The Ramadan Ordinance

In 1981, the Ehtaram-e-Ramadan Ordinance (No. XXIII) was issued by then President of Pakistan Zia ul Haq, whereby eating, drinking and smoking in public during fasting hours in the month of Ramadan was declared unlawful. Contravention of the ordinance was made punishable for up to three months, with a possible fine of Rs 500.

Notwithstanding the political points scored by the Zia regime with its promulgation, many still support this law and present three main arguments in its favour. The most common one made is that the ordinance is imperative for the maintenance of the sanctity of the holy month. Advocates of the law also claim that the sight of people not fasting and publicly indulging their appetites might wound Muslim sentiments. Lastly, pragmatic commentators hold that the ordinance really doesn’t pose a discomfort to minorities, as they are free to eat and drink within the privacy of their homes. If the law is not causing a tangible suppression of any minority community, they argue, what harm is there in keeping it, if only for the cosmetic purpose of appeasing the Muslim majority?

At the outset, it is important that we determine the need for proscriptive laws in a society. Normally, the reason behind the promulgation of any law is rooted in need. Prohibitive laws are formulated to ensure prevention when a practice is deemed detrimental to social stability and harmony, and a need is felt to eradicate it. The system of crime and punishment is essentially a code of conduct, laid down for the citizenry by the legislature.

The first argument in favour of the Ramadan Ordinance is ingenious on account of its mass appeal. It wins converts by drawing on the sense of religious fervour of the State’s Muslim majority, and the disposition to decency of its non-Muslim minority. Indeed, our people, with a predilection for arguing ad hominem, would immediately accuse any Muslim opposing such an evidently natural law of flagrant heresy, and a non-Muslim voicing dissent of deliberate irreverence to Islam.

Nonetheless, the assertion that a ban on the public consumption of food and drink needs to be placed to ensure the sanctity of Ramadan is specious at best. It implicitly renders the sanctity of Ramadan subservient to individual caprice. It presumes that the holiness of the month per se is insufficient and requires publicity in the form of repressive State legislation. Moreover, the law is proscriptive and, by definition, imposed to quell a practice deemed against societal or national interest. By the fact of its enforcement, the law presumes that non-Muslim minorities have a general propensity to eat and drink in public for the mere purpose of exhibiting their gross disrespect of the holy month. Such an assumption has no basis in fact. Further, the law seeks to quell plurality and impose a quite unnecessary uniformity, which has disadvantages that I will highlight presently.

The second argument that people eating, drinking and smoking publicly during Ramadan would hurt Muslim sentiments is equally unsound. If we concede to the notion of respect for all religions within the State, as the Constitution grants in Article 20, fairness subsequently demands a similar prohibition on public consumption of food and drink during Lent to show due deference for the faith of our four million Roman Catholic countrymen. If, however, laws are promulgated under the axiom of the hegemony of the majority without regard to the personal freedom of the minority, as is the increasing propensity of most modern democracies, the ensuing logical consequences of such a legislative policy would be chilling for the minority within the State. Any number of actions, normally considered part of an individual’s personal life, could become distasteful to the whimsical majority, which could demand the suppression of the minority’s freedoms under the pretext of a real or illusive offence to its own sense of propriety.

If the above argument is carried forth logically, it becomes possible for the majority in theory to have, say, the Catholic mass prohibited by law simply because it views the ritual as a contravention of its own sense of righteousness. While such a hypothesis sounds preposterous, this particular example has intentionally been chosen, as analogous instances have occurred in our history. Those interested further may examine the constitutional amendments of 1974.
The most convincing argument in favour of this law is the last. That is, even if one admits that the law is pointless, so long as it does not pose any serious discomfort to the non-Muslim minority, what is the objective of repealing it? Indeed, would it not be prudent to keep the law intact and not risk unnecessary controversy and political propaganda by the Islamic parties, which a move to shelve it might incur?
For this, we need to digress from our current discourse to examine the constitution of the State. Article 41(2) of the constitution states that the president of Pakistan must be Muslim. While no such requirement exists for the office of the prime minister, any conscientious non-Muslim would be loth to take the oath set for the premier-elect as prescribed in the Third Schedule, since it is rife with protestations of Islamic belief.

When one protests such discriminatory laws, which render it impossible for a non-Muslim to ever assume the highest offices of the State, the argument rendered in defence is that it is well nigh impossible for a member of the minority community to ever garner the public support or political clout to compete for the post in any case. Indeed, the chances of that are as bright as those of our living to see a Muslim president elected in the United States.
However, such laws are harmful to the country’s integrity because they degrade the minorities to second-rate citizenry by implying that only Muslims are sufficiently patriotic, or competent, for the highest office of the State by mere virtue of their religion. The damage that it does is in the form of a strident reminder to minorities that they are indeed fewer in number, living in a State which sees them as outsiders and with a majority that can never regard them as equals. The abrogation of these laws may not have any imminent practical value, but their mere presence in the constitution suffocates the minorities’ hope for an equal status.

In a similar manner, the culinary ban during Ramadan, while not a source of physical discomfort, is tangibly painful in that it serves to alienate the religious minority by placing unnecessary restrictions on it. Such a restriction, like the ones above, strikes at the heart of the minorities’ sense of nationalism with the imposition of a pernicious uniformity. In the end, the loser is none other than the State itself.
For a country that vows to treat people of all creeds and religions as equal citizens, ours is unfortunately falling well short.