Pakistan: The Northern Areas Tinderbox
Kanchan
Lakshman
Celebrating liberal democracy
during his speech to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947,
Pakistan's Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader) Mohammad Ali Jinnah said,
"You may belong to any religion or caste or creed... that has
nothing to do with the business of the state. We are all citizens
and equal citizens of the state." Fifty-seven years since, even as
President and General Pervez Musharraf exhorts the people of
Pakistan to adopt 'enlightened moderation', Pakistan's tentative
quest for a non-discriminatory liberal democracy continues to
unravel. Indeed, the ideology of fundamentalist Islam appears to
remain at the heart of the Musharraf regime's strategy of national
political mobilization and consolidation, despite talk of
'enlightened moderation' - as recent developments in the Northern
Areas (NA) of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) demonstrate.
Agitated over contentious sections in the textbooks prescribed in
state-run schools, protestors of the Shia community in the Gilgit
city of NA clashed with troops on June 3 during a curfew that had
been imposed in the city's municipal limits. While one protestor was
killed near Khomer Chowk, clashes and arson were reported from all
over the district. A Pakistan Radio van and transmitter, the Danyore
Police Station, the Police Training Centre, the Gilgit Deputy
Commissioner's office, a rest house and the Northern Areas
Legislative Council hall were damaged by angry mobs. Shia clerics in
Gilgit had called for a rally after failing to reach a compromise
with the officials over the textbooks, which they felt were against
their belief system, and sought to propagate a particular brand of
Sunni Islam in the Shia dominated Northern areas. The Army was
called out in Gilgit to maintain law and order after Shia leader
Agha Ziauddin Rizvi set June 3 as the deadline for the
administration to resolve the issue. Another three persons died when
troops opened fire on a vehicle which was violating the curfew on
June 6.
The severity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that more
than 200 school-children from the Shia community staged a three-day
hunger strike in Gilgit on May 17 against the existing syllabus. At
the time of writing, authorities had imposed a round-the-clock
curfew and deployed troops and police in Gilgit city. The NA
administration has decided to close all Government schools in
districts Gilgit and Skardu for an indefinite period. The underlying
fear in Islamabad is that the sectarian unrest that engulfed Karachi
in recent days could fuel greater anger among the Shias in Gilgit
and elsewhere in the Northern Areas.
But what precisely are these objections? The Curriculum Reform
Committee of Northern Areas, Gilgit, while stating that certain
sections are repugnant to the Shia school of thought, added that
these have been deliberately inserted to alienate the Shia
school-children from their faith. According to Mohammad Shehzad,
writing in the Friday Times on July 10, 2003, these offending
sections include, among others:
-
The incident of
wahee (revelation) has been described in a ridiculous manner
that shows the Prophet himself was not sure about his
prophet-hood. Islamiat, 4th grade, 22; Social Studies, 4th
grade, 115; Urdu, 8th grade, 14.
-
A picture that
depicts the Sunni style of saying prayer. Urdu, 2nd grade, 18.
-
The Sunni caliphs
have been presented as Khulfa-e-Rashideen [the Orthodox Caliphs]
unopposed by Shias. [The Shia do not recognize the first three
caliphs as Khulfa-e-Rashideen] Urdu, 3rd grade, 89; Arabic, 7th
grade, 46; Social Studies, 7th grade, 12-14.
-
The Caliphs [that
are not recognized by Shias] have been eulogized through titles
such as Siddique Amirul Momineen [Siddique, Commander of the
Faithful, the First Caliph Hazrat Abu Bakar Siddique] and Farooq
Amirul Momineen [Farooq, Commander of the Faithful, the Second
Caliph Hazrat Umar Farooq]. Shias claim such titles are only for
Hazrat Ali [the Fourth Caliph]. Urdu, 4th grade, 77; Islamiat,
4th grade, 25; Arabic, 8th grade, 27.
-
Yazid [who the
Shia's accuse of the killing of the Prophet's grandson, Hazrat
Hussain] has been totally exonerated in the Karbala events, which
culminated in the extermination of Hazrat Ali's son's (the
Prophet's grandchildren) Hassan and Hussain, and their families,
and the entire blame has been shifted to Ibn-e-Ziyad. Urdu, 8th
grade, 105.
-
The Prophet's wife
Ayesha has been projected as superior to all other women of the
Prophet's family through fake ahadiz (sayings of the
Prophet). Urdu, 7th grade, 9-10. ·
-
The Prophet's uncle
Hazrat Abu Talib has been described a non-Muslim. (Islamiat,
BA, 231).
-
"One of the
textbooks of Islamic Studies carries a picture that shows a boy
offering prayers in a manner practiced by the Sunnis i.e. hands
held together and put on the belly. Shias don't follow this
posture. The picture misleads a Shia student about his/her
religious rituals," said Ali Ahmed Jan, a Fellow of Leadership for
Environment and Development (LEAD).
-
Further, "The
textbooks have utterly ignored the contribution of Hazrat Ali in
the battle of Badar. It is a known fact that he had killed the
major chieftains of non-believers and played a key role in Badar's
success. Unfortunately, there is no mention of Hazrat Ali in the
books. Moreover, the books speak highly of the companions of Holy
Prophet but they are silent over the important figures from
Ahle-Biat [family of the Prophet]," said Shia scholar Amin
Shaheedi.
The Northern Areas of PoK, spread over
an area of 28, 000 square miles, comprise the five districts of
Gilgit, Ghizer, Diamer, Skardu and Ghanche. The population of
approximately 1.5 million has ethnic groups as varied as the Baltees,
Shinas, Vashkuns, Mughals, Kashmiris, Pathans, Ladhakhis and Turks
inhabiting the region, speaking a variety of languages like Balti,
Shina, Brushaski, Khawer, Wakhi, Turki, Tibeti, Pushto and Urdu.
Unlike the rest of Pakistan, Shias dominate the demography of the
Northern Areas. According to Faqir Mohammad Khan's The Story of
Gilgit, Baltistan and Chitral: A Short History of Two Millenniums,
Gilgit is 60 percent Shia, 40 percent Sunni; Hunza is 100 percent
Ismaili [a Shia sub-sect]; Nagar is 100 percent Shia; Punial is 100
percent Ismaili; Yasin is 100 percent Ismaili; Ishkoman is 100
percent Ismaili; Chilas is 100 percent Sunni; Astor is 90 percent
Sunni, 10 percent Shia; Baltistan is 96 percent Shia and 2 percent
Sunni.
The Northern Areas, administered directly by the Federal Government
from Islamabad, is governed by the Frontier Crime Regulations framed
during the British colonial era. The region is ruled directly by the
Minister of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas with a six-member
Cabinet. It remains largely neglected, with no university or
professional colleges. With an acute absence of industry,
subsistence is overwhelmingly based on tourism. The people of the
Northern Areas are denied representation in the Federal Parliament
and the local elected body, called Northern Areas Legislative
Council (NALC), has no powers even comparable to that of a municipal
body in a Pakistani city. Although elections to the NALC were held
under the military regime in 2000, financial and legislative powers
are yet to be delegated to the NALC.
Amidst the lack of civil and political rights, many movements
articulating dissent have emerged. The lack of political
representation has fueled demands for both formal inclusion within
the Pakistani state and for self-determination. In 1988, there was
sectarian unrest in Gilgit after Shias demanded an independent
state. However, the Pakistani army suppressed the revolt, allegedly
with the assistance of armed Sunni tribesmen from a neighboring
province.
The absence of a politics of criticism has dominated the Northern
Areas' historiography. Freedom of association and assembly is
restricted. Political parties advocating either self-rule or greater
political representation within Pakistan have, more often than not,
found their leaders being subjected to arbitrary arrest and long
prison terms. One such formation, the Balawaristan National Front (BNF),
estimated in 2003 that more than 70 individuals are facing sedition
or treason cases as a result of their political activities. BNF
leader Abdul Hamid Khan, while referring to the region as 'the heart
of darkness', notes that political and administrative circumstances
in NA - with total control exercised by Islamabad through the Army,
with no popular freedoms or rights, and tight censorship of all
information flows - make the region an ideal and secret place for
the relocation of the dislocated hub of international terrorism.
Pakistan's military regime is apprehensive of a geographical spread
of the sectarian cauldron, with the possibility of outlawed groups
like the Sunni Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Shia Sipah-e-Mohammed
Pakistan (SMP) fishing in troubled waters in the NA. Earlier, in
February 2004, Islamist extremists had destroyed at least nine
schools in Diamer. Many in NA believe that the schools were possibly
targeted because they are foreign funded. Mir Aman, resident editor
of the Kunjarab Times International, a Gilgit newspaper, said that,
as these schools began to attract students, "enrollment in madrassas
[seminaries] started declining and the fundamentalists took that as
a threat to their value system. The people in this backward area are
very religious and female education is considered a waste."
During the same month, the Federal Government had cracked down on an
unnamed group led by Maulvi Shahzada Khan in NA for its alleged
involvement in terrorist activities. Reportedly involved in bomb
blasts and firing at Social Action Programme school buildings in the
NA, the group is linked to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and other banned Sunni
Jehadi organisations. Intelligence sources quoted in a Daily Times
report of February 25 said that the group played a leading role
during the 'invasion' of Shia localities by an armed tribal force in
Gilgit in 1988. Being strategically vital to Islamabad's Kashmir
policy, the military regime can ill-afford another violent front
being unlocked, as it is already beleaguered on the Afghan border,
Karachi, Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province.
The problems over the syllabus and school curricula currently being
encountered in Gilgit and elsewhere in Pakistan, are largely the
product of a state endeavour to support a particular variant of
Islam. The very converse of 'enlightened moderation' is being
vigorously propounded by what an official of the Curriculum Wing
said is a 'powerful lobby' of ultra-Islamists who follow the Wahabi
school of thought. To be fair to the military regime, however, a
separate curriculum for the Shias is unlikely to provide a solution
given that it would only further aggravate sectarianism. The roots
of the problem lie in the Pakistani state's pre-occupation with the
entire process of Islamization, as also in the 'disengagement' of
the Northern Areas, a region that remains deeply neglected,
exploited and that has been denied a clear political identity. The
resulting ground reality is that the region is a tinderbox and the
syllabus issue may well be the spark that sets it aflame.
The author is: Research Fellow, Institute
for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings
on Conflict & Resolution. |
