A short history of the Pakistan Penal Codes changes with respect to laws governing discourse about religion has been traced for the reader. A quick run through of the history shows us that context and access to power was essential in producing each law. The need for a law governing inter-religious dialogue was felt in the Indian Penal Code of 1860. In this sense the law of today inherits from a colonial legacy – and yet the blasphemy law is inherently different.
1) Intent to insult:
While the laws have all been mentioned together otherwise it is important to reproduce the earliest direct law (section 295) setting out the aim of:
295 Injuring or defiling places of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class.
What is clear in this law is that ‘intent to insult’ is categorically made a part of the law.
2) Outraged religious feelings
The next law introduced was a result of the agitations across Punjab with respect to a number of Hindu polemics printed contesting the personage of the Holy Prophet which gained momentum in 1927.
295A Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs
There are two additional qualifications before section 295A may be summoned. One: only ‘deliberate and malicious acts’ may be considered. Two: intent to ‘outrage religious feelings’ needs to be demonstrated.
The second qualification is the most dangerous and potentially consequential for the future course of events in so far as that the only way to demonstrate ‘intent to outrage religious feelings’ legally speaking was to ‘demonstrate outraged religious feelings’ themselves.
The legacy produced as a consequence– which has become a part of almost any narrative of an alleged blasphemy case – is a mob whenever such an incident is reported before the filing of an FIR and case proceedings. The proceedings of such cases themselves have become both highly politicised and polemicised as the Aasia case is proving to us.
This colonial demand on the complainant to produce ‘enraged religious feelings’ is the legacy Section 295A has left contemporary Pakistan and Punjab with.
3) Doing away with intent
This original law, with its specific problem discussed, was left untouched for the next 63 years when under attempts by Zia to bring the ulema on board his Islamisation project the section 298A was introduced in 1980. The section reads as follows:
298A Use of derogatory remarks etc., in respect of holy personages
This law has two specific legacies. Again, one: it defines as ‘holy personage’ only that which is Muslim and therefore it is the first exclusive to Muslim’s law. Second, and, this is more important, it takes away the ‘intent to insult’ provision of Section 295.
The subtle matter of the removal of the ‘intent to insult’ provision makes the law a recourse to the pettiest of matters. The sheer scale of the consequences of this removal from the law would become clear post the introduction of the four sections (295B, 295C, 298B and 298C) that followed.
4) Death the only answer
The section under which Aasia was tried (295C) was introduced by an Act of Parliament in 1985. The section reads:
295C Use of derogatory remarks, etc; in respect of the Holy Prophet
The prescribed punishments when the section was introduced was ‘life sentence or death.’ In 1991, the Federal Shariat Court asked the government to remove the ‘life sentence’ option with death becoming the only option if a judge were to find sufficient ground for conviction. By becoming State Law the notion that killing an individual (or declaring him wajib ul qatl) was the correct course of action for reinforced.
And thus lead into the specific legal-social quandary opening up in front of us today.
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