While America has geared up the entire world to fight against international terrorism (which is in fact an uprising against the anti- Muslim forces of the world led by the United States whose national interests are best served thereby), Pakistan continues to suffer heavily on account of unending sectarian violence. It seems the two main sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shias, are bent upon eliminating each other from the soil of this country for reasons best known to those who have been leading their mutually destructive operations. It is unfortunate that those responsible for conducting these blood letting activities through their inane followers are bothered the least about the serious damage they are doing both to our national unity and the interests of the country, as well as to the unity of the Muslim ummah as a whole. What is more regrettable is that no government in this country has ever cared to go deep into the root causes of this malady. Consequently, only superficial measures are adopted from time to time, accompanied by wide publicity in a bid to let the people know how serious the official quarters are in their efforts to eliminate the curse of sectarian violence. Naturally, these measures do not prove effective and the menace continues snowballing with time.
While analysing the root causes of this problem, one must remember that it did not exist in the subcontinent before Partition. This is because the British rulers and the Hindu unbelievers provided lucrative targets to the illiterate Muslim clergy to be taken on during Friday sermons. Both these elements disappeared from the scene soon after the creation of Pakistan. Now the clergy laid its hands on the Ahmadis. With declaration of Ahmadis as non-Muslims, it was the turn of the Shias to come into the limelight. However, there were two main reasons why the Shia community of Pakistan did not give in that easily. Firstly, their population was far more than that of the Ahmadis. Secondly, with the success of the Iranian revolution and the emergence of the Shia clergy of that country as a major power factor in the region, the morale of Pakistani Shias went mountains high. Whether the Iranian government provides them with any material assistance or not, it cannot be denied that the moral support that has been forthcoming from that country has been a great morale booster for the Pakistani Shias. Hence the stiffening of attitudes between the two communities.
Here was a golden opportunity for the Indian intelligence agencies to exploit the situation to their own interest. Any hostile intelligence set up worth its salt would have done that, but India, a neighbour that has always been itching to wreck Pakistan sooner or later, would certainly not miss that opportunity. Their task was so easy. Here were two major communities nourishing grave suspicions against each other, with their leaders poisoning the minds of their followers with mutual hatred through fabricated allegations. You had to throw a single matchstick in the haystack and the conflagration would go on in a vicious circle, enveloping the whole country for an indefinite time. With acute poverty, widespread unemployment, large families to support, and hardly any patriotic feelings, a paltry sum of money could enable RAW to buy any number of disgruntled Pakistanis who could kill their own fellow countrymen without any pangs of guilt. This has been proved a number of times in the recent past when Pakistanis trained in India and provided with explosives were apprehended soon after some terrorist acts. However, our eyes are too blinkered by sectarian hatred to let us see the reality. We still see the hand of a Sunni terrorist in the murder of a Shia doctor, even if the killer happens to be a rival doctor from the Shia community itself, and vice versa.
In this background, it is very easy for the vested interests to spread rumours that can further worsen the situation by heightening mutual hatred. For example, reports keep emanating from time to time, alleging that the literature of one sect contains abusive language or highly objectionable material against the highly respected religious leaders of the other sect who are in fact the leaders of the Islamic ummah as a whole. Such allegations must be investigated before they cause widespread damage, only to be discovered at a later stage that there was no truth in the report. Irrespective of the sect to which such literature belongs, it must be confiscated immediately and destroyed, giving due punishment to those responsible for its publication and distribution.
Similarly, when tensions are running so high, some people do not hesitate in blaming high officials belonging to one sect to have acted in a biased manner against members of the other sect in matters of employment, promotion, postings, increments, etc. Similar allegations used to be made at one time against Ahmadis holding high offices in the government. Although at present there is no quota system in any field, Shias and Sunnis being treated equally in all matters, it is imperative to ensure that the heads of various departments and ministries do not act in a biased manner, doing any favours to the members of their community. Such partiality, if it is allowed to go unchecked, is liable to lead to very dangerous consequences and must therefore be meticulously guarded against.
One of the root causes of inter-community hostility in Pakistan is the fact that a large number of religious teachers and leaders are a product of schools where extreme rigidity in beliefs has always been the order of the day. This attitude creates intolerance and total refusal to accept any interpretation of the religious norms other than the one that has been imparted at the particular institution from which one qualifies. It was a very encouraging move on the part of the present government to modernise Pakistan's religious schools. Unfortunately, the scheme seems to have died a premature death due to the stubborn resistance of the orthodox clergy whose own selfish interests were being threatened by the planned modernisation of religious education in madaris.
In this connection, it may also be pointed out with regret that since Partition, the educational policy of the various governments has also been responsible for widening the psychological gap between the two communities by imprinting on the innocent minds of the school children the differences rather than the commonalities between the creeds of the two communities. I remember before Partition, there used to be a uniform syllabus of Islamiyat and Deeniyat for all Muslim students in every school up to the Matriculation level. Hence the students were seldom aware of the differences that divide these two communities. In fact the difference was so insignificant that most of the students never knew who among them was a Sunni and who was a Shia. Now students of each sect follow their own respective syllabi. Thus, right from their childhood it is being drummed into their ears that they belong to two widely different camps. It is hoped that this situation can be reversed now because if sectarian polarisation religious is allowed to continue, it that could lead to further trouble in the country.
(The writer is a retired Colonel
and freelance columnist)