Scourge of sectarianism

The phenomenon's origins and the processes that nourish it need to be investigated. Philosophically, sectarianism is an aspect of religious intolerance. There is not much to distinguish between those who attack a Church and kill Christians, or Hindus for that matter, and those who kill Sunnis or Shias. They are all soul mates. Often the sectarian groups and anti-Hindu or anti-Ahmedi or anti-Christian groups are the same people. The bigotry against the 'other' is the mother of the evil.

But knowing that alone will not take us far. The politics and sociological facts that give birth to the aggravated intolerance of all 'others' -- 'accept my faith and all my ideas or be outside the pale' --- need to be dispassionately studied. Unless the causes of the perception of growing distance from 'others' and the emergence of active hatred are clearly understood, ways and means of accommodation among all religious and sectarian groups cannot be found.

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Many cannot understand why should a large Sunni majority feel threatened by, and be so angry with, a small Shia minority. They have lived together peaceably for generations without many incidents. That same can be said for Ahmedis or Hindus or Christians. The cognisable fact today is that Pakistani society is characterised by many hatreds inside it and several resulting polarisations. Sectarianism's potential being horrific, its prevalence and constant aggravation through escalating incidents of gruesome nature frightens all decent persons who are not sold on any communal identity. The latter is either simple human beings or plain undifferentiated (by sects) Muslims.

So where and how did the latter-day sectarianism arise? One is not concerned with the original Medieval schism of Shias and Sunnis. Muslims everywhere learnt to shake down into a peaceful coexistence long ago. During the Pakistan Movement there was no consciousness of Shias and Sunnis. Indeed the large Sunni masses warmly responded to the call of Quaid-i-Azam who was a Shia, if also non-observant kind, and forced the partition of India on the British and Congress leadership. There had long been Sunni and Shia Ulema who flourished on sectarian rhetoric. But the society at large tolerated the phenomenon more or less good humouredly, except some politics-related incidents in a place like Lucknow. The ferocity of sectarian feelings that is in evidence today is a new thing and is certainly politics-related.

Let us go back to Pakistan of 1947-48. Muslim League and its government brought with them a largely empty rhetoric -- except for an anti-Hindu and anti-India content that was not always clearly enunciated -- of Islam, a Muslim Nationalism conceived in communal or anti-Hindu terms, and a vague enthusiasm for pan Islamist causes. The emergence of Pakistan put the orthodox Ulema in a difficult situation, however.

Remember the Jamiat-e-Ulemai Hind was against both the League and partition; its Islam could live happily in a secular India on the basis of a secular Indian nationalism. Not many Shias favoured partition either; in 1946 polls Mr. Jinnah had to fight in his own constituency against Hussainbhai Lalji who was the President of All India Shia Federation. The point of it all is that League was not a religious party. Indeed it was quite secular, though it was concerned with only the interests of Muslim community, political and economic.

All the followers of Jamiat-e-Ulmai Hind in Pakistan areas and their allies like the Ahrars or minor variations on Jamiat's view of Islam --- such as the fledgeling Jamat-i-Islami -- had bitterly denounced Jinnah and his League. Maulana Ataullah Shah Bukhari, possibly taking a hint from a younger Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, suddenly raised the demand of an Islamic State based on making Quran and Sunnah as the defining principle of statehood probably in 1948. That had a lasting resonance, though no political authority or government ever could accept or reject it ever since. Credit for whatever intellectual work was done on a uniquely Islamic State must go to Maulana Maududi and to a European scholar Lepold Asad (originally Weisse). Demand for Nizam-I-Islam remains hard to swallow by secular politicians or the military who do rely on Islamic rhetoric down to this day. But no one has openly opposed it -- wherein anyone can see the origins of rampant hypocrisy in this country.

Islamicist Ulema's argument was devastatingly simple, if also historically wrong: Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. It therefore has to be an Islamic state based on Quran and Shariah. There is mighty little literature to show why an effort to do so will be dangerous or inadvisable, except for a few remarks of AK Brohi and the Punjab Riots Inquiry Commission's Report written by Justices Mohammad Munir and MR Kayani in 1954. Ulema's case is simple: 'come to us. We will tell you what to do. We know what Islam is. Learn it from us'. In any case, the first practical question is the definition of Islam. And sequentially who is to define or explain it?

Sunnah, the indispensable elaboration of Quran, is uncodified; few can agree on which tradition, or revayat is authentic and which is not. Indeed sectarianism is born just here. Each sect has a distinct body of Prophet's saying or revayat. Each authentic or orthodox definition of Islam is, ipso facto, sectarian. Fact is there is no common Islam among various sects; each has its own version. Each claims its sect's Islam is the true and eternal and is the only one and no compromise or ad hoc homogenisation is permissible. All other versions, even if they differ only slightly, are false and are works of Satan.

Now, as one said, so long as these matters were discussed in a purely theoretical context, the society, already quite plural, could accommodate them all. Sectarianism never became a serious menace before 1947 for two reasons: First it was a largely theoretical debate; most people's lives or livelihood were not affected, except for the bread and butter of individual Mullah. Secondly, no entitlement to power or wealth was attached to the debates among Ulema. So all could take these interminable debates in their stride. Not so in Pakistan. Ulema have tried their best to force the issue. Here the power of the state for one sect and perpetual subordination of others could be seen to be at stake. Think of the consequences.

All this confusion arose because of men like Sir Syed, Maulana Mohamed Ali, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Sir Mohammad Iqbal. They were acutely conscious of belonging to the Muslim community. But they were relaxed about not being too orthodox or observant. They talked of what was a homogenised, non-sectarian Islam which can march with the times and cope with the situation created by Muslims' loss of power. In the Indian context they ended up by encouraging a separatist Muslim communalism that did not arise from any Islamic tenet but was linked to the chances of power-sharing.

That communalism was related to India's social and political conditions; it was misplaced in Pakistan where over 80 percent were Muslims. Ulema's Islam had to be ipso facto sectarian, it too will not do. There was a secular element also. But it was tiny one, being a small part of a small middle class at the time of partition. It was largely the Muslim part of Indian Left that immigrated into Pakistan. They heard and saw the Deobandi Ulema's argument and were instantly disspirited because it sounded so ostensible. They soon gave up the whole fight. It was partly because most of them came as refugees and had too little local support. Anyway, the Left did formally start work but without challenging the religious Right. In part the Muslim League and military governments -- the secular Right -- rendered them ineffective with American expertise. In part they lacked the courage to take on the US-supported Right, both secular and Ulema.

The secular Right, in its infatuation with American aid, poverty of thought and Kashmir dispute's vicissitudes, surrendered democracy quickly. At any rate, they were half-heartedly secular or democratic, dependent on an Islamic rhetoric and the communal concept of Muslim Nationalism. How could they behave like humanists believing in human equality and making human rights and welfare their criteria? Only such humanists can create a truly free and plural society devoted to material human welfare. It is in such a dispensation that sectarianism can be contained. The worst sin of secular Right is that it allowed the religious Right to keep the initiative in politics and themselves were always apologetic.

Ulema, after the military's ministrations in the 1980s and 1990s, now scent power. They are on the march. But their aim of enforcing Shariat is a self-destruct formula for Pakistan. For, any Shariat they enforce will be a sectarian one, based probably on Deobandi concepts and traditions. Let alone Shias, even the Barelvi school of Sunnis or Ahle Hadis will not accept it. Other sects' rejection will be total. An unending vista of contention and conflict will open up. Indeed the current crop of sectarianism may only be a trailer, the main film will be far more terrifying. The scourge of sectarianism needs to be fought at the roots by creating simple democracy, unadorned with any objective, where all voters are equal and elect regional constituencies' representatives who will be happy to create, and live, in a polycentric society with the rule of democratically-conceived (secular) laws. All privileged sections of society will have to be divested of their power and privilege. Let all be treated equally -- in their own rule.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.