Purifying the Land of the Pure

Title: Purifying the Land of the Pure – Pakistan’s Religious Minorities

Author: Farahnaz Ispahani

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2015 (First)

ISBN: 9789351775522

Pages: 253

India was partitioned in 1947 on the basis of religion. Muslims demanded and obtained Pakistan as their homeland while the other communities declared their divided country secular. The percentage of religious minorities as a share of the population in India increased from 15.9% in 1947 to 20.2% now, while that of Pakistan plummeted from 23% to a paltry 3% in the same period. Pakistanis take pride in trimming down minorities since the name of the country itself means ‘the land of the pure’ and they want to keep it pure without the ‘polluting’ presence of other religions.  Pakistan chose to build the nation on religion rather than civic nationalism. While statesmen and great thinkers usually formulated the guiding principles of most of the nations, fanatic mullahs and bloodthirsty jihadists framed that of Pakistan. This book is about the steady growth of fanaticism and intolerance to the crescendo we observe now. Farahnaz Ispahani is a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan for the past twenty-five years, first as a journalist, then as a member of the country’s National Assembly. She is a renowned thinker and accredited with several global distinctions. No wonder, she lives in the U.S., as this book is so provocative for the jihadists who might try to endanger her in Pakistan.

Ispahani deftly provides the details of the demise of Pakistan’s founding ideals over the years. Jinnah had high ambitions of his dream child when he declared in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August 1947 that every person living in the country should be first, second and last a citizen of the state with equal rights and privileges. In a hyperbole of epic dimensions, he exhorted that people are free to go to temples, mosques or any place of worship and that religion was the personal faith of an individual. He promised that all are citizens and equal citizens of one state in which Muslims are just the majority. In other words, he wanted to bring in a Muslim version of the tolerance existed in India. Things rapidly deteriorated a few years later. Jinnah had appointed Jogender Nath Mandal – a Hindu – as Pakistan’s first law minister. He fled to India three years later, unable to stand the violence against Hindus. The Objectives Resolution introduced by Liaquat Ali Khan in March 1949 bared the thin end of the wedge that was to alienate and isolate the religious minorities. The resolution declared that ‘sovereignty over the entire universe belonged to God Almighty alone and that the state of Pakistan would exercise authority within the limit prescribed by him’. This set the tone for the thorough Islamization of the country, most of it under the harrowing dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq. The author makes a brilliant point here with an analysis of the political bifurcation of Hindus and Muslims in the subcontinent as beginning with the establishment of separate electorates granted by Morley – Minto reforms in response to appeals made by Aga Khan III and other Muslim notables. While India’s Constituent Assembly thronged with legal and political luminaries, Pakistan’s assembly ‘boasted’ of such figures as Abul ala Maududi, the founder of the dreaded Jamaat e-Islami and other hardliners and puritans.

Antagonism against the Hindu minority was predictable and even logical, as India was the arch-enemy and mortal rival of Pakistan. They were sidelined and most of them were forced to migrate to India over the years. Now, the Hindus are numerically smaller than the Christian community. After getting rid of Hindus, the Islamist hardliners turned against minority Muslim sects such as Ahmadiyyas and Shias. The comic truth is that these two sects were at the forefront of the clamour for Pakistan, strongly supporting Jinnah in his every step as they ‘feared’ Hindu dominance in India! Jinnah had made Sir Zafrullah Khan, a prominent Ahmadi, as the country’s first foreign minister and that was indeed the tallest position assumed by a member of the sect since. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto instituted a constitutional amendment in 1974 that banned Ahmadis from terming themselves as Muslim and not to call their places of worship mosques. The call to prayer was strictly forbidden for use by Ahmadis. This sect is now bearing the brunt of jihadist violence and thousands of them have so far been butchered like sheep with nobody lifting a finger against the assailants. After effectively terminating the Ahmadi menace, the Sunni radicals turned against the Shias. This was ironic, as the country’s founder Jinnah was a Shia himself who loathed the hard-line teachings of Sunni fundamentalism. It is strange that Pakistan’s most noted personalities had been Shia or Ahmadi. Jinnah was a Shia and Prof. Abdus Salam, who had won the Nobel Prize in Physics, was an Ahmadi. Fundamentalists consistently picketed the gates when Prof. Salam was conducting lectures. Mullahs of the Deobandi persuasion treated all other sects such as Shias, Ahmadis and Barelvis (non-orthodox Sunnis) as apostates. But don’t place your sympathies on the victims yet, as the most progressive Barelvi cleric is known to have remarked that ‘non-Muslims shouldn’t be in the army, judiciary or as minister or be appointed to other posts involving the reposing of confidence (p.61)! Shias are the most vocal advocates of the continuance of brutish blasphemy laws in Pakistan, even though they are most often at the receiving end of litigation on blasphemy. The latest trend in militancy is to target the sufis among Sunni sects.

The author presents a clean case of the rise of fundamentalism and intolerance in Pakistan. Islamization of Zia-ul-Haq was preceded by steady early steps in that direction. The country is said to have slid past the point of no return after 1971. In the civil war and subsequent birth of Bangladesh, Pakistan suffered the worst defeat in its history. The much trumpeted valour of the Pakistani army came to naught and was proved to be a mere bubble that was easily pricked by India, whose determined prime minister was also a woman. 91000 Pakistani soldiers meekly surrendered their arms, military possessions and the country’s honour to India, which mercilessly sliced Pakistan into two, like a piece of cake. This made the Pakistanis realize that their army would never stand a chance to beat the Indian troops in a formal war and instead chose to adopt jihad as an instrument of state policy. Jihadis are trained and armed in Pakistan and later released to commit acts of terrorism in various parts of the globe. The hardliners at home became very powerful as a result and demanded stricter Islamic laws to be enforced. Consequently, the blasphemy laws came into existence during the military rule. The Offence of Zina (unlawful sexual intercourse) was punishable by stoning to death. Rapists could be convicted only if there are four Muslim male witnesses to the deed! If the charge could not be established because of this limitation, the victim would be liable to eighty lashes under the Offence of Qazat (false allegation). A fixed amount at 2.5% was cut automatically from bank deposits as zakat (mandatory charity as per sharia) and handed over to jihadists. The isolation, marginalization and threats of violence against minorities began from school textbooks that were cunningly doctored to pander to extremism. There were only 137 madrasas (religious seminaries) in 1947 in the entire Pakistan, which boomed to 29000 in 2000 with lavish foreign financial assistance channeled through Wahhabi conduits. These are breeding grounds of sadistic jihadis, but the worthless certificates issued by them are recognized as equivalent to university degrees in Pakistan. A word must be said about the blasphemy laws too. An accusation by a rival is enough to guarantee lynching by roaming mobs. If a police officer or a lawyer or a judge dares to express doubt on the veracity of charges, the vigilantes would swoop down on their families and kill them too. If the accused manage to stay alive, he would be condemned by the court with whatever flimsy evidence the prosecution can come up with.

The book is a pleasure to read though the content is macabre. It has covered the entire history of Pakistan till 2014. A sizeable number of Notes are provided, but the absence of an Index is a serious drawback. Besides, the author has assumed intolerance as the single issue on which governments fell in Pakistan. This is not exactly true. Benazir Bhutto’s ouster in 1990 was due as much to the issue of wholesale corruption as it is to intolerance.

The book is strongly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star