EDITORIAL: A day after the government established the National Committee on Narrative Building on September 10 to craft a cohesive national stance against terrorism and extremism in line with the goals of the National Action Plan (NAP), a subsidiary body has been formed under its framework to specifically address hate speech and foster interfaith harmony.
The National Paigham-i-Aman Committee (NPAC), functioning under the information ministry, brings together religious scholars, leaders of non-Muslim communities and senior government officials, with this interfaith panel being tasked with shaping a narrative that advances peace, tolerance and religious moderation.
Given the fragile state of minority rights, the scourge of sectarianism, the violence directed at vulnerable communities and the corrosive role of social media in amplifying rancour and providing space for insidious elements bent on sowing chaos, such an initiative is indeed a welcome step. It must be remembered, however, that this is not the first attempt of its kind.
Over the past two decades, several similar efforts have meandered into irrelevance due to the state’s chronic lack of political will, and dare one say, its deliberate indifference and wilful disregard in confronting the entrenched forces of hatred, extremism and violence.
The 2018 Paigham-e-Pakistan initiative – a government-issued fatwa against extremism and terrorism endorsed by a broad consensus of religious scholars — for instance, had declared terrorism, suicide attacks and armed rebellion against the state as religiously forbidden, while setting ambitious goals for interfaith harmony. That effort, however, quickly dissipated, with little clarity on what concrete measures were pursued under its banner.
The newly formed NPAC is now being presented as its continuation, tasked with translating the fatwa’s principles into practical action. That it has taken seven long years for this transition to materialise is a telling indictment of the state’s lack of resolve and skewed priorities.
Rising incidents of extremism-fuelled terrorism in recent years have laid bare the heavy cost of this prolonged inaction. Time and again it has been pointed out that unless the non-military dimensions of the NAP are pursued in earnest, military operations alone will not deliver lasting peace.
Yet successive governments have ignored the ideological underpinnings of militancy, while also failing to remedy chronic governance failures, economic exclusion, political grievances and the denial of timely justice. The cost has been staggering: thousands of lives lost, billions drained from the economy and an investment climate poisoned by fear and instability.
Equally alarming is the failure to curb the spread of extremist narratives within our social spaces, with society’s apathy mirroring the state’s indifference. The NPAC’s creation to counter hate and promote interfaith harmony, therefore, may be a step forward, but it remains only the beginning. What we need first and foremost is the unwavering enforcement of the rule of law, especially to protect minorities and vulnerable communities.
The extremism that has seeped into the social fabric has too often manifested in violent mob attacks targeting minorities over spurious allegations of a religious nature, with perpetrators often left unpunished for years while their victims are left to suffer without redress.
Any effort by the state or society to confront this blind hatred will remain futile without an honest reckoning with its root causes. We must ask, for instance, why the public is so easily provoked into frenzied violence by allegations of a religious nature. This brutalisation of society runs deep, and reversing it requires sustained, collective effort by lawmakers, civil society, law enforcement, the judiciary, clergy, media and citizens.
Most importantly, if the state truly wishes to curb extremism, elements within it must abandon the cynical use of religion as a political tool as nothing has strengthened the hand of hatred more than this hypocrisy at the highest levels.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.