The Blog: The Secular Tableeghi

Pakistan and Secularism; the ultimate goal. 

I grew up in the Pakistan of the 1990s. It was a very different Pakistan to the Pakistan I left in 2000s. The quiet alleyways of Islamabad, the bustling traffic of Lahore and PTV dramas at 8PM were some of the finest memories that I left the 1990s with. It was the time when Noor Jehan was still alive, and for us as kids the most anticipating occasion was to visit the newly opened "Animal Kingdom" in Rawalpindi. Things were so simple and the biggest worry at that time (for us) was to find out a way to come up with a reason to miss the "tuition" that night. As school kids, our targets were to miss the school and tuition on alternate basis. If we are sick at school on a Wednesday, we had to be sick at our local Tuition on a Thursday. The shuffling and the alternating of absence from one or the other was somewhat gratifying. 

Beneath the surface and beyond our rather naive shenanigans, we also grew up being fed a doctrine which defined Pakistan as a nation. "Pakistan Studies" and "Islamiyat," quite aggressively and repetitively; reinforced the idea of Pakistan's Islamic nationhood. Pakistan is a country made in the name of Islam and  Islam is what keeps us together as a nation. Simple mathematics became algebra, and algebra became calculus as we progressed grades through the years but these subjects hardly changed in (their) thematic ideas. What would change was the length of the (respective subject) books we would study, and the length of essays we would write on those subjects. 

Watching PTV news at 9PM meant that it was time for us to wrap up for bed. It was the time when my dad would quietly walk up the stairs of our house towards the main television lounge to watch his news. It was also a very well indication that good kids "do not stay up beyond 9PM". I used to be glued to television, because I loved moving images. It was so much to an extent that I would try and keep my dad engaged in trivial conversations so that I could catch a few more glimpse of the moving images. (Predictably a decade and so later, I graduated with a degree in television production). Watching news, I almost could predict its narrative. It would start with a conservatively dressed woman greeting and summarizing the news. Then, how Nawaz Sharif had been working effortlessly to open a new dam in some part of Pakistan. Then came the anti-India news filter (India was this giant country which was anti-Muslims) and then the news about the weather. Near the news finishing time, if lucky (that is if a Chinese diplomat was visiting Pakistan) you would hear happy songs on Pakistan-China friendship. If not then, the regular demo of 20 minutes on how India abuses the rights of Kashmiris and how it is against Muslims (generally). For a long period of time, I did not even have the slightest clue on the fact that there were more Muslims in India than the entire population of Pakistan. 

I grew up older and moved to Lahore. It was then I got admitted into the prestigious, Government College. Naturally, Islamiyat (Islamic Studies) and Pakistan-Studies were compulsory subjects to pass, and gain admission into university. I had also come from a school where Quran Studies were compulsory too, and so was Arabic. At Islamic Studies classes, boring as they were (the same as what I had studies from Class 1 was taught); the debates would get more heated. Students would talk about who would go to Hell and Heaven. Why was the "society becoming corrupt" and the crime was increasing? I remember one of the students saying; it was because the women in the society were walking around unveiled that the crime rate increased. Logically impossibly, yet the student (quite skillfully) proved his point. My (home) tuition had also advanced and I was taking tuition from a doubled masters (in Statistics and Mathematics) unemployed teacher. From being a charming young man to an overtly religiously- "bearded" man was a transformation I saw in a few months. His logic and reasoning (was critical but for some reason) was rather disproportionally-disconnected. Now that I think back, it was almost as if he was trying to say something else and expressing something completely else. He was trying to say that he was unemployed and having his doubled masters degree did not get him a good job. He was also trying to say that he was incapable, and very unlikely to overcome poverty (due to the ineffectiveness of the government). However instead how he used to reason was that, in Pakistan true Islam was never implemented and that it is a great international conspiracy that was letting us down (hence the bad economy). 

Years went past, I ended up studying in New Zealand for my later high school years and university. It was one day when I asked a Chinese student, "what is your religion?". She quite comfortably replied, "I have no religion". I shivered with amazement! How could someone have no religion? It was something I grew up with so rigorously and so reassuringly. I had met Parsis, Christians but, having a no-religion was rather a fresh-out-of-the-box. I was also subscribed to a class on Ethics and it was then I learnt about the "European Age of Enlightenment". I learnt about the reasons behind Western Values and how they were determined. I felt that I had a chemical reaction happened to me in my mind at that time at one of those class tutorials. I changed,  and was ready to accept (previously of what I would have thought of as odd ideas like) it was OK to have no religion, and it was also OK to have religion. So as long as we respected each others' rights, and liberties. It is that time that I gave birth to liberalism and secularism in my brain. Later living in New Zealand, I couldn't help but draw comparisons (between Pakistan and New Zealand) on the ideas of being a rightful citizen,  having freedom and most importantly "being-yourself".

After I completed my studies, I started traveling back to Pakistan but this time around I saw Pakistan with a completely different perspective. I saw that religion had become the determining factor in who was right and who was wrong. Yet at the very same time, the poetic sense of religion also enabled the many interpretations of it, and its many manipulations. The opposing schools of thoughts have and had, become so fiercely competitive that costing a life of the other was a mere trivial instance. Pakistan was in a  "Chakra of Violence". Pakistan-Studies and Islamic-Studies, were now making a lot more sense. I had come up to a conclusion that, it was a bad idea to learn year-by-year over the years that being a Pakistani meant being a true Muslim. Who was to decide who was a true Muslim anyway? 

I, today as a maturing man think that there has to be a conscience where a new sense nationhood is built (on the values of a shared identity) than just being Muslims. It is the only way Pakistan can escape from the "Chakra of Violence". It is a time to make it clear that the only way to co-exist is to coexist. I have kept the title of the blog ;"The Secular Tableeghi". Tableeghi stands for a devout person who serves his life towards (religious) preaching. And it is as if I feel (almost my religious-ly) duty, to convey the message of secularism as an antidote to the doctrine that has incited hatred and violence in Pakistan for the past many years.