Creating sectarian harmony

Government is planing to introduce a common code of conduct to come to grips with differences among religious sects.

Sectarian strife has reaped a bitter harvest over the years. The Senate was told last week that sectarian related incidents accounted for well over 1,710 fatalities since 2008, a figure that the opposition deemed to be grossly understated. This, nevertheless, provides us ample measure of how sectarian differences — bordering on intolerance and even hatred — have been claiming precious lives. Any effort that seeks to douse the flames of such animosity should, therefore, be welcome. The government is mulling over a plan to introduce a common code of conduct to come to grips with the differences among religious sects in order to encourage greater religious harmony. To buttress this initiative, the widely-debated and proposed reforms for madrassas are also part of the scheme. These initiatives are to be woven into the National Internal Security Policy (NISP). To press ahead with the plan, the federal minister for religious affairs and inter-faith harmony last week met leaders of the Ittehad Tanzeem-e-Madaris Pakistan, a conglomerate of religious seminaries, and discussed the registration of madrassas, reworking of their syllabi and integrating them into the mainstream. He also had a rendezvous with ulema of all sects and exhorted them to abide by the proposed code of conduct.

All this activity looks good on the surface but it has not sat well with some religio-political parties. The JUI-F is opposed to the proposed reform of madrassas. Maulana Fazlur Rehman thundered in the National Assembly, criticising the inclusion of religious seminaries in the NISP. Not content with academic opposition to the plan, his party has also announced nationwide protests and hopes to take other religious groups on board as well. Here is the sticking point. The JUI-F, being an ally of the government, as well as other religious parties, must be made to see virtue in the initiative and embrace it. The government must begin efforts to address the misgivings of the JUI-F and its peers, whoever they are, so that a noble task is achieved with consensus.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2014.

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