AT PENPOINT
The killing of a Sri Lankan, Priantha Kumar Diyawadanage, for alleged blasphemy has raised a number of demons, some old, some new, which have made the incident more of an emotive event than it seems to be.
There has been a lot of emphasis on the fanaticism implicit in the lynching, but there has not been enough of a look at the class dimension. The murdered man was a manager, and thus of a different social and economic class from the mob that killed him. The class divide is further stressed by the information that emerged, that the mob wanted to go after the factory owner.
Economic times are hard. Not only do the workers find it difficult to get by on their salaries, but the fact that the government has failed to create the jobs it promised means that worker’s children do not find jobs as they grow up. That knowledge is enough to cancel out any relief afforded by their still having a job themselves. This knowledge is made more painful by any sacrifices that might have been made to ensure that those kids got an education better than their father’s.
While there is a definite class dimension visible, trade unionism or Marxism has not taken advantage it seems, but religious sentiment. This does make a certain sense, for it means that workers finding it difficult to go on making ends meet, and seeing no improvement in the long-term future, are turning to a Higher Power, the Almighty, to solve their problems.
This is where the connection between the religious parties and ordinary people becomes visible. People’s problems are mundane, like making a living, a child’s wedding. Even an apparently abstruse problem, such as what happens after one dies, is immediate for someone who faces the prospect of dying in the next few years. Religious parties generally do not have any solutions.
The danger is not that Pakistan might be seen as soft or hard on blasphemy, but it might be seen as inefficient, unable to protect foreign nationals.
Be that as it may, there was another development in Sialkot, which took religious parties to a new level. The murdered man is accused to having taken down posters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan. Blasphemy has generally been a nonpartisan offence so far. This is the first time it has been associated with a particular party. This creates a dangerous precedent for all parties. Religio-political parties have a reputation for street power, based on the seminary students it can bring to rallies, but they have never used this street power for violence. The same cannot be said about the Jamaat Islami’s student wing, the IJT.
The example of the IJT might serve to illustrate the lack of tolerance of opposing views that such parties might show. The IJT, if strong enough, does not tolerate opposing parties’ posters or programmes. It does not object to campaign material, only organisational material. The election laws prevent any person using religious sanctions against anyone opposing them, such as a candidate threatening anyone voting against him, or for some other candidate, with hellfire. This is a restriction dating back to the British era, and to the 19th century, when electorates might have been limited, but were joint, and the hurling of anathemas would not just have been inter-sectarian but inter-communal.
There may have been a communal undertone, with good Muslims resenting being ordered around by a foreigner who was also a Buddhist, but the Muslims showed their superficial knowledge of their own religion by burning the body. Burning is not part of the permitted methods of execution. Burning is perhaps the only method of punishment specifically forbidden by the Shariah. There are certain hud punishments, which have been specified. Stoning to death is prescribed for the adulterer, but ordinary execution for the murderer. The murder may not be burnt, because that is a punishment reserved by the Almighty for Himself, when He casts sinners into hellfire on the Day of Judgment.
Blasphemers are to be executed, and the Qazi is left to decide the method, but burning is not one of them. Nor is beating to death. While not forbidden, that does not sound like something a state would do. Such means as beheading, hanging, electrocution, lethal injection would be possible. The purpose is execution, not to precede the dread event by any form of torture.
Who was the bright spark who thought of burning the body?
After execution, the body is supposed to be handed over to the heirs, who may deal with it according to their religion. Only in the event of an armed robber, who is to be crucified after execution, does the Sharia deal with the disposal of the corpse.
There is one story doing the rounds which may well be even more disturbing if true. That is, the dead man was actually placed in the factory as a foreign lender, and there was a conspiracy to scare him. Unfortunately, it went wrong.
If the stories about the TLP being backed by certain quarters are true, recent events should indicate that religious sentiments cannot be played with to achieve limited ends. Things can go wrong. Actions motivated by religious sentiments can go wrong. The reason is the difference in intention. The manipulator may simply want a party to have its vote split, while the person or group manipulated wants to stop blasphemy.
At a certain level, playing with such sentiments is inviting trouble. Sialkot shows that people do not have confidence in the justice system, or the government. It is supposed to punish offences, in order to prevent the law being taken into private hands. Blasphemy is to be punished by the state, because private persons are likely to take the law into their own hands.
It should be noted the incidents justifying the death sentences for blasphemers were cases where Muslims heard of the blasphemy, went off and killed the blasphemer, and then presented themselves before the Holy Prophet (PBUH). Much later than Prophetic times, there was a major blasphemy crisis in Cordoba, where over the course of nine years between April 850 and May 859, 48 Christians committed very public blasphemy and were executed. The authorities did not like what was happening, but had to act, not just because they were outraged, but because Muslim sentiment was inflamed. The spate of blasphemy, which was motivated by the desire to attain martyrdom, only came to an end when the Bishop of Cordoba, who was behind this movement, himself committed blasphemy and was executed.
Pakistan has to face up to the reality that people do not trust the state to punish blasphemy. The authorities of ninth-century Cordoba may have been under pressure, but they were able to get the Muslims to go along with them because they took action. Unfortunately, accusation is assumed to prove guilty because the justice system is seen as bowing to foreign pressure. The justice system is not trusted overall, and blasphemy is another example of this.
Apart from the law and order issues, there are foreign entanglements. Sri Lanka has been wavering between India and China, which considers it crucial to the maritime portion of its One Belt One Road initiative. One result was its growing closer to Pakistan, one sign of which was the increase in the number of Sri Lankans working in Pakistan’s textile sector. China will be very interested in how Pakistan handles this case, as its own citizens were killed while working on the Dasu hydroelectric project, with arrests still to be made.
The danger is not that Pakistan might be seen as soft or hard on blasphemy, as that it might be seen as inefficient, unable to protect foreign nationals.
