Gojra wht happend

Jinnah had no doubts that he was creating a secular state and promised the citizens of Pakistan that they were ‘free to practice their own religions as equal citizens of this country’.

However, with the passage of time, we have succumbed to the pressure of the Islamists Just as the nation celebrated the landmark Supreme Court decision of July 31 against Pervez Musharraf’s unconstitutional and illegal declaration of Emergency on November 3, 2007, on August 1, a mob of hooligans, led by their so-called religious leaders, attacked the Christian community in Gojra in a demonstration of communal hate, torching eight people to death, including women and children. I beg my reader to pause here for a moment’s silence, if you share my shame.

This is not the first incident of its kind, nor is it likely to be the last. Communal hatred is not something confined to South Asia, but any and every demonstration of it must be condemned by all sane citizens, regardless of where it occurs.

Regretfully, most of our history has been distorted. The events of partition, the trauma of it, and the deaths of millions have been interpreted differently in both India and Pakistan to suit the ends of the authors of history. One aspect of the distortion has become common to both countries: the two-nation theory. It was originally propounded by a Muslim cleric who, under the British Raj, sought to re-ignite the flames of dignity among Indian Muslims by encouraging them to dream of an independent homeland for the Muslims of India.

This theory was later espoused by Allama Iqbal, who had gone through various transformations in his philosophical and theological leanings. From a virtual agnostic and amoral individual, he became an ardent Muslim. From the Taraana-e-Hindi, where ‘Hindustan was the best of all the countries of the world’ and it was secular in as much as it crossed all religious boundaries, he finally moved to a fervent pan-Islamism, where the whole world belonged to Muslims, since religion was not spatially limited. However, when talk of independence for British India began, he adopted a more pragmatic view: in favour of a separate homeland for the Muslims of India.

There is, however, little doubt that Jinnah and most of his followers in the erstwhile Indian Muslim League actually wanted to remain within a united India. Jinnah’s sole concern was that, since the Muslims of India were the largest minority, they might not get their due under a predominantly Hindu political set up. Consequently, his pre-condition for remaining within a united India was proportional representation for the Indian Muslims.

Jawaharlal Nehru was a democrat, familiar with the democratic theories opposing proportional representation, and it is very possible that he opposed this proposition on a matter of principle. He even denied Gandhi in doing so, despite the very special relationship between the two. However, Patel, an ardent Hinduist and others of his ilk were quite prepared to witness partition.

Jinnah went so far as to give a chance to the interim government, formed in 1946, to succeed. This, despite the fact that the Muslim League had been promised four major and eight minor ministries, was actually given only one major and four minor ministries.

It was only when the interim government also failed and all hope of finding a meeting point failed that Jinnah opted to make the best of the bad choice left available to him.

In hindsight, I, like most citizens of this country, am grateful that Nehru et al forced Jinnah’s hand and gave us our own country. It is, however, all the more shameful that a country that came into being because the political leadership apprehended that their minority co-religionists would be mistreated should harbour such hate against its own minorities.

Jinnah had no doubts that he was creating a secular state and promised the citizens of Pakistan that they were ‘free to practice their own religions as equal citizens of this country’. However, with the passage of time, we have succumbed to the pressure of the Islamists. Ironically the two leading Islamic parties, the Jama’at-e Islami and the Jamiat-e Ulema-e Islam, had voted against the creation of Pakistan.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began the process of kowtowing to the pressure of the Islamists by banning liquor and shutting down bars. He then took another step and, through an act of Parliament, declared Ahmedis non-Muslims. General Zia-ul Haq gave us the infamous Blasphemy Laws, and it has been downhill ever since. I believe the UK also still has a law against blasphemy, but it has not been repealed only due to the complications involved in doing so. It has, however, never been resorted to for almost a century.

In our case, we don’t even need a court: the public decides on its own whom to target for blasphemy and, so far, has been doing so with impunity. The incident at Gojra lasted for hours as the administration stood by doing nothing. The complaint filed with the police has finally included the local bureaucrat and the local police chief; whether they will actually be held criminally responsible, which they should, is something that time alone will tell.

The Gojra incident was preceded b a similar one in Kasur a few weeks ago and has been immediately followed by another at Muridke on August 4, where a factory owner was taking down a calendar that had Quranic verses on it — that is all — just taking it down! One of the labourers accused him of blasphemy and incited the others to attack him; killing him and another in the process.

How long will we stand silent witnesses to this carnage in the name of protecting religion? I am sure that many of us will visit our Christian brothers and sisters and sympathise with them. I am also sure that many thousands hang their heads in shame at each such incident. Perhaps it is time that more of us did more. Let not evil prosper, merely because we did nothing.