The prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has been striving to bring another wave of ‘Islamization’ in Pakistan following the footsteps of General Zia. The premier pledged to make Pakistan ‘riyasat-e-madinah’, and in his efforts to pursue this goal Pakistan has become more of an intolerant, extremist state with people venting their anger and frustration in the name of religion.
Pakistan was created with a purpose to provide Muslims a separate homeland where they would be able to enjoy their socio-political and religious rights freely. According to Jinnah’s repertoire of a separate country, Muslims were supposed to live on a par with the minority groups. This approach prevailed for first two decades after the creation of Pakistan but in 1970s, Z.A. Bhutto’s populist Islamist ideology changed the course of events. As stated by Christophe Jaffrelot, “The use of religion was part of Z.A. Bhutto’s populist ideology, which associated socialism with Islam. [General] Zia also used religion to legitimize his power and to find allies among the Islamists”.
The growing impact of these schools is likely to be one of the important themes of Imran Khan’s political manifesto. It is quite evident that the PM is opting for such religious tactics in order to cover his political fiasco and to divert the attention of people by presenting himself to be a savior of Islam. For instance, the unemployment rate in the country increased from 3.98 in 2019 to 4.7 in 2020 according to World Bank. The inflation rate has increased by 8.63% in 2020-21 as reported by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). These two aspects are the important determinants for further deteriorating the peace of the country as people try to find scapegoats to vent their anger and frustration. In addition, the “Islamization policies have multiple and sometimes unintentional consequences on the society” as stated by Christophe Jaffrelot, which depicts that people tend to misuse religion at such instances.
Recently, in an interview to HBO while answering a question about the impact of the dress code of women on the intentions of a rapist, the prime minister maintained that, “If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact; it will have an impact on the men, unless they are robots. I mean it is common sense.” Needless to say that vulgarity does have a positive correlation with increasing rape cases but another factor that is even more important is the strict legislation and implementation of law against perpetrators. The deterrence theory of Criminology enunciates that the threat of punishment reduces the probability of crime in a society. But conviction rate in Pakistan is only 0.3% of the total rape cases that are reported, as per a report by Geo news.
Had there been proper legislation, implementation of law, protection of the victim in the country, there would not have been an incessant upsurge in rape cases in the country. Putting the onus of rape crime on the victim means that government is giving a certificate of exoneration to the rapist. A country where perpetrators commit the same crime over and over without being held accountable before the law seems to be giving more space to people to violate the law and abuse the marginalized groups. Instead of holding the victim responsible and saving the perpetrator from moral, social and political liability, the prime minister and his team need to work on rectifying the debilitating law and order situation in the country.
Furthermore, religious minorities are also being targeted and a number of people have been murdered in the name of religion, out of which most of the incidents were found to be more of personal issues than religious ones in reality. Human Rights Watch recently released World Report 2021 which divulged, “The Pakistani government did not amend or repeal blasphemy law provisions that have provided a pretext for violence against religious minorities and have left them vulnerable to arbitrary arrest and prosecution”.
Saroop Ijaz, who is senior council for HRW’s Asia Division, accused the government of Pakistan of violating human rights, “we saw a continuation of the negative trends of attacks on minorities and civil society as well as shackles on freedom of expression since 2018. The challenges became acute last year. There was an increase in attacks on non-Muslims and a failure to stem them.”
A country’s leader and his policies have direct as well as indirect impacts on the general public. Current milieu is depicting a dilapidating condition of Imran Khan’s political leadership and so he is trying to cement his authority by using the religious epithet which is further exacerbating the peace situation in the country.
Author: Beenish Fatima
The writer is student of Sociology at the University of the Punjab, Lahore. She frequently writes on national and international socio-political issues for various media outlets. She can be reached on Twitter @beenishfatima63
