Vision Sidelined

When Pakistan was created and gained independence from the British in the year 14th August 1947 full religious liberty, i.e. liberty of belief, worship and observance, propaganda, association and education, were considered guaranteed to all communities because Muhammad Ali Jinnah as first President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947 at Karachi said in his presidential address that the minorities in the State of Pakistan would be having equal rights, privileges and obligations like the majority. Addressing the minorities, he stated regarding their religious freedom. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. He added that in Pakistan, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslim would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense…but in the political sense as citizens of the State.” After the inspection of Pakistan, M.A. Jinnah prudently adopted a policy of tolerance towards the minorities. As he knew that a considerable population was left in both countries of India and Pakistan, as minorities,’ which had not migrated, he repeatedly assured the minorities of protection of their rights in the country. He repeatedly affirmed the minorities that they would get a fair treatment in Pakistan. He stated on many occasions that they had nothing to fear as long as they fulfilled their duties and obligations as loyal citizens of the country. On various occasions, Jinnah told the minorities that his government was pursuing a policy to create a sense of security and confidence in the non-Muslim minorities.

But it seems that we have forgotten what the Quaid’s vision of Pakistan was and what he had promised to the people of Pakistan whether the incident from 2009 Gojra riots where a series of attacks targeting Christians in Gojra town in Punjab province of Pakistan resulting in the deaths of eight Christians including four women and a child or the very recent terrorists who attacked two Ahmadi congregations in Lahore in the last week of May 2010 did more than just mercilessly scythe down over eighty people sending a sound message from the terrorists, scattered by gunfire and getting it in black and white by the blood of their victims, that their homicidal & vicious lunacy is not without method. According to the terrorists spokesperson

“They were looking for this target for a long time and would like to encourage the nation for increasing such activities.”

This is the battle for gaining control, rather than creating disarray of lawlessness and pandemonium is obvious from these types of the statements especially in Pakistan a country where an approximately 4 million Ahmadis live is the only state to have officially declared the Ahmadis or Qadianis to be non-Muslims.

Ahmadi or known as Qadianis as well in Pakistan is a religious movement founded towards the end of the 19th century and originating with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Ghulam Ahmad was an important religious figure who claimed to have fulfilled the prophecies about the world reformer of the end times, who was to herald the Eschaton as predicted in the traditions of various world religions and bring about the final triumph of Islam as per Islamic prophecy. He claimed that he was the divine reformer of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah the second coming of Jesus Christ one of the most revered prophet in Islam and Mahdi awaited by Muslims. Ahmadi emphasis lay in the belief that Islam is the final law for humanity as revealed to Muhammad SAWW (PBUH) and the necessity of restoring to it its true essence and pristine form, which had been lost through the centuries. Thus, Ahmadis view themselves as leading the revival and peaceful propagation of Islam. The Ahmadis were among the earliest Muslim communities to arrive in Britain and other Western countries. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad founded the movement on 23 March 1889 and termed it the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at or community, envisioning it to be a revitalization of Islam. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims and claim to practice Islam in its pristine form; however, Ahmadiyya views on certain beliefs in Islam have been controversial to mainstream Muslims since the movement’s birth. Many mainstream Muslims do not consider Ahmadis to be Muslims, citing in particular the Ahmadiyya viewpoint on the death and return of Jesus, the Ahmadiyya concept of Jihad and the community’s view of the conclusiveness of prophet hood with particular reference to the interpretation of Qur’an

“Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets; and Allah is ever aware of all things”. (Surah 33 Al Azhab Ayah 40)

In many Islamic countries today Ahmadis have been marginalized by the majority religious community; severe persecution and often systematic oppression have led many Ahmadis to emigrate and settle elsewhere. So how do Ahmadis, a small, voiceless and disenfranchised religious minority, fit into this battle? The answer, surprisingly, lies in the very fact of their marginalization.

Pakistan’s first foreign minister, Sir Zafarullah Khan was an Ahmadi and one of the most able lawyers in the British India and an extremely illustrious and respected diplomat for Pakistan in the intercontinental grounds. Also the country’s only Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr. Abdus Salam, was an Ahmadi ad set up scholarship schemes and institutes that continue to benefit Pakistani students, but because of his faith he is yet to get due societal recognition in his home country for being the winner of the highest prize in science, however neither Sir Zafarullah Khan or Dr. Abdus Salaam ever felt obligated to hide their religious beliefs. Sandwiched between them and those killed in Lahore lies a series of unfortunate developments that have forced the community into a corner where they need to survive trumps all worldly and other worldly contemplations. Now Ahmadis have to choose between being open being open about their religious beliefs and facing discrimination when it comes to education, jobs, and other economic opportunities, or concealing their faith and getting by as long as they can without revealing it. This is the story of many civil servants and military officials who worked quietly until their names appeared side by side with their faith due to some constraint, as was the case with at least one former senior military commander who died in the Lahore attack. Not that Ahmadis are at the receiving end for the first time. Target killings and sporadic incidents of violence against them, as well as their social and economic boycott, have existed as long as the community has. Organized, large scale incidents of violence were perpetrated against the Ahmadis in 1953 and 1974 respectively.

Saying all that being an Ahmadi was not a crime, at least not until the 1980’s, that is. In 1973, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the then prime minister of Pakistan amended the constitution to declare them non – Muslims in a move to appease the religious parties. Although their criminalization was not immediate, after he had preserved their minority status the rest fell in peace and place quite fast. Pakistani society’s most religious social engineer in Chief General Zia – ul – Haq built an entire structure of laws, rules and regulations meant to isolate Ahmadis in every sphere of life. Through the system of separate electorates they were pushed to the limits of politics, through the mention of religion on all identity documents they were forced to miss out on the educational and trade and industry opportunities or renounce their religion and through this institutionalization of discrimination & bigotry they were subjected to laws that prohibited them from calling themselves as Muslims, naming their worship places as Masjids or using any religious symbols that could lead the others to believe that they were not Ahmadis. Through a dictatorial verdict in 1984 he integrated all this prejudice into the Pakistan Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code.

In what amounted to a near re – enactment of the Spanish Inquisition’s yellow badges, the great architect of this discrimination almost forced Ahmadis to wear their religion on their sleeves so that they could be identified. This structural anti Ahmedi bias has led to three developments among the members of this minority community. The most educated, talented and well off among them migrated to other countries, many chose to beat around the bush, superficially pronouncing themselves Muslims, and the vast majority simply shut themselves into a ghettoized peripheral nature. This rather easy victory gave the perpetrators of prejudice and hatred their next goal. After isolating and marginalizing the heretics they now seek to eliminate them altogether. Ahmadis in the words of fanatics are a hidden enemy. According to them, Jews, Christians, and even Hindus are a thousand times better then Ahmadis as for the formers are the in open enemies of Islam whereas the latter are like a malignant cyst in the human body needing to be eliminated. The terrorists in Lahore did just that should serve as a wakeup call. If we do not act now against such malicious surgical attacks, then when will we?

Shortly before the independence, at a Press Conference on July 14, 1947 in New Delhi, Jinnah as Governor-General-designate of Pakistan had assured the minorities that their religion, faith, life, property and culture would be protected in the future State of Pakistan. They all, he added, would be the citizens of Pakistan having equal rights and privileges. He also asked the minorities to be loyal to the state. A lot many instances can be cited which establish Jinnah’s untiring efforts for the protection of minorities and it seemed that he was so much eager to solve the problems of minorities that he could go to any extent for it. He made it clear that he deplored and condemned without reserve the horrible deeds of killing and destruction that have taken place irrespective of their place of occurrence or origin. Addressing a rally in Lahore only five days later, he reminded the Muslims:

The tenets of Islam enjoin on every Muslim to give protection to his neighbors and to the minorities regardless of caste and creed. Despite the treatment, which is being meted out to the Muslim minorities in India, we must make it a matter of our prestige and honor to safeguard the lives of the minority communities and to create a sense of security among them. I would like to impress upon every Muslim…. to exercise restraint….

It was probably one of the last speeches of Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in which he referred to the problems of minorities and again guaranteed them secure future in the State of Pakistan. A promise that seems best as forgotten by us, but even then have we ever thought, no matter what religion we are born into as but the truth is we are all born as children of Adam and Eve and thus are bonded into a brotherhood, therefore we really need to do something against such hateful surgical assails and try to preserve the vision of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, The Father Of The Nation…