EDITORIAL: The Supreme Court’s orders to law enforcement agencies to punish all culprits responsible for the attack on a Hindu temple in Bhong, district Rahim Yar Khan, the other day, and the dressing down it gave to the Punjab IG police and chief secretary, will ensure that cases are registered, at least, against the bad guys in this particular episode. Yet the question of what to do about the extremism that has swept across our society remains unanswered. This particular incident provides a very good example. The whole thing started because an eight-year-old boy allegedly urinated in the premises of a religious seminary, which promptly led to his arrest – an unjustified application of the law not gone unnoticed by the chief justice. Then, 10 days later, when the boy was given bail the whole town erupted in communal anger; people blocked the Multan-Sukkur motorway and a violent mob assaulted police officers and vandalised a temple.
This is neither the first such example nor the most extreme one. Yet it shows perfectly just what can happen, and how quickly entire neighbourhoods can turn into blood thirsty gangs, the moment somebody waves the religion card in people’s faces. Therefore, the honourable Supreme Court acted wisely to order the police also to get to the bottom of the accusation that lit this fuse in the first place. Rumours have already reached the press that there were lingering financial disputes between the area’s Muslim and Hindu communities. While any such problems, if they exist, must be investigated and sorted out, there is never any justification to threaten the peace if not the very existence of entire communities just to settle other scores; something that has been known to happen quite often.
It is, at the end of the day, the duty of the state to put its foot down and intervene forcefully when such tendencies get out of hand. This country’s minorities have undeniable and inalienable rights and the government of the day needs to be held accountable whenever those rights are denied. It’s no secret that our minorities have often suffered needlessly because the state failed to do its job and check creeping religious discrimination in our society. That is why the court’s decision to drag the IG police and chief secretary all the way to the capital was also very powerfully symbolic.
It is also a very good sign that the prime minister’s office has taken very strong notice of this incident; because one of the arguments often presented in defence of such barbarity is that it is in part a reaction to what is happening to Muslims in India. In Pakistan, the government’s position is very clear and now it is the duty of its organs to make sure that all mischief makers among us are brought in line. Once the executive and judiciary start making examples out of people who cross the line and incite violence by exploiting people’s religious beliefs, a very clear message will be put across and there is every reason to believe that such issues will begin to subside.
Hopefully, now that this episode is behind us and every effort is being made to make it right to whatever extent possible, it will also provide us with a moment for reflection as a society. Clearly, over time a lot of us have started to believe that by making religious and ethnic minorities feel unwelcome and blocking roads and causing damage to public property we somehow advance some noble religious cause. And, also very clearly, no government yet has been bothered enough by this trend to do something about it. And now it has become so entrenched in our society that it has also reached the pulpit in most parts. However, the court’s interjection and the prime minister’s displeasure have come at the right time and should have the desired effect.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021