Pakistan: Bringing back our narrative

Yasser Latif Hamdani

One side wants Pakistan to succeed as a modern state, a proud democracy and the inheritor of 5,000 years of the Indus civilization. The other side wants to turn Pakistan into a theocratic dystopia of religious strife where people are executed in public and stoned to death for personal choices

Bilawal Bhutto’s closing speech at the Sindh Festival in Thatta struck a note of defiance against the Taliban. The young PPP leader was also very clear in his narrative: Pakistan is ours, the Taliban and other self-styled thekedars (contractors) of religion are no one to dictate to us how we should practice Islam and that the people who wish to impose their twisted and narrow interpretations of religion on us are the same people who had rallied against the founding father of this country, calling him Kafir-e-Azam (the great infidel) and Pakistan Kafiristan (the land of the infidels). He also declared that ours is a great and ancient civilisation dating back 5,000 years — the civilisation of the Indus.

We are in desperate need of this clarity in narrative. For the last 150 years, the battle wages on between the orthodoxy and the modernists, or the revivalists and the reformers. Ever since Sir Syed Ahmed Khan founded the Aligarh Movement to educate and modernise Muslims, the reactionary orthodoxy has been out to prove that the modernists and the reformers are anti-Islam and agents of the west. Amongst the modernists and reformers were men like the Agha Khan, Syed Ameer Ali, Sir Zafrullah Khan, Allama Muhammad Iqbal and last but not least Mohammad Ali Jinnah. By and large, Aligarh’s modernist Muslim arsenal supported the Pakistan Movement and the Muslim League. By and large, the Darul Uloom Deoband and the straitjacket mullahs sided with the Congress Party, the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, Majlis-e-Ahrar and Jamaat-e-Islami, not out of any love for the Hindus per se but because of their calculation that in Pakistan, the modernists would dominate. The Congress Party, on its part, encouraged this division, going so far as to appoint Maulana Daud Ghaznavi as its leader in Punjab after secular leftists like Iftikharuddin joined the Muslim League. This was a Faustian bargain that continues to haunt Congress and its Muslim supporters in India even today. The Shah Bano and Imrana cases underscore the vile nature of the unholy matrimony between Deoband and the Congress. In Pakistan, till General Zia’s dictatorship, the apprehension of the religious orthodoxy about the modernists taking over turned out to be true. Every leader from Jinnah to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was in essence a modernist. While there were terrible lapses, for example the passing of the Objectives Resolution under Liaquat, the introduction of state religion by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government and the declaration of Ahmedis as non-Muslims through the second Amendment, it was the teeth General Zia gave religion that ultimately delivered the country to the religious orthodoxy. Subsequently, Benazir Bhutto’s government, despite its generally modernist outlook, failed to withstand the ground gained by the religious right in the country. General Musharraf’s regime tried to roll back some of Zia’s damage but, in the end, that project too fell victim to political expediency.

The situation in our time has become unsustainable. Maulana Abdul Aziz’s treasonous, seditious and poisonous ramblings on our television channels are a case in point. It is all or nothing. The battle for the heart and soul of Pakistan is a zero sum game. One side wants Pakistan to succeed as a modern state, a proud democracy, the inheritor of 5,000 years of the Indus civilisation and the flag bearer of the tolerant and inclusive traditions of Islam. The other side wants to turn Pakistan into a theocratic dystopia of religious strife where people are executed in public and stoned to death for personal choices. One side wants Muslims to grasp the higher ethical principles of sharia, i.e. social justice, religious freedom and the preservation of intellect and liberty, which is what made Islam a cyclonic revolution in human history. The other side wants to limit Islam to the regulation of dress codes and enforcement of harsh punishments. One side wants Pakistan to take its place amongst the comity of nations, the other side wants us to become pariahs. If the purpose of Pakistan was the socio-economic uplift of Muslims of this region, then clearly the Taliban and their apologists cannot deliver. We need men and women of vision integrated in the modern world and ready to march in tandem with the rest of humanity.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has thrown out this challenge not just to the Taliban but the rest of the country as well, especially aging leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. The young PPP leader has told his people and rivals alike by saying ‘non ducor, duco’. May other leaders find such courage too and lead the country towards a consensus. There is no other way. So, Mr Sharif and Mr Khan: which side are you going to choose? A hefty 5,000 years of our existence as a people is at stake. Sitting on the fence is the most patently cowardly thing you can do!