Adil Najam
Ordinarily, I might have just posted this photograph below as a comment on yesterday’s post on Diwali celebrations in Karachi (also here). But please, just look at the people in this photograph; its way too interesting to be relegated to a comments section.
The occasion is a Diwali celebration at the Islamabad Headquarters of the Pakistan Muslim League, standing (and clapping) extreme left is Syed Mushahid Hussain, Secretary General of the Pakistan Muslim League, next to him is Ijaz ul Haq (Minister of Religious Affairs, and son of Gen. Zia ul Haq), fourth from left is Tariq Azim, State Minister for Information.
The Daily Times (31 October, 2006) provides more details of the event:
Members of the Hindu community from across the country participated in the event where they performed their religious rituals and traditional dances in candlelight to mark the event… A number of office bearers of the party and ministers, including PML Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Syed, Minister for Religious Affairs Ijaz-ul-Haq, State Minister for Information Tariq Azim, Minister for Minorities Affairs Mushtaq Victor and members of the National Assembly (MNAs) Bindara, Donia Aziz, Akram Masih Gill and others were present on the occasion. Officials of the Indian High Commission also participated in the event.
Hussain said that Quaid-e-Azam had envisioned a Pakistan where all the religious minorities enjoyed equal rights. He underlined the importance of inter-faith harmony for the greater prosperity of the nation and announced that the PML would also celebrate the birthday of Baba Gurunanak next week. He said that the minorities played a vital role in building any nation. He said that the present government was allocating high importance to giving all minorities’ equal. Hindus are playing a leading role in country’s economic development and the present government will leave no stone unturned to ensure their safety and well being, he added.
This is, of course, a political gesture – some might even say a gimmick. But if so, let us have more such gestures and gimmicks. They will, in time, hopefully help change our perceptions and treatment of religious minorities in Pakistan.
Sridhar, I follow Indian politics closely reading multiple Indian newspapers daily and following Indians commentatros, etc. very much. However, it would be inappropriate and interfering of me to comment on Indian politics, and I do not feel that this gives me the credentials to discuss the finer details of Indian politics and a website on Pakistan is probably not the place to do that either. So, I will leave that for you and your fellow Indians to discuss elsewhere.
However, on your point about the PML and BJP, my sense is that the analogy is misplaced. For its early years the Muslim League was comprable to the Congress in that it was also a nationalist party (Muslim nationalism) and its biggest opponents outside of Congress were religious Islamic parties (which actually sided with the Congress). But that is ancient history now, and irrelevant to the modern day PML. Over the years it has become more of a king’s party and a collection of people who want to retain power with little or no ideological leanings. [Again, maybe like the current Congress?] Niether its supporters nor its opponents would ever accuse it of being a religiously inspired party, despite the Muslim in its name (having a religious name in your title does not make you a religious party, e.g., Christian Democrats in Europe; nor does not having it necessarily make you secular). It is today, merely a ‘party of convenience’. If you do wnat to draw anologies to the BJP, maybe it will be the JUI in Pakistan that is a better fit for that comparison.
On your larger point, I totally agree that there is a degree of meaninglessness about these gestures to minorities like holding these photo-ops like here, or placing them in ceremonial but largely ineffetual posts and then using that as a publicity device to demonstrate one’s secular credentials (its like companies in the US that make sure they have a minority and a female Board member so that they are not accused of bias, but make no real changes to their behavior). I also agree that all across our region we all need to seriously start demonstrating real committment to minority welfare rather than just these photo-ops or ceremonial apppointments and rhetoric. However, I am slightly less cynical about this because I think these symbolic gestures are at least a start (just like those Board appointments)… although certainly not enough.
The point has already been made well. Better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons than not do it at all.
Sidhusaheb:
The BJP leaders have been regularly hosting Iftars for some time. Some of them can even be seen wearing skull caps and Saudi-style checked red/white scarfs on their shoulders. Such gestures are meaningless, unless they are accompanied by a real commitment to minority welfare. The Muslim League has historically been the Pakistani equivalent of the BJP (with similar ideological histories for the first half of their lives and similar shifts to a ‘grab and retain power at any cost’ ideology later in their lives).
That is why I find the cultural aspects of this story much more interesting than its political ones.
[quote]”Sheikh Feiz talks about the history of these useless and unislamic occasions and also talks about how to deal with people who celebrate these occasions.”[/quote]
Ahmer Khan,
I must say, the mullahs are the only people I have seen who denounce the festivals of other religions. I never heard a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh or Budhist doing that.
About Sheikh Feiz receiving his scholarly insights during his 4-year stay in Medina, did you hear the Persian saying: “Khar-e-Isa choon ba Mecca rawad …”?
And, by the way, why are these mullas suddenly
converging on Australia? Is it because there is
plenty of “uncovered meat” there?
I agree that even if it’s a political gimmick, it’s something positive.
It would be nice if Sangh Parivar leaders in India would take a cue from this. I’d love to see an LK Advani or a Praveen Togadia hosting an Iftaar!