Ahmedis and the elections

EDITORIAL : Daily Times

Even with election time right round the corner, the ugly shadow of bigotry and intolerance has once again made its presence felt in our country. The Supreme Court (SC) has taken notice of amendments made to the election rules by President Pervez Musharraf in the Executive Order of 2002 by which any candidate whose faith was challenged and did not profess his/her faith by signing a declaration of belief in the finality of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) would be declared a ‘non-Muslim’. The matter does not end here. Petitioner Kanwar Idrees argues that a separate electoral list for Ahmedis is an insult aimed at excluding the community from the mainstream. The SC is hearing a petition against these amendments in the light of the constitutional principles laid down in the Zaheeruddin case verdict in in 1993 in which it was declared that Ahmedis could not call their place of worship a mosque and would not be allowed to recite the call for prayer (azaan). The fact that Ahmedis must go through this demeaning process of having to declare something they do not wish to so that they may be eligible to stand for electoral candidacy is bad enough, but to separate Ahmedi voters from the mainstream citizenry because of their beliefs is against the founding principles of the state. When Pakistan was born, its founding father, the Quaid-e-Azam, had a vision — he told the people that faith was a personal matter and that the state had no business interfering with anyone’s beliefs. Fast forward to the Pakistan of today and we see that, far from being free believers of whichever faith they choose, minorities — particularly the Ahmedis — are not even treated as citizens of the state. They have no rights, no safeguards and can be jailed for some of the pettiest ‘offences’ inventive and mischievous minds can think of. It is a welcome move on the SC’s part to have taken up the matter of the separate voters list at a time when Pakistan is shying away from even protecting the lives of any of its minority citizens. The darkness of our discrimination and intolerance towards anything even slightly different from dominant state orthodoxy and mullah might has engulfed this nation. It is time to return to the inclusive worldview and vision of Mr Jinnah and to thereby relieve the agony his spirit must be passing through in these darkening times.