تمہارا ہاتھ تھام کر
رقص گاہ کی طرف
بڑھنا چاہتاہوں
اس جذبے کی قیادت میں
ایک دم توڑتی ہوئی
موسیقی کی طرح
Older (1996)
Songs from the Last Century (1999)
Patience (2004)
Symphonica (2014)
As a birthday present on my 26th, Fazal and Ain, my two good and close New Jersey friends, showed me the Indian comedy-drama film, PK. Amani, their 5-year old granddaughter, accompanied us as well to the cinema. Born to an American-Pakistani Muslim mother and an American Christian father of Lebanese origin, Amani is a perfect and beautiful blend of Arab, American, Pashtun, Christian, and Islamic identity features.
Sitting beside Amani and eating popcorn while watching the movie, a thought from my past struck me: In childhood, my religious mentor taught me that Muslims are the best people on the planet Earth. I grew up hearing conceited claims that Heaven is only for Muslims. And that non-Muslims will be burnt in Hell forever. Does not matter who. Nelson Mandela? Mother Theresa? All of them. Their virtuousness and humanity does not count at all because they don’t believe in ‘our’ God and our religion, Islam. I was told. I was also taught that non-Muslims could never be friends with Muslims. And that we can never share meal with them as they are not pure like us (Muslims).
Absurd lessons such as these imply that non-Muslims must immediately convert to Islam in order for them to be good human beings and on par with Muslims. It seems as if human dignity is inherent in Muslimness only. However, I have successfully escaped this trap through my own reflection, and through appeal to reason, love, and compassion.
I admit though that I am neither a scholar of Islam nor of religion in general. I have no authority, like everybody else, to certify who is superior and who is inferior in the sight of God. But I do believe that the universality of a religious ideology (Islamic or else) does not mean its uniformity, as there exist a variety of popular religious beliefs with relative strength, potential, and their acceptance by humongous populations. Therefore, they all deserve equal protection and space for an unrestricted and independent practice.
As my train of thoughts continued, I looked at Amani and wondered: What religion does she belong to? Islam or Christianity, a blend of the two, or something in the middle? Or, does her religious identity, if anything, matter at all? Then I wondered what religion does her family as a single whole belong to? What religion does the feeling of love, which bound her parents together, belong to? The answer is that there are no clear divisions due to the complex and crosscutting nature of human identities that interlink us all in multiple and unbelievably varied ways.
But my country Pakistan is the complete opposite of what I believe in and hold dear to my heart. It does not even remotely resemble a place where people of diversity could live in unity and harmony. Far from accepting people of other religions, extremist groups and their sympathizers among masses are at daggers drawn with their coreligionists. Shia Muslims, Ismailis, Ahamdis, Christians, Hindus, and pagan communities in the farthest north of Pakistan have been perpetrated violence against by extremist groups for quite too long. As there does not seem any change in the exclusivist thinking of the people and policies of the state, religious violence is on a rise.
Since the beginning of 2015 only, there have been some large-scale attacks against religious minorities. While the irreparable wounds of Shikarpur and Youhanabad attacks against Shia Muslims and Christians respectively are still fresh in our memory, yet on May 13 another horrific episode of violence was unleashed on Ismailis in Karachi. 43 people including 16 women were murdered in cold blood. I am sure that as some are lamenting the brutal killing of Ismaili Shia, there may be many others who live indifferently in its face as they are led into make-believes that eliminating such ‘heretics’ from the land of Islam and Pakistan is the responsibility of ‘true’ Muslims. And such is also the popular public narrative at homes, in social gatherings on streets, in Islamic education classes at schools, and on loudspeakers in mosques. And this kind of religious hate and exclusivism boils down to one simple but dangerous idea that sectarian killing is necessary for purifying Islam from ‘apostates’. Our collective silence and inability or unwillingness in the face of such murderous ideologies has created a huge void filled in by the preachers of violence and murder in the name of faith.
Therefore, it is high time that we reappraise our thinking by developing a pluralist thought and hence a tolerant society. Accomplishing such pluralism requires challenging individuals, groups, and institutions that desire to impose their extremist narrative on others through violence regardless of their choice in faith. We also need to educate our younger generation which is being, and will continue to be, trapped into make-believes that I experienced myself once. But doing so is not easy when parents forbid their children from reading books antithetical to their beliefs. An educated friend of mine, who is pursuing a master’s degree in the US, was stopped by his ‘educated’ father from reading a book on secularism. Much harder as it is, I suggest it is through trust with our family and friends that we can make pluralist mindsets popular and acceptable among them, in our immediate social circles, and eventually in our communities.
Moreover, with our world coming much closer together than ever before, we have much in common to unite than fight for. I am aware of the fact that religious boundaries can’t simply cease to exist, and certainly for multiple practical reasons and purposes. But, I believe, we can still be accepting of others by thinning our self-created thick and impenetrable walls of religious and cultural identities. Doing so is possible by appealing to our human identity, which is the strongest, the most transcendental, and above all else.
All this may seem too quixotic but still possible and appropriate. And idealism for peace is more than worth trying for. I believe that it is only love for humanity that will counter religious biases and violence justified on their bases. I am not against religion. But its criticism does warrant merit when loathsome and dangerous ideologies associated with it are promoted at the cost of humanity. I do acknowledge that religion does have conspicuous and valuable contributions in providing hope to the hopeless and helpless, in disciplining society, and in reinforcing ethical and human values but it has also limited the scope for practicing humanity.
But I also believe that human beings are hard-wired for virtuousness. Which means they are inherently empathetic without believing in any form of religion. And it is no surprise that many smile at me. I feel loved by thousand others. Million others accept me without any discrimination, no matter where I am in the world. And I see them on my side. On the side of humanity.
PK, released in December 2014, also makes a solid and timely plea for deconstructing millennialist religious narratives propagated by religious “managers” (as rightly called in the movie). On reflection, in the real world, these religious entrepreneurs and their franchises are engaged unabashedly in presenting differences of faith as an existential struggle for establishing transcendental and eschatological truth i.e. their brand of religion is absolutist and superior to all others. It is at such critical juncture that the film strongly demands from us the reappraisal of our thinking about the world and our fellow humans on the planet Earth.
Finally, we need to look at life as a much bigger and richer entity than religion. Religion is just a tiny part of it, not the other way around. There is no one prescribed way to enjoy, live, and understand life in order to be at peace with it. There are in fact million ways to look at it and to live it. Religion, among others, is one way of looking at life and the world. The solution to our problems lies not in aggression but in introspection. In inclusiveness and acceptance of others. Not in Muslim exclusivism. And we must understand that every person has inherent dignity in them, and must strive to act in ways that reaffirm the inherent dignity of every person regardless of faith.
The world is clearly becoming more spiritual than religious. In an increasingly more inter-connected, information saturated society where the natural human ideals of freedom and pluralism are becoming central to the tenants of governance across the globe, identities are becoming more and more fluid. Faith just like social media profiles has become the corner stone of 21st century identity and this post-modern social order has created a conscience against the institutional nature of religion. The beauty and success of social media platforms, is the freedom, ease, volatility and mutation of expression and ideas which circulate the online ether – change and re-change with time. In this world – the institutional framework of religion – is finding itself cornered in fewer and fewer undemocratic societal settings – be it a country, a community or a family unit.
When Rupert Murdoch bought the social networking site MySpace for $580 million in 2005 to expand his media empire to cyberspace, he tested his model of content commoditization and regulation. MySpace soon tanked and Murdoch was forced to offload the site for less than half the money he had spent. This in my opinion is the future of religion, signs of which are already evident across the world. Those who consider faith to the inextricably linked to identity, are likely to cut the institutional middle men and rituals, to achieve a personalized and subjective relationship with a higher power. On the other hand, those who live in a system where institutional faith or singular ideologies are entrenched in the political system – are likely to be attracted to ‘unorganized’ faith narratives with the ‘self’ at the center – like Zen, Buddhism, Shintoism and Hinduism amongst others. The simple social evolution of mankind in an environment of expressional freedom and volatile organization is working to make faith a more salient tie-up of just Man and God – high on self-symbolism, but a gradual loss of focus on regiments, lineage or attendance at places of worship.
Earlier, religious sites like churches, temples and mosques used to be the prime centers of social and intellectual authority. With the advent of cyberspace and the liberation of opinion – intellectual authority has become more and more fractured, and so has man’s ability to understand God. In that scenario, faith will gradually mold and re-mold around core humanist beliefs, re-enforced by widely accepted social justice norms – yet expression will become highly subjective down to the very individual. 21st century piety will be completely disconnected from a traditional line of faith diktats. Social groups who have traditionally been kept away from certain faith systems will find themselves in not only a more favorable environment, but will have the opportunity, even the legitimacy to negotiate and re-negotiate their concept of god and religion. Even as there is already a fledgling yet sustained movement towards spiritual plurality, traditionalists and extremists are hitting back with seclusion, persecution politics, paranoia and even violence. But they have already lost the ideological battle. Their role is already being seen as medieval and outdated, a hindrance to more universal and individualistic spiritual identities, where there are no pre-requisite rules or parameters to adopt faith.
One of the passages in the Gospel of Saint Thomas, a Coptic Christian text with the words of Jesus says – “The Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up
the stone, and you will find Me”. This is the core belief of every faith, even if some are clearer than others. We are shifting, although not harmoniously, to adopt these tenets in our spiritual experience and become the sole negotiators of our relationship with a higher power. The progress is natural, and reflects our basic human trait to seek ideological liberation.
Ayushman Jamwal

The freedom to express is an innate human attribute that people have fought and died defending through the ages against various institutional forces. The right to free speech has struggled against religious and political dogma, and continues to do so even as the tenets of democracy, secularism and human rights have been indoctrinated in the constitutions of democracies across the world. The case of India and Pakistan is no different. This ‘universal’ freedom remains elusive because political convenience tends to determine its scope. There are plenty of cases in India where the freedom of expression ceases to exist as an apolitical right, being irresponsibly slapped with serious charges like sedition or the incitement of hatred. Activists like Binayak Sen who demanded the central government to give the tribes of Red Belt their Constitutional rights, and writers like Arundati Roy who regularly invoked the political narrative of a free Kashmir have been branded traitors for their views. Even the case of Aseem Trivedi, a cartoonist who was charged with sedition for remaking the Indian national symbol of the 3 lions with 3 jackals to highlight political corruption, is another unfortunate indictment of the freedom we are supposedly guaranteed.
Social sensitivities, ideologies, beliefs, symbols all are human constructions, as fragile and imperfect as their creators. Just like people, they cannot be exempt from questioning, criticism, even ridicule. There is a very clear difference between criticism and hate speech. It is the foolishness and irresponsibility of the critic to ever espouse hate and defend it as criticism. Yet at the same time, any belief comes with responsibility. The doctrines of global faiths are as morally potent as the constitutions of secular nations, and those who espouse hate, crackdown on freedom and commit violence in their name are pseudo- believers, believers plagued by an insecurity of identity, or even an insidious nature. To them, the violent defence of a belief outweighs the need for self-reflection within a doctrine of faith, causing a constant confusion between criticism and hate. If one’s identity is associated with an ideology, that conviction should exist beyond the spatial temporal boundaries of the world for the individual to be truly called a proponent of that belief. In that case, the criticism of a name or a symbol can never shake the conviction of identity.
I was discussing the case of Danish cartoons of the Prophet with my friend from Pakistan one day. He criticised the publishing of the cartoons saying the freedom of another individual ends where his begins. All I asked him was in what way did the negative expressions of the cartoons shake his faith in Islam? Similarly, how does a youtube video titled ‘Innocence of Muslims’ threaten the faith of half the Muslim world where it became the root of wanton destruction. In Pakistan, why does a Muslim need blasphemy laws to defend the sanctity of his or her faith?
Aseem Trivedi’s cartoon ridiculing the national emblem can never shake my faith in my country. Its ridicule is nothing compared to traitorous political corruption. Those guilty of political corruption should in fact be charged with sedition for betraying the state, not a cartoonist using shock rhetoric to highlight a crucial issue, like all artists have done through the ages.
The health of a democracy is derived from how diverse and competitive its marketplace of ideas is. All narratives; the liberal, the moral, the realist and the insidious must confront each other without the fear of being gagged by authorities. National doctrines can only be strengthened if the responsible narrative emerges victorious from that confrontation. Political figures and thought leaders must battle for the victory of those narratives in the public sphere and not concede defeat by suppressing expression. The constantly recycled argument that people get negatively influenced is not valid as it assumes the citizenry is stupid, and cannot perceive the truth behind rhetoric or expression. The argument sets a poor precedent, making something as serious as sedition and blasphemy an easy weapon against free speech.
I commend the news media and the citizenry of India and Pakistan who do their part in defending the freedom of expression. Our democracies are strengthened by our actions. While we can’t perfectly mitigate the political convenience of clamping down on free speech; we can speak up against it so that such actions do not occur in our name.

Ayushman Jamwal is a political journalist based in New Delhi