‘Differences turn into conflict’

LAHORE
Differences transform into conflict due to the absence of institutional mechanisms needed to control, manage and regulate those differences. The adoption of a democracy hung-over on colonialism has failed to deliver these institutions in India and Pakistan.
Famous historian and professor at Jawahar Laal Neru University, Romila Thapar and eminent historian and Mary Richardson Professor of History at Tufts University, Ayesha Jalal, both agreed on this in a titled “Living with Internal Differences: The South Asian Dilemma” on a session on the 3rd day of the Lahore Literary Festival at Alhamra Art Center on Sunday.
The session was moderated by Khaled Ahmed between Aysha Jalal, Asma Jahangir and Romila Thapar.
Romila Thapar said that the differences in South Asia were not managed and left free. The emergence of middle class and the infighting by different groups for power in post-nation states turned them into large-scale conflicts, she maintained.
Ayesha Jala said that the problems Pakistan faced during nation-building was that the democracy introduced after independence was not participatory. Pakistan could not build civil society as well as democratic institutions.
Asma Jahangir, famous lawyer and human rights activist, said that she found the concept of nation-states too as a legacy of colonial masters and an unnatural binding. She said that unity was one thing and diversity was another and in nation-states the later was compromised. In Pakistan, issues and problems were not brought forth, she added. Ending conflicts needed a lot of dialogue and if these were just put under the carpet, these came out with greater intensity, she maintained. “There is no permanent majority in a true democracy, defines on racial or religious bases. Majority and minority change over every issue”, she said responding to the question as to who was responsible for the problems of the majority in democracy. For democracy they needed a secularized education system, legal system and other systems, she added. Most of the laws our society had were not relevant today and these were the continuation of colonialism, she said. They did not bother to try to fix these and shrugged our responsibility saying let these work if these were working, she claimed.
Ayesha said that democracy is itself a conflict and the problem of Pakistan was that it could not create the institution which could moderate these conflicts. Pakistan could not even make a difference between elected and unelected institutions, she added. The conflicts magnified because we did not allow system to work, she maintained.
Answering the question what happened after the Islamization of society, Asma said that most important factor for democracy to work was equality. Islamisation of the constitution and other institution laid the foundations of injustice, she claimed. In Pakistan, a non-Muslim could not become prime minister or president of the country and even a non-Muslim lawyer could not appear before Federal Shariat Court, she said.