After today’s ghastly attacks on the Ahmadi community of Pakistan, one can only despair at the state of affairs. The essay below was recently published in a publication and I am also posting it here for the readers. It is imperative that we speak up for the rights of fellow Pakistanis who are being constantly attacked by the bigots.

Half citizens? The Ahmadiyya community of Pakistan

Throughout 2012, members of the Ahmadiyya community of Pakistan from all walks of life were harassed, threatened, and at times killed, with impunity. These attacks were the latest in a wave of violence and maltreatment that stretches back to the early years of Pakistan. Successive regimes, both military and democratic, have actively or otherwise worsened the trend.[i]

The generation that grew up in General Zia-ul Haq’s Pakistan (1977-1988) saw a country that was being re-engineered as an “Islamic state”. Several criminal, social and economic laws were introduced in the name of Islam. The Federal Shariat Court was established with the power to strike down any existing law it deemed to be “repugnant to the Injunctions of Islam, as laid down in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet”.[ii] Extensive religious programming on state television regurgitated the state narrative.

Pakistan was an ideological state and it needed to assume a new identity independent of the hitherto pluralistic culture and history of South Asia. Further indoctrination was attempted through textbooks and prayer sermons.

Arguably the most categorical ‘fact’ propagated during the Zia era was that Ahmadis, or Qadianis, were pretending to be Muslims while actually they were not. Teachers told their students that this community had violated a central tenet of Islamic faith – that is, the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad (PBUH) – and believed that the founder of their sect, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was also a ‘messenger of God’.

Through the family, schools and other influences, young Pakistani minds formed a consensus on this issue. There were dissenting voices, but they were fearful of openly challenging the mainstream narrative that was ferociously backed by the state.

This narrative did not stop at simply excluding Ahmadis from Islam. It also had a larger political backdrop. People would hold forth with scant or no evidence that “Qadianis” (as the community’s founder was from a place called Qadian) were agents of the enemies of Pakistan and Islam. They were British stooges, went the story, created by the Raj to weaken Muslims and their faith. Some said that Ahmadis were given such importance because they rejected violent jihad and hence suited British purposes. These theories gained currency as Zia was resetting the Pakistani state as one created for jihad.

The roots of anti-Ahmadi prejudice can be traced back even further in Pakistan’s troubled history. In 1953, a series of violent agitations erupted against the Ahmadiyya movement in Lahore. The riots were instigated by the Jamaat-e-Islami, a religious political party led by Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, a Sunni theologian and strong critic of the Ahmadiyya movement. The riots resulted in over 2,000 deaths, prompted the imposition of martial law in the Punjab province, and led Governor General Ghulam Muhammad to dismiss the federal cabinet.

The 1953 riots demonstrated how effectively Islamists in the new state of Pakistan could use a religious issue for political ends. The riots took place in a province where being an Ahmadi was hardly an issue at the time.

A Court of Inquiry comprising Lahore High Court’s Chief Justice Muhammad Munir and Justice Rustum Kayani, was set up by the government to investigate the causes of this incident. Its report makes for a fascinating reading. None of the clerics who appeared before the court could define who was a ‘Muslim’ and the judges were clear in their remarks:

“Keeping in view the several definitions given by the ulama, need we make any comment except that no two learned divines are agreed on this fundamental. If we attempt our own definition as each learned divine has done and that definition differs from that given by all others, we unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the definition given by any one of the ulama, we remain Muslims according to the view of that alim but kafirs according to the definition of everyone else.”[iii]

Time and again, the sane voices in Pakistan have called for a religiously neutral state that does not encourage bigotry or issue certificates of ‘Muslimness’. However, this advice has remained unheeded by politicians and generals who have been using religion as a political tool.

The death of nine anti-Polio workers has come as a new low in the life of the Pakistani nation. Almost as if the country had lost its bearings and its society could not even determine its priorities. The Polio virus is a real threat to the future of Pakistani children and adults. While it has been eliminated in the neighbouring countries such as India and Bangladesh, Pakistan has witnessed the resurgence of the virus as well as a disturbing trend of refusals among the parents to vaccinate children. There is a complex set of factors at play. The extremists have unleashed a campaign, which considers the Polio vaccine as part of the ‘Western’ agenda to harm the Muslims of Pakistan. Last year’s CIA-sponsored fake vaccination campaigns to hunt bin Laden did not help this cause either. Polio vaccination was made controversial in the process. But all of this is not an excuse to deny Pakistani children their right to a safe and healthy future.

The United Nations is now worried about the security of its staff and the growing threats to their workers and volunteers who are undertaking door-to-door campaigns to achieve one hundred percent vaccination coverage of all children. The World Health Organisation, as reported in the media, might be winding up its work in the country. This is a moment of reckoning for the Pakistani authorities – its civilian government and the army leadership – which have to ensure that this country does not become hostage to the terror perpetrated by the extremists who have a warped view of the world.

The brutal killing of five people in Karachi and more in Peshawar and Nowshehra is a sad reminder of our crippled law enforcement machinery. The Police remains governed by a confusing legal and administrative arrangement. Whatever reform was initiated under Musharraf has been undone by the civilian governments in the provinces, which are keen to use the Police as an instrument of personal and political aggrandizement. The prosecution services are in shambles and no worthwhile investment has been made into them despite the massive threat of terrorism and worsening law and order across the country.

How can the courts decide on terrorism cases if there is unreliable and incomplete investigation and prosecution of a particular criminal case? Having said that the courts especially at the district level have not demonstrated much efficiency in deciding on terrorism cases. Sometimes they are afraid and on other occasions they face cases, which have little credible evidence for a sentence to be made. (more…)

Media freedoms in Pakistan are no longer a cause of celebration. Recent events have shown that journalists are facing pressure from all sides. Historically, it was the state power, especially that of the executive which curbed freedom of speech and attacked journalists. We have entered a new phase of struggle today when power is being dispersed and, hence, journalists are under attack by non-state actors. Dozens of Pakistani journalists have died in recent years and several face threats and intimidation from the militants and mafias in the country.
Last year, Saleem Shahzad was brutally murdered and to date we don’t know if there was a killer or some invisible hand that killed the journalist. Similarly, a young reporter Wali Baber died in Karachi and such is the might of his killers that all witnesses in his case have been murdered. Senior journalist and popular TV anchor Najam Sethi is under threat and recently two TV anchors, i.e, Hamid Mir and Mohammad Malick were intimidated. In the FATA region and parts of Khyber Pakhtankhwa and Balochistan provinces insurgents and militants kill or attack reporters with impunity.
This is a major challenge to Pakistan’s fragile democracy. Press freedom and right to information are non-negotiable rights central to the idea of a democracy. Sadly, the government and the failed criminal justice system have not come to the rescue to the victims. The powerful intelligence agencies, urban gangs and militants have inroads into the ‘system’, thereby impeding any form of justice. Little wonder that Pakistan is turning into a violent country and adapting to the widespread denial of justice.
Other than the physical threats, the pressures on the media are tremendous. For decades, the army did not allow any criticism and it had made foolproof arrangements to control the narrative and promote a particular version of ‘truth’ and ‘ history’. Even civilian governments were not too different when it came to attacking freedom. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and later Mohammad Nawaz Sharif as powerful Prime Ministers were keen to control the media. While the journalists showed resilience, the media houses also learnt the art of playing politics and by the end of Musharraf’s rule the media owners as a small group emerged as a major power centre. (more…)

My piece published on 10th Moharram

It is time the state reversed its policy of nurturing extremist groups and think of saving Pakistanis from further mayhem

What is the real, existential cause for
concern — the imagined enemy, or a real, functional terror network in the shape of the TTP?

Published in The News, October 2012

The renewed attacks of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) across the country indicate the exasperation of this anti-state network trying to re-assert its strength in the face of Pakistan Army’s operations as well as the drone strikes by the U.S., which have now turned into a major political plank for most political parties.

The illegal drone strikes have targeted Al Qaeda leadership as well as the TTP stalwarts, leading to the dispersal of militants’ leadership and the relocation of Al Qaeda, reportedly to several urban centers of Pakistan.

The ‘popular’ Imran Khan led his march to Waziristan (without being able to set foot in the tribal agency) and created a kind-of media consensus that Pakistan needed to pull out of “America’s war” and make peace with the Taliban or, more fantastically, enable the threatened tribals to take on the Taliban themselves.

This fanciful and simplistic narrative omitted a vital segment of reality: the TTP is pitted not just against the United States’ “imperial designs” — it also considers the state of Pakistan as its enemy. These Kharijites of the 21st century use religious appeal to justify and rationalise extremely violent and barbaric acts, and consider the existence of pluralism within the fold of Islam as an anathema. They consider women’s education to be un-Islamic and consider a constitutional democracy as an infidel imposition on the faithful.

Unlike other insurgent groups in Pakistan, TTP wants to demolish the state of Pakistan and its constitutional basis in line with Al Qaeda ideology. Readers doubtful of this polemic should refer to Al Zawahiri’s famous treatise called “The Morning And The Lamp”, freely available on the Internet. If they are further interested, they could refer to any bookshop where such materials are widely available. This is how we have allowed anti-state doctrines to penetrate our public life.

The most brazen act of targeting a 14-year old girl, Malala Yousafzai, immediately after Khan’s march came as a game-changer. The “public opinion” shaped by Taliban apologists faced the biggest jolt, the biggest after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in 2007. Even the conservative and religious sections of Pakistani society could not help condemn this barbarity, and for a day or two, it appeared as if there was a major consensus emerging in the country that put homegrown terrorist networks such as TTP before the imagined enemies such as India or the United States.

However, this consensus was breached by the usual suspects such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, which termed the Taliban as their brothers, obfuscating the real issue of a girl child not being allowed to go to school. The JI also went ahead and, on various social media platforms, released pictures of Malala and her father meeting the late Richard Holbrooke, thereby suggesting that Malala’s family were CIA agents and “legitimate targets” of the TTP. This came as a shocking reminder to the country on the lack of clarity and deliberate confusion spread by the apologists for brutal groups such as the Taliban. (more…)

‘The government should investigate the source and nature of threats to Asma Jahangir’s life, and take appropriate action’

Here is an interview with Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan Director of Human Rights Watch, which was recently published.

Raza Rumi: A year after the murder of Saleem Shahzad and in light of the strong reaction by journalists to his killing, are media professionals safer in Pakistan today? 

Ali Dayan Hasan: The revulsion and outrage with which not journalists but society more broadly reacted to Shahzad’s gruesome murder was both commendable and brave. But the sad fact is that his killers remain at large and the right to freedom of expression and information is under persistent pressure by both militant groups and state security agencies. And the government has been able to do little to change that situation.

Pakistan is widely considered to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. At least 10 journalists were killed in Pakistan during 2011 and six have been killed so far this year. Four journalists were killed in the month of May alone. These are not just statistics but real people. Tariq Kamal and Aurangzeb Tunio were killed on May 9 and May 10 respectively. On May 18,the bullet-riddled body of Express News correspondent Razzaq Gul was found dumped in a deserted area near Turbat. Security agencies are suspected of involvement in his killing. On May 28, Abdul Qadir Hajizai was killed in Balochistan when armed men on a motorbike shot him dead. Reportedly, the Baloch Liberation Front claimed responsibility for his killing. In none of these cases has anyone been held accountable.

RR: So you are describing a situation, particularly in Balochistan, where both state and militant groups are killing journalists…

ADH: Not just in Balochistan but also in FATA and KP. A climate of fear impedes media coverage of the military and militant groups. Journalists rarely report on human rights abuses by the military in counterterrorism operations and the Taliban and other armed groups regularly threaten media outlets. Meanwhile, legitimate media scrutiny of the judiciary also stands greatly curtailed due to fear of contempt of court proceedings.

RR: Increasingly there are fears that human rights defenders are being targeted. Does HRW also see threats to human rights defenders as an emerging danger? (more…)

There seems to be a serious dearth of imagination while searching for solutions on Balochistan

As Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy recently wrote, “Men like Rohrabacher are no friends of the Baloch. But what can stop their meddling? The answer can only come once we dump the myth of Pakistan being one nation, one people”. The continuous undermining of Pakistan’s pluralism, citizenship rights and quest for self-rule has led to a situation where Pakistani flag is not welcome in many parts of its largest and most neglected province.

This is not the first time that the country has faced a dire situation. In 1971, we were faced with a similar dilemma and the civil-military elites of West Pakistan bungled. Their mishandling was exacerbated by an external intervention and for years we have been fed with stories of how all was hunky dory in the more populous wing of Pakistan until the evil ‘Hindu’ India destroyed the ‘Muslim’ Pakistan.

It takes a questionable resolution tabled in the US Congress by Dana Rohrabacher, an extremist republican with a dubious past, to alarm the mainstream Pakistani politicians and media about the plight of Baloch people. Yet again, a “conspiracy” to disintegrate the land of the pure has been reiterated. The good part is that Balochistan issue — something that the media was afraid to talk about — has become a subject of prime-time, and sometimes ill-informed, discussions on national television.

We cannot absolve ourselves of the decades-long discrimination that the province and its people have faced due to a variety of reasons. Whether it is the misuse of its natural resources such as natural gas, gold, etc, or its leverage in the federal power structure, the scorecard is pretty grim. In real terms, the issue of provincial autonomy has only been resolved recently via the 2010 eighteenth amendment. But even that seems to fit the clichéd description of being “too little and too late” given how the Baloch nationalists view it. (more…)

An interview of – Ali Dayan Hasan (Director, Human Rights Watch) taken by me, published in TFT December 30 – January 05, 2012 – Vol. XXIII, No. 46
Q. HRW has consistently commented on civil-military relations in Pakistan. Why is this aspect of Pakistan’s politics so important for human rights?
Since 2008, Pakistan has made yet another attempt at a transition from direct military rule to rights-respecting constitutional governance. But history teaches us that this moment is as fleeting as it is special. It would be naïve to assume that the 2008 general election has transformed power relations in the country. Pakistan remains a praetorian state structured and geared to service, above all, the needs of a military that remains every bit as convinced as ever that Pakistan’s national interest is synonymous with its institutional priorities and the preservation of its position as the final arbiter of political power and patronage. Indeed, Pakistan’s foreign and national security policies are primarily controlled by the military. In the absence of civilian oversight, and given the military’s history, greater abuses will ensue unless Pakistan’s elected institutions assert themselves.
Q. What are the worrying flashpoints in HRW’s view?
It is hardly a secret that the government and the military are engaged in both a legal and political confrontation over the so-called “Memogate” affair. HRW finds it reassuring that both the Supreme Court Chief Justice and Army chief General Kiyani have ruled out military intervention. Indeed all arms of the state must act within the constitutionally determined ambit and in aid of legitimate civilian rule. In this context, justice must both be done and be seen to be done. Pakistan desperately needs a full democratic cycle and a peaceful transfer of power from one civilian administration to another. Should this process be derailed, the constitutional safeguards and legal rights protections created since 2008 may suffer irreparable damage. (more…)

Fearless and a formidable fighter, Asma Jahangir personifies the struggles Pakistanis have initiated against shameful cultural practices, discriminatory legislation and executive excess. A frail woman has kept the torch of public liberties, freedom and democracy alive for decades. Born on January 27, 1952, in Karachi, Asma Jahangir during the last forty years has become a champion of women, child and minority rights and in many ways the conscience of Pakistan.

A leading Pakistani lawyer and an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Jahangir is most renowned for her role as a human rights activist, a role which has made her confront military dictatorships of General Zia-ul-Haq and General Pervez Musharraf and the civilian autocrats. In 1972, Asma Jahangir was only 18 when she filed her first petition to have her father — who had been arrested for denouncing the genocide in Bangladesh — released from prison. In a landmark judgment ten years later, she won the case. In fact, the earliest and perhaps the only judgment against a military coup is now attributed to her name. Her resistance to army’s role in politics (more…)

From an interview that I conducted:

There is, of course, a nationalist discourse, as shrill as it is bogus, centered on US-bashing and lionizing dubious characters such as Afia Siddiqui. The US and Pakistani role in the strange tale of Ms. Siddiqui is murky but she herself has suspiciously failed to provide a credible account and evidently her family’s narrative is full of untruths. Siddiqui’s media deification is mind-boggling in the face of a country-wide security and human rights crisis.

The media needs to shed its ambiguity about the Taliban and other Al-Qaeda proxies and to acknowledge that they represent a real threat to the basic rights of citizens and to the state itself. It needs to engage in an honest debate on the necessity to combat and overcome these actors in a rights-respecting manner. This requires holding both the Taliban and the army accountable for their abuses which stand verified and documented. Sadly, this is not happening.

Read the full interview here or in this week’s The Friday Times

My op-ed published in Express-Tribune today

The federal government had warned the provincial authorities of the impending attacks. The usual slovenliness and chaotic governance of the Pakistani variety treated it as just another communiqué. The police arrived late; and terrorists had implemented the plans rather adroitly making a mockery of Pakistan across the globe. Imagine a terrorist was nabbed through civic action, not the torture-friendly police. And guess where an injured miscreant was taken? No surprises here. A brutal murderer backed by large terror networks was admitted to Lahore’s busy public hospital where security was minimal given the level of threat. (more…)

Once again the terrorists have hit Lahore. But this time they have chosen the favourite target of the fundamentalists – the Ahmedis who were declared as non-Muslims in 1974. Two places of worship have been attacked and innocent people have died. This is unacceptable and outrageous. It means that the state policy of exclusion has finally turned the country into a nightmare – a polity where freedom to worship, profess religious orientation and expression is not only curtailed by simply denied.

The resolve of the Government and the Army must be now strengthened after these tragedies. We condemn the state excesses and also the this heinous act of terrorism.

It is almost surreal to see what is happening in Lahore – there is no law and order, no law enforcement worth its name and hapless citizens witnessing the crumbling of a society. It is time to wake up – complacency will not do.

We have to fight terror and the enemy within and not blame the external forces time and again.

As I write these lines, I am petrified as a very dear friend’s father is trapped in the Model Town mosque. may God protect him.

My piece which was published by The News, Pakistan under a different title

If the parliament and judiciary want to continue exercising their newfound powers, they have no option but to act strictly within the framework of the Pakistani Constitution

Pakistan is a surreal country. Only here we have long, protracted struggles for democracy and only here we are almost always ready to scuttle democracy. Perhaps Iskander Mirza was not all too wrong while making the assessment that democracy does not suit the genius of our people. An added qualification is that it does not suit the genius of the elites, in particular the unelected institutions of the state.

There is now a clear and present danger that the judicial review of the 18th Amendment will lead to a potential clash of the key organs of the state: the legislature and the judiciary. Pundits have also predicted that if such a situation arises, then a logjam will benefit the third force — Pakistan’s well organized formal institution, which is readily available to undertake crisis management. Perhaps such fears are slightly exaggerated and misplaced. But the reality is that Pakistani history teaches us some interesting though unsavoury lessons.

Curse of history

The Constitution of 1956 was drafted, almost after a decade of the new country’s formation, as the elites were not interested in changing the colonial structure of the state and its institutions. After much negotiation and a bit of arm-twisting, parity between (more…)

 Raza Rumi laments the tragedies of our times, and says that the state cannot be absolved of its responsibility to protect citizens against terrorism   (The Friday Times)

Lahore has finally been encircled by the layers and tremors of violence. If the events of March 2009 were not enough, there is now a concerted effort to create panic in the city. In the past few weeks, girls’ schools have been threatened that they would face the music for educating girls and promoting co-education. How can children and their middle-class urban parents survive these gruelling times? (pic left:Pir Baba’s shrine is now closed to visitors )

(more…)