There is a need to open up our minds to a debate about what Pakistan and religion are all about.
KARACHI: The way the returning officers (RO) and the Election Commission of Pakistan have tried to implement Articles 62 and 63 is an eye-opener. An educated and outspoken person like Ayaz Amir was declared ineligible because the RO had a queer understanding about what the “Ideology of Pakistan” was all about. His colleagues all over the country also displayed their faulty understanding of religion through the kind of questions they asked the candidates. Questions about the married lives of candidates or their personal hygiene are surely not what Articles 62 and 63 intended to find out.
If there was any proof needed that the Pakistani education system has failed to produce citizens who understand the purpose of their state, vis-a-vis the people’s welfare, then this is it. It is high time that we acknowledge that there is a need to open up our minds to a debate about what Pakistan and religion are all about. Otherwise, we will not only make ourselves the laughing stock of the world but will also never be able to get rid of the extremism that afflicts us.
Ali Ashraf Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, April 16th, 2013.
