Women and Divine Decrees

PS On Muslim communists... I think we got the best of the best though ... Mian Iftikharuddin, Faiz Ahmed Faiz (both were involved with Pakistan Times founded in Jan 1947 by Jinnah) and Bhashani... :)

You are right. The very secular Communist Party of India declared its unflinching support for partition of India into two sovereign republics Pakistan and Hindustan.. infact it was so much so that the League leadership had to publicly distance itself from the CPI, given the allegations of collusion with Soviet Russia.

Amazingly I once found a document (in the Jinnah papers) which was a draft constitution for the `Islamic Socialist Republics of Pakistan` written by a Muslim Communist in the mid 40s... which except for the name `Islamic` was completely a secular document calling for a federation of Socialist Republics of Sindh Punjab Baluchistan, NWFP and Bengal. Obviously given Jinnah`s own close contacts with the Western World, it was highly improbable that he would have opted for a socialist or marxist future. Yet like any national movement, Pakistan movement also had its left flank, led by brave men like Mian Iftikharuddin. Later on under Ayub his paper was taken over by the Government and handed over to a right wing pseudo Islamist by the name of Qudratullah Shahab, and the formidable Pakistan Times, the paper that was once the pride of this nation died a slow death many years later.

PM:

``Please remember, ``accomodation`` is easy (the only choice) when you don`t have the power to impose your ideology on others``

Wow! A simple point, nonetheless very powerful.

Secularism is facing new tests in the West, too. Until now, the state had more or less stayed away from some of the issues considered as the sole monopoly of religion - issues relating to family, marriage, birth and death. The first, and still the staunchest, to be confronted is the Catholic church as it sees the state interfering in issues of birth control, abortion, same sex marriages, even euthanasia.
The issue is front and centre now in Canada. A High Court has ruled that the same-sex marriages must be considered legal and entitled to the same protection and priviledges as the normal (to be politicially correct, I should be saying `normal` or hetrosexual) marriages. It has asked the Parliament to amend its laws to comply with this ruling. Instead of appealing this ruling to the Supreme Court, the govt. has decided to bring in a new legislation legalising same sex marriages. This has created a lot of opposition in the general public and especially the clergy. A Bishop has gone as far as to tell the Catholic Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, that he is not following his faith. He has responded by saying that he has to act as the Prime Minister of the state even when the action goes against his personal beliefs.
This is the essence of secularism. Society`s ethics and morality evolve. What was morally apprehensible a generation ago is not cosidered immoral today and the state has to respond to the changing morality. At the same time, individuals can follow their individual faiths in guiding their personal behaviour.

Mantolives:
You could have also pointed out that while the religious Muslim parties opposed Partition, the godless communists supported it. It is another matter that most of the Muslim communists chose to remain in India after the creation of Pakistan.

On BJP, in theory, it can claim to be more secular than the other parties. Whatever its motivation, it is the only party which is committed to removing the residual component of religion in the constitution, namely, separate civil laws for each religious group and replace it with a uniform civil code.

Romair,

I already answered you on your incomprehensible analogy of Saddam vs Teresa... which is a fallacious argument anyway. Yet I have noticed this about you. You like reading only your own posts, not the replies. You have taken a lot of time to get to this position but sadly you have only done all the debating in your own head, where you alone have been the prosecution and the defence and the judge and the jury.

What is more is that you have now taken a divergent course... the little you have read of world history has made you suddenly an expert on who was secular and who wasn`t... the question that Sameerjb asked was when have `secularists` done any harm to Pakistan? Other than a series of weak and illogical accusations against Benazir Bhutto, you haven`t been able to prove anything.


Khurram

Secularism is simply when the Government doesn`t get involved in religious debates and affairs. Call it whatever you want, but as a muslim I wouldn`t want any government telling me what I should or shouldn`t believe. That is secularism: the fact that the state has no right to dictate religious beliefs of an individual.

What is the point of complicating things with big words like `rationalist humanist ideology`?



Dost Mittar,

You absolutely right once again. (Though we have had chief justices who have been non-muslims like Cornelius for eg, and right now there is a supreme court justice who is a Hindu, Rana Bhagwan Das). There is no party like that at the moment (except perhaps the Mazdoor Kissan Party), though if PPP ever won a 2/3rds we might see some of that happen.

While staunchly Hinduvtist, BJP is and will remain a secular party. Allegiance to one nationalism or the other doesn`t make a party secular or non secular. At no point has BJP tried to make India a Hindu republic or tried to bring in Hindu laws into India. To compare them to the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which calls for making Pakistan a Sunni Islamic state, is the sign of a diseased mentality.

-Manto

re. ali87 #68
``For centureies you had kings and nobles given to drinking and licentousness. In fact the Mughal dynasty had many such specimens who wasted their lives in these acctivites. The Islamic faction also existed and there was some sort of power play and accomadation.``
Please remember, ``accomodation`` is easy (the only choice) when you don`t have the power to impose your ideology on others.

re. ali87 #67
Well that is what you choose to define secualrism as In reality secualrism meant to be practiced in the west is different from what is should mean in Muslim countries.
Agree! Please refer to the portions of my long posts to sameer and Romair where I highlight the role of religious sentiment in informing secular negotiation. It is rather disappointing that you should take my position as being as an `all or nothing` secularist.

re. khurram #66
``Secularism as non-ideology is a myth. Whenever a govt. does something, it is acting out of some ideology. What is called secularism in the west is the privileging of Rational Humanist ideology over traditional religious ideologies.``
Well, I suppose that you could call anyposition an ideology, following the logic of your second sentence to it`s conclusion. And in a sense, you would not be wrong.
The issue that worries many is this then: do you want an ideology that, for all is pitfalls, allows for negotiation and change, and a minimal interference of State in individual affairs (hello Ali, we`re NOT living in the 1700`s anymore!) or one in which ultimate fiat lies in Revealed Law, where even the wishes of the masses on matter not directly affecting others, is subjugated to that unchanging law.
Simple as that! Now pick your `ideology`, fella.
rgds,
PM

re. Romair #65
``You are moving the goalposts, on me. The initial debate was whether secularity and religion should be the criteria for supporting people.``
Perhaps I misunderstood that but even re-reading your #4, which IMO defined the debate, I am left with the impression that your contention was an equivalency of extreme secualrists and extreme fundamentalists. At least that is what I took issue with.
``I gave you the example of Saddam Hussein vs. Mother Teresa. You have now added an additional adjective of, “democratic goverments.” This was not part of the original debate, for which you wanted examples.
No, it was not, but I thought we were debating wrt Pakistan, and the relative merits of applying secualrism here. In any case, I did not seek to make it the main issue.
``Hopefully, I can nudge you to add some more adjectives, and you will finally end up where I am, i.e. democracy, humanity etc. are more important than secularism and religion.``
That was never in doubt, Romair. What the issue is, is whether these essentially abstract values are more likely to come about, in a democratic polity, through the exercise of secularism or theocracy. The many examples of bad secular leaders you provided are invalid, and I will tell you why in greater detail later. Suffice it to say for now that, as per that reasoning, one could deduce that it is the MALE that is the problem, and so only females should be electable to higher office.
I will try to formulate the problem in clearer terms later. I think it is interesting.
BTW, I find your charcterization of BB as an extreme secualrist rather amusing. Isn`t this the same BB who`d self-consciously adjust her dupatta 5 times every minute in interviews, to make sure no part of her hair was showing? I know, I know political exigency, but hardly something you`d call the touchstone of extreme secualrism. Also, remember, the slogan of BB`s PPP was ``Socialism is our polity, Islam is our Ideology..`` or something to that effect. Certainly, the word Islam had to find a place in it.
rgds,
PM

Drat!
when I wrote (in #58) Let`s put it simply for you, Romair: Do you want absolute relgious fiat, or absolute secular fiat, given that the secular is open to negotiation and accomodation, whereas the religious is not (as long as it`s ultimate authority is revealed divinity). Remember, you can`t have a halfway house. (Actually, the latter is the kinda halfway house you`re looking for, if you think about it),
the word `latter` should have been `former`.
Obviously, no one reads my posts-- except maybe rsaxena, and he had an appointment with his pedicurist last night.

Incidentally, where have all the female interactors gone? Did I miss soemthing when away for a month?

Sadly a perfectly legitimate debate about secularism in Pakistan will now be lost to a pointless debate about partition with Harimau dishing out his skewed hate-filled anti-Pakistan, anti-Jinnah rhetoric... as we have already seen harimau take the first pot shot already. There is enough that can be said about the dismissal of the NWFP government with regard to collusion of the Khudai Khidmatgars and Fakir of Ipi, that retrogressive shariah honking pir who wanted to overthrow the Government of Pakistan. The fact however is that Dr. Khan Sahib and Abdul Ghaffar Khan had come to an agreement with Jinnah in 1947 but it was sabotaged by NWFP league elements and ofcourse mutual mistrust between the two power houses.

Yet it goes without saying that in 1964, Wali Khan s/o A G Khan was, alongside Mujeeb ur rahman, Maudoodi and Maulana Bashani, one of the many politicians who arrived at Jinnah`s sister`s door to literally beg her to become the joint presidential candidate for the Combined opposition. The reason for her nomination: she was the sister of Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Sadly we seem to have forgotten the lessons of partition. Simple alliance with the Congress in 1940s should not be evidence enough to declare someone a progressive force. Infact amongst Muslims, most of those who allied themselves with the Congress were either regional forces or retrogressive elements like the Majlis-e-Ahrar and the Jamiat-e-ulema-hind. Ofcourse there are exceptions to every rule. Here is an interesting little fact that went unnoticed by many when the MMA government in NWFP took control... There was a little speech Akram Durrani, the Chief Minister, gave... In this he paid tribute to Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Abdul Qayyum, and to Mufti Mahmood. There was no mention of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of the nation. It is a telling tale.


ali87

Whenever secularism is hijacked by an unelected lot, it does silly thing. Turkish Army`s version of secularism is not in sync with the ideas that Mustapha Kemal Ataturk had. Ataturk believed in civilian authority over the military (before presenting himself to the election infront of the Grand National Assembly he resigned his commission eventhough he could have been in uniform and no one would object), and while he was a liberal modernist, he was not behind the crushing of religion. He had gone after those who were trying to destabilise Turkey in the name of religion.

Later on the Turkish Army did do horrible things, including the hanging of Adnan Menderes (in the 1960s) the very secular Turkish premier who was accused of having pro-Islamic sympathies. But you should check up on that Jumma accusation... also the banning of the head scarf, not that I am justifying it, is in certain select public places and not in general life. If you go to Turkey you will find a lot of women wearing headscarves as you will find a lot of women wearing miniskirts. I think the current government in Turkey if follows the course of moderation it is following now, is the perhaps the most perfectly secular government that country has had since Menderes.


-Manto

re. Ali87 #68:
``The all or nothing view of the west in imposing its Ideology is well known but usually not admitted and at times not recognised by people like you.``
Oh really? Thanks for confirming my suspicion that Indians, even highly intellignet ones like yourself, suffer from poor reading skills.
rgds,
PM

Ref nazarhayatkhan #31

[I was just stating history and not justifying the partition. It will open up another debate but suffice to say that Nehru should have agreed to Muslim Governments in Muslim Majority provinces. Cabinet Mission Plan. And thus independent Pakistan could have been avoided.]

I don`t think Nehru was planning to depose the Muslim-led or Muslim League governments in Sindh, Punjab, Bengal and NWFP. So there was no need to agree to such a condition.

On the other hand, Jinnah did dismiss a Muslim (not Muslim League) government in NWFP.

The real problem with the Cabinet Mission Plan was the right of Muslim-majority provinces to secede after 10 years.

Ref stuka #47

[When you talk of ``Secularism`` do you mean:

1. The Indian version: Tthe Constitution says Respect for all Religions ie The state shall give eqal importance to all religious institutions such as Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Commitee, Muslim Wakf Board, The Hindu Maths, Various established Church orgs (Catholic and Protestant) The state also subsidizes Hajj, Teerth Yatra to Mansarovar etc. ]

In India, the state subsidizes only the Hajj pilgrimage. There is NO subsidy for a pilgrimage to Mansarovar.

You can google your way through manasarovar.com or the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) website and you will not see any references to a subsidy. If you write to private tour operators who arrange the Manasarovar trip, they will also tell you that you are expected to pay ALL the expenses.

The Chinese Govt requires that all pilgrims to Manasarovar apply for their visas through the MEA and the MEA complies with this requirement. This is NOT a subsidy.

Stop spreading the myth.

Romair:
There is no secular party in Pakistan. Not even one! A secular party`s platform would say:
- We will remove ``Islamic`` from the republic of Pakistan
- We will remove blasphemy laws from the legal statutes
- We will remove any reference to Quran or Sharia in the legal system. The sharia courts will be dismantled.
- We will allow any Pakistani regardless of his/her religion to be the President, Prime Minister, Chief of army or the the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Is there such a party in Pakistan or will it have to wait until Mantolives starts his party?

BTW, the manifesto of your favourite whipping boy, India`s BHP, which you compare with your SSP, meets all the above conditions.

#63 by Mantolives on July 31, 2003 12:17pm PT

Well that is what you choose to define secualrism as In reality secualrism meant to be practiced in the west is different from what is should mean in Muslim countries.

what secualrism means in turkey is to prohibit a girl wearing a scarf. Earlier it meant to prohibit Juma prayers in mosques. I could carry on .....