Credit: Friday Times via Wasim Saroya
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| A police helmet is seen next to blood stains at the site where a bomb exploded | |
Denominational differences are not new to Islam, just as they are not to other religions. However, the history of sectarian violence in Pakistan is a phenomenon that, while drawing on old differences of faith, has unfolded in a modern context. The recent rise in sectarian killings, for instance, is a continuation of the trends already gathering pace in Pakistani society from the 1980s. They indicate the growing retreat or failure of state and law enforcement agencies against the expanding power of militant groups that deploy guerrilla tactics to achieve their goals. Sectarianism in its contemporary manifestation, therefore, cannot be delinked from the larger growth of Pakistan-based terror groups and their alliance with the global Jihadist project negotiated by the loose conglomerate known as Al Qaeda.
Three developments are most worrying for Pakistan. First, as Khaled Ahmed in his various TFT articles has noted, the widespread acceptance of Al Qaeda’s anti-West stance has permeated large swathes of the population. Second, the US policy of targeting Al Qaeda and its affiliates through drone strikes has forced its leaders to spread out and find new operational bases within urban Pakistan. Karachi, for instance, has been cited as a major ground for the continuation of its operations, in addition to Faisalabad, Lahore and other areas. Third and most dangerously, in the past decade, Al Qaeda may have entered into an alliance with home-grown militants such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and old sectarian outfits.
The Roots of Modern Sectarianism
Sectarian conflict in Pakistan traces its roots to the Pakistani state’s attempts to forge a national identity based on Islam. Muslim nationalism in India at the start of the Pakistan movement was broadly pan-Islamic in nature and aloof to sectarianism. However, as early as the 1950s when new textbooks were commissioned for junior classes, the official narrative began to shift. The Pakistani state, as a matter of policy, decided to formulate a new identity was based as much on constructs of Pakistan’s Islamic identity as it was on a virulent anti-Indianism. In making public education the site for building a non-inclusive identity, the state privileged the history and teachings of a number of religious personages, including Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and Shah Waliullah, who abhorred Shiaism. Decrees of apostasy against the Shias of Pakistan in the ’90s would refer to the works of the same religious figures to justify their pedigree.
The Pakistani state needs to protect and enable religious plurality and repeal or amend laws and official procedures that reinforce sectarian identities such as the mandatory affirmation of faith in application for jobs, passports and national identity cards. But who will get it implemented. No courgeous peronality either in uniform or in civil seems to be in pipeline.