A disappointed Pakistani Christian
Dear Pakistani Muslims, Pakistan has been hell for my family and I. Yes, we get Christmas and have a few churches here and there and attend the same schools as the rest of you, but life as Christian minorities has been torture for us. I had to carpool in a public van to a convent school that had the richest and most influential of Pakistani Muslims in attendance. I shared class rooms with the most spoilt and unforgiving spawn of business tycoons, politicians, smugglers and architects who called me a “karanti”. A karanti is a derogatory, slang term for dark Christians, because of course ...
Read Full Post
Dawkins made it to my sociology class
Growing up in a society that discouraged asking too many questions, I often wondered what it is about modern western education that the conservative right is so scared of. Reading the news and following politics on television and online has helped me understand how our policy makers think and what issues matter to our general public. If you have done the same, you will know that every effort to modernise our educational system and make it more culturally and religiously neutral has met with stern resistance from political, religious and other factions of the society. But one day, while sitting in ...
Read Full Post
Explaining the garlands for Qadri
You may argue that a large number of people in Pakistan condemn the assassination of Salmaan Taseer. But the truth, though bitter, is that many instead of condemning the heinous act of a murderer, condemn the verdict of the court which proclaims capital punishment for Mumtaz Qadri. There are campaigns running throughout the country that pay tribute to a murderer. Huge posters of Qadri, decked with Quranic verses and beautiful roses, are plastered all over and yet there is no one to remove such aberrations. Some believe that the reason for this queer phenomenon is illiteracy, and talk about it in a ...
Read Full Post
Salmaan Taseer in Kafka’s Pakistan
“One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.” Thus begins Franz Kafka’s novella masterpiece Metamorphosis. The novel inhabits the familiar bizarre frame of Kafka’s work, of a world where the transformation of Gregor Samsa into a giant insect-like creature elicits hardly any surprise from Samsa’s family and associates, or indeed from Samsa himself. Samsa spends no time pondering his metamorphosis, why it may have occurred or how the process may be reversed. He busies himself instead with mundane concerns, and immediately upon his transformation spends an inordinate amount of ...
Read Full Post
Salmaan Taseer’s sacrifice was in vain
One year on from the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, and all debate on amending the blasphemy laws has essentially come to a close. I do not blame individual citizens for this. Given the prevailing extremist temperament in the country, it is next to impossible to effectively stand up to what is, at the end of the day, a case of bullying in the name of religion. Given the kind of organisation and capabilities the extremists/militants have, it is very difficult for the average man or woman, appalled at the rapid rise of violent radicalism in the country, to speak out. It is not just ...
Read Full Post
Do we remember what Taseer was fighting for?
International newspapers were ruthlessly generous to Pakistan this past year in granting the country front page features time and time again. Coverage included the Raymond Davis incident, the Memogate scandal, a ‘bold’ Veena Malik, devastating floods, and everyone’s favourite, Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad. However, exactly one year ago, Pakistan stole headlines for a reason that has largely been buried; Salmaan Taseer’s assassination over the criticism of the blasphemy law. On January 4, 2011, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, one of Taseer’s security guards, emptied over 20 bullets into the body of the man he was meant to protect. Taseer’s death was both ...
Read Full Post
Many Mumtaz Qadris: We are children of hate
Many decades ago Rafiq Sabir entered a Gujarati businessman’s palace-like home in Bombay. Almost 60 minutes after this intrusion, he was led out, handcuffed, by policemen. The charge against him was that he had attacked ‘a leader of a religious party for political reasons’. This leader survived the attack and went on to create a country where sixty-eight years later ‘another Rafiq Sabir’ attacked ‘a leader of a political party for religious reasons’. The snake was taught another language, the venom was given another colour but their effectiveness was undiminished. Today, an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis hold in respect a ...
Read Full Post
Let Mumtaz Qadri live
I consider what Mumtaz Qadri did to be a heinous crime and one of the most serious – murder, and that too motivated by ideological reasons. The victim was the governor of Punjab who in furtherance of his public duty had met a woman convicted under the state’s discriminatory blasphemy laws. Nevertheless, Qadri should not be executed as the death penalty must be opposed on all accounts. There should be a special onus on us to resist the temptation to punish someone for their ideology, however repugnant we may find that ideology. People must unequivocally reject the death penalty, especially as applied in Pakistan. Liberals who say they are against the penalty, ...
Read Full Post
Qadri sentence: Justice served – for now
The verdict is in. The assassin will hang. Justice seems to have been served. Well, not quite yet. Almost ten months to the day when the former Punjab governor was gunned down, the lone gunman has seen his bubble burst. His ‘divinely inspired’ mission wasn’t so divine after all. He will die the way a real blasphemer would have been put to death. Except that in his case, thousands of righteously misguided individuals will take to the streets to push for his release from prison. After all, guilty or not, his followers have already made it quite clear that for them, ...
Read Full Post
Does Mumtaz Qadri deserve to die?
“Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the self-confessed murderer of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, has been sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court today”reads the latest breaking news. Ten months after he drilled Salmaan Taseer’s body with 25 bullets for the ‘crime’ of supporting Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman accused of blasphemy Qadri has been sentenced. The former governor’s killer had been regaled as a hero and showered with rose petals. YouTube videos of him defending his actions turned the stomach. What kind of man would do this I wondered? Kill an innocent man and then proudly recite naats as if he was one of God’s chosen ...
Read Full Post
