Religious Violence Against Ahmadis In Pakistan
The Justice Munir Inquiry Commission Report published in 1954 exposed the fundamental elements at play which were at the very center of religious violence against Ahmadis in 1953. It appears that nothing has changed since 1953 except the society collectively has further moved towards religious extremism. There are far less fair-minded voices in power out there who can recognize injustices against the Ahmadis of Pakistan. The Munir Report exposed the shallowness of religious clerics who had no political vision for the newly formed nation then despite seeking enforcement of Shariah, and who propagated a very narrow minded and divisive ideology of hate promoting anarchist mob rule. Those ideologies continued to remain at play in the following decades plaguing Pakistan’s progress. The curse is still upon us without an end in sight. Justices Munir and Kayani had conducted a thorough and unbiased assessment of the situation faced by a minority community.
Ahmadiyya community members despite the intense hatred perpetuated against them at the time remained loyal, exemplary and highly progressive citizens of Pakistan. Amongst their members Sir Zafarullah Khan later became Vice President and then President of The International Court of Justice in The Hague, a strong proponent of freedom causes of North African nations, a vocal supporter of Palestinian cause, the person who took India to UN Security council and set them up in a defensive posture till this day on Kashmir issue. Lt General Akhtar Hussain Malik and Lt General Abdul Ali Malik were at the forefront of defending Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 along with Maj Gen Iftikhar Janjua who laid his life in a combat operation on board a helicopter. M.M. Ahmad presided a highly successful 5- year plan in 1960s, with construction of large dams, and other infrastructure and later saved Pakistan from a currency ruin due to Bangladesh crisis. He migrated to US after an assassination attempt was made on him due to anti Ahmadi hatred. He later served as an influential World Bank executive who supported the interests of Pakistan wherever possible. Dr Abdus Salam won a Nobel Prize of Physics in 1979 as a Pakistani citizen embarrassing General Zia’s government which was caught unaware.
There were many lesser known Ahmadis who contributed through various professions in the progress of Pakistan throughout its history. The second amendment of 1974 introduced into the constitution and the infamous Ordinance XX promulgated by General Zia ul Haq in 1984 targeting Ahmadis became decisive events for Ahmadis to migrate out of Pakistan seeking religious freedoms. This trend continues till today. Ahmadis are almost 100% literate and through community efforts emphasize on higher education. This has given the community opportunity to establish itself in many western countries with a very large section of highly educated and well positioned Pakistani origin Ahmadis working throughout the world. Ahmadis being very committed to missionary activities moved out and established missions in 212 countries and territories promoting their understanding of religion. It is Pakistan’s loss to outcast arguably the most progressive citizenry. Despite the persecution, Ahmadis feel great affinity and love for Pakistan and follow a narrative of deep loyalty rooted since the days of its independence in 1947.
Pakistan has also pursued a path of alienating other minority communities from the mainstream in the last 3 decades, making their members to migrate out of Pakistan. This loss is a continuing process with a left-over populace becoming more religiously zealous and extreme. When Ahmadis and other conscientious opinion makers write about the rights of Ahmadis and about other minority groups who remain subject of widespread persecutions, many start discussing the religious differences and then attack both the Ahmadis and those opinion writers. The social media pages get filled with such hateful responses focusing on doctrinal and interpretational differences. People fail to comprehend the human rights debate and diverge to the religious differences. Social media has become a common place to threaten Ahmadis, and even incite murders. The notion of apostasy is also used to justify this view. Ahmadis are not given any fair opportunity to respond on religious grounds under the Pakistan penal codes 298 B and 298 C (Ordinance XX of 1984) and thus, it remains a futile exercise to attempt an objective response in given circumstances. Therefore, all such discussions remain lopsided, meaningless and against the norms of impartial journalism. The Honourable Justices Munir and Kayani interviewed in 1954 numerous and divergent denominations of Islam on the topic of apostasy after which the judges concluded, “If the constituents of each of the definitions given by the Ulema are given effect to, and subjected to the rule of ‘combination and permutation’ and the form of charge in the Inquisition’s sentence on Galileo is adopted Mutatis Mutandis as a model, the grounds on which a person may be indicted for apostasy will be too numerous to count.” The underlying notion of mass murders remain a conversational topic among anti-Ahmadi groups. The hateful religious entities operate freely and without any fear of the law or government when spreading their vile philosophies, inciting their followers to kill. These groups are directly linked to either Jamaat-e-Islami, or Tehrik-e-Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Labaik, or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and to many other affiliated groups. The PTI government in their naivety believes that holding talks and bringing some of these murderous elements into mainstream society is achievable. I pose a rhetorical question, how much premium should we be placing on any detente with extremists given that fringe groups still have the capacity to execute high-level attacks against minority communities, Shias, Ahmadis and some adversarial politicians? The simple answer is none. Such murderous philosophies in the name of religion are not a new phenomenon to human civilization. Such people have appeared in the garb of priests and Christian clergy in medieval Europe running inquisitions, killing innocents in the name of Jesus Christ and conspiring against kings and queens of Europe to achieve their political objectives.
Pakistani religious extremists are no different. The key motive has always been to acquire political power in one way or another regardless if majority of citizens loathe them. These groups operate through the tools of anarchy. It is ludicrous to believe that government agreements and civilized table talk has any meaning for them. These groups are nothing but murderous rampaging beasts who feed on hate and spread evil in the name of religion. If the government is serious about addressing the human rights issues of Ahmadis and non-Muslim communities then the first step would be to show care. However, the resolution to their misery cannot be achieved without repealing the unfair and targeted laws against Ahmadis including the blasphemy law. So far, the PTI government has not shown care in their first 40 days. Even the Minister of Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari has not commented about local Pakistani human rights issues faced by Ahmadis. She has more acted as a Minister of Foreign Human Rights affairs.
Therefore, I urge the PTI government to get their act together and become serious about elimination of religious hatred, and repeal the blasphemy and anti-Ahmadi laws under which numerous people including a Christian woman Asia Bibi and an Ahmadi octogenarian Shakoor Bhai are kept imprisoned for far too long. Their sin is to practice their religion according to their own conscience. Both misunderstood their rights of freedom of belief, for them it remains an unforgiveable sin.
