Lynch mobs in India: lessons for Pakistan

The writer is an analyst and commentator.
The murder by lynching of a Muslim man in Dadri, UP in India on suspicions that he had eaten beef has, quite rightly, become a huge controversy. As India exposes the world to its own frailties and shortcomings, the instinct among many Pakistanis will be to feel a sense of vindication. This is understandable. India has escalated violence along the Working Boundary with Pakistan in recent months, at a time when Pakistani troops have been engaged in the most rigorous anti-TTP operations since the tumour of our past sins was manifest.
India has spurned Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s repeated overtures to engage in a conversation to help normalise the region. Perhaps worst of all, India’s official tone and attitude has descended to the level of a common, ratings- and follower-obsessed social media troll. It is easy for Pakistanis to see the various problems in Indian society and feel a certain sense of schadenfreude.
This is the wrong reaction for obvious spiritual and ethical reasons: we should always be wary of deriving any positive sentiment from another’s misfortune. There is an even more important reason Pakistanis should have a very sober take on the Dadri lynching: vigilante extremist violence is not alien to our society here in Pakistan.
In fact, it would not be inaccurate to state that we have tolerated the formal and informal institutionalisation of violence based on people’s hurt sentiments for so long now that certain kinds of murderous, illegal and irrational violence enjoys social acceptance in the exact same way that so many Indians, both ordinary folk and political leaders, are shamelessly defending the Dadri lynching.
India is a mess, but luckily, we left that mess behind when Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah gifted us a free Pakistan in 1947. The mess that should be our primary preoccupation is the one we have created here in the Islamic Republic since then.
On August 1, 2009 a mob of masked men attacked a predominantly Christian neighbourhood in Gojra, near Toba Tek Singh, in Faisalabad Division. Among the fatalities that day were eight Christians, including a seven-year-old child named Musa. I know the name Musa. It is a name some parents choose for their children in honour of the Prophet Moses – who is revered by Jews, Christians, Muslims, and all manners of people for his courage and bravery in facing down the tyrant Firoun. When we think of tyranny and we think of victimhood, sometimes it is easy to forget how a little perspective can change which side of the equation we are on: Musa’s? Or Firoun’s?
On May 28, 2010 a coordinated dual attack in Ghari Shahu and Model Town ended with 98 Ahmadi fatalities in their places of worship.
On September 22, 2013 a suicide attack on the All Saints Church in Peshawar killed 85 people while they were in church, worshipping.
On March 15, 2015 just this year, a church in Youhanabad in Lahore was attacked, resulting in the deaths of 15 Christian worshippers. Mob violence resulting from the attack ended with two more deaths, this time of Muslims.
On January 4, 2011 Governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by his security guard, a man named Mumtaz Qadri. The judge that convicted and sentenced the self-confessed murderer lives in hiding outside Pakistan. Those in Pakistan who admire Taseer for being a voice for minority rights organise annual vigils in his memory, whilst fearing being attacked by those in Pakistan that admire Mumtaz Qadri for being the bullet that silenced that voice. Qadri’s numerous fans have no need to fear anything when they celebrate the murder. They are the ones the Republic fears.
On November 4, 2014 a lynch mob, probably not dramatically different than the one in Dadri Uttar Pardesh last week, beat a Christian couple, Shama and Shehzad to death. Since the lynching alone was not enough, they were then thrown into a brick kiln and burnt beyond death.
On August 16, 2012 a Christian girl named Rimsha Masih was arrested by Islamabad police for alleged blasphemy. After the same people who miss Salmaan Taseer raised a ruckus, it turned out that the arrest was made on false charges. The person who made the false charges enjoys freedom, having been released after prosecutors could not find enough evidence against him. The person who was falsely accused, and her family, now lives safely – just like the judge who convicted Mumtaz Qadri – outside Pakistan.
There are dozens more of these kinds of stories that we could traipse through. I end with Rimsha’s case because it is, despite the survival of the victim, a deeply depressing thought to have to process over and over again. If you are falsely accused of blasphemy, the happy ending is a life on the run. This isn’t an accident. Just like the RSS and various elements of the Sangh Parivar are extremely well-organised and have created economic and social apartheid in India for Muslims, there are organisations in Pakistan that have worked long and hard to create an environment of oppression and asphyxiation for minorities in Pakistan.
Among the many reasons why this is unsustainable and must be resisted, none should be more compelling than the brazen immorality of people fearing for their lives based on what they believe. No society or state should tolerate such immorality – ever. But for Pakistan, whose very existence is rooted in the safety and protection of minorities, such immorality is a malignant tumour that must be resisted and removed at all costs.
Since there hasn’t been a census since 1998, we don’t quite know what percentage of our population constitutes ‘religious minorities’. Maybe three percent, maybe four percent. Some estimates suggest as much as seven percent.
Of course, this all depends on what counts as a minority. We don’t quite know what qualifies as a minority anymore, because so many of us are so invested in declaring the other ‘kaafir’. Some of the pronouncements by brothers of a Deobandi persuasion would lead us to believe that milad-attending sufis are a ‘minority’. Some of the pronouncements by brothers of a Barelvi persuasion would lead us to believe that tradition-rejecting Salafis are a ‘minority’.
Are Shias still mainstream? Or are Shias part of a minority? What kind of Shia? Oops. There are just so many. Zafarullah Khan. Sir Aga Khan. Quaid-e-Azam. Minorities in Pakistan? Sometimes, the head spins from the complexity of our identities’ identities.
Lynch mobs and the victimisation of minorities are not simple manifestations of dysfunctional law and order systems. They are manifestations of societies that have tacitly approved the dehumanisation of the ‘other’. In the United States, lynch mobs were not uncommon as recently as the 1950s and 1960s. President Lyndon B Johnston’s epochal reforms to the very concept of US citizenship went a long way to addressing that tendency to dehumanise African Americans – but the project to humanise US society at large continues to this day. Being a better nation is an unending quest.
Pakistan may never be perfect – but as a nation rooted in ideas (unlike many other nations) we have a moral obligation to challenge ourselves (and the republic) to be better than we are. More than six years after the Gojra violence, and more than six months after the lynching in Kot Radha Krishan, we should examine why we consistently allow our society to be held hostage by violent extremists, and why we consistently allow our state to abdicate its responsibilities.
If we can use the Dadri lynching in India to improve ourselves, as a society and a state, we would have done our Quaid and his legacy proud. Otherwise, we risk being no different from the callous society being built by Hindutvadi fervour across the border.