Challenges of a polarised society

The kind of hugely opposite reactions that Pakistani society has shown towards some recent developments indicate what a highly polarised society we have become. The Supreme Court had ruled Mumtaz Qadri to be a common murderer, who according to the Court’s verdict took the law into his own hands and killed a person that he thought, in his own ill-informed wisdom, to have committed blasphemy. What was more disquieting was the fact that Qadri was part of an armed official detail, assigned the task of protecting the very person that he had killed. Presumably, the silent majority of Pakistanis agreed with the Supreme Court’s verdict. That was perhaps the reason why the prime minister did not feel any hesitation in advising the president to reject Qadri’s mercy petition. But the vociferous street reaction by unruly crowds led by highly charged clerics — among them many well-known self-styled religious scholars and prominent political personalities — in most of the major cities in the country on the day he was hanged, the day he was buried and even on the first Friday following the event, showed that a significant proportion of our nation did not consider Qadri to be a common criminal but one who should be revered for having carried out a ‘divine duty’ and more so because he laid down his own life for accomplishing what he thought was his religious obligation.

It appears that people with the same kind of mindset have denounced Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Oscar win. There are many who have rejoiced at the international laurels that Ms Obaid-Chinoy has brought for us, imparting in the process the much-needed soft image to Pakistan, which it has been desperately trying to cultivate for years and to discard the image of being a ‘hard’ country. However, at the same time, there are those, many of whom adept in the use of social media as well as a section of mainstream media, who have castigated the Oscar winner for promoting a negative image of Pakistan by making documentaries on subjects like honour killing and acid attacks on women. They believe documentaries on such subjects only bring a bad name to Pakistan and also in their own warped thinking, they believe that it was because of the ‘negative’ theme of the documentary and not for its overall excellence that A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness was chosen by the jury for the Award. This kind of reaction to the Oscar win typifies how people here have a problem with any realistic portrayal of the country, especially when it is done by a woman. Fortunately, however, the prime minister felicitating the award winner and promising to legislate on honour killings, has made it clear that this crime is one of the most critical problems faced by the country and the government was determined to adopt all possible ways to remove this stain from our society.

The reaction to the Women’s Protection Bill in Punjab also confirms that there exists a wide chasm between the obscurantist segment of the country and its not-so-conservative part. Most troubling is the reaction of those who insist that the bill is contrary to Sharia, especially that of the chief of the Council of Islamic Ideology, where he went as far as to assert that Article 6 could be brought against the Punjab Assembly for passing this legislation. It seems that the obscurantist segment considers according protection to women a treasonous act, showing how far a significant segment of our population can go when it comes to trampling rights of vulnerable groups.

The important thing, however, is that in all these instances, the state and governments have at least tried to do the right thing and have resisted pressure from reactionary elements, something which hasn’t always happened in the past. All societies have their fair share of divisions and chasms and Pakistan is no different. Perhaps the best we can hope for right now is that the state continues to uphold the rule of law despite all the existence of these divisions and without giving into reactionary forces.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2016.

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