Pakistan: Diversity Indicted
By Dr Mohammad Taqi
Florida
Faqeeh e shehr bola badshah se/Barra sangeen mujrim hai yeh aaqa/Isay masloob hi karna parray ga/Keh iss ki soch hum se mukhtalif hai (The city cleric advised the ruler/This person has committed a grave crime/The criminal thus must be crucified/For his views are different than ours!) — Fard-e-Jurm (Indictment).
This short poem by the outstanding Urdu poet Maqbool Amir — a progressive Pashtun from Bannu who died young — just about sums up the predicament of the Barelvis, the Shia, the secular liberals or for that matter anyone whose thought differs from the literalist interpretation of Islam, which along with a jingoistic nationalism has become the state ideology of Pakistan. The clerics, kings and kingmakers continue — through their terrorist allies — to eliminate anyone who has a different outlook than what they envision for this country.
To the scores of Sufi/Barelvi shrines like Rahman Baba, Data Ganj Bakhsh and Abdullah Shah Ghazi that have been bombed across Pakistan, killing thousands of Barelvis and Sufis, has now been added the Dargah Hajan Shah Mauri in Shikarpur, Sindh. The shrine was targeted last week when a large number of devotees were present. Earlier, a prominent ophthalmologist Dr Ali Haider, and his young son, Murtaza Haider, were brutally murdered in Lahore. The gruesome murder of Dr Haider — reportedly a Shia by faith — drew widespread condemnation. Dr Haider’s and before him Dr Riaz Hussain’s killing in Peshawar, reminded of the string of targeted killings in the 1990s that left around 70 Shia doctors dead.
President of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) Dr Javed Suleman and the founder of the organization’s women’s wing, Dr Humeraa Qamar, squarely denounced the heinous acts. The APPNA president has pledged to take up the issue of doctors’ killings at the highest possible level in the US. One wishes Godspeed to Dr Suleman and Dr Qamar and the physician community at large in their efforts. But the way the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif and the Chief Minister (CM) Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif, who had gone to condole with Dr Ali Haider’s family in person, conducted themselves right after leaving the deceased’s house raises serious concerns that the worst is perhaps still to come.
Referring apparently to the Hazara Town, Quetta bombing, CM Sharif could not bring himself to say the word Shia as he castigated the federal government for failure when ‘hundreds of Muslims were martyred’. Therein lies the rub. Like large sections of the Pakistani media, Mr Sharif also suppressed the distinct religious identity of the victims of the Shia genocide as the PML-N spin masters went on television weaving conspiracy theories about the ‘hidden hand’. It did not appear to be yearning for the ‘unity of the Ummah’ that the CM Punjab — with elder Mian sahib sheepishly quiet at his side — did not name the victims. The reason for such a gloss over is simple: you name the victim and you will have to name or at least try to find out who the perpetrator is. But then Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, the chief of the Ahl-e-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat (ASWJ) — formerly the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) — spilled the beans in a series of interviews. What Ludhianvi said was nothing new but reconfirmed what has been said all along, including in this space, that the ASWJ had withdrawn its candidate in CM Sharif’s favor, getting him elected unopposed from Bhakkar.
Ludhianvi and the PML-N spokesperson Senator Mushahidullah Khan, speaking on a television show, barely concealed their tacit electoral arrangement for the general elections later this year. Ludhianvi also named a slew of politicians from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who had ostensibly received his support in their elections. While the PPP’s hobnobbing with the ASWJ is particularly shameful, it still seems to be at district and constituency level, even though the party did receive the SSP’s support for its chief minister Arif Nakai in the 1990s. The PML-N, on the other hand, looks like the chief political patron of the ASWJ, which is but a thin veneer for a Takfiri creed and its militant wing the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. In his foreword to the English edition of Mujahid Hussain’s 2012 book Punjabi Taliban: Driving Extremism in Pakistan, the veteran writer Khaled Ahmed had written:
“Today, it (SSP) is set to become the behind-the-scenes ruler of the (Punjab) province with an important nexus with al Qaeda...In Punjab, the PML-N is securing the electoral ground for a victory in the midterm elections when they come, by aligning with the Deobandi elements dominant in South Punjab. Already many of its local supporters in that region belong to the Sipah-e-Sahaba and its sister outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad, the outfit that fights Pakistan’s battles with India.”
Hussain’s book, despite some shortcomings, remains valid today and while one can disagree with Khaled Ahmed on occasion, he was spot-on in his timely warning. After the Sharif brothers returned from exile, they seem more beholden than ever to the Saudis — theirs and the Takfiri jihadists’ mutual benefactors. Contrary to the perception that the Sharif brothers — at least Nawaz Sharif — is at odds with the Pakistan army, they appear ideologically in sync with the security establishment and its jihadist proxies through which the domestic policy against the nationalists in Balochistan and foreign policy in Afghanistan and India is prosecuted. Little wonder then that the LeJ terrorists roam free in Punjab and strike at will anywhere in the country.
Ludhianvi’s revelations designed to project political clout, however, reflect desperation. His body language smacks of vulnerability in the face of mounting condemnation of his creed, which is to make life miserable for the Pakistani Shia as openly professed by his cohorts Malik Ishaq and Aurangzeb Farooqui. By outing the PML-N for their mutual nexus, the ASWJ may be trying to force the PML-N to own the alliance openly. Ludhianvi has effectively put Nawaz Sharif in the dock. Mian sahib still has an opportunity to come clean and sever ties with an openly fascist outfit. Otherwise, he may have to share the blame for the atrocities committed by the SSP and the LeJ.
As to the allegations against the PPP’s legislators, and more importantly, the thousands of Barelvis killed and the Shia genocide in Pakistan, the buck stops with President Asif Ali Zardari. Under international law, a state has the responsibility to prevent and stop genocide within its boundaries. While indicting diversity, Pakistan might end up getting indicted for not stopping extermination of its citizens, if not condoning it.
(The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki)
