Tackling sectarianism

Authority's reaction to such killings is predictable. Sectarian terrorism is condemned in strongest terms. The police is ordered to arrest the culprits immediately --- which it seldom does. The long arm of the law is mentioned that does not spare the wrong doers. Meantime experience shows that that long arm is in fact not long enough to uncover the men who send individual killers on their murdering mission. The emphasis is on catching the culprits, not on the infrastructure that maintains, trains, funds and protects the murderers.

LEAs chime in to say that no good Muslim or Pakistani can do such things; it is the work of the "foreign hand". Now this is easily recognised: it is India's intelligence service RAW. The government buys it instantly. That is treated as complete explanation with little to do. Afterwards it is business as usual. Satisfied with this master explanation, no subsequent effort is expended by Pakistan's many undercover agencies or police to catch the masterminds behind the terrorists who order the killing of Kafirs and protect killers.

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Most such murders, targetted or indiscriminate (usually in Mosques during prayers), can often be linked to the political expediencies of some of those who politically matter. It does not seem as if anyone has made a graph, with one side showing the dates of sectarian killings against the other displaying political crises. One is not too sure if a pattern does not emerge.

Certain circumstances compel attention. First, murderers get away safely. What the LEAs do, in addition to the invoking of the "foreign hand", is to throw a wide net and arrest many, most on flimsy assumptions. Only a few are proceeded against, mostly on the basis of evidence that usually gets thrown out even in the Anti-Terrorist Courts. Far too few cases get past the High Courts. The reason seems to be that most real culprits are well protected and the police does not or dare not catch them.

Second concerns this 'foreign hand'. Heaven knows the Indian RAW and others have plenty of reasons to be mad at their counterparts in Pakistan; there is an almost ongoing war between the two sets of spooks. They would perhaps dearly like to do terrible things to each other. The question is how do the Indian spooks do such things? Do they send their own operatives? Or do they hire Pakistanis to do their bidding? Given the number of incidents about which Authority seemed sure that Indian RAW caused them, would seem to show that either the Pakistan side of the border is too porous --- because of either corruption or negligence --- or there are such an awful lot of Pakistanis who are ready to murder and maim so many Pakistani Muslims for the sake of --- what? Money? Or some other consideration. Both possibilities look absurd.

Look at the Quetta incident closely. Out of the three assailants, at least one was a suicide bomber. Can any undercover service find suicide bombers in a scarcely friendly country? The other two killers should also have been consciously ready to die in their effort. How does RAW buy such men? Is it not safer to assume that these were committed men who thought they were doing good (Jihad) by killing those Kafirs; they expect to earn a Palace in Paradise.

Why should such cases not be seen as profound failures of not only Pakistan's colonial style administration but also of the political elites and their politics? No RAW or CIA or Khad can hire suicide bombers. Pakistanis should focus on the mind of such killers. Who can produce such mind sets? Certainly not unsympathetic foreign states. It is a local job. The "foreign hand" is a lame excuse of the Pakistani agencies' own failure to prevent such occurrences or to catch the murderers. Rulers by echoing the spooks shift the blame from themselves. There may be more to it.

Shias and Sunnis have lived together peacefully for a Millennium and one half in many countries, with occasional friction in the past. In Pakistan sectarian riots or murders were unheard of until well into 1980s. It was Gen. Ziaul Haq's malign talent that, after the 1983 MRD movement, midwifed the birth of sectarian and other divisive movements --- and in Karachi. Army's intelligence services were their godfathers; indeed these are the moving finger that writes on the Pakistani wall. They have masterminded at least three Jihads: first was against the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1980s; the second started in the Indian-controlled Kashmir in the 1990s; and the third is again in Afghanistan for helping pull the American chestnuts out of fire yet again.

Whom did they utilise? Look closely. These Jihadis are the dropouts or graduates of the JUI-run Madressas in NWFP, Baluchistan and some in Karachi and Punjab. They are further brainwashed during further training; the final product will however not be recognised by Maulanas Qasim Nanautvi, Hussain Ahmad Madni or even, I dare say, Maulana Abul Ala Maududi. The Jamaat-i-Islami's contribution to the evolution of the ultimate mind set cannot be inconsiderable, for JUI and the JI are actually friendly rivals.

Pakistan's military intelligence services can be complimented on the production of fine fanatics, who are passable imitation of Viet Congs in commitment.

Americans and Pakistan Army's purposes may have been served thereby but what murder-making instrument have they tossed into Pakistani people's lap. Make no mistake. It is a poisonous weed, this Jihadi mind set, that is likely to unravel the very warp and woof of Pakistan. Remember nothing like that had existed in Pakistan until 1980s. The committed JI's Islamic State worker was not as intolerant or bigoted. This Jihadi mind set --- manifested in Taliban, and Kashmir Jihadis' conduct --- actually apes Zia in wanting to Islamise the traditionalist Muslims in their own image. The sectarian killers have not come from the Mars. They are the same Islamic extremists who are called Jihadis in Kashmir or Taliban in Afghanistan. Remember also that Gen. Moinuddin Haider had wanted to extradite 200 wanted SSP members from Afghanistan. Taliban simply refused to hand over their own replicas. Whoever clearly examines the minds of the three sets of bigots will see commonalties. One might say that the same reality looks three separate things in different contexts.

Should religious intolerance and extremism continue to grow unchecked, all minorities will progressively go on being oppressed --- and alienated. For once, let the elites stop being hypocrites and dissemblers and see the birth of religious fascism as a process resulting from giving state a religion (Islam) and laying down that that it shall enforce that religion. Since power was seen to be at stake, a scramble among religious parties was bound to ensue, each claiming to be the authentic interpreter of Islam; the more strident and more extreme would move ahead, especially if it is assumed that Pakistan or Islam is incomplete until the Shariah is enforced.

The moment it is posited that Islam is a unique system of governance and organising the economy requiring enforcement, emphasis is put on defining Islam, with the need to know who is to interpret Islam. Actually, Islam evolved as a tolerant and accommodating faith of the millions. As it happens, there is a plethora of orthodoxies or sects with own Fiqahs, all complete and each claiming to be the true Islam.

Some thoughtlessly talk of a non-denominational, homogenised Islam, above and beyond sects, such as were Quaid-e-Azam or Sir Muhammad Iqbal exemplified. Such people were and are a handful. Reality of grassroots Islam was always, and still is, sectarian orthodoxies. That in the days of less rapacious and or less tyrannical and more tolerant kings, the sects --- each divorced from state power --- learned to live with one another. When religious leaders scent power through political action, as now, that coexistence breaks down; each sect will want all of the state power in order to make itself dominant so as to enforce true (its) Islam. Hence this competition is resulting in growing extremism.

When whisky-imbibing, west-oriented elites endlessly go on with Islamic rhetoric --- Islamic solidarity, brotherhood and its many- splendoured beauties --- orthodox leaders of various sects become angry. They in effect say it is we who know Islam, having read the Quran, Hadith and Nazra. What do these Muslim Leaguers and PPP wallahs or generals know about Islam; they are hypocrites and dissemblers. History shows empty rhetoric has to be paid for; the words carelessly uttered soon become fetters on their feet. Words take revenge. In Pakistan's case, the politics of bogus rhetoric of Islam by dissembling politicians has been followed by orthodoxies contending for supreme power. If the strongest group looks uncommonly like Taliban, well, so it is. After culture-induced historical coexistence has to give way to a scramble for power among religious politicians, eager to take power from, or at least share with, the traditional elites.

The fate of Pakistan cannot be different from Algeria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Indonesia, even Iran, if power politics in Islam's names continues. Enough people see the danger. Enforcing 'true Islam' in a predominantly Muslim country can only mean a desperate struggle for power by traditional orthodoxies. No Muslim country, with a richly plural society, can stay united and give citizens all freedoms or make progress unless it steers clear of religious controversies. State has to be above the religions of its citizens; that is the way to avoid tyranny or unending conflict among contending orthodoxies.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.