New Delhi: Pakistan has suffered immensely from supporting extremist jihadis and time has come for it to end 'good jihadi, bad jihadi' distinctions and recognise that those who attack Pathankot can also attack Peshawar, says Pakistani politician and policy analyst Farahnaz Ispahani.
Noting that 60,000 Pakistanis have died at the hands of terrorists, she says, "Pathankot is a reminder of jihadi influence in Pakistan and a warning that we need to fight all jihadi groups, including those that attack across our borders."
"It is time for Pakistan to end good Jihadi, bad jihadi distinctions and recognise that those who attack Pathankot can also attack Peshawar, Ispahani told PTI in an interview.
The former Member of Pakistan Parliament and wife of the country’s ex-ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani has recently come out with a book titled, ‘Purifying The Land of The Pure: Pakistan’s Religious Minorities’, published by HarperCollins India.
She says the book is a labour of love, the result of years of watching the transformation of the country she was born in and she loves.
"After spending years working as a journalist, a human rights activist, and a legislator, I wanted to narrate how Pakistan changed over the years and what is the situation of religious minorities in my country of birth," the former media advisor to the president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2012 says.
The book, she says, is a must read for every Pakistani and anyone who wants to understand Pakistan, adding it is about how over the decades in Pakistan there has been a gradual purification of its minorities, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
On the state of religious minorities in Pakistan, Ispahani says minorities both Muslim and non-Muslim face discrimination, threat and violence on a regular basis.
Pakistan was created as a Muslim homeland and in 1947, non-Muslim minorities comprised 23 per cent of its population, today that number is 3 per cent. As I point out in my book starting with the Objectives Resolution there has been a gradual Islamisation of the Pakistani state and society.
An educational curriculum that preaches hatred against minorities, a legal system that discriminates against them and a national identity that emphasises that you are Pakistani only if you are Sunni Muslim has created an environment that has both tolerated and boosted extremism, she says.
Asked how Hindus are viewed in Pakistan, she says, “In the case of Pakistan, starting with the Objectives Resolution, religion has defined Pakistani identity. The state in Pakistan has allowed Islamist clergy and non-state actors to define what it means to be a Pakistani and the educational curriculum and media have only perpetuated this narrative.
Communal majoritarianism is posing a threat to minorities everywhere in the world. India is no exception. India has the advantage of having a secular constitution which Pakistan did not develop.”
According to Ispahani, Pakistan has faced attacks against its minorities dating back to the days of Partition.
The anti-Ahmadi riots of 1953 and 1974, the anti-Hindu riots in the early 1960s and during 1970-71, the attacks against Christians, Ahmadis and Shias starting from the 1980s onwards demonstrate the creation of an environment where not just intolerance but violence against minorities has grown, she says.
The rise of Islamism has created havoc with the lives of ordinary Pakistanis: mothers don't know if their children will return home safe from school and Christians and Ahmadis especially fear being falsely accused of blasphemy, she says.
She, however, adds that the silver lining is that the rise in extremism has emboldened Pakistani society and awakened its civilian leaders to the dangers of extremism.
More Pakistanis are staking their lives to change Pakistan and to protect their neighbours and friends, who are threatened. Pakistan's political leaders are celebrating non-Muslim festivals and trying to change the educational curriculum in a few provinces like Punjab and Sindh, she says.
Pakistanis, both leaders and the public, need to work together to recreate Jinnah's vision of a Pakistan where all, irrespective of their religious affiliation, could live together in one country, she suggests. She feels the time of General Zia ul Haq was the worst for Pakistanis, especially the minorities.
Zia's ordinances and laws, his use of non-state jihadi actors for both domestic and foreign policy all contributed to worsening the situation.
Ispahani started researching for her book in 2012 when I was provided an excellent opportunity to bring my skills of journalism, politics and activism to work as a policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC.
My time there provided me with the opportunity to conduct extensive research on my book on Pakistan's religious minorities, a subject that is close to my heart. I spent two years researching my book conducting interviews and looking up archival material and wrote the book in 2015, she says.
On the title of her book, she says, I was born in a cosmopolitan Karachi and grew up in a Pakistan where I went to school with Hindu, Parsi and Christian friends in addition to Muslims.
There was a Jewish synagogue in the heart of the city. Over the years I have watched a slow purification of Pakistan and the attempt to create an Islamic state and society.
