Aik Aur Zakhmi Saanp

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Aik Aur Zakhmi Saanp

Do we need secularism?

Secularism is an old song that keeps reverberating in the liberal, enlightened, progressive, leftist, and socialist circles of Pakistan. Earlier this January news from Bangladesh that its supreme court banned use of religion by political parties provided a fresh impetus to the choir. Since then a plethora of op-ed appreciating and envying this progressive step of Bangladesh continues appearing in the newspapers. They all regret Pakistan’s lagging behind in this important improvement.

In Pakistan, secularists have always been understood to mean something that is, harshly to mildly, against religion. However, their position is quite different: they hold that the state ought to be acting in an areligious manner instead of playing religious. They aim at neutralizing the state’s role vis-à-vis religion.

But has the Pakistani left built its position philosophically? Or is it just a political ploy? An act of postponing it for a convenient future date to confront? Whatever the Pakistani leftists have intellectualized seems to ignore the tenacity of the religious factor! That makes their approach an idealistic one.

Another entity in Pakistan, Classical Liberals or Libertarians, believe otherwise. Their position though not based on the constitution of 1973 is akin to many of the fundamental rights ensured in it. The articles that relate to the issue under discussion here are freedom of speech (19), freedom of association (17), freedom of assembly (16) generally; and freedom to profess religion and to manage religious institutions (20), safeguard against taxation for purposes of any particular religion (21), and safeguards as to educational institutions in respect of religion (22) especially.

In essence, these constitutional articles presume individual citizens of Pakistan as independent thinking beings. They consider them as believing many a different views, opinions, philosophies, and professing various religious systems of thought as well. That is why the constitution secures the above-mentioned rights (16, 17 and 19) as fundamental to them. More than that, by way of association and assembly it provides the individual citizens with the rights (20, 21 and 22) to practice their views, opinions, philosophies and religious thoughts as well. Obviously rights 20, 21 and 22 are integral to rights 16, 17 and 19. One group of rights is just meaningless without the other.  

Likewise the Libertarians too consider individual persons as free and independent thinking beings naturally endowed with certain inalienable rights that include right to life and property (Articles 9, and 23 and 24), and to a life of their choice as all the rights (Articles 4, and 8 to 28) in unison aim at ensuring. That is why the Libertarians in Pakistan do not favor secularism as a viable political philosophy. They hold personal freedom as supreme and see the constitution of 1973 truly embodying this spirit in the form of fundamental rights and unequivocally declaring all the laws inconsistent or in derogation of these rights to be void (Article 8).

For Libertarians, religious freedom is an inseparable part of this natural personal freedom that the constitution of 1973 so purposefully protects. This position is also tenable with the larger scheme of fundamental rights of individual citizens enumerated in the constitution. Thus protecting religious freedom as a fundamental right is not only morally, spiritually, and intellectually of greater merit but is socially harmonious also.

In contrast to this, the Pakistani secularists expect and somehow demand from the state and via it from the individual citizens to act in an ariligious manner. On the one hand, this amounts to denying individual persons their due fundamental right to religious freedom, and on the other, this invalidates the constitution of 1973 and especially its articles 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, and 22. Instead the liberals, progressives, leftists, and socialists of Pakistan should be putting their energies to pressurize the government to strictly implement fundamental rights generally; and to secure especially the fundamental right to religious freedom to all the individual citizens of Pakistan without any discrimination. That’s the urgent need of the times!   

[This article was completed on March 8, 2010.]

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Pakistan Ki Gheyr Ayeeni Tareekh - Aik Mukhtasar Khaaka

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Pakistan Ki Gheyr Ayeeni Tareekh - Aik Mukhtasar Khaaka

Let us kill each other!

For us living together requires neither love nor mercy, but rules of conduct; everything be it ideology, faith, or any system of thought, comes after that. Anything short of it is at the same time inhuman and anti-human, and is like putting death before life. [K.A.]

“Hey, Mr., you are different. Your skin color is different. You wear clothes different from mine. Sometimes you use shorts or just rags. You eat things different from mine. You play different games. You sing and dance. You make and watch movies. You have places of nudity and obscenity which you call freedom and enjoyment. You call them art, fashion, and what not.

Your women live like you. They behave like you. They wear dress like yours. Or they wear nothing. They go out like you. They do everything like you do. They sing and dance like you. They sing and dance in public like you do. You kiss them in public and they you. You treat them like your equals.

You have installed a society and system which is different from mine. You hold elections and make a representative government which is different from mine. You have evolved representative institutions different from mine. You have a system of political parties which I don’t approve of. The world you live I don’t like at all. Why are you different?

You or most of you abandoned your beliefs. You compartmentalized your religion. You adopted the religion of freedom instead. You give religious freedom to all and sundry. You make them or let everybody believe as they wish. Practice their faith as they wish. To me it’s just non-sense.

You have evolved philosophy and seek truth. You have developed innumerable sciences and a lot of knowledge, technology. You call it freedom of thought and expression. You believe in freedom and free society. You live in freedom and die in freedom. I don’t approve of it.

You are completely different from me. I can’t bear it. Listen! Be like me. Or I will make you to be like me. And, mind it, I will kill you if you don’t do that. Be like me or I will kill you.”

Our world is populous with different individuals, communities, and people. No one is similar to the other. We have as many differences amongst us as many men and women there are on the face of our earth planet. Thus if anyone sets out on a journey of unifying them all - different individuals and their different individualities and their individual differences - into the image of his own liking, no doubt every one of us in that case will be constantly at war with each one of us. A killing spree will follow.

Until and unless we learn to live in peace with different people, their different individualities, their individual differences, their different beliefs, and their different systems of thoughts, there will be no end to it. That is what human civilization is all about. We have laws and rule of law and protection of fundamental rights to honor each one’s life and his freedom and to remain within the limits of our own life and freedom. That is what human existence is all about.

Under the present circumstances where the perpetrators of terror have unleashed a most brutal war the hidden agenda of which is ultimately their own political supremacy, we have two options clearly open to every one of us: kill each other, or live in peace with each other.

We know every war ends at total or partial annihilation of enemies, or most often at a truce. However modern wars could never accomplish what ancient wars did though in very few cases only: total killing of enemies. Thus modern civilization tried to transform the old war into strictly an instrument of policy and succeeded in confining its scope also, and it tried to rewrite the old truce into a permanent settlement. That is, agreeing on the minimum conditions for a policy of peaceful co-existence for all human beings regardless of the differences of caste and creed, so to say.

On another plane, a little while back we were in the process of reaching a universal agreement as to the realization, recognition, security and protection of fundamental inalienable rights and freedoms to all the individuals living on this earth. The terror war has negatively impacted on its progress. It needs to be conscious of that to make this world mutually livable. Life is a mutual social phenomenon, we need to appreciate that.

Along with it, we need to appreciate that as Nature and God made every people and individuals different and as all the people and individuals too want to be and remain different, let them be all different. That’s the beauty of life! Whoever is after destroying it is enemy of both life and its beauty! Let us kill not each other! Rather, let us enhance this beauty by not denying freedom to all!

[This article was completed on April 19, 2009.]

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All rights reserved. No part of the contents published on this Blog – Notes from Pakistan may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of The Blogger.

Kumsin Siyasat Ki Kahani: 1857 Se 2012 Tak

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Kumsin Siyasat Ki Kahani: 1857 Se 2012 Tak

State Aristocracy's Pakistan – 3: Justice for Senator's son

How a police officer’s highhandedness in torturing someone special earns him the wrath of the State Aristocracy is evident from the following news:

Defence-A SHO found guilty of torturing senator’s son

LAHORE: Defence-A SHO Faisal Sharif has been proved guilty of torturing the son of Senator Abdul Ghani Bangash, a couple of weeks ago, in an inquiry conducted by SSP Discipline and Inquiry.

Lahore CCPO has ordered DIG Operations to suspend him from service immediately and initiate a departmental inquiry against him. The CCPO has also ordered not to give him field posting in future. The SHO had thrashed Irshad Bangash, the son of Senator Abdul Ghani Bangash, and his friend at an apartment in H-Block, Defence, in a search of his (SHO’s) ‘dancer girlfriend.’ The raiding police team headed by SHO Faisal Sharif had also damaged precious items and later got registered a fake case against them. SSP D&I Shariq Kamal had conducted inquiry into the incident in which SHO was found guilty. The inquiry office has also held Defence-B SHO Raza responsible for registering a fake case without verifying the facts and recommended action against him.

[The News International, Lahore Print Edition, November 20, 2012]

Why such justice is not available to the ordinary citizens of Pakistan who daily suffer worst form of humiliation and torture at the hands of Police? That’s what makes Pakistan a country only for the elite classes, or the State Aristocracy!

Qanoon Ki Hukoomat Ya Qanoon Saaz Ki Hukoomat

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Qanoon Ki Hukoomat Ya Qanoon Saaz Ki Hukoomat