intolerance in pakistan

Pakistan is a developing country and a sovereign, Islamic republic as well as an Islamic democracy with a mixture of both Islamic and colonial secular laws. The Constitution of Pakistan provides for fundamental rights, which include freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of information, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the right to bear arms.
The founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a moderate secular state blended with some Islamic values and principles. Nevertheless, Pakistan's status as an Islamic Republic should not be confused or compared with other Islamic Republics in the region, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unlike Iran, Pakistan is not a theocracy, but rather an Islamic democracy. Elections in Pakistan regularly take place on time and are mostly free and fair. Most of Pakistan's laws are secular in nature, most of which were inherited from the United Kingdom's colonial rule of modern-day Pakistan before 1947. In recent times, there has been increasing pressure on Pakistan to amend or replace some of its outdated laws made during the time of the British Empire.
Unfortunately, human societies are not inherently tolerant. Indeed, small hunter- gatherer and even early agrarian communities were not even diverse. Thus tolerance was not always a human reaction to the outsider, the ‘Other’. It was a virtue which grew as civilization became more complex because of war, trade and migration. This ‘tolerance’ was contingent upon the acceptance of the predominance of the politically ascendant group. It was probably an outcome of security rather than insecurity. A besieged civilization is generally a paranoid civilization looking for enemies within and without to blame for failures

Intolerance Intolerance can be defined as unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behavior that differ from one's own.
Unfortunately intolerance is growing day by day in Pakistani society and its consequences are very severe. It is the root cause of many other social evils.
We will analyze the major types of intolerance prevailing in our society , there consequences and then will discuss how intolerance can be minimized.
Religious intolerance in Pakistan

Soon after its independence in 1947 Pakistan faced many problems. The first calamity that struck this country was the demise of its founder Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the vacuum which was created after Jinnah’s death could not be filled; it caused many problems for the new born state particularly about the future of Pakistan. Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a state where people from all religion, cast or creed will be treated equally, and their religious beliefs will have nothing to do with the business of the state, which he cited in his illustrious presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947.

However, not all the people were thinking similar to Jinnah, as they had their own aims. A majority in this category was the religious fanatic class, who at first opposed Pakistan movement but later after the creation of Pakistan they became part of it, but that was not all, the newly born state of Pakistan seemed like a good opportunity to these religious opportunists class to propagate and bolster their own agenda under the umbrella of religion because bulk of the masses of this country were unaware of the consequences of blind following these clerics, and these people of Pakistan were a bull’s-eye of religious blackmailing. With the passage of time Jinnah’s idea of a Muslim state was overshadowed by the pattern of the state propagated by clergyman. The onset of cold war and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan gave a threshold to Mullahism in Pakistan. That time military dictator General Zia ul Haq assured his full support to the extremist religious organizations inside Pakistan for the purpose of “Jihad” against Soviets in Afghanistan. During his tenure the recruitment of Jihadis from all over the Pakistan and their training through the platform of these religious organizations (in collaboration with CIA) gained peak, thus strengthening extremism roots in our society. However, after Zia the failure of other civilian governments to control these radical religious groups led to an atrocious situation.

As an aftermath of past governments unconditional support to these religious organizations today Pakistan is suffering from religious extremism and intolerance more than ever, the sectarian violence in this country is at its peak, killings of sectarian leaders for the purpose of gaining more influence over the other sect is a common practice these days. Pakistan has seen an unprecedented rise in religious intolerance since last five years, from the assassination of Governor Punjab alleged of blasphemy to the present day case of a 13 year old Christian school going girl, who was accused of blasphemy only because she misspelled the Urdu word “Naat” which looked like the word “Lanat” after being misspelled in her class test. The girl was expelled from the school by the principal on the complaint of her teacher, who should have known that a 13 year old young kid can make such types of mistakes unintentionally. Moreover, her prosecution was demanded by local Mullas and they waged protests to file a case against the young girl accusing her of blasphemy.

These events draw the horrible picture of our society which shows that how acutely the Mullaism and religious intolerance has settled itself in to Jinnah’s Pakistan. Islam is a religion of peace and love it preaches the respect and welfare of Humanity, rather than killings and prosecution of non-Muslims just because of the reason that they live in a Muslim state and they differ from us in their beliefs, so their any unintentional action is portrayed as blasphemy, which is considered as solid evidence to kill them.

The recent brutal killings of people from Shiite sect in Quetta is another horrifying example of religious intolerance. The rising negative role of religious extremists is acting as a pandemic in our society; these people have narrow minds, radical beliefs and sectarian agendas which are only in their own favour and are largely harmful to our society. The growing activism of such organizations are alarming which can be seen quite often in variety of fields particularly in educational institutions where religious and so called “student organizations” are actively working. In the public sector universities they have strong hold from where a large number of recruitments take place. Students who are suppose to study are playing in hands of these organizations by wasting their time, money and carriers after being trapped by these people as a member of some religious student organization. They are indoctrinated and then used for the implementation of their organizational agenda either through protests, strikes or even by use of violence all in the name of Islam.

Pakistan is a country where quality education is rare; people are used to of blind following and there is a great dearth of awareness among people about misuse of religion. It is the need of the hour that as an individual and as well as a society we shall raise awareness among people against such propagandas and for the welfare of our country by using all possible means, we need to claim back the Jinnah’s Pakistan which endorses tolerance, peace, love and equality rather than a country plagued by intolerance, hatred, sectarianism and fanatic mentality indoctrinated by those who have already hijacked the ideal state of Pakistan and camouflaged themselves as religious shepherd.
It is up to Pakistanis to decide how much or how little religious tolerance may prevail in the society.
Will Pakistan continue to be a country where Sikhs are prevented from praying, Ahmadis and Shias are slaughtered in and en-route to places of worship, where shrines of patron saints are destroyed by suicide bombers, or where foreign aid workers are abducted for ransom. Or will it be a country where religious pluralism, as was envisioned by Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father, would flourish?
Intolerance Breeds hatred
Every society consists of various groups following different faiths, ideologies, sectarian beliefs and social and political adherences. In some cases, there is a majority which dominates the society and makes attempts, either by force or by persuasion, to integrate these different groups into its fold. In such a scenario the majority believes that only by uniting all groups can society grow strong and defend itself from internal and external dangers. This creates conflict and instead of uniting, the society further fragments and breaks into pieces. This is what is called tyranny of the majority and its intolerance toward differences and diverse opinions.

In other cases the majority makes efforts to understand the existence of different groups in its fold; it adopts the policy of tolerance and allows them to express their views freely.

The outcome of both policies are quite different. In case of tolerance, creativity flourishes and blossoms. Finding no discrimination or prejudices, art, literature, music and other expressions of culture are produced which transform it into a progressive and multicultural society. In case of intolerance, the elements of creativity are strangled and minority groups, feeling insecure and deprived, fail to contribute socially, politically, and economically.

We have the example of the Jews in the Western society. As long as they were persecuted, their contribution to Western civilisation was limited to trade and commerce.
When the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizens was passed after the French Revolution, the Jews were also granted equal rights. When Napoleon conquered Germany, he also liberated the Jews who were forced to reside in ghettos and were not allowed any commercial activities outside the ghettos. Once they were free, they emerged as the most creative group who contributed not only in trade and commerce but also in art and literature, philosophy, and science.

Nazi Germany suffered intellectually and culturally as a result of its anti-Jew policy. Most of the leading Jews left Germany and settled in different European countries or the USA. Germany was deprived of their talents and their adopted countries benefited from their presence.

History shows that those countries which followed the policy of intolerance suffered economically, socially and culturally. When the Arabs conquered Spain, which they called al-Andalus, they formed a multi-religious and multi-cultural society consisting of Muslims, Jews and Christians. This created a sophisticated society based on an enlightened philosophy that richly contributed to art and architecture. The vast store of Greek learning reached the West via Arab translation. There was no persecution of Christians. However, all this changed when in 1492 the combined forces of Castilian and Aragon defeated the last Moorish kingdom of Granada and expelled the Muslims and the Jews. They were given the option to either convert to Christianity or leave the country.

Thus followed a trail of tears. The Jews left and made efforts to settle in European countries where they were constantly harassed and terrorised. The Muslims settled in North African Muslim states and some of them became pirates to take revenge against the Europeans by plundering their trading ships. Those who converted were harassed by the Inquisition and tried on mere suspicion of following their old religion. It changed the whole cultural fabric of Spain. Although it became a part of the Holy Roman empire it slowly lost its cultural vitality and became backward.

The second example is of France which was predominantly a Catholic country. After the Protestant Reformation that started in 1517, the French Protestant sects, known as Huguenots, faced severe religious discrimination and persecution until Henry IV, the king of France, issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which introduced the policy of tolerance and provided them security. The process was disturbed when in 1685 Henry’s grandson, Louis XIV, revoked the Edict and exposed Protestants to the danger of discrimination once again. Nearly 200,000 Huguenots left France and settled in Germany, England, Holland, South Africa and South America. They were well-educated and highly skilled artisans. They benefited their adopted countries while France lost its valuable assets.

There is a lesson for us here. As we too are not treating our religious minorities on the basis of equality and not allowing them to exercise their fundamental rights, most of their members, feeling insecure, are leaving to take refuge in other countries. This is a loss to our society. Secondly, the majority is trying to establish its hegemony and harassing other religious sects. As a result, there is an alarming rise in target killings and massacres which cause instability and chaos in the society. Our society has suffered immensely due to persecution and discrimination.

History tells us that in the age of democracy and globalisation, the question is not of tolerance which is a paternalistic attitude, but of treating all citizens, irrespective of their religion and sect, as equal. Only then can a country survive and contribute to civilisation.

democratic institutions evolved at a different pace in India and Pakistan. Historically, it was impressed in the minds of the people living here that security concerns were more important than political issues. After partition of the subcontinent in 1947, the Pakistani state inherited the mantle of the British ‘security state’. With India refusing to accept its creation and Afghanistan staking claims on its Pakhtun areas in NWFP by observing 31 August as the ‘Greater Pakhtunistan Day’, security issues took precedence over the growth of political institutions. On top of it, the All India Muslim League which was just a political party but by claiming to be the creator of Pakistan identified itself as the entity that represented the will of the state as well. This metamorphosis of a party into the state had far reaching implications on the political evolution in the country.

Now, any threat to the Muslim League could be termed as a threat to national security. The state that felt threatened from its neighbours was equally afraid of the actors within, who dared to challenge its worldview. Several examples can be quoted in support of this premise. In 1948, the Kalat National Party was banned in Balochistan. The same year the Azad Peoples Party was formed with Abdul Ghaffar Khan as President, Abdus Samad Achakzai as Vice President and G M Syed as General Secretary. The party was killed in its infancy when its leaders were imprisoned for long time just because it envisioned a non-communal and secular Pakistan on socialist ideals which clashed with the religion based communal nationalism touted by League, the party in power.

Such an attitude by the ruling party bred a culture of political intolerance towards the opposition from the very beginning. Although every democratic society accepts the existence of political pluralism and conflicting viewpoints, exactly the opposite happened in Pakistan. The provincial elections of 1951 testify this trend. It was none other than Quaid-i-Millat Liaquat Ali Khan, under whom the ruling party, the Muslim League used the state’s power not only to rig the elections and violate the sanctity of the ballot box but also witch-hunt the opposition. The rigging was so pervasive that a new term ‘jhurlo’ was coined for the first time in popular jargon. Rigging is one thing but Premier Liaquat went to the extent of branding all the politicians opposed to his party as ‘traitors’ and ‘dogs’. He stated that all those political parties that did not subscribe to the ideology of the League were unpatriotic and declared that “the formation of new political parties in opposition to the Muslim League is against the interest of Pakistan”. Fast forward to the ‘90s and we heard the same harangue from a new generation of League leaders against another party. This time the PPP’s leader Benazir Bhutto was denounced as a national security threat.

The approach of dubbing the entire opposition as ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘wrong’ was not limited to Liaquat Ali. The example set by him was emulated by League’s central and provincial leaders as well. Khan Abdul Qayyum, the strongman of the League in the NWFP squeezed the ‘Red Shirts’ of Abdul Ghaffar Khan after the ‘Hazara Plot’. He was equally vindictive towards those ‘friends’, who had left the League and started a new party to challenge his power. One such figure was Pir of Manki Sharif, who was kicked out of the province just because he had founded the Awami Muslim League.

At the federal level, the Communications Minister Sardar Abdur Rab Nishter tried to stifle the voices of regional protest by branding them as fifth columnists. He went on to declare, “Regional patriotism is simply repugnant to Islam”. In this way the political repression of the League was submerged with the religious sanction. This strategy was effectively used by the Leaguers in the 1946 general elections as Talbot succinctly notes that “its campaigners had declared that anyone who voted against the League was a ‘kafir’ and would not be buried in a Muslim graveyard”.

Such rhetoric engendered intolerance towards any political opposition. This totalitarian attitude was all the more dangerous because the League was the oldest and the biggest Muslim party in the subcontinent and ruled unchallenged for several years after the creation of Pakistan. The political model that it set was replicated by other parties as well. In the ultimate analysis, it was not a democratic model based on the principle of “live and let live”. That is why instead of providing good governance the politicians settled scores against one another. A new tendency of dragging in the army was introduced when one group of squabbling politicians found it too difficult to overthrow the ruling group. General K M Arif, who served as General Zia’s Chief of Staff justified the military intervention in his book, ‘Working with Zia’ by stating that it was due to absence of “reconciliation, accommodation and tolerance among the quarrelling politicians”. However, the last five years have shown that the politicians have at least matured in this regard. Not only did they refrain from calling in the army but quite successfully neutralised those few voices which still clamoured for the martial law in some areas of the country. The PPP government that just completed its term was probably the first government that broke the old mould of political intolerance by promoting the culture of live and let live.
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Political intolerance and lack of solidarity resulted in worst calamities in the past, such as the dismemberment of East Pakistan in 1971, and if this situation was not checked it could cause another tragedy in the future.
The worst law and order situation in different parts of the country, such as Balochistan, would lead us to a standstill and point of no return. The grave situation at both the political and social level demands of the ruling elite to promote tolerance and encourage dialogue with those they like to declare as traitors.