by NADEEM F. PARACHA
On April 10, a woman police officer was attacked by a mob in Karachi’s Orangi Town area. The incident took place when the officer was admonishing a group of people for breaching the Sindh government’s directive against congregating for Friday prayers in mosques, fearing that large gatherings at mosques could hasten the spread of Covid-19.
The ‘order’ was issued on March 26, after a number of Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia, closed down mosques when the spread of the dreaded coronavirus reached alarming proportions. The Sindh government’s lead was soon followed by other provincial set-ups and the federal government. However, so far only the Sindh government has exhibited any seriousness in enforcing this decree.
There have been other similar incidents in Karachi in which police officials have come under attack by enraged mobs trying to enter mosques. Even though there are some religious parties and clerics who have supported the Sindh government’s intentions in this regard, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah more than alluded that the decision to restrict people from going to mosques, especially on Fridays, was one of the toughest that his government has had to take and implement.
The stated pluralistic and ‘left-liberal’ ideological disposition of Sindh’s ruling party, the PPP, can be the reason why the Sindh government was able to take the lead in this context. But, ironically, this is exactly the reason why it was tougher for the Sindh CM to sign such a decree.
Let me explain.
Despite the fact that it was the same ‘left-liberal’ PPP whose first government in the centre — in the 1970s — found itself continuously conceding ground to religious forces, those same forces led to the government’s downfall after accusing it of being ‘atheistic’ and ‘anti-Islam.’
A mob of namazis knowingly breaking the law attacks a policewoman trying to enforce it. Why do South Asia’s influential majorities act like persecuted minorities?
This downfall, in 1977, and then the unprecedented manner in which religious outfits were provided political and social influence during the reactionary Gen Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s, set a precedent in which non-religious parties, even when in power, were obliged to involve religious figures in various religion-related policy matters.
This may seem the ‘natural’ thing to do. But Princeton University’s Professor Muhammad Qasim Zaman writes in his 2018 book Islam in Pakistan that, till the early 1970s, the state and governments in the country did not find it necessary to include religious groups in matters of policy; though they were not entirely ignored either. Zaman adds that the narrative behind this was that “ulema were deadening the true spirit of Islam and impeding progress.”
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