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“We have many non-Muslims … but they are all Pakistanis,’’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah said a few days after Pakistan was born on August 14, 1947. “They enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens, and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan.’’
Earlier, on August 11, 1947, at the inaugural session of Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly, he made a speech that is quoted time and again. “You are free,’’ Jinnah said, “You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State.’’
Apparently, Sris Chandra Chattopadhyaya, a Congress leader, was taken in by these assurances of Jinnah to non-Muslim citizens of Pakistan. “We, the members of the old All-India Congress whose lot fell in Pakistan, decided to stay in our homeland because we had fought for independence,’’ Chattopadhyaya said. “…. I told (Congress) that we would not become their sacrificial goats. We shall stay … and show to the world that the Muslims and Hindus can live in the same place, quietly and peacefully … with equal status as one nation.’’
It did not take too many years for Jinnah’s words to evaporate into thin air and for Chattopadhyaya to be proved wrong. Not partially, not even substantially but fully. Pakistan’s march into absolute Islamic radicalism started soon after Jinnah’s death although the signs of this tendency were clearly visible even when he was around.
In the initial years after 1947, Pakistan’s Law Minister was Jogendranath Mandal, a Hindu who had aligned himself with Jinnah’s Muslim League. Mandal is regarded as one of the 96 founding figures of Pakistan and a foremost Pakistani. Nevertheless this love for Pakistan proved to be grossly misplaced and he had to return to India in 1950 as the Muslim-dominated bureaucracy did not allow him to function. On his return to India, however, no political party was willing to associate or adopt him and he died in 1968, a tragic caricature of his former self.
The other person who held a prominent position in Pakistan in 1947 and for a couple of years later was (Sir Mohammed) Zafrullah Khan, an Ahmadi, who rose to become Jinnah’s Foreign Minister. He was hosted by the King of Saudi Arabia when he went on Haj to the Saudi kingdom. For a good many years, he remained one of the most prominent persons espousing Pakistan’s cause on every conceivable forum all over the world. However, Ahmadis face rampant persecution in Pakistan nowadays, with no space available to them, left, right or centre.
The persecution of the Ahmadis in Pakistan, that began as early as 1950, came to a head in 1974 during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s regime when the Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims by law. That was 50 years ago. In Pakistan today, Ahmadis are prohibited by law from using any Islamic symbols in everyday life. They cannot call themselves Muslims, cannot offer animal sacrifice on Eid ul Zuha and, officially and unofficially face the worst disadvantages.
The persecution of Ahmadis is so rampant and blatant that a couple of months ago, a commemoration event for Abdus Salam had to be cancelled in Islamabad. For the uninitiated, Dr Salam is the only Nobel Laureate from Pakistan to date. He is also considered the father of the nuclear bomb in Pakistan. However he was an Ahmadi and that is reason enough for shunning him. He spent most of his life in Europe after seeing the crass manner in which his community was treated in Pakistan.
Fast forward from the Bhutto era to the present period. A couple of days ago, Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir said that those who do not believe in Sharia and the Constitution are not fit to be called Pakistanis. Well, that means that all non-Muslims, who do not believe in the Sharia, are second-rate Pakistanis with lesser rights. Of course, this means that Shiahs, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and Ahmadis are lesser humans than the followers of the Sunni sect to which General Asim owes allegiance.
Rewind to another era. On August 17, 1988, the then-military dictator of Pakistan, General Zia ul Haq, died as the plane he was on exploded mid-air. Crates of mangoes, which were loaded onto his aircraft at the last moment, were blamed! These crates reportedly had some explosives hidden in them and it became known as the infamous case of exploding mangoes. Zia’s eleven-year long dictatorship thus ended abruptly.
In Pakistan’s history, the Zia era is considered the worst period of radicalisation. Under his rule, all-round radicalisation of the society went on at an unprecedented pace. Not that there has ever been a ruler in Pakistan who has not used the slogan “Islam khatray mei hai’’ to his advantage. That is given as a reason to deny minorities basic human rights. Since Pakistan is a radical Sunni-dominated society, Shias of all shades and ethnicities face persecution, both unofficially and officially. The persecution of Shias is a reality which Pakistan can hardly deny even though its founder ‘Qaid i Azam’ Jinnah was a Shia.
Though Pakistan professes to maintain good-neighbourly relations with Shi’ite Iran, its government, officialdom and policies are largely influenced by the Sunni Saudi Arabia regime. The world over, the Sunnis comprise 85 per cent of the Muslim population with Shias making up the remaining 15 per cent. This ratio is reflected almost to the decimal percentage in Pakistan where 85 per cent of the people are Sunnis and 15 per cent are Shias.
Pakistan has now become a major centre of Islamist extremism, exporting it to the neighbourhood. Most fundamentalist groups wield tremendous influence and this is a direct result of the covert and overt state sponsorship. General Zia ul Haq throughly Islamised Pakistani laws, and as part of that process, he consulted and involved Islamic clerics in legislation and appointed Quranic scholars as judges for dispensing justice on a daily basis.
In 2004, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz declared publicly that he was a “Sunni Muslim” after rumours that he was an Ahmadi began to float. The country’s march into obscurantism goes on without pause since Zia ul Haq’s 1977 coup.
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