A
scene of Gilgit in Northern Areas of Pakistan
The
Very Converse of Enlightened Moderation is Being Propounded
By
Kanchan Lakshman
NEW
DELHI: Celebrating liberal democracy during his speech to the
Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, Pakistan's Quaid-i-Azam
(Great Leader) Mohammad Ali Jinnah said: "You may belong
to any religion or caste or creed... that has nothing to do with
the business of the state. We are all citizens and equal citizens
of the state."
Fifty-seven
years since, even as President and General Pervez Musharraf exhorts
the people of Pakistan to adopt 'Enlightened Moderation', Pakistan's
tentative quest for a non-discriminatory liberal democracy continues
to unravel.
Indeed,
the ideology of fundamentalist Islam appears to remain at the
heart of the Musharraf regime's strategy of national political
mobilization and consolidation, despite talk of 'Enlightened Moderation'
- as recent developments in the Northern Areas (NA) of Pakistan
Occupied Kashmir (PoK) demonstrate.
Agitated
over contentious sections in the textbooks prescribed in state-run
schools, protestors of the Shia community in the Gilgit city of
NA clashed with troops on June 3 during a curfew that had been
imposed in the city's municipal limits. While one protestor was
killed near Khomer Chowk, clashes and arson were reported from
all over the district.
A
Pakistan Radio van and transmitter, the Danyore Police Station,
the Police Training Center, the Gilgit Deputy Commissioner's office,
a rest house and the Northern Areas Legislative Council hall were
damaged by angry mobs. Shia clerics in Gilgit had called for a
rally after failing to reach a compromise with the officials over
the textbooks, which they felt were against their belief system,
and sought to propagate a particular brand of Sunni Islam in the
Shia dominated Northern areas.
The
Army was called out in Gilgit to maintain law and order after
Shia leader Agha Ziauddin Rizvi set June 3 as the deadline for
the administration to resolve the issue. Another three persons
died when troops opened fire on a vehicle which was violating
the curfew on June 6.
The severity of the situation can
be gauged from the fact that more than 200 school-children from
the Shia community staged a three-day hunger strike in Gilgit
on May 17 against the existing syllabus. At the time of writing,
authorities had imposed a round-the-clock curfew and deployed
troops and police in Gilgit city. The NA administration has decided
to close all Government schools in districts Gilgit and Skardu
for an indefinite period. The underlying fear in Islamabad is
that the sectarian unrest that engulfed Karachi in recent days
could fuel greater anger among the Shias in Gilgit and elsewhere
in the Northern Areas.
But
what precisely are these objections? The Curriculum Reform Committee
of Northern Areas, Gilgit, while stating that certain sections
are repugnant to the Shia school of thought, added that these
have been deliberately inserted to alienate the Shia school-children
from their faith. According to Mohammad Shehzad, writing in The
Friday Times on July 10, 2003, these offending sections include,
among others:
The
incident of wahee (revelation) has been described in
a ridiculous manner that shows the Prophet himself was not sure
about his prophet-hood. Islamiat, 4th grade, 22; Social Studies,
4th grade, 115; Urdu, 8th grade, 14. The Sunni caliphs have been
presented as Khulfa-e-Rashideen [the Orthodox Caliphs] unopposed
by Shias. [The Shia do not recognize the first three caliphs as
Khulfa-e-Rashideen] Urdu, 3rd grade, 89; Arabic, 7th grade, 46;
Social Studies, 7th grade, 12-14.
The
Caliphs [that are not recognized by Shias] have been eulogized
through titles such as Siddique Amirul Momineen [Siddique, Commander
of the Faithful, the First Caliph Hazrat Abu Bakar Siddique] and
Farooq Amirul Momineen [Farooq, Commander of the Faithful, the
Second Caliph Hazrat Umar Farooq]. Shias claim such titles are
only for Hazrat Ali [the Fourth Caliph]. Urdu, 4th grade, 77;
Islamiat, 4th grade, 25; Arabic, 8th grade, 27.
Yazid
[who the Shia's accuse of the killing of the Prophet's grandson,
Hazrat Hussain] has been totally exonerated in the Karbala events,
which culminated in the extermination of Hazrat Ali's son's (the
Prophet's grandchildren) Hassan and Hussain, and their families,
and the entire blame has been shifted to Ibn-e-Ziyad. Urdu, 8th
grade, 105.
The
Prophet's wife Ayesha has been projected as superior to all other
women of the Prophet's family through fake ahadis (sayings
of the Prophet). Urdu, 7th grade, 9-10.
The
Prophet's uncle Hazrat Abu Talib has been described a non-Muslim.
(Islamiat, BA, 231).
"One
of the textbooks of Islamic Studies carries a picture that shows
a boy offering prayers in a manner practiced by the Sunnis i.e.
hands held together and put on the belly. Shias don't follow this
posture. The picture misleads a Shia student about his/her religious
rituals," said Ali Ahmed Jan, a Fellow of Leadership for
Environment and Development (LEAD).
Further,
"The textbooks have utterly ignored the contribution of Hazrat
Ali in the battle of Badar. It is a known fact that he had killed
the major chieftains of non-believers and played a key role in
Badar's success. Unfortunately, there is no mention of Hazrat
Ali in the books.
Moreover,
the books speak highly of the companions of Holy Prophet but they
are silent over the important figures from Ahle-Bait [family of
the Prophet]," said Shia scholar Amin Shaheedi.
The Northern Areas of Pakistani side of Kashmir, spread over an
area of 28, 000 square miles, comprise the five districts of Gilgit,
Ghizer, Diamer, Skardu and Ghanche. The population of approximately
1.5 million has ethnic groups as varied as the Baltees, Shinas,
Vashkuns, Mughals, Kashmiris, Pathans, Ladhakhis and Turks inhabiting
the region, speaking a variety of languages like Balti, Shina,
Brushaski, Khawer, Wakhi, Turki, Tibeti, Pushto and Urdu.
Unlike
the rest of Pakistan, Shias dominate the demography of the Northern
Areas. According to Faqir Mohammad Khan's The Story of Gilgit,
Baltistan and Chitral: A Short History of Two Millenniums,
Gilgit is 60 percent Shia, 40 percent Sunni; Hunza is 100 percent
Ismaili [a Shia sub-sect]; Nagar is 100 percent Shia; Punial is
100 percent Ismaili; Yasin is 100 percent Ismaili; Ishkoman is
100 percent Ismaili; Chilas is 100 percent Sunni; Astor is 90
percent Sunni, 10 percent Shia; Baltistan is 96 percent Shia and
2 percent Sunni.
The
Northern Areas, administered directly by the Federal Government
from Islamabad, is governed by the Frontier Crime Regulations
framed during the British colonial era. The region is ruled directly
by the Minister of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas with a six-member
Cabinet.
It
remains largely neglected, with no university or professional
colleges. With an acute absence of industry, subsistence is overwhelmingly
based on tourism. The people of the Northern Areas are denied
representation in the Federal Parliament and the local elected
body, called Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC), has no
powers even comparable to that of a municipal body in a Pakistani
city. Although elections to the NALC were held under the military
regime in 2000, financial and legislative powers are yet to be
delegated to the NALC.
Amidst the lack of civil and political
rights, many movements articulating dissent have emerged. The
lack of political representation has fueled demands for both formal
inclusion within the Pakistani state and for self-determination.
In 1988, there was sectarian unrest in Gilgit after Shias demanded
an independent state. However, the Pakistani army suppressed the
revolt, allegedly with the assistance of armed Sunni tribesmen
from a neighboring province.
The
absence of a politics of criticism has dominated the Northern
Areas' historiography. Freedom of association and assembly is
restricted. Political parties advocating either self-rule or greater
political representation within Pakistan have, more often than
not, found their leaders being subjected to arbitrary arrest and
long prison terms.
One
such formation, the Balawaristan National Front (BNF), estimated
in 2003 that more than 70 individuals are facing sedition or treason
cases as a result of their political activities. BNF leader Abdul
Hamid Khan, while referring to the region as 'the heart of darkness',
notes that political and administrative circumstances in NA -
with total control exercised by Islamabad through the Army, with
no popular freedoms or rights, and tight censorship of all information
flows - make the region an ideal and secret place for the relocation
of the dislocated hub of international terrorism.
Pakistan's
military regime is apprehensive of a geographical spread of the
sectarian cauldron, with the possibility of outlawed groups like
the Sunni Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Shia Sipah-e-Mohammed
Pakistan (SMP) fishing in troubled waters in the NA.
Earlier,
in February 2004, Islamist extremists had destroyed at least nine
schools in Diamer. Many in NA believe that the schools were possibly
targeted because they are foreign funded. Mir Aman, resident editor
of the Kunjarab Times International, a Gilgit newspaper,
said that, as these schools began to attract students, "enrollment
in madrassas [seminaries] started declining and the fundamentalists
took that as a threat to their value system. The people in this
backward area are very religious and female education is considered
a waste."
During
the same month, the Federal Government had cracked down on an
unnamed group led by Maulvi Shahzada Khan in NA for its alleged
involvement in terrorist activities. Reportedly involved in bomb
blasts and firing at Social Action Program school buildings in
the NA, the group is linked to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
(TNSM) and other banned Sunni Jihadi organizations.
Intelligence
sources quoted in a Daily Times report of February 25
said that the group played a leading role during the 'invasion'
of Shia localities by an armed tribal force in Gilgit in 1988.
Being strategically vital to Islamabad's Kashmir policy, the military
regime can ill-afford another violent front being unlocked, as
it is already beleaguered on the Afghan border, Karachi, Baluchistan
and the North West Frontier Province.
The
problems over the syllabus and school curricula currently being
encountered in Gilgit and elsewhere in Pakistan, are largely the
product of a state endeavor to support a particular variant of
Islam. The very converse of 'Enlightened Moderation' is being
vigorously propounded by what an official of the Curriculum Wing
said is a 'powerful lobby' of ultra-Islamists who follow the Wahabi
school of thought.
To
be fair to the military regime, however, a separate curriculum
for the Shias is unlikely to provide a solution given that it
would only further aggravate sectarianism. The roots of the problem
lie in the Pakistani state's pre-occupation with the entire process
of Islamization, as also in the 'disengagement' of the Northern
Areas, a region that remains deeply neglected, exploited and that
has been denied a clear political identity.
The
resulting ground reality is that the region is a tinderbox and
the syllabus issue may well be the spark that sets it aflame.
The
writer is Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict &
Resolution
