Islam and Religious Manipulation: A Continuing Problem for the Pakistani State and Society, Throughout its Past and into its Present
Muhammad Adil, Muhammad Aashan, Raja Huzaifa Ahmed, Adeel Azeem & Muhammad Shehryar Tahir
Riphah International University, Institute of Media Sciences
BFPC1T001: Functional English Course
Instructor: Dr. Saira Asad
January 11, 2022
ABSTRACT
Throughout the history of mankind, religion has always played a vital role in its development and existence. This role of religion in human societies opens up a space for con-men and expert manipulators to exploit. These people use psychological trickery to manipulate their victims, a prime example of which is how the religious political parties in Pakistan claim that any discussion on blasphemy laws is in itself an act of committing blasphemy.
Pakistan has always had a problem with religion being used as a tool for personal gains by people both in the state apparatus and outside of it. No matter who gained from these incidents of religious manipulation the state of Pakistan is seen facing a questionable attitude in the international arena and the society of Pakistan in terms of stability and security.
Currently, it is seen that Pakistan is in the grip of a religious crisis. This crisis has everything to do with religious manipulation and specifically religious manipulation done under the umbrella of Pakistan's blasphemy Laws. Exploiting this situation, the most are some emerging religious political parties.
1. INTRODUCTION
Religion is a very powerful phenomenon that exerts a great influence on humanity in such a way, that it is difficult to have a society that is devoid of religion and religious activity. Islam is a religion that is monotheistic and it teaches that Muhammad is a messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity, with 1.9 billion followers or a quarter of the world's population (Pew, 2015). Its followers are known as Muslims. Muslims are a majority of the population in 49 countries of the world. Pakistan is amongst the top out of these 49 Muslim majority countries and has the second-largest Muslim population in the world. Religion is the basis of the Pakistani nationalist narrative and Islam is the largest and only state religion of Pakistan (Hussain, 2006). It is this overwhelming importance that is given to the religion of Islam in Pakistan that opens up a space for people who want to abuse this in-built gravity towards Islam by the Pakistani society to meet their political goals by the use of religious manipulation (Venkat, 2015). The word manipulation means the use of devious means to exploit, control, and influence others for personal advantage. It is the domain of confidence-men, fraudsters, and impostors who have no respect for moral principles and it is a forced influence that is used at the expense of others to achieve mind control and politico-socio-economic benefits. The term religious manipulation refers to a specific type of manipulation that uses psychological tricks in combination with the teachings of religion to inflict harm on a person (Keith, 2001).
2. History of Religious Manipulation in Pakistan
The history of religious manipulation in Pakistan is in actuality older than Pakistan itself. The country was born with the partition of British India in 1947. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father, had campaigned for a separate state for South Asian Muslims but envisioned a modern state with a secular government (Cohen, 2004). His political party Muslim League championed the Two-Nation Theory, according to which Hindus and Muslims could not coexist peacefully as a single nation. Nonetheless, Jinnah and most of the Muslim leaders during the independence struggle did not intend Pakistan to become a theocratic state. This contradiction between the demand for a separate state based on religion and the wish for non-religious governance constitutes a form of religious manipulation (Hector, 1954).
2.1. Religious Manipulation and the 1953 Lahore Riots
The first major case of religious manipulation surfaced in post-partition Pakistan in 1953 in the form of a series of violent riots against the Ahmadiyya Movement, a faith marginalized in Pakistan (Kadir, 2014). The Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam a religious political party that stood strongly against the creation of Pakistan before partition took a sudden but calculated political move to reinvigorate its vitality in the newly born Pakistan, where, due to its previous opposition to the creation of the new country had rendered it largely marginalized (Peter, 1996). This calculated political move was to emotionally manipulate the religious sentiments of the public in favor of Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam through the incitement of violence against the Ahmadiyya community. The demonstrations were country-wide and year-long and resulted in the loss of 2000 lives with many thousand people injured and huge destruction of public and private property (Harvard, 2003).
2.2. 1965 Election and Fatwa Against Fatima Jinnah
In 1965 a long-awaited Presidential Election was held with two candidates running for the presidency. Field Marshal Ayub Khan was supported by his Conventional Muslim League and on the other side entire opposition united to support Miss Fatima Jinnah for the post of President of Pakistan (Time, 1964). Miss Fatima Jinnah was considered a people's favorite because her brother Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the founder of the nation. Religious manipulation crept in the election campaign of Ayub Khan in the form of pre-poll rigging with Ayub Khan orchestrating a series of fatwas against Miss Fatima Jinnah that declared Women ineligible for the office of the President of Pakistan sighting it un-Islamic for women to hold any political office in an Islamic state (Saiyid, 2007).
2.3. 1974 Riots and Constitutional Amendment
The year 1974 saw a huge and violent crisis in Pakistan in the form of deadly riots. The riots were started by Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam against the Ahmadiyya community (Harvard, 2003). The pretext of these riots was an incident that happened at a Railway station in Rabwah city of Punjab. A group of medical students traveling inter-city and a bunch of locals of Rabwah city who were members of the Ahmadiyya community got into an argument which quickly escalated into a brawl (Paracha, 2013). This incident which had nothing to do with the Ahmadiyya community in general and insult to the religious sentiments of anyone was picked up by the Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam as a rallying point to emotionally manipulate the religious sentiments of the public in favor of Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam through the incitement of violence against Ahmadiyya community (Aziz, 2013). This calculated political move triggered a series of attacks on Ahmadis throughout the country for an entire year, which led to a huge loss of life and property of the members of the Ahmadiyya Community (Harvard, 2003).
2.4. Tehrik-e-Nizam-e-Mustafa
In the wake of the 1977 general elections in Pakistan, a coalition of nine political parties got formed with an agenda to defeat Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People's Party (Lyon, 2008). The composition of this opposition party’s alliance was an unusual mix of 9 political parties ranging from religious parties, on one hand, to secular-Marxist parties on the other, with completely different ideological and political goals. It was called Tehrik-e-Nizam-e-Mustafa and was primarily a political movement that promised the implementation of Islam as its primary election slogan (Rizwan, 2005). This unusual alliance utilized religious manipulation to succeed against the Pakistan People's Party by promising to enforce the Islamic System of governance or a "Nizam-e-Mustafa", a vague but emotionally very powerful slogan. The composition of this alliance indicated clearly that the Nizam-e-Mustafa slogan that it had chosen for itself was merely a mantra to skillfully mobilize the populace against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was portrayed as an infidel by the religious political parties in the coalition (Nizammani, 2000). Despite using religion to fulfill its political agenda with a textbook religious manipulation formula, this alliance of nine religious, secular, and neutral political parties lost the election. As a result of months of post-poll violence by the alliance, martial law came into effect in Pakistan in July of 1977. By 1978, the alliance met its end when the alliance parties diverged in each of its agendas (Dawn, 2012).
2.5. 1984 Pakistani Islamization program referendum
In 1984 a referendum was organized by the then president of Pakistan Gen Zia-ul-Haq to extend his presidential term (Haqqani, 2005). The referendum had very strange wording (Benette, 2002). This referendum asked voters to vote for the president if they supported the Islamic ideology of Pakistan and further wanted Islamization of the country with Gen Zia's Islamization drive (Benette, 2002). It was a clear use of religious manipulation to seek another term in office by the then-president (Qadeer, 2006). The wording of the referendum was designed in a way that constitutes pre-poll rigging as well as religious manipulation of the most obvious type (Keppel, 2002).
3. Religious Manipulation, Blasphemy Laws and the Current Situation in Pakistan Vis a Vis Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan
3.1. The Blasphemy Laws
In the 1920s, a book got published in Lahore called Rangila Rasul that had content that infuriated the Muslim community of the subcontinent. Under immense pressure from the Muslim community, the British rulers of India enacted a law that made it a criminal offense to slander the name of a founder of any religion (BBC, 2014). After the partition of British India, many similar laws and clauses to the laws which dealt with blasphemy were introduced in the penal code of Pakistan (Dawn, 2021). The laws became increasingly strict with time and peaked their level of strictness in the 1980s under Gen Zia-ul-Haq's Presidency (Farhat, 2019). Up till 1986, 14 cases in total of blasphemy were reported but after 1986, and up till 2021 more than 2500 cases have been reported indicating abuse of these blasphemy laws (The Economist, 2014). More than 100 people have been killed on the mere allegation of blasphemy in this time period without giving the accused even a chance at a trial according to the Center for Social Justice in Pakistan (Lee, 2013).
3.2. Religious Manipulation and the Rise of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan
Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYP) was founded in 2015 by Khadim Hussain Rizvi. The name of the party was changed to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), after an objection from the Election Commission of Pakistan (Subramanian, 2021). A chain of events resulted in Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan's founding and subsequent rise to fame (Hussain, 2017). The first event in this chain is the Asia Bibi Blasphemy Case, which leads to the second event that is the opposition to blasphemy laws and support of Asia Bibi by the Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer, which eventually leads to the third event in the chain that is the assassination of Salman Taseer by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri. The chain of events finally leads to the support of Mumtaz Qadri by Khadim Rizvi who advocated for the release of Mumtaz Qadri justifying the assassination on the pretext that Salman Taseer himself committed blasphemy by supporting Asia Bibi and for that he deserved to be murdered (Zakaria, 2018).
3.3. Asia Bibi Blasphemy Case
In June 2009, in a falsa berry field in Sheikhupura district of Punjab, an argument ensued between Asia Noreen a Christian berry picker with her fellow berry picker women because of her drinking water from a utensil which was reserved for Muslim women in the group because they considered Asia Noreen unclean due of her being a Christian (Kazim, 2010). This silly argument in the berry field led to a mob attacking her house and beating her because someone present in the berry field had spread a false rumor about her that she committed blasphemy by insulting the prophet of Islam. She was quickly arrested by the police under the blasphemy laws and an investigation got initiated (BBC, 2010). She was sentenced to death in November 2010. This verdict was sharply criticized by the then Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer (BBC, 2010).
3.4. Salman Taseer’s Support for Asia Bibi and His subsequent Assassination
Many people in Pakistan raised their voice against the trial court's verdict against Asia Bibi but the loudest voice among them was of the then Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer's. Salman Taseer was very outspoken on this issue and in a television interview, he gave to Samaa News where he commented on his views about Pakistan's blasphemy laws and about him wanting to file a mercy petition on Asia Bibi's behalf (Maqbool, 2011).
Mumtaz Qadri, a member of Salman Taseer’s security team, assassinated him by shooting at him 27 times with a standard-issue AK-47 assault rifle at Kohsar Market, near his home in Sector F6, Islamabad. Salman Taseer was about to mount his car after having met a friend for lunch when the assassin opened fire at him. Mumtaz Qadri claimed that he killed Salman Taseer because he defended Asia Bibi and criticized the blasphemy laws (Haider & Georgie, 2011).
3.5. Execution of Mumtaz Qadri and Rise of Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan
Khadim Hussain Rizvi was serving in the Punjab government as an auqaf official when the assassination of Governor Salman Taseer took place. He publicly justified the assassination claiming that Salman Taseer himself had committed an act of blasphemy by criticizing the blasphemy laws (Barker & Iqbal, 2018). Many warning notices were served to him by the government to not spread his views on blasphemy laws but he never stopped. He was removed from public service in 2011 (Ali, 2017).
Khadim Rizvi intensified preaching of his views after he was removed from public service. He extensively traveled across Pakistan after his removal from the public service and built considerable support for his views on blasphemy laws. He consistently advocated for the release of Salman Taseer's assassin Mumtaz Qadri (Warraich, 2017).
On 10 October 2011, Mumtaz Qadri was sentenced to death by the court and he was hanged on 29 February 2016 in Rawalpindi jail, but that didn't stop Khadim Rizvi from spreading his views, in-fact Khadim Rizvi went ahead and started his political party by the name of Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), capitalizing on his success as a blasphemy activist (Jamal, 2018).
4. Socio-Religio-Political Exploits of Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan
4.1. 2017 Faizabad Sit-In
On 6 November 2017, a long march was organized by TLP leader Khadim Rizvi demanding the resignation of Zahid Hamid, the law minister of the government for presenting a bill in the parliament that contained a clerical error in the oath section of the document where the finality of the Islamic prophet had to be declared. The error was swiftly rectified but that didn't stop TLP from marching towards the Capital (Abbas, Rasmussen & Engel, 2017). The government tried to contain the situation but to no avail, after a lot of mayhem and confusion, the government caved in to the illegitimate demands of the TLP and the Law Minister had to resign (BBC, 2017).
4.2. Protests against the judgment on Asia Bibi’s Case in 2018
On 31 October 2018, Asia Bibi, the accused in the 2009 blasphemy case, was declared innocent by the Supreme Court in its verdict. The Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that in Asia Bibi's case statements of the witnesses were inconsistent and contained a lot of contradictions thus declaring Asia Bibi a free citizen (Zakaria, 2018).
Upon hearing the news of Asia Bibi's acquittal, TLP under the leadership of Khadim Rizvi mobilized its support base to initiate violent and country-wide demonstrations. TLP declared Supreme Court judges "deserve to be killed" (Bacon, 2018). Khadim Rizvi was arrested by the police but due to overwhelming pressure put on by the workers of TLP on the government through violent protest, the government finally caved in and released Khadim Rizvi (Aqeel, 2018).
4.3. Murder of Professors
In 2018, a student in Charsadda murdered his principal. The student was an active attendee of the rallies of TLP and habitually skipped classes for this purpose, when his principal reprimanded him for skipping his classes, he stabbed the principal to death claiming that stopping someone from attending TLP rallies is paramount to committing an act of blasphemy (Sayeed, 2018).
In March 2019, an associate professor by the name of Khalid Hameed was murdered by his student, Khateeb Hussain. Khateeb Hussain claimed that he was inspired by the teachings of Khadim Rizvi and that he sought permission for the murder from the legal wing of Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (Faiz, 2018).
4.4. 2018 Assassination Attempt on Ahsan Iqbal
In May 2018, an assassination attempt was made by a worker of Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan on the then Interior Minister of Pakistan, Ahsan Iqbal while he was attending a political rally in Narowal city of Punjab (Hasim, 2018). The attacker claimed that he wanted to kill Ahsan Iqbal because he considered Ahsan Iqbal to be a blasphemer and was inspired by the sermons of Khadim Rizvi that he gave declaring the entire government of that time as a blasphemer government (Kaifee, 2018).
4.5. 2018 Protests Demanding Removal of Atif Mian
In 2018, Atif Mian, an internationally renowned economist was selected in the Economic Advisory Council created by the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Atif Mian belongs to the Ahmadiyya Community (Chaudhary, 2018). Upon hearing this news Khadim Rizvi ordered his party to hit the streets in protests demanding the removal of Atif Mian from the Economic Advisory Council. On 7th September 2018, the government finally caved into the demands of TLP and removed Atif Mian from the Economic Advisory Council (Tribune, 2018).
4.6. 2020 Zindagi Tamasha Film Controversy
In 2020, a film got released in Pakistan called Zindagi Tamasha. In the film, the director highlighted the issue of child sexual abuse in the madrassas of Pakistan (Hashim, 2020). TLP on the call of its founder Khadim Rizvi kicked off a series of protests and mob violence, calling for the murder of the director of the film, blaming him for committing an act of blasphemy by highlighting the issue of child sexual abuse in the madrassas of Pakistan (BBC, 2020).
4.7. The lynching of Priyantha Kumara
On 3 December 2021, a Sri Lankan man by the name of Priyantha Kumara fell victim to a mob lynching in Sialkot, over blasphemy allegations (Harees, 2021). Priyantha Kumara had been working in Pakistan for over a decade. He was accused of blasphemy because he allegedly removed a poster of TLP in the work area of the sports factory in which he worked as an export’s manager (Hashim, 2021). All the perpetrators of this mob lynching incident have been identified as a worker of Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan and several videos of this incident can be seen where hundreds of men gathered outside the sports factory brutally beating and finally burning the dead body of Priyantha Kumara all the while chanting slogans of TLP (Mehmood, 2021).
CONCLUSION
Religious manipulation happens all around the world, wherever religion has a major role to play in society. Pakistan has a religious manipulation problem. It always had this problem, throughout its 75 years of existence. The people who are supposed to be the ones protecting society from the ill wills of religious manipulation have always involved themselves in the process of religious manipulation, this includes the government and the religious establishment. It's a problem that is haunting Pakistani society more than ever in the form of Religio-political parties that are propping up left right and center in Pakistan. The future seems bleak if this trend continues in Pakistan and the movers and shakers of Pakistan must realize that they are playing with fire by letting this mayhem continue and even supporting it in some cases by bowing down to these professional religious manipulators. No one being a Muslim can even imagine or allow anyone of doing blasphemy acts. But, there are legal bodies responsible to handle these sensitive issues. It is the responsibility of authority to tackle this issue under fair means and control and highlight the manipulation which is created in the name of Islam. Today, it is seen as stated above in various incidents, people tried to manipulate the issue mostly for their own gains. One has to take a step and in this regard, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan has highlighted the issue and taken a strict stance against those, who took charge of the Sri Lankan incident that later ended by taking the life of an innocent.
REFERENCES
