Pakistan: Imran Farooq murder linked to rows within MQM party

Politician may have been about to endorse or join new party set up by General Pervez Musharraf, source claims

 

• Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 26 September 2010 20.28 BST
• Article history

 

Imran Farooq was a senior figure within Pakistan's Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) party. Photograph: AP The Scotland Yard investigation into the murder in London of the leading Pakistani politician Dr Imran Farooq has been told that rows within his own party may have led to his assassination.
Farooq, 50, was stabbed to death earlier this monthduring an attack in which he was also beaten near his home in Edgware, north London. Farooq was a senior figure in Pakistan's MQM (Muttahida Quami Movement) party, and was in exile in London at the time of his death. The murder is being investigated by Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism branch because of the political dimension to the killing.
Sources say intelligence suggests his death was linked to rows within the MQM.
Farooq, once prominent in MQM, had taken a back seat. A senior Pakistani source said he may have been about to endorse or join a new party set up by Pakistan's former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. The source said of the motive: "It lies within the MQM. Dr Farooq was probably going to join Musharraf."He is vowing to leave his own London exile and return home to launch a fresh bid for power. His new party, the All Pakistan Muslim League, will launch its programme in London later this week.
Asked by the Sunday Telegraph about his reaction to Farooq's murder, Musharraf said: "It is terrible that such an assassination could happen in a place like London."
Farooq, who was married with two young sons, claimed UK asylum in 1999 alongside Altaf Hussain, the MQM's leader. Hussain, who also lives in exile in London, has said "enemies of the MQM" killed Farooq and they will try to kill him. Pakistan's media reported him as saying on Friday: "Now the enemies of the movement are after my life, but I want to tell them I am not afraid of anyone, whether it's a superpower like the United States or its Nato allies or their Pakistani agents … I fear the Almighty Allah and will never bow down before the conspirators even if they get my British citizenship rescinded."
Police in London are still hunting an attacker who, one witness said, appeared to be an Asian man. Analysts say the MQM has longstanding rivalries with ethnic Pashtun and Sindhi parties in Karachi. The MQM has also been riven by occasional internecine violence.
Before entering the UK, Farooq spent seven years on the run in Pakistan from criminal charges while the MQM was engaged in a violent battle for control of Karachi. He remained a key party figure. While MQM leader Hussain is protected by private guards and rarely appears in public following death threats, colleagues said Farooq never believed he was at risk and had played a smaller role in the party since the birth of his sons, now aged five and three.
Farooq was attacked on his way home from his job at a chemist's shop. He was found near his home after neighbours witnessed what they believed was a fight. Paramedics were called but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
MQM party officials in the party's stronghold of Karachi declared a 10-day period of mourning. Previous political killings have triggered riots and deadly clashes between rival factions. Police are keeping an open mind as to the identity of Farooq's killer and their investigation continues.

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• The bloody past of the MQM
  
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  Imran Farooq colleagues fear murder was political
  Members of Muttahida Qaumi Movement believe Pakistani politician was targeted by extremists or government-linked forces
  
• Imran Farooq murdered outside London home

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Religious Right in Their Own Words; Apostasy Punishment, Jihad and the Role of Non Muslims in the Land of Infidels

UNANIMITY ON PUNISHMENT FOR APOSTASY
While no simple or unanimous definition for a Muslim was given by all the ulamas, they were clearly unanimous about the punishment for apostasy in an Islamic state. The punishment for apostasy was unequivocally, death.
With this doctrine, the religious leaders were clearly referring the then foreign minister Chaudhry Zafrullah Khan. If Chaudhry Zafrullah had not inherited his present (Ahmadi) beliefs, but had voluntarily elected to become an Ahmadi, he ought to be put to death.
However, while the punishment for apostasy was unanimous, the ulamas could not agree on who exactly is an apostate. Remember various criteria that was narrated by various leaders on who constitutes a Muslim? Now the same uneasy differences were making it hard for the leaders to decide who ought to be put to death.
Maulana Shafi Deobandi said that if he were the head of state of an Islamic Government, he would “exclude those who have pronounced Deobandis as kafirs from the pale of Islam and inflict on them the death penalty if they come within the definition of murtadd, namely, if they have changed and not inherited their religious views”.
The commission further quizzed Maulana Shafi Deobandi on the genuineness of the Deobandi fatwa that declared Asna Ashari Shias as kafirs and murtadds. Maulana Sahib himself made an enquiry on this fatwa from Deoband, and received a signed copy of the aforementioned fatwa, which not only verified the genuineness of that fatwa, but went on to say that “those who do not believe in the sahabiyyat (revering the original companions of the Holy Prophet) of Hazrat Siddiq Akbar and who are qazif (guilty of making vile comments) of Hazrat Aisha Siddiqa (wife of the Holy Prophet, and daughter of Hazrat Siddiq Akbar) and have been guilty of tehrif (distorting the meaning) of Qur’an are kafirs”.
Another Alim, Mr. Ibrahim Ali Chishti, who had studied that topic, believed that Shias are Kafirs as they believe that Hazrat Ali (the fourth caliph and prophet’s cousin) shared the prophethood with the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Chishti however refused to answer if any Sunni changed his views and becomes a Shia, ought to be put to death or not.
The confusion of the Muslimness and right to kill the apostates led the justices to remark yet again that:
“According to the Shias all Sunnis are kafirs, and Ahl-i-Qur’an; namely, persons who consider hadith to be unreliable and therefore not binding, are unanimously kafirs and so are all independent thinkers. The net result of all this is that neither Shias nor Sunnis nor Deobandis nor Ahl-i-Hadith nor Barelvis are Muslims and any change from one view to the other must be accompanied in an Islamic State with the penalty of death if the Government of the State is in the hands of the party which considers the other party to be kafirs. And it does not require much imagination to judge of the consequences of this doctrine when it is remembered that no two ulama have agreed before us as to the definition of a Muslim”.
But the answers of the religious right about indiscriminate killing of the apostates had the Justices wondering about what kind of religion do these fanatic alims really represent? The positive treatment for anyone who uses independent thinking or reasoning to accept Islam, vs. the death sentence for someone who uses the reasoning to reject Islam would cast Islam as a fanatical religion, and “an embodiment of complete intellectual paralysis”. The justices pointed out that the “Quran again and again lays emphasis on reason and though, advises toleration and preaches against compulsion in religious matters”.
If anything, the chilling confusions of the political Islam that would soon strangle the new state of Pakistan, were on full display in the pages of the Munir-Kiyani Report.
PROPAGATION OF OTHER RELIGIONS
So what about the right for the non Muslims to preach kufr (way of the infidels) in an Islamic State?.
There was a broad unanimity of what to do in this case. No faith other than Islam could be preached in an Islamic State. Maulana Moudoudi had by that time written a full pamphlet on the case for apostates in an Islamic State. Since many of the alims were considering the other sects to be non Muslims already, implication was that the “non Muslim sect” would also not be allowed any proselytizing in the “Islamic” state. Case in point, the words of Ghazi Siraj-uddin Munir when question on the point:
“Q.—What will you do with them (Ahmadis) if you were the head of the Pakistan State?
A.—I would tolerate them as human beings but will not allow them the right to preach their religion”.
THE CONCEPT OF JIHAD
The interviews turned towards the doctrine of Jihad, and began focusing on the concepts related to Jihad and how they correspond to modern international problems such as international criminal jurisdiction, international conventions and rules of public international law.
Let’s get some definitions first here: An Islamic State is dar-ul-Islam (The House of Islam) where “ordinances of Islam are established and which is under the rule of a Muslim sovereign. Its inhabitants are Muslims and also non-Muslims who have submitted to Muslim control and who under certain restrictions and without the possibility of full citizenship are guaranteed their lives and property by the Muslim State. They must, however, be people of Scriptures and may not be idolaters. An Islamic State is in theory perpetually at war with the neighbouring non-Muslim country, which at any time may become dar-ul-harb, in which case it is the duty of the Muslims of that country to leave it and to come over to the country of their brethren in faith”.
Maulana Moudoudi, one of the foremost brains behind the political Islam movement in Pakistan had this to say about his idea of dar-ul-harb (house of infidels).
“Q.—is a country on the border of dar-ul-Islam always qua an Islamic State in the position of dar-ul-harb?
A.—No. In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, the Islamic State will be potentially at war with the non-Muslim neighbouring country. The non-Muslim country acquires the status of dar-ul-harb only after the Islamic State declares a formal war against it”.
Introduction of potential war against Dar-ul-Harb causes further complications. According to the shorter encyclopaedia of Islam, when a country becomes a dar-ul-harb (belonging to the infidels), it is the duty of all Muslims in that country to leave that country en-masse and migrate to the dar-ul-Islam. Wives who refuse to accompany their Muslim husbands in migration would be ipso facto divorced.
The obvious reference here was India where forty million Muslims were residing and if Pakistan were to become an Islamic state, those Muslims suddenly had an obligation according to these learned Maulanas to move to Pakistan.
 I would slightly digress here, and point out that most of the religious right bitterly opposed Pakistan. In fact, some of the very interviewees called vile names for Pakistan and its founder before the independence in 1947. But such are the expediencies in the name of religion that the same country is now being hailed as an Islamic fortress and home to all Muslims in India by the same religious leaders. Why? Because India was now the land of the infidels. And the country they opposed tooth and nail to form was now being considered the land of the pure.
 Coming back to the interviews, another question was asked now to the alims; what to do with the prisoners of war in case of a battle between the Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harb. Maulana Qadri’s remarks were quite close to other replies:
 “Q.—Is there a law of war in Islam?
A.—Yes.
 Q.—Does it differ in fundamentals from the present International Law?
A.—Yes.
 Q.—What are the rights of a person taken prisoner in war?
A.—He can embrace Islam or ask for aman, in which case he will be treated as a musta’min. If he does not ask for aman, he would be made a slave”.
The religious leaders also mentioned that ghanima (plunder) and khums (one fifth of the enemy property) were a necessary incident of a Jihad.
SO WHAT MUSLIMS UNDER THE KAAFIR GOVERNMENTS OUGHT TO DO?
 But then, the justices asked the alims about what the non Muslims ought to do in a land governed by kafir governments. Mr. Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari opined that “it is not possible for a Musalman to be a faithful citizen of a non Muslim state”. When asked that if it was possible for the forty million Muslims of India to be faithful towards India, his reply was “no”.
 So much for condemning the Indian Muslims as traitors in the land of their birth; but the Muslim right wing leaders were not just showing their poor understanding of the formation of modern nationalist identities; in their enthusiasm to divide the world in the believer vs. the non believer realms, they were condemning the Muslims living in non Muslim majority areas to a life of discrimination that they were eyeing for their very own minorities.
 Justice Munir and Kiyani asked a simple question: If an Islamic state was to discriminate against its non Muslim population, would the religious leaders be fine if India treats its Muslim minority the same way. Some sample answers are given below:
 Moudoudi: “Certainly. I should have no objection even if the Muslims of India are treated in that form of Government as shudras and malishes and Manu’s laws are applied to them, depriving them of all share in the Government and the rights of a citizen. In fact such a state of affairs already exists in India”.
 Qadri:  “No objection to Muslims treated under a Hindu government as malishes and shudras under the law of Manu”.

Ghazi Siraj Uddin Munir:
Q.—Do you admit for them the right to declare that all Muslims in India, are shudras and malishes with no civil rights whatsoever?
A.—We will do our best to see that before they do it their political sovereignty is gone. We are too strong for India. We will be strong enough to prevent India from doing this.
Q.—Is it a part of the religious obligations of Muslims to preach their religion?
A—Yes.
Q.—Is it a part of the duty of Muslims in India publicly to preach their religion?
A.—They should have that right.
Q.—What if the Indian State is founded on a religious basis and the right to preach religion is disallowed to its Muslim nationals?
A —If India makes any such law, believer in the Expansionist movement as I am, I will march on India and conquer her.”
  
CONCLUSION
 The rampant confusion, the bloody ideologies and inherent discrimination in the political Islam shone through these interviews. We were lucky that we were able to document this confusion just seven years after our country was born. We were lucky that the designs of the religious right, with all their splendid confusion were laid bare by two respected Jurists of the new nation in such clear terms.
 We were terribly unfortunate to consign this document into the archives of our history, under the dust of the long 55 years, never seriously reading the message that screamed through these pages again and again. That fusing this chaotic medieval ideology with the newly formed state was a recipe for disaster. That the religious right, in its profound fanaticism, would become a catalyst for destruction, for Pakistan and across the world. That sooner Pakistan moves firmly towards a secular, equal for all humans, and democratic Pakistan envisioned by its founder, the better it would be for its future generations. Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech figures prominently in the Justice Munir and Kiyani Report. A forgotten and uncomfortable speech for many in the new state, right wing or not, who somehow saw Pakistan as an Islamic state and nothing more.
 I end this series again with more moving words by the late Justices. All of the material for this series has been taken from this report that is widely available on the internet (1). This series covers just a few, not all, of the interviews and their transcripts. I encourage all the readers to read pages 195 to 250 in particular, from where most of the interviews were reproduced.
 “Pakistan is being taken by the common man, though it is not, as an Islamic State. This belief has been encouraged by the ceaseless clamour for Islam and Islamic State that is being heard from all quarters since the establishment of Pakistan. The phantom of an Islamic State has haunted the Musalman throughout the ages and is a result of the memory of the glorious past when Islam rising like a storm from the least expected quarter of the world—wilds of Arabia—instantly enveloped the world, pulling down from their high pedestal gods who had ruled over man since the creation, uprooting centuries old institutions and superstitions and supplanting all civilisations that had been built on an enslaved humanity…………..
 He (the Musalman) therefore finds himself in a state of helplessness, waiting for someone to come and help him out of this morass of uncertainty and confusion. And he will go on waiting like this without anything happening. Nothing but a bold re-orientation of Islam to separate the vital from the lifeless can preserve it as a World Idea and convert the Musalman into a citizen of the present and the future world from the archaic in congruity that he is today….
 It is this lack of bold and clear thinking, the inability to understand and take decisions which has brought about in Pakistan a confusion which will persist and repeatedly create situations of the kind we have been inquiring into until our leaders have a clear conception of the goal and of the means to reach it. 
And as long as we rely on the hammer when a file is needed and press Islam into service to solve situations it was never intended to solve, frustration and disappointment must dog our steps. The sublime faith called Islam will live even if our leaders are not there to enforce it. It lives in the individual, in his soul and outlook, in all his relations with God and men, from the cradle to the grave, and our politicians should  understand that if Divine commands cannot make or keep a man a Musalman, their statutes will not.”
 Concluded

Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest

By DEXTER FILKINS

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism.
But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had.
Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.
In the weeks after Mr. Baradar’s capture, Pakistani security officials detained as many as 23 Taliban leaders, many of whom had been enjoying the protection of the Pakistani government for years. The talks came to an end.
The events surrounding Mr. Baradar’s arrest have been the subject of debate inside military and intelligence circles for months. Some details are still murky — and others vigorously denied by some American intelligence officials in Washington. But the account offered in Islamabad highlights Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan: retaining decisive influence over the Taliban, thwarting archenemy India, and putting Pakistan in a position to shape Afghanistan’s postwar political order.
“We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us,” said a Pakistani security official, who, like numerous people interviewed about the operation, spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. “We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians.”
Some American officials still insist that Pakistan-American cooperation is improving, and deny a central Pakistani role in Mr. Baradar’s arrest. They say the Pakistanis may now be trying to rewrite history to make themselves appear more influential. It was American intellgence that led to Mr. Baradar's capture, an American official said.
“These are self-serving fairy tales,” the official said. “The people involved in the operation on the ground didn’t know exactly who would be there when they themselves arrived. But it certainly became clear, to Pakistanis and Americans alike, who we’d gotten.”
Other American officials suspect the C.I.A. may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis for the larger aims of slowing the pace of any peace talks.
At a minimum, the arrest of Mr. Baradar offers a glimpse of the multilayered challenges the United States faces as it tries to prevail in Afghanistan. It is battling a resilient insurgency, supporting a weak central government and trying to manage Pakistan’s leaders, who simultaneously support the Taliban and accept billions in American aid.
A senior NATO officer in Kabul said that in arresting Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban leaders, the Pakistanis may have been trying to buy time to see if President Obama’s strategy begins to prevail. If it does, the Pakistanis may eventually decide to let the Taliban make a deal. But if the Americans fail — and if they begin to pull out — then the Pakistanis may decide to retain the Taliban as their allies.
“We have been played before,” a senior NATO official said. “That the Pakistanis picked up Baradar to control the tempo of the negotiations is absolutely plausible.”
As for Mr. Baradar, he is now living comfortably in a safe house of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Pakistani official said. “He’s relaxing,” the official said.
Many of the other Taliban leaders, after receiving lectures against freelancing peace deals, have been released to fight again.
Exactly why the Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, became so alarmed at the Afghan peace talks is unclear. In retrospect, paranoia seems to have figured as much as national self-interest.
A senior Afghan official said that beginning late last year, his government had reached out to a number of Taliban leaders to explore the prospect of a deal. Among them were Mr. Baradar and another Taliban leader named Tayyib Agha. The Afghan official declined to say who met the Taliban leaders, but reports of such meetings have since surfaced. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, reportedly met Mr. Baradar in January, according to a former Afghan official and a former NATO official. Mr. Karzai’s brother denies it.
In another overture, Engineer Ibrahim, then the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service, met with a group of Taliban leaders in Dubai, according to a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting. Mr. Ibrahim, now with the National Security Council, could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
A Pakistani spiritual leader close to the Taliban leadership said that, earlier this year, he had received a message through an intermediary that Mr. Karzai wanted to talk peace. “We rejected it,” he said.
The discussions with Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban were in their early phases, but they seemed promising, the Afghan official said. Their aim was to establish conditions under which formal talks could begin.
“It was the beginning of a negotiation, so both sides staked out extreme positions,” the Afghan official said. “But we sensed a readiness for peace.”
When Pakistani intelligence officials learned of the overtures, they became unnerved by what they saw as an attempt by the Afghans to strike a peace deal without them. In particular, the ISI suspected the Americans were orchestrating the talks.
In January, days before Mr. Baradar’s capture, a senior ISI official told The New York Times that his agency was hunting the Taliban leader because he was in contact with the Americans. The ISI official accused the Americans of disregarding Pakistan’s legitimate security interests.
“We are after Mullah Baradar,” the senior ISI official said. “We strongly believe the Americans are in touch with him.”
A second ISI official confirmed that the Pakistanis had decided to go after Mr. Baradar to shut down what they feared were blossoming peace talks.
“This is a national secret,” he said. “The Americans and the British were going behind our backs, and we couldn’t allow that.” American and British officials denied they were directly involved in talks with the Taliban.
Once the decision was made to detain Mr. Baradar, the Taliban leader was tracked to Karachi, a sprawling, violent city of nearly 20 million people. There, the Pakistani official said, ISI agents waited for him to activate his cellphone. After several days, the alarm went off, and the agency narrowed Mr. Baradar’s whereabouts to a densely populated area of about two square miles.
That was as far as the intelligence agency’s technology would go, the Pakistani official said. To pinpoint Mr. Baradar’s location, ISI agents turned to the C.I.A.
Since 2001, the C.I.A. and the ISI have maintained an uneasy relationship. They have cooperated on hundreds of operations and detained dozens of militants, but they have clashed over the ISI’s support for the Taliban.
Within minutes of Mr. Baradar’s cellphone activation, the C.I.A. sent two unarmed American technicians to join the Pakistani intelligence agency’s team, the Pakistani official said.
Activating a portable tracking device, the C.I.A. team quickly led the ISI to Mr. Baradar’s home. Only four hours after his cellphone went on, Mr. Baradar was in Pakistani custody, the Pakistani official said. According to the Pakistani official, the ISI did not inform the Americans of the identity of the target.
American officials disputed this account, saying the intelligence indicated that the target was related to Mr. Baradar. But they conceded that they did not know the identity of Mr. Baradar until after the arrest.
The Pakistanis refused to allow the C.I.A. to interrogate Mr. Baradar or even to be present when they spoke. Another Pakistani official said Mr. Baradar was taken to a safe house in Islamabad, where he was debriefed. It was only several days later that the C.I.A. learned of his identity and were allowed to question him.
The Pakistani official even joked about the C.I.A.’s naïveté. “They are so innocent,” he said.
Some American officials insist that while the C.I.A. may not have known whom the Pakistanis were capturing, the Pakistanis did not know either. They speculated that once the Pakistanis had Mr. Baradar, they may have decided to hold him to scuttle the peace talks. It was then, some American officials say, that the Pakistanis may have decided to detain the other Taliban leaders.
“We are not convinced that that was why Baradar was picked up,” an American official in the region said, referring to the Afghan talks. “But maybe that was why he was held.”
Yet other American officials said the Pakistani version seemed more credible than the C.I.A.’s. “Baradar is too high-profile for them not to have known who it was,” the senior NATO official said.
Within days of Mr. Baradar’s arrest, Pakistani agents picked up as many as 22 other Taliban leaders across Pakistan, according to an official with the United Nations in Kabul. The detentions included some of the most senior Taliban commanders, including Mullah Qayoom Zakir, Abdul Kabeer and Abdul Rauf Khadem.
“We know where the shadow government is,” the Pakistani security official said.
The official said the detained Taliban leaders were warned against carrying out future negotiations without their permission. A former Western diplomat, with long experience in the region, confirmed that the ISI sent a warning to its Taliban protégés.
“The message from the ISI was: no flirting,” he said.
Afghans close to the Taliban said the arrests of Mr. Baradar and the others illustrated the strained relationship between the Taliban and their benefactors in Pakistani intelligence. The ISI may protect the Taliban’s leaders, they said, but they also limit their freedom. “When we try to act on our own, they stop us,” the Pakistani spiritual leader said.
Since then, many of the Taliban leaders who were detained have been set free, officials said. Principal among them is Mr. Zakir, a Taliban commander who was released from the American prison at Guantánamo Bay in 2006.
Mr. Zakir, who took over for Mr. Baradar, is regarded as more brutal than his predecessor, unconcerned about civilian casualties — and less inclined to do a deal with the Karzai government.

Pir Zubair Shah and Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

Religion and Sialkot Incidence: Is There Really a Strong Connection?

by Raza Habib Raja
Right now the  brutality shown by the mob in Sialkot has taken the country by storm. Everyone is condemning it and various commentators are busy interpreting the causes of the incidence. The causes of the incidence, as touted by the various quarters range from lack of Islam to too much Islam depending whether you are a religious conservative or a liberal.
Public lynching is a horrific incidence and if televised is bound to create  severe revulsion. However, one has to be careful while trying to interpret the reasons behind such mob behaviour. Forcefully linking it with either lack of or excess of religion may lead us to wrong conclusions and damage our credibility as well. I have come across a host of articles from both religious and liberal side who have tried to spin the incidence to fit in their general outlook of life.
According to religious conservatives, the incidence shows lack of faith and erosion of morals due to religions declining influence. Of course the familiar nonsense of “NO Muslim could have done it” is also being voiced by the conservative side.
On the other hand some of the liberal journalists are spinning  to show that mob violence in Sialkot is in some ways a manifestation of religious fervour. References to Taliban and Zia’s times are being made and utterly unconvincing linkages are being drawn. I think some of us are ready to compromise credibility in our yearning to be called a “liberal”!
Add to it that most of the media has assumed on its own that the brothers were not guilty of robbery but ended up at the receiving end due to some misfortune. Of course media can be right but at least till now, information is not complete. Mature reporting requires that conclusions should not be drawn before full facts are known.

For me the incidence while showing an ugly side of mob violence and erosion of state’s protective machinery also shows a general immaturity as well as lack of objectivity in the analysis. As a society, we are also showing signs of lack of rational and informed analysis apart from insensitivity and proneness to violence.
So is religion or its lack thereof the reason for Sialkot incidence. Even if it is involved, the linkage presented is weak and perhaps very indirect. Religion’s role in perpetuation of violence is much more marked in incidences like Gojra. In case of lynching of an individual the religion’s role was more evident in Hafiz Sajjad Tariq’s case. The incident took place in 1994 in the city of Gujranwala. According to the news, Hafiz had burnt Quran and as soon as the nearby Mullah got the whiff of it, he issued a fatwa. A mob gathered and dragged the individual out of his home and started beating him. At that point, police reached the spot and took the individual into what under normal circumstances would have been a protective custody. However, soon an even larger crowd gathered in front of the police station and started to demand that Hafiz should be handed over to them. Due to the huge size of increasingly vociferous mob, the police inspector buckled under pressure and handed over the guy. They started stoning him mercilessly and thereafter set his body on fire. If this were not enough, they tied his corpse to a powerful motor-cycle and dragged it through the streets for two hours. Later on the investigation revealed that Hafiz had accidently dropped Quran on the stove. In that incidence the religion’s role was at least clear. Though it did not force the incidence, the general reverence of religion gave the hate filled mob the “cover” to vent out their gutter instincts. In Sialkot’s case the religion is not apparently involved in the same way. If it is involved then evidence cited is not strong enough.
In discourse we have to be careful while establishing causality otherwise we end up losing our credibility. Forcefully linking variables and spinning facts weaken our persuasive power on issues where the linkage actually exists. I am a strong believer that state and religion should be separate and that reverence of religion has to reduce to have a debate on its role as well as interpretation. However at the same time trying to forcefully establish causality of religion to issues without much conviction will weaken our overall credibility and even our case against separation of religion and state.
Another thing which has strongly emerged out of the media coverage of the entire issue is that once any issue becomes sensational and a point of view established, the public does not try to show maturity of actually waiting for the full information to come out. In fact the media starts spinning the facts to make them consistent with the original and often sensational premise and public just keeps on refuting any evidence to the contrary.

Political Islam, Politics of Identity, Ethnic Nationalism and the Centralized State

By Raza Habib Raja
The selective way of presenting history in Pakistan conveniently ignores the fact that at its creation, there were two large sometimes contrasting and sometimes overlapping movements. The first was primarily centred around Muslim Identity and tried to actually bargain a better position for its bearers. This movement though ended up in carving a separate homeland for the Muslims, nevertheless did not have that strong separatist thrust at least in the beginning.
 However, the Islamic identity itself was not the only identity assumed by Muslims as strong ethnic nationalist tendencies existed particularly in the region which later became Pakistan. Thus the ethnic nationalist movements in NWFP and Baluchistan existed even before the partition. Let’s not forget that NWFP and Baluchistan were not totally comfortable when they “opted” for Pakistan. At best their support for Pakistan was tepid. West Pakistan at its creation was a multiethnic region with strong individual demands for greater autonomy based on linguistic and ethnic lines. The residents were largely Muslims but at the same time they also gave importance to their ethnic linguistic identities. East Pakistan had a more or less uniform language and culture and at that point supported Pakistan as they perceived the creation of that state as synonymous to sufficient degree of autonomy.
One thing grossly overlooked by the establishment is that ethnic based nationalism flourishes and can even manifest into separatist movement if the state creates this impression that it is biased. Nationalism is not merely preservation of identity; it is very much intertwined with the concept of state. If state is perceived as unjust then nationalists will try to create their own state and thus would try to secede.  Ernest Gellener actually defines nationalism in the context of injustice. The deprived and excluded, if belonging to some common ethnicity, will revolt and will form nationalist expression built around that ethnicity and may end up striving for a state of their own.
Another important fact is that, identities based on linguistic cum ethnic lines cannot be made to disappear through superimposition  or playing up the religious factor particularly when discrimination and exclusion is based on such lines. Yes being a Muslim is an important part of the identity, but at the same time so is the ethnicity and language, and the latter would assume supremacy in the environment of discrimination, whether real or perceived.

Keeping this situation in mind, where five major ethnic nationalities existed with a strong tendency to demand a sufficient degree of economic, social and cultural autonomy, the best bet the keep the state of Pakistan intact was to allow sufficient autonomy at the provincial  level to ensure that ethnic expression was not stifled. However, here came the crucial error. The Pakistani establishment at that time and ever since has assumed that allowing provincial autonomy and greater ethnic expression coupled with decentralization would weaken the federation. Moreover, it erroneously assumed that the two nation theory negated fostering of regional identities.
These two assumptions have accounted for the various ideological, political and administrative missteps which the state has taken over the years to “tackle” the issue of ethnic diversity and nationalism. Instead of accommodating ethnic diversity the central idea has been to negate it through various means.
 As pointed out quite eloquently by Mr. Stephen Cohen in his book “The Idea of Pakistan” that Pakistani leaders have not fully grasped that in an ethnically diverse state most politics is of identity  and closely linked to issues of pride, status, jobs and social equality.  They seem convinced that ethno-linguistic demands are an economic problem, not a political, problem, and if other means fail, a military problem.
There are a wide range of administrative, political as well as ideological blunders which the largely Punjab dominated centre and establishment have committed over the past 60 years and with devastating results. These blunders have proven to be counterproductive to the original aim of keeping the state intact in a smooth manner and have created alienation in the other ethnicities. But the ill effects go beyond harming the harmonious relations between the ethnicities. These have actually had catastrophic effect on the other aspects also.
The ideological drive which places a strong emphasis on Isalmization actually also tries to counter the issue of ethnic identities. The aim has been to ensure a strong centre as it has been viewed critical for the integration of the state. The policy of Islamization has not been carried out to radicalize the population but chiefly as a political tool to subdue nationalistic forces. Even state sponsored talibanization was partly done to diffuse Pushtun ethnic identity and amalgamate it into state preferred Sunni Muslim Identity. Needless to say that it has produced catastrophic results and continues to produce such results.
 In fact we have not learnt anything from the history and instead of trying to address ethnic nationalist demands have continued to counter it by efforts to play up the Islamic factor to diffuse ethnic identity and demands. The Islamic drive became more vehement after the secession of East Pakistan.  Instead of getting to the root of the problem which was OVER CENTRALIZATION AND PUNJAB’S DOMINANCE, our response has been to play up Islamic identity in order to overcome the ethnic forces. The fundamental assumption is that ethnic demands would weaken the state and therefore if ethnic identity can be “replaced” or at least superseded by Islamic identity, the state would survive.
 Of course ideological thrust on fostering Islamic identity has been carried out to chiefly supplement the administrative, political and economic set up in which the centre dominates.
 Pakistan has in fact continued with the colonial structure with minor amendments to “adjust” it to its ground realities. This structure with a centralized bureaucracy, powerful feudal structure, huge powers vested in the centre and a large army is chiefly designed to ensure a powerful centre. One has to go into pre partition times to understand about the structure and rationale of this brand of state structure.
 The British created a new breed of Feudal lords with proper legal title while retaining monopoly on the sole use of violence as coercive measure. This clever tactic insulated the populace from the state as it created a layer while ensuring that  monopoly of violence (state’s coercive power). The landlord while legal owner of the land had to exclusively rely on a centrist state to tackle with any trouble at the local level. Thus state eventually evolved as a mere enforcer rather than a body responsive to the local concerns. Its prime concern by design was ensuring authority of the centre.
On a broader level the state was structured with powers vested in the centre and provinces were to be ruled with limited autonomy. The act of 1935 which also became the source of inspiration for all the subsequent acts was again centrist in orientation. These two important characteristics which were designed by British, a foreign ruler, to ensure “insensitive” hegemony of the centre and Pakistan’s establishment as well as political class with centrists tendencies continued to persist with it. The post colonial state is actually an extension of the colonial state but with the changed central government. This structure was deliberately allowed to continue to ensure preservation of a centre oriented State. This structure is bound to create resentment at the local/provincial level and is designed for the IMPERSONAL kind of ruling.
In this structure the centre more or less controls the revenue and expenditure. And the centre is dominated by Punjab. The population wise allocation of revenue and Punjab’s dominance in the “establishment” institutions such as civil services, judiciary and above all armed forces has created resentment and given rise to grievances. The revenue and resource allocation is highly controversial and automatically gives rise to feelings of exclusion which invariably will be manifested in strong tides of nationalism and occasional secession based political violence. The revenue generated from other provinces ends up being spent on Punjab in disproportionate basis. Likewise the royalties from resource usage of smaller provinces do not proportionally match up the benefits derived from such usage. The resource rich Baluchistan despite enabling Pakistan to save billions of dollars because of natural gas gets paltry amount of royalty in return. It remains a poor province despite benefitting Pakistan a lot. If today there is a strong resentment in Baluchistan’s middleclass, it arises from these grave injustices not due to so called grand conspiracies of foreign powers.
The current structure is skewed, whether deliberately or inadvertently, in favour of Punjab and hence not surprisingly the identity of Punjab’s middleclass is strongly reminiscent of official version of what constitutes a Pakistani. The other provinces increasingly identify themselves on ethnic lines even though all may not be harbouring secessionist aspirations.
 Moreover, several blunders have been committed in the past to ensure preservation of the dominance of the privileged centre. One was the tactless imposition of one unit, which in the name of administrative “efficiency” tried to subdue the ethnic-linguistic expressions within the mould of governance. One unit scheme was a disaster and effectively sealed the fate of Pakistan unity. It ripped open the already smouldering wounds and needlessly aggravated the situation eventually leading to dismemberment of the country in 1970.
 The administrative blunders have always been supplemented with violent and unconstitutional methods of dealing with the nationalist forces. The centrist tendencies manifested in violence as Bengalis were crushed using military, a pattern which has repeatedly been used. The culture has developed where autonomy if voiced is construed as a danger to the state and is handled with force. We did not learn the lessons with Bangladesh and repeated the same with Baluchistan repeatedly. Baluchistan has literally experienced several uprisings and brutal retaliations from the state. The ongoing insurgency is not the first such insurgency as it has been preceded by insurgencies in 1958, 1960s and 1973-77. And the provincial governments have also been dismissed and at times on the explicit charge of “conspiracy to dismember Pakistan”.
 Right now as the Pakistan is fighting for its existence and bearing the brunt of its ideological blunder of promoting political Islam to tackle ethnic diversity, the time has come for us to learn our lessons. The foremost lesson is that dissent can only be addressed by addressing the root causes which are often emanating from exclusion and discrimination. Use of ideological engineering and tactics of coercion and intimidation will not strengthen the federation but weaken it.
 Another lesson which needs to be learnt and particularly by democracy skeptic Punjabi middleclass, is that an ethnically diverse country needs democracy even if it means scarifying governance. Ethnic diversity needs consensus at every step and the way it has evolved in Pakistan the need to negotiate and renegotiate the relationship terms between the provinces will increase with time. Only democracy provides the framework as well as the forum to do so. Only democracy provides the mechanism which can tap the voices of the provinces and project them for discourse at the national level.
 Therefore this nonsensical yearning for army rule has to stop. Armed forces have always dealt with coercion and since they largely hail from Punjab, they have only succeeded in instilling hatred in the smaller provinces against it. While media and urban middleclass of Pakistan have been lynching the PPP government at the top of their voices, the party actually deserves praise at least on provincial autonomy front.

Spectre of secularism

By I.A. Rehman
 

It is quite clear that all these institutions have to bear with one another. The Supreme Court can never sack parliament or the media, nor will parliament ever be foolish or strong enough to abolish the Supreme Court or the media. But the extremist militants that are being reared by anti-secular elements, if they ever capture the state, will almost surely pack off parliament, the Supreme Court and the media into oblivion. The choice before the people of Pakistan has never been clearer. - File Photo.

The spectre of secularism is haunting the privileged elite of Pakistan, some privileged by birth or status, others by their grading in the realm of belief. Now pollsters have joined the effort to scare the people with reports that a majority of young persons prefer theocracy to secularism.
Unfortunately, huge confusion has been caused by presenting Islam and secularism as two mutually antagonistic and irreconcilable philosophies. In many cases this is done by persons who cannot, or do not wish to, analyse both Islam and secularism objectively.

The Oxford Dictionary gives many meanings and usages of the word ‘secular’, including a member of the clergy not bound by a religious rule; not belonging to or living in seclusion with a monastic or other order; belonging to the world and its affairs as distinguished from the Church and religion; civil, lay; non-religious, non-sacred; et al.

The strongest opponents of secularism always rely on its definition as “the belief that religion and religious considerations should be deliberately omitted from temporal affairs”.

However, it can be substantiated with the help of authoritative texts that Islam views secularism as a way of life that is inspired by Islam’s ethical ideal (Iqbal’s favourite expression) but in which reason is used to promote the good of humankind. That is why duties to human beings are considered more important than obligations to God.

The principle that Islamic injunctions can be amended to suit changes dictated by time and social development has been upheld by a long list of Islamic scholars, from Ibnul-Qaiyyam Jauzia and Ibn Khaldun to Allama Iqbal and that makes a strong case for Islam’s compatibility with secularism. (Falsafa Shariat-i-Islam, Majlis Taraqqi-i-Adab).

In Pakistan the advocates of secularism rely mostly on the Quaid-i-Azam’s dictum that religion has nothing to do with the business of the state. Actually, the subcontinental Muslims’ contribution to secularism has a much longer history, beginning (if not earlier) with Allauddin Khilji’s refusal to follow Qazi Mughis’s plea to convert or kill the more numerous non-Muslims. Babar advised Humayun to treat people’s religious affiliations as changing seasons and Aurangzeb scolded his teacher for making him waste his time on Arabic grammar while he should have been taught governance in a world that was larger than Shah Jahan’s kingdom. All these ideas bore the stamp of secularism.

In the modern phase of our history, Syed Ahmad Khan is considered the founder of the movement for Pakistan. He declared “the root cause of people’s misfortune lies in mixing the problems of the world with the problems of religion that are immutable…. Mixing of the affairs of the world with the affairs of religion is madness … conditions of society and civilisation change day by day, therefore, they cannot be part of religious commandments”. (Sibte Hassan in the Battle of ideas in Pakistan, Pakistan Publishing House, 1986).

Pakistan’s anti-secularism lobby has little respect for Allama Iqbal though quite a few mujavirs have won comfort by selling his name. In Iqbal’s life 1930 was a most significant year. It was the year he delivered the Madras Lectures, later on published in a book The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, and it was the year when he addressed the Allahabad session of the Muslim League.

In the lectures, Iqbal’s overriding concern was to see the unfreezing of the Islamic jurisprudence that had been frozen for 500 years and had suffered greatly under what he described as “Arab imperialism”. He began his sixth lecture, ‘The principle of movement in the structure of Islam’, by describing Islam as a “cultural movement” and holding “that all human life is spiritual in its origin”. He added that a prophetic revelation was world-life’s intuitive perception of its own needs and its choice of direction at critical moments, and that “loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal nature”. He told his fellow Muslims that “a false reverence for past history and its artificial resurrection constitute no remedy for a people’s decay”.

Allama Iqbal upheld the Turkish view that “according to the spirit of Islam the caliphate or imamate can be vested in a body of persons, or an elected assembly”. He gave ijma great importance as a source of lawmaking through a modern assembly. Then he addressed the question as to how to prevent mistakes by an assembly of lay persons. He rejected the idea of a board of ulema to advise parliament and told the ulema to be part of the assemblies.

“The only effective remedy for the possibilities of erroneous interpretations is to reform the present system of legal education in Mohammadan countries, to extend its sphere, and to combine it with an intelligent study of modern jurisprudence” (emphasis added, all references from the book published by Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 2007).

In the last week of December 1930, Iqbal gave his Allahabad address. He declared that “Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity — by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal — has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India.” Then he added: “Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the only country in the world where Islam, as a people-building force, has worked at its best.” Since no Islamic theocracy was ever established by the Muslims in India, Iqbal could only be extolling their secular traditions.

After proposing a Muslim state in the north-western part of India, Iqbal dispelled the “Hindus’ fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states”. He then approvingly referred to a newspaper comment to the effect the Indian Muslim states did not ban interest and offered it as an example of “the character of a Muslim state”. This is secularism.

One should like to suggest a fresh interpretation of the Allama’s lectures and his Allahabad address. He may well emerge as a strong Islamic defender of secularism.

While the common people of Pakistan have no reason to share the ashrafiya’s fears of secularism they have every reason to dread the anti-secularism lobby. The “principal institutions of a secular society” listed by Altaf Gauhar are: the elected legislature, the judiciary, and the press”. (Battle of Ideas)

It is quite clear that all these institutions have to bear with one another. The Supreme Court can never sack parliament or the media, nor will parliament ever be foolish or strong enough to abolish the Supreme Court or the media. But the extremist militants that are being reared by anti-secular elements, if they ever capture the state, will almost surely pack off parliament, the Supreme Court and the media into oblivion. The choice before the people of Pakistan has never been clearer.