Written for The Muslim Times by Abdul Alim: A dozen bombs hit Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar in the last 24 hours. A headline in a newspaper today states that fifty five known terrorists have been cleared to stand in elections. With killing of politicians and candidates in Khyber Pukhtunkhawa, Balochistan and Sindh with the exception of Punjab, it is clear that fault lines between Punjab and other provinces are getting wider every day. Widely perceived as predominantly Punjabi, the Pakistan Army and the Judiciary, the most powerful institutions in the country today are being seen at best as helpless and at worst complicit in what is seems to be a militant filter being applied to the screening process for candidates.

Conditions are only apparently peaceful in Punjab. This has to do with a state of compromise that has been reached between all major political parties and the militants in the province. It is a matter of record that PML-N, PPP have forged coalitions with terror outfits. PTI is known to not take a clear stand on Taliban. Islamic Political parties like JI and JUI and most political parties have had no problems in holding large political gatherings. There are already demands by at least one party that elections should only be held in Punjab where security is not a large issue.

What can you say about the heap of tragedies befalling a nation whose destiny will be determined by the very people who had opposed its very creation. There is no need to repeat here the opinions expressed by the spectrum of orthodox religious parties (who have now become the guardians of that non-existent “Pakistan Ideology”) about the founder of this nation and the nation that was to be born with it. While Takfir (declaring other sects as being un believers through religious edicts (fatwas) is not new to the Muslim world, what happened in Pakistan was and is unique not only to a modern nation state but also in the history of world religions.

The spectrum of Takfiri decrees in Pakistan spares no one. But as the State and its machinery was gradually co-opted and subdued while avowed secularists and spineless liberals were looking the other way, Pakistan became a constitutional theocracy in 1974 after the passage of 2^nd amendment in 1973 constitution. Islam was then legalized and successfully declared a trademark (see Supreme Court’s decision on Zaheeruddin vs. State in 1993) and was subsequently denied to some citizens of the country in 1980s and 1990s. This oppression continues unabated even today. A political apartheid was created in 1987 when separate electorate was put in place to specifically deny Ahmadiyya Muslims the right to vote. Successive democratic and or moderate Governments were not only unable to reverse this course but actually allowed the consolidation of theocracy which has now resulted in the controversy surrounding articles 62 and 63. It is the genie that was let loose, never tamed and has come back to bite its own creators and accomplices.

The first balkanization of Pakistan happened in 1971. The Secular Bengali temperament could not stand the narrow hypocritical and Islamist theocracy that was being shaped by a largely Punjabi led establishment (which does not represent the Punjabi population). What was most unfortunate was that the seduction of international fame and leadership of the Islamic world that led Bhutto, as the head of an avowed Sindhi dominant secular party, the PPP to amend the constitution making Pakistan a theocratic state. Sadly the radicalization of the Pakistani State did not stop even with the separation of East Pakistan.

The 1971 elections are upheld as the most free and fair in the country’s history. The 2013 elections will be the most Unfair and Un free in the history of the country because of the selective militant threat to secular leaning political parties and the denial of votes to a four million strong Ahmadi Muslim community with secular credentials and ones to have been the only religious movement to support the creation of Pakistan. With arbitrary application of articles 62 and 63, the inability of secular leaning parties to run a meaningful election campaign and expedient political alliances with well-known criminal militant organizations the process of Pakistan’s regression into a conservative (mainly Wahabi) theocracy will be finally complete.

The result unfortunately will be the same. Irrespective of who comes to power, the fault lines of balkanization of Pakistan become irreversible every day. The secular Baloch, Pathan and Sindhi nationalists will not go let the Punjabi led militant version of Takfiri Islamist ideology determine their destiny and future. When will they go the East Pakistan route is just a matter of time.