The space for Ahmadis in Pakistan becomes ever constricted with the passage of every year. Those with means have left the country but not everyone can afford to do so. The poor always face the brunt of state sanctioned discrimination and persecution.
Recently, an Ahmadi was stabbed for refusing to chant the TLP slogans. Earlier, the Punjab government mandated signing the khatam-e-nubuwat (finality of Prophethood – PBUH) declaration in the nikahnama (marriage contract) for Muslim couples. Three Ahmadis were also arrested for sacrificing animals for Eid in Faisalabad. The complainants who climbed rooftops to spy on the Ahmadis claimed that their “Islamic sentiments were hurt”.
The oppressors claim to be oppressed. This is the hallmark of Nazi Germany, of Modi’s India, and anywhere and everywhere where zulm (oppression) is peddled.
The subjugation of Ahmadis through the machinery of the state is indeed reminiscent of the treatment of Jews under Nazi Germany prior to the eventual holocaust. The social, economic, and political space for Ahmadis has been increasingly circumscribed since the Punjab disturbances of 1953. Rabid calls have also been made by hardline clerics for their eventual liquidation or conversion.
Pakistanis would be the first to wail about Islamophobia in India and the West under populist regimes. Yet, they deny Ahmadis what they want for themselves – freedom of religious expression. They shower legendary hospitality on western vloggers travelling across Pakistan but do not show a fraction of that regard for their own minorities. They honour Jinnah as the Quaid-e-Azam, but do not heed his example to not be budged by “undesirable” maulvis and self-serving politicians.
This makes it even more disconcerting to note that the community that was instrumental in helping the Quaid-e-Azam is being treated so poorly by each subsequent generation of Pakistanis. Today, they cannot practice their faith even in the privacy of their homes.
Indeed, Pakistanis have a role model in Jinnah under whose leadership minorities, including Ahmadis, unstintingly supported Pakistan when the clerical reactionaries bitterly opposed it as “na-Pakistan” and pejoratively referred to Jinnah as “Kafir-e-Azam”. Ahmadis were also instrumental in the Kashmir struggle through the Furqan Force and the exemplary role played by Sir Zafarullah Khan. Yasser Latif Hamdani’s books, Jinnah: Myth and Reality and Jinnah: A Life, are worth reading, as they offer a Pakistani narrative that rejects discrimination and projects Pakistan as a bastion of minorities of the Indian subcontinent.
This makes it even more disconcerting to note that the community that was instrumental in helping the Quaid-e-Azam is being treated so poorly by each subsequent generation of Pakistanis. Today, they cannot practice their faith even in the privacy of their homes.
Even if one is bent on “Islamic exclusivism”, based on which the Barelvi and Deobandi denominations have traditionally cast kufr (disbelief) fatwas on each other, that still does not give Muslims the right to encroach the private household and to probe people’s beliefs.
No two Muslims think alike. The teachings of Hazir Imam of Ismailis, Syedna of Bohras, Ayatollahs of Ithna Asharis, Pirs of Barelvis, and Shuyukhs of Salafis and Wahabis, cannot be more different. Muslims are free to disagree theologically and not engage in inter-denomination marriages but involving the state in enforcing institutionalised discrimination and persecution crosses the line of common humanity.
In a nutshell, when Pakistanis are horrified by the state-sponsored Islamophobia of populist governments, it should allow them an opportunity to reflect on how they too are complicit in the same human rights violations of their fellow citizens, who despite all the discrimination and persecution remain loyal citizens of Pakistan.
