pakistantoday.com.pk: It’s been a long time coming

“How can we save Pakistan from secularism?” was one of the questions at an exam I attended earlier this week. Isn’t it mind-boggling? The political idea which many in Pakistan have been struggling for years to popularize has been portrayed as something vile, cursing and damaging for the country.

The dilemma, however, is that while I have studied extensively about the topic and had enough prior knowledge to debunk what was taught to us in the classes, majority of my fellows were either unaware of the topic, or were too casual to know more about it. Thus: the narrative of secularism being a dark, terrible idea embraced by godless, immoral people.

The debate about secularizing the state of Pakistan goes way back to the year of its creation when Jinnah, in his famous speech provided a way forward to Pakistanis by asking them to cease to be Hindus or Muslims when it comes to state affairs. Promising equal rights for minorities, he announced Muslims were free to go to their mosques, Hindus to temples and Christians to churches. It is the simplest, comprehensive and most eloquent description of modern day secularism.

So, what is the chaos about? If Pakistan’s founder declared what type of country he wanted, where did it all go wrong? The answer to this question is not as simple as many secularists or Islamists would present it to be.

While reading ‘The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed’, a comprehensive research on pre-partition Punjab and the effect its partition brought to the Punjabis. Contrary to what many liberals believe, Muslim League employed Islam as a driving force of its activism in Punjab, and elsewhere. Slogans like ‘Islam in danger’ were raised to fuel the public sentiments.

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