“The blasphemy law is not a God-made law. It’s a man-made law. It was made by General Ziaul Haq and the portion about giving a death sentence was put in by Nawaz Sharif. So it’s a law which gives an excuse to extremists and reactionaries to target weak people and minorities.”
Salmaan Taseer, Interview with CNN
“Salmaan Taseer was responsible for what happened to him because he tried to obstruct the functioning of the blasphemy law.”
Munawar Hassan, Chief, Jama’at I Islami
“Governor Salmaan Taseer desecrated the basic spirit of Islam and turned a blasphemer himself when he showed support for Aasiya Bibi and called the blasphemy law a ‘black law.’”
Tahafuz I Namoos I Risalat Mahaz, Press Release, 5th January 2011
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Liberal discourse amongst the people falling under the unfortunate gaze of the Pakistani state have never faced a deeper crisis. The crisis is not that Salmaan Taseer has been murdered. He has fallen a martyr to their ideals. The crisis is that he has fallen an apostate. An apostate for opposing a 'man-made' law. The liberal has been declared an apostate in the imagining's of religious discourse. The crisis of the liberal is how to speak and be heard.
The problem that the liberal intelligentsia has always faced has been of incommunicability. Today the crisis is deeper. The space which he owned is itself being encroached upon. It has been thrown into a situation where every proponent stands by his stance under a threat to his life.
Malik Mumtaz Qadri is already a hero. Not to me - and not to 'rational' others. He has commited no great deed. Rather he is even flawed in terms of his own logic. But the flowers and showering of praise upon him at his first hearing at the Rawalpindi Kutchery shows a much more pervasive force. 'The Muslim cannot tolerate an insult to Islam,' has been the character being bandied out by it's self-appointed spokesmen. 'The Muslim cannot tolerate an insult to Islam - except the one he does to it by his actions,' is what the truth of this construction is.
In a press conference at the Lahore Press Club condemning blasphemy convict Aasiya Bibi and Salmaan Taseer, I took out a private moment from the rather esteemed speakers to ask them, 'Have you read the Aasiya case?' A strange gaze was the response. A strange gaze followed by a condemnation of her. They were sure, without reference to any evidentiary grounds, that she was Rajpal's incarnate. And during the press conference they had warned us, 'Ilam Din will arise from every home.'
Lo and Behold! Ilam Din incarnate Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri presented himself. The long awaited ghost of Ilam Din had returned. There has been no apology. Nay the attack has gotten stronger. The religious 'representatives' have disowned responsibility. 'See what happens when a Muslim's sentiments are hurt,' are the words they utter. 'There is still time to mend your ways,' they say. And, I do not misqoute.
Now, rather, it is exactly now that is the time to speak up.
Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri has become Ilam Din reincarnate. The truth behind his placement in Taseer's security force on January 4, 2011, whatever it may be, shall always remain mired in controversy. A simpler version of it, one that has already begun to be articulated, shall become etched in religious memory.
This is where the crisis begins: can we challenge this articulation? Can we do so meaningfully?
The Aasiya Bibi case is where the matter began to boil. She was sentenced on 9th November. Her death sentence under charges of blasphemy boiled us. Taking its locus from a small village, Itanwali, en route to Nankana Sahib, the case first became a debacle at the Nankana Sahib Bar. A number of those seated around the bar found their hearts attached to the case, as I found when I got a neat, catalogued casefile of the Aasiya Bibi case from a stamp farosh at the bar. Before Salmaan Taseer’s visit, we had both reported the judgment and been able to interview Aasiya Bibi in the Sheikhupura District Jail. Matters were brewing. Amidst our attempt to understand the case, I was driving to Itanwali when a reporter called to inform that Salmaan Taseer was in Sheikhupura Jail and going to pardon Aasiya. 19th November was the date. It was here that Salmaan Taseer called the Blasphemy Law a ‘black’ law. On 24th November, the Aalmi Jama’at Ahle Sunnat had issued a fatwa declaring the Punjab Governor an ‘apostate.’ Protest photographs and stories were filed every day leading upto the 31st December shutter down strike. The strike received a unanimous response from traders and transporters.
The religious right had announced its New Year’s resolution: no amendment to the Blasphemy Laws will be allowed.
The daily projection of the threat to the Blasphemy Laws had begun to reshape the contours of public discourse. The grip of the challenge to Prophetic respect from those opposed to the laws began to manifest itself. Every form of critical discourse attempted during the period was being rendered meaningless.
The Blasphemy Laws are an abused law. This is not hyperbole. This is fact.
The Blasphemy Laws religious credentials are questionable. Again, this is not hyperbole. It is fact.
This is exactly what we in our ‘liberal’ frame of mind articulated. But while this attempt to rationalize and transform the Blasphemy Law was being attempted, the discourse supporting it began to gather strength and public momentum. Contextual debate lost meaning.
This was the true moment of crisis.
But the crisis was complete when on January 4, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by a guard assigned by the Elite Force to protect him. The guard gave himself up, in a classic Ilam Din stereotype.
The religious ‘right’ had found its new hero.
If historical reincarnations are anything to go by, it is not long before Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri is lauded as a hero in the Urdu press. Ilam Din, was openly condemned by vernacular newspaper till he received his first death sentence at the Sessions’ Court in May 1929. Only a ‘few dozen’ supporters outside the court were reported. But by the time Jinnah took on his appeal in the Lahore High Court, the first poetic lauding of him had begun to appear in the same newspapers. By the time, his appeal was rejected and he was transferred to the Mianwali jail, he had been labeled Ghazi. By the time, he was hanged in Mianwali, he became Ghazi Ilam Din Shaheed and received, what is remembered as, one of Lahore’s biggest funerals. If I were to read out the list of luminaries that ‘graced’ the occasion it might even get this article banned. I shall mention no one else but Allama Iqbal and his comments as central to the imagination of the funeral’s legacy. His comments you may search the web, find and verify. Buried today at the Miani Sahib graveyard in Lahore, his body is today housed in a shrine which receives over a hundred visitors every day.
If history is anything to go by, how do we react to the threat of Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri’s martyrdom?
Ilam Din’s fame and Ilam Din’s myth became powerful after his death sentence was carried out.
Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri has already found himself in the national imagination. His demeanor is disturbing. His confidence is disturbing.
It is clear that he has not killed Salmaan Taseer for blaspheming against a religious sacrament. Or, perhaps, we are to realize today that the Blasphemy Law itself has become a sacrament.
If this be true it is a disturbing moment. It is a moment that leaves no answers, only questions. And as I conclude this article I list those that occur to me:
Can we allow Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri to become a martyr?
Can we allow the Blasphemy Laws to remain?
Can we change what is projected as Islamic sentiment?
Can we digest Salmaan Taseer’s assassination?
Having taken personal interest in the Aasiya Bibi case it is hard for me.
- The above piece was printed in Pakistan Today on Sunday, January 9, 2011.
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