On minorities -Part II

The writer is a lawyer.

A best-seller in the pop-up market of coping mechanisms is a type of joke with the punchline, ‘nature is healing itself’. Poking fun at cooped up humans, it introduces various elements of nature that have (re)claimed public space, instead. Protagonists range from penguins waddling in front of the Eiffel Tower to dolphins doing backflips in the Lahore Canal.

As nature heals, the latest creature to remind us of its pulse – more elusive, even, than the recently captured Himalayan lynx – is the National Commission on Minority Rights. You may know it as the body tasked with representing the unrepresented, the defenders of the downtrodden (except that one group that remains hidden beneath the proverbial boot on the throat).

What you’re less likely to know is that this body hasn’t actually been recently constituted. It’s less, even, like replacing the furniture, than it is like realizing that the lumpy old sofas are now empty.

It’s hard to blame the government for this. Even before it slipped into a coma induced by sheer neglect, the Commission made once-a-year cameos with ‘we should really hang out soon’ type smalltalk. As its name was dropped for brownie-points at international fora, it’s heart-rate was never tasked with rising above a languid 60 bpm.

As the Commission rubs sleep out of puffy eyes, it is reminded that there’s a lot it’s been trying to repress. For one, it’s a creation of the cabinet. This deprives it of any real legs to stand on. Parliament could be the fairy to it's ‘not-a-real-boy’ dilemma, but creation by statute can only give it legs, not length of stride: minority rights are a provincial subject. Secondly, it’s been placed under the Ministry of Religious Affairs. While religion often seems the only faultline of consequence, there are others. Promise.

And then, of course, is the bit that made headlines: that absence during roll-call that gives the impression of a male rugby team deconstructing the female condition.

As the Commission bops in and out of hibernation, the arm that last reached into its hole and held it to the sun was that of Justice Jilani – back in 2014. Yesterday’s piece addressed the need for an honest appraisal of the white on our flag. It also suggested the importance of a clear path to hold to task a government that meanders, existentially adrift, down none of its own. For this, the Jilani judgment is as good a proposal as any.

In the days since suo motu 1 of 2014, there is a standard procedure in place: laud the judgment and lament the failure to implement it. Given how few venture beyond rhetoric, Peter Jacob, and the Centre for Social Justice deserve all the more praise for detailing the disappointment in ‘Long Wait for Justice’.

The overall compliance score is under 25 percent: the federal government received a zero. This, despite directions that a separate bench be tasked with implementation. The bench, in turn created a single-man commission, who in turn has expressed much frustration.

A quick disclaimer: the judgment was penned in 2014, the report in 2019 – so, much of the blame is to be shared with the previous government. Also, the federal government can’t fix everything: the game has rules.

Remember, though, that this series concerns what Imran Khan calls his vision. To that extent: ‘it is what it is’. If the prime minister too is irked by such tautologies, he may not want to test his relationship with it’s cousin, ‘que sera sera’ – ‘whatever will be will be’.

The Minorities Commission, (referred to as a ‘Council’) was one of a list of the Jilani Court’s eight directives. Before that was the creation, by the federal government, of a task force to “develop a strategy of religious tolerance” Over half a decade later, no such task force exists, despite its later inclusion in the National Action Plan.

Next, defanging of provincial curricula to remove religious bias – again, largely a failure. A 2016 USCIRF report comparing religious bias in provincial curricula between 2011 and 2016 shows an overall increase of 180 percent in instances of bias. The criteria for what constitutes bias is debatable, but sifting through the examples leaves quite the aftertaste.

Fans of the Two-Nation Theory shall be delighted to discover that a ‘natural’ basis been discovered for it – in Sindh no less, where 7th graders are taught:

“Muslims persistently struggled for 25 years for Hindu-Muslim reconciliation, but it all failed and in this failure there is the role of nature. Nature does not want them to cooperate, as there is nothing common between these two, they should not pursue any collaboration.”

A textbook in Balochistan – part of a curriculum that actively encourages tighter linkages between religion and the state – unironically proclaims:

“After getting rid of the illegal and ignorant rule of the Church, Europe progressed in the fields of modern/worldly knowledge, political acceptance and the arts.”

That children not be subjected to systemic racism and bias in classrooms is, of course, a bare minimum expectation. While such nuggets of wisdom abound in subjects from Social Studies to Urdu, there’s no counterbalance. The alternative to Islamiat is ‘Ethics’, not Hinduism; Sikhism; or even some broader ‘World Religions’ course. Even so, most minorities end up having to take Islamiat because the books and teachers for anything else are mostly nowhere to be found.

As the National Curriculum Council now debates a ‘single-standard’ curriculum, it would be great if they’d rethink the standards it seeks to standardise.

Third, it asked the federal government to curb hate speech on social media. Spurred by the National Action Plan, this is one area that has been taken forward, with the passage of the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) listing hate speech. But hate speech comes in different flavours, and while Bytes For All attributes the largest chunk (42 percent) to the religious kind, there’s no nuance to our compliance measurement. (Interestingly, 42 is also the number of millions of rupees allocated by the government to defend itself online – again, a different kind of speech.) Despite PECA’s introduction, towards the end of 2018, of the 75 banned outfits in the country, 36 still operate active social media pages.

Next, it asked that a special police force be established to protect places of worship for minorities. The mobs in Nankana Sahib and Kasur, mentioned in the previous piece, are testament enough to progress here. Generally, too, no compliance has been recorded by the federal government. At the provincial level, security plans – though submitted – remain unimplemented.

Punjab, for example, first threw its hands up saying it did not have the resources to cope, and then attempted to pass compliance costs on to the concerned communities. In 2015, it ordered churches to raise walls; add barbed wire; and hire security guards. Four years later, it sent a reminder threatening to shut the churches down.

A related directive mandated prompt action, and follow-through, when places of worship were threatened. To use the Nankana Sahib incident, again, it took a full seven days before Imran Ali Chishti was reduced to a solemn face behind bars. If any arrests were made in Kasur, they weren't publicised.

Finally, the judgment addressed enforcement of minority employment quotas. At first glance, this is the only directive to have actually been implemented.

But even provinces that report compliance lack sufficient outcome data and breakdowns as to the nature of employment. This is a sector where, historically, the closest thing to a minority quota has been reservation of sanitation jobs for non-Muslims. As of 2018, 2.8 percent of federal government employees were non-Muslim; 80 percent were BPS 1-4. Less than two percent were BPS 17-22. The title to a recent New York Times piece, ‘Sewer Cleaners Wanted: Only Christians May Apply’, a tale of ‘death in the gutters’, remains a pithy testament to the truth.

So here it is, Mr Prime Minister. It is what it is.

In bidding us goodbye, Justice Jilani, left us with the following:

Maana ke iss jahan ko gulistan na kar sakay,/Kaantay tau kuch hata diye guzray thay hum jahan se.

As the Long Wait grows longer, thorns sprout afresh, Mr Prime Minister.

Concluded

Email: salaar.khan@columbia.edu

Twitter: @brainmasalaar