Pakistan - Taseer’s legacy

On January 4, 2011, a brave dissenting voice fighting for a more tolerant and humane Pakistan was brutally silenced by a wretched product of the same twisted forces of hate and bigotry he fearlessly stood up to and was striving to curtail. Five years on from that dark day, we can ruefully observe that the country and the cause Governor Salmaan Taseer laid down his life for have only crumbled further into decay, and this disheartening reality makes his loss even tougher to swallow. Governor Taseer was killed in a hail of bullets by the fanatical Mumtaz Qadri, a man who was part of his security detail, because the governor displayed a moral fortitude not commonly found in the realm of Pakistani politics and campaigned for reform in the badly abused blasphemy laws. He threw his considerable weight behind the minorities of the land who are victimised by fundamentalist thugs empowered by the black laws created by the dictatorial Zia regime. For this simple act of levelling deserved criticism against a poorly conceived man-made law, he was widely accused by toxic demagogues of having committed blasphemy himself, and reprehensibly his spineless killer was hailed as a hero by many. With the zeal with which Qadri was celebrated, the rot at the heart of Pakistan was exposed and many fellow travellers of the slain Punjab governor lost their will to publicly continue the campaign to reform the blasphemy laws. Even his own party deserted him, both in life and immediately after his death, as no other politician could muster the moral fibre to question this deeply undignified surrender to the purveyors of violence and bigotry.

2015 started ignominiously with an attack by a bunch of extremists on a vigil held in Salmaan Taseer’s honour at Lahore’s Liberty Chowk. However, the year also saw some positive headway — a landmark Supreme Court (SC) judgement confirmed Qadri’s death sentence and declared him a terrorist. The judgement also extended the call made by Salmaan Taseer to reform the blasphemy laws, which in their present iteration have the harshest, disproportionate punishments and have a low threshold for proof and thus are used to settle personal scores and demonise minorities. The judgement also notably declared it a democratic right to level criticism against the blasphemy law. Regrettably however, in parliament — which is the only body which can translate the SC judgement’s words into meaningful action — there has been no movement, and Qadri, despite exhausting the legal appeals process, remains extremely popular and still evades the finalisation of his punishment. The political class needs to take inspiration from the SC and civil society and has to show some badly needed moral conviction. The fight against terrorism can never be won so long as we remain afraid to tackle the deeply ingrained intolerant mindset. The only way to salvage the legacy of a brave man and ensure his death was not in vain is to complete the mission he embarked on.