preservation of culture and an assertive show of religion; also there is greater intolerance of other religions and sects, and rejection of anything considered western.
When the Mohajirs migrated to Pakistan, they enjoyed a privileged position because of their political representation in the Muslim League (although their politicians had lost their electorates) and the officer cadre in the state institutions, by which they built a strong position for themselves in commerce as well. Thus they were very much part of the power structure and the mainstream.
Digressing a bit, again referring to Dr Saghir Hussain, regarding the controversy on whether the Quaid was an Islamist or parliamentarian, obviously he was very much exposed to democratic rational discourse, but we see the tactics he adopted in the 1946 elections in Punjab, in which success was the only consideration and he espoused all the convenient slogans of socialism, student mobilisation, democracy and majorly Islam. He almost single-handedly created this country and thereafter was governor general.
The Mohajirs continued to propagate the Islamic national discourse to maintain their privileged position. The institutions were very secular. However, they too used the Islamic national discourse to suppress and discourage dissension in the provinces of East Pakistan, Sindh and Balochistan. However, in those days there was no assertive proselytising of any manner and the minorities were treated with respect and felt secure. Karachi was a harmonious multicultural society. It should be noted that in Ghulam Muhammad’s constitution of 1956, the operative part of the Objectives Resolution was done away with though it was voted back by the Assembly. And Ayub Khan’s 1962 Constitution did away with the resolution altogether. Ayub Khan can by all accounts be deemed a secularist.
Here is the most important digression of all. After partition, the mainstream, through the institutions, decided it was the custodian of this country and relegated the politicians (and the East Pakistan majority population) to secondary status, keeping them only to give legitimacy to the various governments (and martial law). They ruled in an autocratic manner from the west wing and treated the provinces in a criminal manner, suppressing regional culture, factionalising their elite, exploiting East Pakistan and Balochistan atrociously; in short, treating them like a colony without the impressive pomp and circumstance, the artful finesse and condescending beneficence of the British. The tragedy is that we did not learn a lesson from the secession of the east wing nor from the prolonged insurgency in Balochistan nor Sindh.
After the capital shifted to Islamabad and, over the years, there was an influx of Punjabis and Pathans into all levels of institutions, especially the lower levels, the Mohajirs found that the Islamic national discourse was not serving to maintain their position. Also, after the MQM was formed, it found that its politicians had electorates. Altaf Hussain is an advocate of the Mohajir perspective. Thus now (always being one step ahead of the Punjabis), they have adopted a secular discourse. Furthermore, they have wilfully left the mainstream but retained their foothold in the power structure and relationship with the army. Also, despite their brinkmanship and bargaining tactics with the PPP, they still have some sort of equation of a tacit personalised rapport between Mr Zardari and Mr Altaf.
Moreover, up to the East Pakistan debacle, the army was secular. Mr Bhutto was a case of someone outside the mainstream gaining control of the power structure; thus he faced a lot of criticism and was executed for his temerity. Then came Ziaul Haq with his Islamisation of the country and army. Zia’s policies had numerous long-term detrimental effects like supporting the mujahideen that promoted the Kalashnikov culture and drug trafficking, which later evolved into the Taliban, the start of terrorism, sectarianism and violent student unions, and the ISI manipulating politics. All of this resulted in sham democracy, political injustices and declining professionalism in the army. Islamisation gave a further evangelist mission to the Islamic discourse.
At this juncture it is important to mention the role of Islamic parties through partition till today. Being out of tune with modern trends and the times (which is both their strong point and their weak one) they took the wrong side before partition. To their credit it must be said that they, especially the Ahrars, actively canvassed and made efforts to stop the bloodshed that erupted in Punjab after partition, which conversely Muslim League politicians (except Liaquat Ali, Mian Iftikharuddin and a very few others), along with lower level government officials were cruelly promoting. Reciprocal atrocities were also being committed on the other side by the Sikh Nawabs, Patels, Akalis and, to a lesser degree, Hindu extremist parties. However, despite the setback religious parties received with partition, because of the religious aspect of the new national discourse, they were able to establish a nook for themselves in the population again.
They took their cue from Allama Mashriqi and the Khaksars and took over his politics after him. Allama Mashriqi was the pioneer of the concepts of using tribal mujahideen to fight a proxy war, encouraging uprisings in Indian-held Kashmir, arranging a long march and staging dharnas (sit-ins), and practically all the tactics our Islamic parties have employed thereafter. During this period these religious parties have served to keep the concept of Islam in the national discourse, pristine and free of any western associations. Also they have spread obscurantist thinking and anti-west prejudices. By this method they have always built a core of avid, active supporters. This factor, aided by the students from their seminaries and the charitable institutions they control, has enabled them to wield street power though not electoral power. They reached an apex of effectiveness in the movement to overthrow Bhutto and then they propagated a more definite religious discourse (Nizam-e-Mustafa), but they were co-opted by Ziaul Haq, who tried to shortcircuit the rational democratic discourse, which resulted in this discourse becoming misdirected with institutional efforts to manipulate it for partisan ends. The attitudes thus engendered continue to foster a mentality out of tune with the modern age.
Whereas certain interests tried to continue to maintain this direction for the national democratic discourse, the army was conscious of the institutional damage it was suffering and loss of professionalism. Three Chiefs of Army Staff (COASs) after Aslam Beg — Generals Janjua, Kakar and Karamat — tried to divest the army of too deep an involvement in politics and obscurantism. Eventually, the army has steered itself back to balanced professionalism and has dissociated itself almost entirely from politics and unnecessary evangelical ascriptions. With good economic and social points and bad political and ethical points, General Musharraf defined moderate Islam and perhaps reluctantly realigned the rational democratic discourse. During his tenure, General Kayani assiduously refused to depose the Zardari government, though on three occasions mainstream lobbies pressurised him to do so: the minus one formula, after the floods and lastly the ridiculous Memogate affair.
Thus, in effect, with regards to the problem of the Taliban and terrorism, the army and politicians have reversed positions. The army that had initially created the Taliban and protected them, thereafter progressively realised the limitations and the dreadful threat that developed from these earlier policies of theirs and slowly moved towards trying to counteract them. The mainstream political parties kowtow to a popular simplistic belief to support anything that claims to be religious (and the more secular parties also are hesitant to oppose this tendency without some definite reason, except the MQM). Thus the mainstream political parties (PML-N, PTI and some religious parties) continue to espouse religious slogans tacitly favouring terrorism and non-state actors (there is also financial and other forms of support). The true state of affairs became clear when the army conducted an eminently successful anti-terrorist campaign in Swat that was hailed by the people, which just goes to show how misleading the religious propaganda of the mainstream parties was. Our tendency for hypocrisy and a religious blind spot are probably our greatest handicaps and, unfortunately, the mainstream political structure continues to actively propagate negative aspects of the religious discourse on the one hand and behave as if they were the champions of restoring law and order on the other.
Genuine power, gas and other manufactured crises gripped the five years of the PPP government and its secular allies. Now, with a much less intrusive role by the army as an institution, the new mainstream power structure has played on the increasing unpopularity of the more secular parties because of the crisis to divest itself of them and try to once more get its theories on strategic depth, military assets, proxy wars and Islamic militancy into order. Saudi influence increased again. Then came the most abysmally rigged elections, umpired by the Taliban, to prevent the more secular parties from campaigning or setting up any election structure. This was pre-election rigging, which no one can gainsay. Thereafter, with the PPP relegated to Sindh, the two mainstream parties (PML-N, PTI) repeatedly acted as apologists for the Taliban, negotiated with them and tried to delay army action against them for as long as possible. Of course, when the army began their operation in Waziristan, these parties once again quickly became steadfast supporters of the army action. Sadly, it took all too many tragic terrorist attacks and finally the Peshawar school attack to finally bring about universal condemnation of terrorism and the Taliban.
At last, with genuine dents being made in terrorism potential by army action, on our part we must be patient and realise that this is still going to take a long time. Extreme poverty in the southern Seraiki belt and tribal areas continues to provide recruits for organisations of religious violence.
On the other hand, in Punjab and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkwa, the shrinking mainstream (which now basically consists of the Punjabi urban middle to upper class with its influence into the rural areas and fragmented like-minded elements in the Seraiki belt and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) is facing a grave identity crisis. The level of their failures — economic, security and terrorism oriented — and obvious mistakes have become too high to be conscionable even by themselves. In their disillusionment they are trying to bolster Nawaz on one side and are running after ‘rainmakers’ like Imran Khan on the other. The cliché infested media that caters only to the mainstream and has become the primary tool of a right wing, authoritarian discourse, keeps up a façade to cover up the complete mental bankruptcy of the mainstream. Another task of the ‘free’ media is to give visibility only to this mainstream. In this pathetic manner this mainstream still tries to sweep the criminal and utterly stupid way it has treated the provinces under the carpet.
Consequently, in reaction to what is perceived as hostile circumstances leading to unequivocal failure, many younger people and those in early middle age are trying to adopt a steadfast, ‘this is what is right’ panacea of stricter doctrinaire Islamic values and to make a greater outward show of their belief. On one hand, we have more milaads, darses, tableeghi jamaats (religious gatherings) and other religious functions. On the other hand, we now often see upper middle-class families flaunting Saudian appurtenances with religious associations. These and several other signs around us are indicative of the influence of increased international Muslim consciousness and activity over the world and, also, huge sums are being poured in from outside sources to promote religion. Though these funds no doubt are donated with virtuous intentions, from some sources they are directed towards seditious and sometimes violent purposes or utilised as such (also there are funds from hostile sensitive agencies that are completely ill-intentioned). This amorphous international Muslim quasi-movement is a reaction to Israeli aggression and supposedly perceived US/Israeli/western imperialism’s efforts against the religion, and also fears of western cultural hegemony.
Furthermore, over the years now, many Muslim immigrants have amassed vast fortunes and now there are greater resources that can be channelled by individuals and institutions towards religion. Apart from all else, there is Saudi Arabian/Middle Eastern/Iranian financing. In Pakistan, this is developing a sort of parallel strata in the mainstream as its normal discourse (Islamic Republic, the constitution preferably with Islamic amendments, legislative assemblies, democracy, etc.) becomes overall more meaningless in a hybrid situation, especially in view of all the regretted failures. Fortunately, with the artificial environment of the mainstream, sloganeering has an unlimited shelf life and thus this discourse can last for as long as the mainstream can keep mustering itself; the PPP, ANP and MQM supports this facade and, most important, the army does not interfere.
Now, in this essay, I do not intend to hold up a more secular system of government against a religious one; I just want to make two points. First, it is clear that our national, religious discourse has failed and become counterproductive. Therefore, it needs rethinking, quickly. I feel we should look more towards Turkey as a religious state model. First, the current government is giving great emphasis to religion (there is nothing wrong with that as long as intolerance is not encouraged). Secondly, the first clause of Erdogan’s constitution is “Turkey is a secular state.” Thereafter the minorities are guaranteed all rights of security and even spreading their religion. Furthermore, there are no blasphemy and hadood laws or anything like articles 62 A and 63 A of our Constitution. Egalitarianism and haqooqul ibad (rights of man) are ensured. If we can strive towards the miraculous progress Turkey has made over the last 10 years it will be a dream come true for our lebensraum. The second point is that this dream can be achieved! Already it is reported that considerable work has been done.
We have huge gas reserves (also copper and gold deposits) in Balochistan, foreign exploration companies say that Sindh is practically floating on oil and there is oil in northern Punjab also. These are known reserves. However, our relations with our fellow provincial countrymen have deteriorated so much and become so tenuous (if indeed in some cases there is still any sort of relationship at all), we have not been able to avail ourselves of these benefits that God has given us and that are lying under our feet. For instance, Kohlu gas field (estimated to be larger than Sui) has been pending since before 2007. So, it is very, very important that apart from taking whatever executive decisions we have to, we must at all costs evolve a new, less insular, more tolerant and inclusive national discourse, institute some confidence building measures and, most important, change our attitude towards the provinces. The Baloch, Brauhis, Sindhis, Gilgitis, Kashmiris, Hazaras and Mohajirs are all our brothers and fellow countrymen. They have every right to take advantage of whatever natural resources lie in their territory and the government should deal fairly with them. There is no harm in accepting the short end of the stick for a change as long as our beloved country and we become more prosperous. The only way forward is hand in hand.
(Concluded)
The author is a freelance columnist
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