When The ‘Church’ And ‘State’ Converge

How a seemingly trivial issue can be symptomatic of a much darker and deeper malaise, was reflected in the disconcerting hullabaloo concerning a Christian Pakistani girl, set to represent Pakistan in an international beauty pageant. The inevitable consequences of compromising on the healthy and necessary divide between the proverbial ‘Church’ and the ‘State’, plays out in the neighbouring country with invaluable lessons, for all.

Pakistan is in the throes of revisioning and reimagining itself in a make-believe narrative that was conclusively exposed in 1971. It is now staring at an even deeper, slimier pit that is almost inextricable. The current regression can be traced to many political start dates, nudges, and accelerations earlier, and the terrible price is getting paid with interest.

Cut to 1980’s, when General Zia-ul-Haq was no democrat, liberal or policy dove. He had absolute disdain for constitutional propriety and restraint by openly boasting, “What is a Constitution? It is a booklet with 12 or 10 pages. I can tear them away and say that tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Today, the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once mighty Mr (Zulfiqar Ali) Bhutto will follow me with tails wagging.”

Sadly, it wasn’t empty bluster as Zia-ul-Haq not only changed the ‘system’ as it were, but institutionalised toxic religiosity, bigotry and discrimination of ‘others’ into the bloodstream of Pakistani governance, that thrives till date.

Puritanism was inevitable within the foundational ‘land of the pure’, which then got nurtured with the formal adoption of the ‘Objectives Resolution’ in the Constituent Assembly (by 1949). It declared that the “sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah alone and the authority which he has delegated to the state of Pakistan, through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust”.

Pakistan was the first and only country in the world to be created in the name of a religion, and by 1956, it also became the first country in the world to prefix its name with ‘Islamic Republic’ (Islami Jumhuriyah Pakistan). Seeds of religious rigidity and extremism had started sprouting.

Telltale signs of redefining reality with the hard start of history from 712 CE with the arrival of Arab General, Muhammad Bin Qasim, got officially fixed, the rich past and the civilisational diversity that had survived for aeons, was diminished. The ‘othering’ and discrimination of the ways of religious minorities (including Shias, Ahmediyas etc.) ensued.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s ambitious hope for a land where “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the state,” died rather soon in the narrative, of a still young nation.

Zia-ul-Haq only pushed the accelerator on the already greasy slope with his feverish efforts of ‘Shariaisation’ with all accompanying intolerances, insistences, and possible misuses that any overtly religious agenda naturally begets.

Amongst the most marginalised and discriminated minorities in Pakistan are the Christians, who have perennially remained on the fringes of society. Their socio-economic deprivation and diminishment can be gauged by the fact they are predominantly involved in the sanitation industry (e.g., 80% of Christians in Peshawar are involved in sanitation work, and 76% of sanitation workers in Lahore are Christians).

They have also been disproportionately targeted under the infamous Blasphemy laws, like the Asia Biwi case, which had outraged the international community with its preposterousness. While it might be convenient to point fingers at the likes of the clearly unhinged Zia-ul-Haq, the civilian leadership that came after him including the Sharifs, Bhuttos and Imran Khan only dug deeper holes with their own doings, that makes reversal of the narrative, almost impossible.

The minorities can no longer take succour to Jinnah’s paradoxical and inconsistent statements attributed to secularism. The net result of over-investing and unleashing religious passions, as opposed to focusing on basics of governance is that ‘othering’ gets normalised.

Each successive government increasingly encourages it, to the detriment of social harmony. In such times, people who are otherwise ignored as ‘fringe elements’ of society, assume centerstage, relevance and influential ‘voices’ that can impact daily life.

Today, when Pakistan is literally scraping the bottom of the barrel for survival, society is imploding with extremism-terrorism and begging for foreign aid, prominent religious scholars and commentators are busy raising hue and cry about the woman representing Pakistan in a beauty pageant!

Clearly, beauty pageants and the representation of the nation by a woman, that too a Christian, is reason enough for the Information Minister of the caretaker Government to take a position on the same! The surreal chorus of dissenters to the beauty participant is joined by bigoted politicians, journalists et al as if this is the paramount crisis facing Pakistan.

The sense of proportion, priorities and emotions is completely whopped and out of line. The clear optics of misogyny, sexism and patriarchy are writ all over, as the land that virtually disowned its precocious Nobel Prize Winner, Malala Yosufzai (just as it did to the ‘first Muslim winner’ of the Nobel, the utterly brilliant, Prof Mohammad Abdus Salam, owing to his Ahmediya faith) is crippling under the weight of misplaced emotions.

Now, it is sermonising on, and demonising a beauty pageant representative for its sub-texts rooted in smallness of spirit. Point is, while the sovereign and its ruling classes are increasingly getting called out for harbouring extremism, intolerances, and xenophobic tendencies, would the optics of a Pakistani girl from the minority community getting afforded the right to represent her country proudly, allay fears or exacerbate the perceptions of Pakistan?

The intent in her language carried suggestions that may just help Pakistan’s case, “I want to highlight the beauty of Pakistan. We have a beautiful culture that the media is not talking about. Pakistani people are very kind, generous and hospitable”.

But no, the Pakistani leadership will still pander to the conveniently called ‘fringe’, succumb to it and insist on retaining the perceptions of discrimination and religiosity that have defined them, and do so, proudly. While it ought not to be an issue of any significance by itself, it offers a peek into the incorrigibility that is Pakistan and more importantly, of the dangers that loom, while the citizenry gets seduced by the metaphorical ‘Church’ in terms of contextualising its sovereign sensibilities, culture, and worse, notions of ‘nationalism’.

Lt. General Bhopinder Singh (Retd), is the Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. Views expressed are the writer’s own.