On August 14 and 15, the 56th anniversary of the independence of Pakistan and
India from British colonial rule, it is a sad commentary on the political
condition of South Asia that even though the region has been independent for
over half a century, it is still not free.
Today, both India and Pakistan are gripped in the frenzy of a religious fervor
that is fundamentally negative in its orientation. Religious activism and mass
mobilization in both nations is directed against, rather than standing for,
something.
India's religious revival is taking the form of a Hindu nationalist movement,
Hindutva, which is rabidly opposed to secularism and to religious minorities.
The movement showed its true saffron in March 2002 when it retaliated against
alleged Muslim rioting by unleashing a state-sponsored pogrom that slaughtered,
murdered, and burned alive over 2,000 Muslims. In addition, the property of
nearly 200,000 Muslims was seized and their businesses and livelihoods
destroyed, making them refugees in their own homeland.
Perhaps in terms of shock value and implications for the future, the Hindutva
movement has perpetrated the worst crime against India's soul since its
independence. Nations should not harbor mass murderers in leadership positions.
The events of Gujarat will come back to haunt India as it aspires for
international recognition and seeks an important role in global governance.
In Pakistan, attempts to apply Islam in the public sphere quickly lead to
violence against some religious minority. Muslim extremists continue to enjoy
great freedom in Pakistan. They seem to have only one purpose in life, to find
communities that they can hate and target for violence. Ahmadis, Shi'ites, and
Christians have all experienced the violent hatred of Islamization in Pakistan.
In the past 10 years, religiously motivated sectarian violence has taken
thousands of lives in Pakistan and prevented the emergence of a stable state or
the establishment of a safe society. Democracy still remains only a glimmer on
Pakistan's horizon.
With the growing Talibanization of Pakistan and the emergence of extremely
odious characters such as Maulana Fazlur Rahman as prominent political forces,
the future prospects of Pakistan remain deeply entangled with religious hatred
and violence. If religious parties do not immediately abandon the path of
rhetoric and ideology in favor of moderate and pragmatic programs, it is but a
matter of time until Pakistan itself will become a victim of terrorism by
Muslim militants and most certainly the next stop in the US's war on terror.
Besides giving religion a bad name, religious zealots have contributed to the
destabilization of South Asia and heightened the prospects of a nuclear
disaster. As religious extremists jockey for positions of power in India and
Pakistan, their past records and the thought of seeing their murderous hands on
nuclear triggers are rapidly becoming another source of nightmares for security
experts in the region and elsewhere.
Between success and disaster
Both India and Pakistan are deeply traditional and religious societies. It is
difficult to expect them to become completely secular. Somehow the two nations
must find a way to accommodate the political impulses of their faith-based
communities without undermining the civil liberties of minorities, without
disrupting political and economic development, and most importantly, without
raising nuclear security dilemmas.
Today, religious fanatics in both nations remain a domestic as well as an
international threat. Both India and Pakistan, in spite of all their wars and
socio-political turmoil, have progressed economically as well as
technologically. Both are poised to break away from their low-income status and
become middle-income, industrializing, and globalizing nations. Both have large
international Diaspora that can help bring in credit, technology and foreign
business.
India is already well situated to become a major economic and cultural power
worldwide. Indian cinema is giving the country popular pull. It alone can
compete with China in terms of its huge pool of management and technical
experts. Pakistan's credentials as a nuclear power and its current role as the
frontline state in the "war on terror" have forced the world to
finally accept it as an important global player. Pakistanis in Europe and
America are also developing their own tech-centered capabilities that will
contribute to their country's development.
It looks as if only God - or somebody's concept of it - stands between success
and disaster in South Asia. The competing processes of economic and technological
growth versus religious-political degeneration manifest a unique example of the
phenomenon described by Benjamin Barber in his 1992 Atlantic article
"Jihad vs MacWorld," about global integration and disintegration. It
is a tragedy that even after independence, India and Pakistan remain slaves to
their own demons.
Religion should be used to empower not enslave. Religion should be employed to
enlighten humans, not make beasts out of them.
Muqtedar Khan (online at www.ijtihad.org) is a visiting fellow at the Brookings
Institution and author of American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom. He
writes regularly for Foreign Policy in Focus.