Religion and politics are two important but separate domains. Religion can be not only be used as a guiding tool in multiple aspects of life, but it could also become a tool of manipulation. Historically, religion has caused a vast number of conflicts around the world. But, religion itself is not to be blamed as people who use religion for political gains are the real problem.
Take, for example, the case of European history. Although most Europeans were Christians, their sub-religious schools of thoughts, primarily the reformist and anti-reformist, became the cause behind many conflicts. Moreover, there have also been numerous fights among Protestants and Catholics as well. The “War of Cologne”, the “Thirty Years War” and many others occurred because of religious differences. All these conflicts led to the death of millions of men, women and children. And as a result, huge economic and military losses were incurred.
Both religion and politics have one common goal: that is to acquire political power and use it to fulfill their aims. However, to achieve this object, their methods are different. Religion mobilizes religious sensibilities of people in order to get their support to capture power; while politics uses intrigue, diplomacy, and makes attempt to win public opinion either democratically, if the system allows it, or usurps power with the help of army, if the society is under-developed and backward.
Therefore, in power struggle, both politics and religion make attempts to undermine each other. If religion holds political authority, its ambition is to exploit it to fulfill a divine mission. It claims that it derives authority from divinity and therefore its mission is holy, motivated to reform society under the spiritual guidance. Politics, on the contrary, bereft of any value, directs its policy on the needs and requirements of society whereupon, it obliges to change laws and system of government accordingly. This is a basic difference between two approaches of religion and politics:
Religion determines its authority on divine laws which could not be changed with human intervention;
While in pragmatic political approach society should move ahead, change and adjust itself with the new arising challenges of time.
In its secular approach man is responsible to determine his destiny. He is not under the control of divinity to remain submissive and inactive. On the contrary, he is supposed to initiate and plan to build a society according to his vision.
But if one is to analyse closely, one can make the argument that religion was only used as a reason to involve people in these conflicts. The actual purpose was to gain political supremacy. The very same has happened in our contemporary history. Religion has long been used as the dividing line between the masses. The people have been controlled and manipulated by religious sentiments. When religious sentiments were amalgamated with politics, history became a witness to the inevitable catastrophic consequence of India’s partition — the biggest migration even in history.
Using religion as a tool to win people over has been a very effective technique for the political elite. As a result, religious intolerance is on the rise. This is a matter of grave concern and it has been paid lesser heed than it deserves. It is about time that we fix these fault lines because the consequences could prove really disastrous for the world, let alone Pakistan.
Faseeh Ahmed
Attock
