The unmistakable hypocrisy

#IStandWithAamirKhan become one of the top trends in Pakistan, but where is the #IStandWithAhmadis hashtag?

November 23, 2015: New Delhi, India; Ramnath Goenka Express Excellence in Journalism Awards; Aamir Khan in conversation with Anant Goeka, Indian Express. As the outrage over the Indian superstar’s alleged ‘disloyalty’ and ‘ingratitude’ to his motherland, and his ‘intolerable’ audacity to speak up about the “growing intolerance” in India snowballed into ugliness on social and mainstream media, the reactions were myriad. And most of them disproportionate to the scope of statements made by Khan, one of the ambassadors of the Incredible India campaign, who while showing concern over certain manifestations of intolerance in the recent past, deemed his wife’s idea to leave India “disastrous”. The how-dare-he-when-India-has-given-him-so-much outrage culminated in protests outside his house, burning of his effigies, and the coup de grace, a police complaint against him at a police station in Delhi.



In solidarity with the ‘fellow Muslim’ Aamir Khan, many Pakistanis on Twitter made the hashtag #IStandWithAamirKhan become one of the top trends in Pakistan.

November 20, 2015: Jhelum, Pakistan; an industrial unit, Pakistan Chipboard, and its adjacent residential area. Owner: an Ahmadi. A mob of enraged ‘Muslims’ sloganeered, stone-pelted and set the factory on fire on the allegation of desecration of the verses of the Holy Quran by a worker of the factory. The frenzied mob and its methodical unleashing of horror on a peaceful community were enabled and incited by some local clerics who exhorted people to rise and fight the ‘blasphemous Qadianis’, who were ‘defiling’ their faith. The police appeared helpless, the army was called in, and although no loss of life was reported, the factory was completely torched. The next day, the same mob of ‘vigilantes’ attacked an Ahmadi place of worship. After ‘cleaning’ the place — ransacking, torching of property — these so-called Muslims offered namaz, feeling jubilant and vindicated about having done the ‘right’ thing.

In solidarity with the ‘fellow Pakistanis’, many on Twitter expressed their dismay in the usual bland tsk-tsk’ing over the persecution of minorities, but there was no #IStandWithAhmadis hashtag. The hypocrisy is unmistakable. This hypocrisy is a blatant expression of selective outrage, of sidelining the real issue, of subverting of truth, of escaping responsibility. This hypocrisy is the seal on the classification of ‘us versus them’.



It is about the constitutional isolation of some five million Pakistani citizens bracketed as Ahmadis, demeaned and persecuted as “Qadiani”. The 1972 Second Amendment, under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, paved the way for atrocities to be the fate of anyone who went by the title Ahmadi. It is about Ziaul Haq’s addition of clauses 295B and 295C to our statute books. It is about Ordinance XX that stipulates three-year sentences for Ahmadis caught in the act of identifying themselves as Muslims.

The constitutional and legal separation of Ahmadis from mainstream society is a black stain on the social and moral fibre of our society, a society that is in the process of ‘cleansing’ itself of those who are not Muslim, or are not the right kind of Muslim. While the hearts of Pakistanis break for the injustices faced by Muslims in Indian-occupied Kashmir, victims of Israeli terror in Palestine, dead Syrian children, bleeding Iraqis and suffering Libyans, there is a macabre silence over the persecution of their own. While the number of Pakistani Hindus has dwindled steadily over the years, Hazaras have migrated to other countries to save their lives, Christians have become second-rate citizens in their own country, Parsis have assumed invisibility to escape unsavoury attention, and Shias have been victims of terror attacks, Pakistani Muslims unite in their condemnation of atrocities against Muslims globally. The hypocrisy is unmistakable.

Indians lash out at Aamir Khan for statement on intolerance

The so-called defenders of religion, I ask you. Before throwing the first stone, look within yourself. Who has made you the guardian of faith? Who has authorised you to persecute those who fold their hands to God differently? Who has allowed you to destroy lives, end lives? Who has given you the power to become the vigilante of faith, something deeply personal that is between an individual and the Creator? Who are you?

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th,  2015.

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