Religion in Politics

It was Jamatis ( Mullah’s ) who were against Pakistan – they first started there campaign against Sir Syed Ahmed Khan ( may he rest in peace ) – somehow if you look at our history we see what I call ‘Mullah Conspiracy’ – which was that that Pakistan is a reality anyway so why not try to run our ( Mullah ) way. I am not against Mullahs there are good and bad in everyone, every nation, every political party and in today’s world we simply can’t generalize ; I am against there ideology which I understood when I was in NWFP last month they are trying to force people to think at what they think. It was Jamatis who brought guns in Karachi University and in every other university and educational institution in Pakistan. There are good and bad things in every political party , being a worker for MQM myself and differences apart I have found some of the Jamat-e-Islami’s workers and leaders very honest people and I am sure people in Karachi specially whichever party they belong to respect people like Prof.Ghafoor. Jamat-e-Islami’s organization and the way they elect there leader is one of the most democratic way – which I am sorry to say other parties in Pakistan don’t . Whatever the role of Religious parties are in Pakistan good or bad they are a reality and there pressure ( for the good or bad ) is here to stay in Pakistan. Mahatma Ghandi said, ‘anyone who thinks he could seprate religion with politics is a fool’- looking at Mr.Ghandis statement he was right –
Its on the record that Mulana Sami-ul-Haq ( Sexy Sam ) is still been blackmailed by ISI. Mulana Azam Tariq ( dead now ) whatever he said in public – he was acted like a d** when I.B was about to gave him some election funds ( my dad a senior bureaucrat told me ) – Its messy but in the end politics is messy everywhere -

Umer,

Amen!! It is good to see that Pakistanis are finally realizing that religion and politics just do not belong together. The main problem is that it is hard to establish limits once religion creeps into politics There is a slippery slope that is very difficult to avoid. Politicians are, by nature, manipulators of the public. Religion is one of the easiest ways to manipulate the public. So if the two get together, you see the widespread misuse and abuse of religion for manipulating the public. Once that starts happening, it is very difficult to backtrack.

The classic example is the Babri Masjid dispute in India. The BJP used this issue again and again to win elections, but once they won elections, they would just forget about it. Every time, a few months before any national elections, the BJP high command would discover religion, dust off the Mandir issue and start ratha yatras. What they didn`t realize is that thanks to their antics, the national atmosphere was becoming increasingly communal. Finally we all saw the horrible culmination of it in Gujarat. The Indian people did not like what was happening to their society and country and voted the BJP out when it got the chance. No one wants to live in a society where arbitrary people can create religious issues out of thin air and cause death and destruction all over. In the future, even if the BJP ever manages to get power, it would have learnt a powerful lesson.

Today India is a country where there is a Muslim president, Sikh prime minister, Sikh Army Chief and a Italian Christian President of Congress Party. So basically there is no hindu in any of the highest positions of power. Yet, as a hindu, I do not lose even one day`s sleep over this, because I know that the system we have in place is sound and respects every religion. As long as people are nationalistic and love India, who cares about their religion? I hope to see a day when we have a Kashmiri muslim as the prime minister of India.

Great article...

Since the writer uses Eqbal Ahmad`s ideas ...here is one article that deserves mention on the topic:

Jinnah, in a Class of His Own
[Dawn, 11 June 1995]

Mohammad Ali Jinnah is an enigma of modern history. His aristocratic English lifestyle, Victorian manners, and secular outlook rendered him a most unlikely leader of India’s Muslims. Yet, he led them to separate statehood, creating history and, in Saad R. Khairi’s apt phrase, ‘altering geography’.

Several scholars, among them H.M. Seervai, Aisha Jalal and Saad R. Khairi, help explain his shift from Indian nationalism to Muslim separatism but the mystery of Jinnah’s appeal remains. After all, neither Muslim nationalism nor the idea of Pakistan originated with him; he embraced them somewhat reluctantly.

There is another way of viewing the matter. In the twentieth century, two extraordinary personalities competed for the leadership of Indian Muslims. They were Abul Kalam Azad and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. As a point of departure in comprehending the aspirations of Muslims in India, we might review their biographical profiles.

The contrasts in their family background, education, culture, and styles of leadership were remarkable. Azad’s ancestors belonged since Emperor Babar’s time to the Persian and Urdu-speaking Muslim aristocracy of India. His great-grandfather was one of the last Ruknul Mudarrasin, a position roughly analogous to today’s ‘minister of education’, in Mughal India. After the War of 1857 his family migrated to Madina where it intermingled with the Sharifain aristocracy. Azad’s mother was a daughter of Sheikh Mohammed Zaher Watri, in his time Madina’s best known ‘Alim’. His father Maulana Khair al-Din gained much fame in the Muslim world for his ten-volume work on Islam, and for his central role in the restoration of Nahr Zubeida, Makkah’s main source of water. Among Indian Muslims who were still wistful over a lost empire, and reeling from the excesses of British colonisation, it is hard to envision a family with better credentials than Abul Kalam Azad’s.

Abul Kalam was a most worthy scion of an extraordinary family with roots deep in the duality—Indian and pan-Islamic—to which South Asia’s Muslims have been historically linked both psychologically and culturally. Born in Makkah, he was fluent in Arabic, at ease in Persian, and a most gifted writer of Urdu prose. He was deeply immersed in the mystical tradition of Islam. As early as 1919 he wrote on Sarmad Shaheed and the grand dichotomy between state and civil society in Islam. His later commentaries on the Holy Qura’an are still regarded as among the best in the world.

“Who is your master among the mufassareen?” I asked the late Maulana Kausar Niazi some years ago. “Abul Kalam” he replied reflexively. Al-Hilal, the magazine Azad founded in 1912, at age 22, marked the beginning of serious, mass circulation Urdu journalism. With its successor al-Balgah, it remains a milestone in the development of Urdu as a popular vehicle of political and social discourse. Azad was a spellbinding speaker and, like Jinnah, an ardent nationalist. In 1923, at age 35, he was the youngest man to be elected president of the Indian National Congress, a record Nehru will break later. An overwhelming majority of India’s Ulema supported him.

The man we shall later revere as the Quaid-i-Azam was a contemporary of Azad, and a most unlikely contender for Muslim leadership. He was born in 1876; Azad in 1890. But beyond the proximity of age, the two stood in sharp contrast to each other. While Azad’s aristocratic roots lay in the Muslim heartland of UP and Bengal, Jinnah was born to a middle class business family in the port town of Hindu-dominated Karachi. At age 21 he moved to England, thence to Bombay, the modern gateway to British India. Unlike Azad who belonged to the majority Sunni denomination of Islam, Jinnah came from the minority Shi’a community. He was the prototypical westernized Indian, tutored at Lincoln’s Inn, tailored at Saville Row, in his youth a Shakepearian actor, a constitutionalist barrister in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, married to a Parsi woman. More at home in English than his native Gujrati, Jinnah spoke little Urdu which he would later designate as Pakistan’s official language, knew neither Persian nor Arabic, and had only the rudimentary knowledge of Islam which is common to western educated Muslims. He was anathema to an overwhelming majority of the Ulema of the subcontinent, including so grand a figure as Maulana Husain Ahmed Madani and such ideologue as Abul Ala Maudoodi.

Mr. Jinnah made little effort to overcome his obvious handicaps. Unlike Barrister M.K. Gandhi with whom Jinnah shared similarities of language, class, and education, and who donned the Mahatma’s home spun dhoti, Jinnah stuck to his western ways and pin-stripe suits. He bowed but rarely to populist symbols, appearing only occasionally at political ralies, and shunning the display of emotion in public. Reasoned arguments and cold logic were the hallmark of Jinnah’s discourse. He spoke at political rallies as though he were addressing a courtroom, or a conference of lawyers. This is not the populist style anywhere, least of all in South Asia. Yet, in less that a decade of his return from London in 1935, he had eclipsed his political foes no less than colleagues in the Muslim League, and successfully established himself and the League as the sole spokesman of India’s Muslims. In the elections of 1937 the Muslim League barely survived as a minor political party; in 1940 it set Pakistan as its goal. Barely seven years later the new state was born.

In the Introduction to this first volume of Jinnah papers Professor Zaidi has asked this central question: “What then turned Jinnah into the embodiment of Muslim hopes and aspirations?” One answer, admirably documented by Saad Khairi and H.M. Seervai, is that the leadership of the Indian National Congress allowed Jinnah no alternative even though he constantly probed for one. But a deeper explanation offered in Professor Zaidi’s Introduction worth quoting: “What distinguished Jinnah from his great contemporaries is that he was quite self-consciously a modern man – one who valued, above all, reason, discipline, organisation, and economy. Jinnah differed from other Muslim Leaders in so far as he was uncompromisingly committed to substance rather than symbol, reason rather than emotion, modernity rather than tradition.”

But how could this apparently modern figure so powerfully appeal to a people laden with tradition and religious inertia? I should summarise Professor Zaidi’s answer to this question: Jinnah’s peculiar appeal worked because collectively Indian Muslims had an instinctive if inarticulate grasp of recent history. “It was a community conscious of its declining condition, and it had experienced the ineffectiveness of old remedies. After all, neither the revivalist prescriptions of Shah Waliullah, nor the fiery war cries of Syed Ahmed Shahid, nor the flamboyant, though confused, demarche of the Khilafat movement – with which Abdul Kalam Azad had become associated and from which Jinnah kept a pronounced distance – provided relief from the ills which afflicted Muslim society in India. Restorationist alternatives had nearly exhausted when Jinnah re-entered the second act of contemporary Muslim tragedy in India. On their part, leaders of the Indian National Congress were so overcome with hubris that they refused to open viable political doors to this wounded and bewildered people.

Significantly, by then the modernist view of the causes of Muslim decline and of the remedies it required, especially as articulated by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his ideological successors, including Iqbal, had seeped into the consciousness of the Muslim intelligentsia. There was to this phenomenon also a pan-Islamic context: In the 1930s the Muslim world as a whole had entered what Albert Hourani has described as the Liberal Age when Muslim nationalism grew exponentially on the premises of modernism and reform. Mr Jinnah returned from England in 1935 to find himself swept to the crest of this wave.

In the four decades that have followed his passing, Pakistan has moved precipitously away from the country its founding father had envisioned, and the people had created at costs beyond counting. The two volumes of Jinnah Papers and the archives from which they are drawn do not tell the story of the cowardice and betrayals which followed the Quaid-i-Azam. What they do tell us is who he was, how he waged a difficult and deeply painful struggle for statehood, the vision he nourished, and the hopes he had for this country. I would like to recall him and remind us in passing of what we have done with his legacy. I am sorry if in the process I cause some discomfort to some of you readers.
http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal_view.asp?id=5&cid=5

Umer!
:) am glad you`ve made it.
Here you will find a lot of good opinion on how to make your next piece better.
Good going, pal!
-Bilal

``Therefore, a secular state where there is a clear dividing line between religion and politics and where every individual is free to practice his own faith or interpretation of faith could prove to be a better option for Pakistan.``

...problem is the practice of faith has public aspects. Like it or not, there are many people who only buy into the concept of Pakistan as an Islamic shangri-la. At the very least, people expect that the state won`t interfere with their cultural/religious practices. Of course, we all know that secularism means the supremacy of the state over the individual`s belief, not the separation...how to win mindshare then? An opposing slippery-slope argument can be created that can feak out a wide range of religious sentiment from the Mullah types, to the average abdul on the street.

At a macro-level Islamism can`t work for the reasons cited...but at a micro-level secularism is anathema and alien...and contradicts the understood reason d`etre of Pakistan (which Jinnah pandered to quite heavily mind you, so let`s stop this Jinnah was a staunch secularist business...the word is `opportunist`).

Pakistani secularists always struck me as funny creatures...they always manage to rightly point out the idiocies of the Mullahs, yet they themselves suffer from exactly the same problems. Whose secularism do you want to adopt? When have the secularists in Pakistan ever acted competently, or how are they immune from invoking ``Pakistan in danger`` rhetoric? Aside from barking ``secularism is the answer``, exactly what are the accomplishments of the secular brigade? Perhaps we`re tempted to cite the creation of Pakistan itself...but how far would that have gone if the Pakistan movement was understood to be secular in nature?

The point is: rather then beating the old, retarded dog for not learning new tricks, perhaps it`s time to give the master a good beating or two so he can learn a trick or two.

Re:Mantolives#1

The greatest failure of the Congress Party, both before and after 1947, is that they have always mixed religion with politics when it comes to dealing with muslims. For some reason, the Congress has always held this weird belief that muslims only care about religious issues, religious symbols etc and have no interest in the material benefit in their lives. Starting with Gandhi`s Khilafat movement to Rajiv Gandhi`s Shah Bano case, it has always been bowing in front of the muslim ulema, appealing to religious sentiments and ignoring the real material needs of the muslim community such as education, jobs etc. This is the reason we ended up having partition, because the Congress never offered a solution to the needs of the muslim community, in terms of protecting and furthering their material interests as a permanent minority. Jinnah fought for the real, tangible interests of the muslim poplulation, which is why he became their leader. But the real failure was that the Congress Party never offered any solution and even destroyed compromises like the Cabinet Mission plan.

An interesting thing to note is that when it came to other communities like hindus and sikhs, the Congress was very practical and secular in outlook, but it made the grave blunder of always viewing muslims in terms of religion, as if muslims only cared about their religion and nothing else. As usual, mixing religion with politics just does not pay. The ordinary muslims were more concerned about the material welfare of their children and grand-children rather than some Khilafat in Turkey. This is why they opted for Pakistan.

amit #2: `` hope to see a day when we have a Kashmiri muslim as the prime minister of India.``

How about an Indian Muslim as a Prime Minister of Kashmir?

There is something that is above and beyond religion and secularism. It is called humanism. The basic respect of the humanity and human rights and dignity of individuals. A respect for others living their lives where they want, as they want, under whichever leadership they want.

This is why secularism has produced as many, if not more, deaths and destruction as religion. Secularism, without humanism is facism. As is religion without humanism. This is also why it is as dangerous to, ``fight`` for secularism as it is for, ``religion.`` The moment one ends up in a situation where one has to subjugate or kill someone for religion or secularism, one has lost his/her way. Because he/she is destroying someone else`s humanity for his own, ``ism.``

I long to see the day, where everyone in South Asia is living in a country, or countries, voluntarily, of their own choice. And they do not face any subjugation to satisfy the desires of people who live hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. This is the humane way to live...........

correction #7: ``How about an Indian Muslim as a Prime Minister of Kashmir?``

should read:

How about an Kashmiri Muslim as a Prime Minister of Kashmir?

If we analyse what Jinnah did, and why Muslims followed him, I don`t think it had much to do with his own personal beliefs about secularism or religion. I doubt too many of the common Muslims, of what is today Pakistan, were educated enough to understand his philosophies on religion or secularism. Only a small minority of them could read or write. And hardly any could understand the English language (or Urdu), much less his complex English speeches......

I don`t think Muslims wanted a separate state because of Islam. Nor do I think they wanted a separate state to practice secularism. The later would be quite contradictory, considering the fact that they were demanding a separate state, ``for Muslims`` of India. In fact, the Muslims of what is today Pakistan didn`t even want a separate state. It was the Muslims of Bengal and UP who drove for Pakistan.

Muslims eventually wanted a separate state because they felt, as Muslims, they would be exploited in India. They felt that since Muslims had ruled over Hindus for hundreds of years, the Hindus would eventually get back at them, i.e. they were afraid of BJP type parties eventually gaining too much influence in India. This is why the areas where the Muslims were in majority, i.e. today`s Pakistan, did not care much for a separate state, since they did not feel threatened by the minority Hindus amongst them.

If Muslims wanted a separate state just for Islam, they would be demanding a state everywhere, e.g. USA, Canada, Europe etc.

This is why, I have always felt it is incorrect to look at Pakistani politics, and its formation, through the black and white spectrum of secularism and religion. I really don`t think, once one gets past the chattering classes of these two philosophies, 95% of Pakistanis are too bothered about it. What they are bothered about is economics and personal security. That is what the surveys, and migration patterns to other countries from Pakistan, indicate also. Pakistanis migrate to Saudi Arabia and USA, not for more religion or secularism, respectivley. They migrate for better economics and security.

Keeping this in mind, any group in Pakistan that can provide the highest economics and personal security, to the most people, will eventually win out. It won`t matter if it is religious or secular. I really don`t think, in today`s Pakistan, any group can gain a huge following just by pushing religion or secularism as philosophies.

The ideologies of politics, in Pakistan, is thus different from India, where things are at two extremes: One group, the BJP, is as a philosophy pushing Hinduvta and religion, including its violent form. And another group, the Congress has completely non-Hindu leadership. Pakistan has neither the equivalent of BJP from the religious side, nor the equivalent of Congress from the secular side. Everyone is in between the two.

I also don`t agree with the argument that the BJP lost because of its communalism. The dumping of Vajpayee and promotion of Advani would indicate that the BJP thinks it lost because it wasn`t communal enough. In fact, in Gujrat where it practiced all out communalism, it won big. I think the BJP lost, because its, ``India is Shining`` campaign did not work. Had the benefits of India`s economic growth reached the lower classes, I think BJP, with all its communalism intact, would have been elected again.

And if Congress proves to be less economically astute than the BJP, it will probably lose out, regardless of how secular it maybe..........

``Secularism and Religion... 95% of Pakistanis are [not] too bothered about it.``

Yes, this is exactly how I feel. The masses in India, I`m sure don`t understand (and don`t care) what the hoopla is about... this religious v/s secular nationalism. In India, we have the problem the other way. The Constitution of India was amended for the 42nd time in 1976 to add the spurious words ``secular, socialist`` to the earlier plain ``sovereign democratic republic`` in the Preamble. Does the 42nd amendment mark a point of inflection in India`s social life (in terms of secular/religious)?

In my view, clearly not! People have continued to live like they did before. Indians are not secular in the same way as, say, Europeans or the Americans. Paradoxically, Indians are secular because they are insular! There are thousands of communities, all minding their own business. This instinctive non-interference in the other community`s affairs is the basis of India`s social harmony. As long as this is the case, we don`t need the European jargon. Fascist! Rightwing Radical!! Nauseating! Just let people be, as they always have been.

We see our youngsters aping another culture in the matter of dress/customs etc, just to feel `cool`. Similarly, our intellectuals are borrowing the Western vocabulary to describe Indian problems. They force-fit Western solutions to Indian problems. Is the Indian problem uniquely Indian? No problem! First convert the Indian problem into the `known` Western problem and then use the Western solution!! There is so little original thinking in India.

``I have attempted to show that religion and politics are a dangerous mix particularly in the case of Pakistan.``(author)

well my dear if it is any consolation to you -- ``that religion and politics are dangerous mix`` -- very fiery and flammable indeed -- they are not dangerous for Pakistan only -- see ...how many people it burnt alive in India....

re: more fuzzy logic form Chowk`s idiot
``I also don`t agree with the argument that the BJP lost because of its communalism. The dumping of Vajpayee and promotion of Advani would indicate that the BJP thinks it lost because it wasn`t communal enough. In fact, in Gujrat where it practiced all out communalism, it won big. I think the BJP lost, because its, ``India is Shining`` campaign did not work. Had the benefits of India`s economic growth reached the lower classes, I think BJP, with all its communalism intact, would have been elected again.``
This idiot Romair continues to baffle me.
So, according to him BJP lost because of its stupid ``India is shining`` compaign. That much is true. It was a stupid compaign that had few takers in the rural areas (where majority of Indians live). These poor rural folks had not seen any benefits of BJP`s policies and saw no reason to vote for that party. BTW, this rejection of BJP in rural areas happened across the religious divide ie hindus themselves rejected this party in large numbers.
Romair goes on to say that if BJP`s economic agenda had benefitted all sections, the people would have elected BJP.
He fails to notice a big fallacy in this argument.
A communal minded party like BJP can just not benefit every section of the population. That goes without saying. That policy of being communal is inherently defective. Because BJP was anti-muslim (as a policy), they did not benefit the muslims and indeed, antagonised them completely through a pogram in Gujarat. They lost a big chink of vote right there.
Only a truly secular party can benefit every community the long run. BJP realised this towards the end of election compaign and tried to woo the muslims but to no avail.

The economic progress does not go hand in hand with communalism though it may seem to be so in the beginning. Nazi Germany made great econimic progress under Hitler before succumbing to its own inherent fallacies of Jewish holocaust and bringing utter destruction to that nation.

``And if Congress proves to be less economically astute than the BJP, it will probably lose out, regardless of how secular it maybe...``
For the reasons already stated, the above argument does not hold water.
Sridhar

re: Chowk Marshall`s fantasies
I think Romair, our Chowk Marshall, is back to smoking pot.
``Muslims eventually wanted a separate state because they felt, as Muslims, they would be exploited in India.``
And, they are not exploited in Pakistan? Give me a break!
Romair has been the beneficiary of Pakistan. If Pak had not existed, may be he would not have prospered as much. But that does not mean every muslim in Pak has done well. In fact, it must be shameful for Pakis to remember that the richest muslim in the world is from a secular, hindu-majority India.

``If Muslims wanted a separate state just for Islam, they would be demanding a state everywhere, e.g. USA, Canada, ``Europe etc. ``
Fuzzy logic. I know of a case where an Indian applying for a student Visa to enter USA was asked by the US immigration officer in Delhi why he should trust that the Indian would not just settle down in USA and never come back, the student replied: ``if i wanted to emigrate, i would have gone to Australia where my sister lives``. Wanna guess what happened to his interview?
Fuzzy logic never takes u anywhere. Muslims living in western world are facing difficulties that Romair is well aware of. Otherwise he would not have left US for Canada. If muslims demand a homeland in any of the above countries mentioned, they would be sent en-masse back home. The reason is: they are in a miniscule minority and they don`t matter (unlike the Jews who matter a lot in USA).
But then, where muslims have been in a majority, they have created problems and demanded a seperate homestate. India is an eg where muslim majority provinces seperated out in 1947 to form Pakistan. Muslim majority areas round the world have been problematic (Ulghurs in China, Chechens in Russia, some Kashmiri muslims in India).
Sridhar

Romair...

You`ve got the argument down well but you are bogged in the usage of the word ``secular``. There is no ``practice of secularism`` ... no country is established to practise secularism... but notice that while some countries call themselves ``Islamic Republics``, no secular state is called a ``Secular Republic``. This is because the the principle of secularism is not practised.. it is mere absence of religion from a political sphere.

The point that the ``secularists`` make is simple... the creation of Pakistan had an economic social and political reasons for the Muslims... there is a great book about this called ``Sole Spokesman`` ... Come 1947 ... and Pakistan is a sovereign state.... the issue is no longer why or how Pakistan was made, but what Pakistan should do move forward as a modern progressive state...

Jinnah gave a vision on 11th August 1947 in the constituent assembly and he stuck by it for his 13 months as the Governor General of Pakistan. In this vision religion was relegated to a personal business... and where equality was promised to every citizen of Pakistan...

Then came another vision ... which was the vision where Islam had supremacy though freedom of religion was guaranteed... this was the vision of ``Objectives Resolution``...

Finally we saw Zia`s vision which sought to implement its own narrow interpretation of Islam....

Hope you understand the ``secular`` position better...

Captain Clueless : ``I long to see the day, where everyone in South Asia is living in a country, or countries, voluntarily, of their own choice. And they do not face any subjugation to satisfy the desires of people who live hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. This is the humane way to live...........``

Exactly...and that is why The Land Of The Pure was created , remember ? Those South Asians who are not satisfied being ruled over by kafeers living a million miles away are welcome to migrate to The Land Of The Pure and live happily ever after. They are not wanted here anyway. We only want the land....

Religion in Pakistani Politics is a reality - and Muallah`s has a role to play
in Pakistani politics until our country is a Islamic Country. We have a nation
where there`s more then 95% of people muslims - moderate muslims , whatever the `liberal chowk english class` thinks , those Islamic Parties
are here to stay in Pakistan - theres this class inside Pakistan who wants to
make Pakistan , ` Europe` for all the wrong reasons - they want to make Pakistan , Paris - this won`t happen . If they want to adopt anything from
West adopt social justice and respect of law thats what we need in todays
Pakistan.
Pakistan won`t ever be a secular country let me be very clear , whats secularism ? , Islam gives everyone equal rights , thats what Quaid ( rah )
said , Quaid wanted a Islamic State where everyone is equal not a secualr state . Yes I agree are not perfect , but who is ? we are trying to be better
at things .. I don`t agree with Hudood Laws at all if someone is thinking I respect those laws..
Indians in the end of the day are creatures who would never accept Pakistan from there hearts - whatever they say the reality is they will not respect our nation . Why is the word `Sind` still part of Indian National Anthem? its been more then 5o years

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