Editorial by the writer, published in The News, Sept 17, 2006


Religious freedom



A 22-page report by the US state department has given mixed reviews on religious freedom, or lack thereof, in Pakistan. To be fair, the US is hardly in a position to be commenting on rights abuses in other countries but that qualifier aside, the report is occasion enough to warrant a comment on this matter of pressing concern. The good points are quite a few. The government has been credited with taking "steps to bolster religious freedom" and it has been noted that there was a marked decline in the number of new blasphemy and Hudood cases during the period under review. The report also noted that the Pakistan government "maintained its public calls for religious tolerance, worked with moderate religious leaders to organise programmes on sectarian harmony and interfaith understanding… and actively attempted to curb the activities of sectarian and terrorist organisations". The report further mentions the government’s drive to register madrassahs and to reform the curriculum with the intention of purging it of anything that could engender religious intolerance.

However, on one major point -- the continued persecution of the Ahmedi community -- the report was spot on in its criticism. The community is suffering a fate worse than even the other minorities. For instance, while Christians or Hindus at least do not have to continuously live with the fear that their existing places of worship may be desecrated or that they may be stopped from building news ones, this is something that members of the Ahmedi community have to face day in and day out while living in Pakistan. Under the constitution, all Pakistanis have the right to practice their faith but this is clearly something that does not extend to the Ahmedi community. In fact, it is often actors representing the authority of the state who step in and take actions clearly against the community. An example of this is quoted in the state department report which says that in some districts of Punjab, the police actually intervened and ordered the local Ahmedi community to stop construction of a house of worship on a land that had been bought two decades ago. As it turns out the very guardians and upholders of the law had taken upon themselves to wholly distort it and were instead reported to be taking orders from a local cleric.

Regrettably, this isn’t the first instance of Ahmedis or other minorities being persecuted in this manner. And in most cases such persecution and harassment comes at the hands of those who have taken upon themselves to be the guardians of public morality of everyone’s faith as well. The police, and other government agencies which can provide protection against such abuse, regrettably tends to do just the opposite and ends up taking sides with the majority community. Also, it needs to be said that while the positive points mentioned in the US report may well be true in factual terms, it is often the substance that is often missing from government actions and deeds that seek to enforce the constitutionally guaranteed right to religious freedom.

Take the madrassah registration campaign which seems to have floundered and no one really talks about it anymore. As for curriculum reform, that is an issue which, like the proposed amendments to the Hudood laws, the government has often caved in to the religious right and the obscurantists. A good example of this was the sudden rush to take out a prescribed textbook from the Cambridge O level Urdu syllabus after the religious right alleged that it contained material that was vulgar. The book in question consisted of short stories written by some of the country’s and pre-partition India’s best-known writers but the government in its infinite wisdom, or fear of the religious extremists, bent over backwards to force the book to be taken out of the syllabus. A similar contradiction can be seen taking place in the government’s failure so far to pass the proposed amendments to the infamous Hudood ordinances, and its insistence to get the support of the religious right on this, something that is truly mind-boggling given that the government enjoys a clear majority in parliament. As for the Ahmedi community, it too has unfortunately suffered the brunt of a society that has over the years become intolerant and generally dismissive of other people’s beliefs. A lot of this has to do with what goes on in public discourse and what children are taught in schools and by their parents and the local maulana. Most of these actors do not hold a very favourable view of Ahmedis which means that Pakistani society as a whole shoulders most of the blame for their persecution. But at the very least, the government can step in and ensure that the community is given its due constitutional protection.