Aamir Khan's statement has created a furore; the over-reaction is not new, given the way an intolerant few have been reacting for the last few years. But a new dimension has been added which is rather dangerous. We have seen rationalists killed for their views, faces blackened, houses vandalized by lumpens of ideology, but to put pressure on Snapdeal for its association with Aamir is a new twist in the tale. This is a part of larger design to ostracize individuals, isolate them and force them to succumb to the bullies' ideology. This is rather more subtle than physical intimidation, but more effective in a democratic set-up.
Certainly I am not intimidated, but the whole debate reminds me about a sad journey which Pakistan has traversed since its inception, verging now on disintegration into a rogue society where liberalism-pluralism has no place. No doubt the Proponent of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had mobilized Muslims in the name of Islam for a new sovereign territorial identity, but he was enlightened enough to realize the folly of his own ideological tool. It is no accident of history that after the creation of Pakistan, before the constituent assembly on 11 August, 1947, he said -"You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with business of State .... we are starting with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state ...now I think we should keep that in front of us as our goal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus, Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state."
This statement clearly shows that Jinnah was aware of the dangers of a theocratic state or a state which is run on the premise of religion. He was a modern man in the garb of a communalist. He knew Pakistan could not be left in the hands of clerics, Sharia could not be the law of the land, Islam couldn't be the only identity of the state. As Jaffrelot writes in his book
The Pakistan Paradox, religion for him was an 'identity marker' for Muslims in India before independence. But Jinnah did not live long. His successors for years did try to follow his path to create a secular-plural society. It was for this reason that when a cry was raised to ostracize Ahmadis from Islam by fundamentalist forces, it was brutally suppressed by the Pakistan rulers in early 50s. Even a report was submitted to the Government, called the Munir Report, which refused to define Islam. "The report concluded that there was no specific definition of Islam, let alone of an Islamic constitution...And that the religious experts were best advised to leave the constitution making process alone." Mr Munir was then Chief Justice of Pakistan. And Maulana Maududi, proponent of Pakistan as an Islamic state, was sentenced to death by a military tribunal.
But the same Pakistan slipped into an abyss when the ruling elite started compromising with Islamic fundamentalists. This happens when leaders become pygmies who walk small. After the death of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan fell in the hands of Khwaja Najmuddin, Ghulam Mohammad and Iskandar Mirza who were dwarfs with no vision and settled to make Pakistan, in its first constitution in 1956, an Islamic Republic of Pakistan; "only a Muslim could be the president and no law would be passed against the teachings of Quran." It was the beginning of the death of Jinnah's vision of Pakistan. General Ayub Khan tried to remove the word "Islamic'' in the name of Pakistan in the second constitution of Pakistan in 1962, but failed and had to reinstate it under pressure in 1963.
But the bigger undoing was by Z A Bhutto who was erroneously understood as progressive and modern. It was he who masked Islam in the garb of socialism. In fact, in my opinion, if one man who could be credited for the downfall of Pakistan, it was him. It was Bhutto who refused to concede power to Mujibur Rahman which finally resulted in the birth of Bangladesh; it was he who made "Islam as the state religion." Jaffrelot writes that "the third constitution of Pakistan in 1973 adopted that the freedom of expression was subject to the restrictions in the interest of the glory of Islam." It was Bhutto whose regime declared Ahmadis non-Muslim. The same Moududi who was jailed for the anti-Ahmadis agitation in early 50s felt victorious in the mid-70s, and saw to it that non-Muslims including Ahmadis become second class citizens in Pakistan, and that minorities were debarred from senior posts in government jobs. It was the death of Jinnah's Pakistan - a liberal, plural, secular Pakistan.
Experts blame Zia-ul-Haq for the Islamization of Pakistan, but the real culprit was the so-called modern socialist Bhutto. Zia was a conservative Muslim, under whose regime Dini Madaris grew exponentially; he subverted all the secular institutions, pursued jihadsim as a state policy in the context of the Afghan war which finally resulted in the birth of the Taliban, Al Qaida, Haqqani Network etc., and pushed the sectarian violence of the Shia-Sunni divide to unforeseen magnitude. Pakistan today is virtually fighting a civil war with Islamist forces and it has come this far that the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was gunned down most brutally by his own body guard, who was showered with rose petals by advocates; no judge had the courage to hear his case and no advocate came forward to argue against him. And finally on December 16, 2014, more than a 100 children were slaughtered in the name of jihad in a school in Peshawar. And when the Army and Pakistan civil society claim to have woken up, it has become too late.
Today, when I look at the violent reactions against Aamir's statement, I am filled with dread. I am reminded of Pakistan. Our constitution makers dreamed of a secular-plural-liberal-modern-open-democratic society where we can live, breathe and debate openly without any semblance of fear, where we are not ostracized or killed because of our belief system or religion, because if that happens then it will the death of a dream that is India. Let's hope Modi does not become the Bhutto of India and Aamir does not have to think twice before uttering a word.
(
Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014.)
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