The first ever public holiday for Holi, the festival of the Hindus and Easter for the Christian minority, has not gone well in Pakistan. The two holidays combined with a bunch of reformist and liberal measures and gestures by the Nawaz Sharif Government have the conservatives asking in protest whether Pakistan remains an Islamic Republic. The government announcement about Holi was sought to be scuttled by elements of the Sindh Government that pursued a resolution by the National Assembly, since a bulk of Hindus live in Sindh. The Labour and Human Resourc Development Department announced the holiday was ‘only’ for the Hindu workers. But the Chief Secretary, ostensibly on political orders, stepped in to declare the holiday for every citizen.
However, there was widespread resentment. Sections of the government, private schools and other institutions and the Muslim clergy vehemently opposed it. It was asked why the minorities should at all receive a ‘special’ treatment in a Muslim majority nation. The Sindh Government, run by the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), for once going along with the federal government, was derided by the conservatives as “Saeen Sarkar”, a government wih Hindu influence. “Enemies want the country to become a secular and liberal state,” said Lashkar-e-Toyaba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa founder Hafiz Saeed.
He led 35 religious parties who gathered in Mansoora to protest the holidays declared for the religious minorities, but also the Protection of Women Act, that was piloted by the Nawaz Government amidst protests from various quarters including from within the ruling Pakistan Muslim League(Nawaz). They issued a deadline to the government demanding that the slew of liberal measures be withdrawn by March 27. The top clergy, led by the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), are up in arms against the government and want the law amended -- to water it down and in effect, restore the male supremacy—even before law is enforced. The holidays declared for Holi and Easter fell foul of not just the political Right but also the traditional Hindu/India hating classes across Pakistan. It was mixed up with an earlier demand that the birth anniversary of Allama Mohammed Iqbal be declared a holiday. In November last year, the idea was shot down by the government that said that the country already has too many holidays, affecting work and production.
“Iqbal Hum Sharmeenda Hain,” (Iqbal, we are ashamed) ran the campaign that wondered why the government rejected Iqbal’s anniversary last November but has now declared holidays for the religious minorities in a country where over 90 percent of the population is Muslim.
Pakistani conservatives conveniently forget that religious minorities in many democracies such as the next-door India enjoy holidays on Eid, Muharram and the Prophet’s birthday, besides holidays for various Gurus of the Sikhs, Chirstmas and Easter of Christians and Mahavir jayanti of the Jains.
They ask: Another member asked, “Are Muslims around the world offered holidays on [their] holy days?... Pakistan is [an] Islamic state so I strongly condemn this law.”
Drawing a fine line and supporting the government endeavour through these multiple controversies, Dawn newspaper said in its editorial (March 25, 2016): “While it is true that too many holidays should not be encouraged — and the country already has plenty, along with unannounced shutdowns — when it comes to major occasions of religious minorities, exceptions can be made.
“Celebrating Holi, Diwali or Easter on a provincial or national scale sends the right message — that minorities are equal citizens of Pakistan and that the state respects and celebrates their traditions.”
The Nawaz Government has also fallen foul of the Islamists for other reasons. It has also passed Pakistan’s first ever legislation for the religious minorities granting the communities the right to register their births, marriages and deaths, facilitating divorce and inheritance and measures that touch their day-to-day lives.
The importance of this much-delayed, much-debated and long-scuttled legislation lies in the fact since Pakistan’s birth, the minorities, devoid of this right under the law, were unable to gain their social and legal identity. Any woman could be abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim as she could not establish her identity and her marital status. Any property could be seized if its ownership by a minority could not be legally established.
These issues have not disappeared with the coming of the law, nor are they likely to be resolved. The law only provides a cover – the relief is not yet forthcoming. The Islamists are enraged at this, too.
The liberal classes, the microscopic minority that they are, are happy at these “small mercies”. They castigate the conservatives in measured terms and be heard wherever they can. Goes one line of liberal argument: To say that you want minorities to have their rights but not a secular structure is to say that you want minorities to have their equal treatment as long as they don’t get in the way of your first-class citizenship.
In an episode of NewsEye with Meher Bukhari, scholar and televangelist Aamir Liaquat sarcastically said:
“We say that there’s democracy in Pakistan. Then a bill is presented in the Assembly, which is passed in a democratic manner. And then they (the coalition of religious parties) threaten the institution with a deadline (for amendment), saying we’ll do this and that if you don’t listen to us. Okay, fine! Hand everything over to them! Make Pakistan a theocratic state! Let’s end this debate once and for all.”
The liberal argument goes further: It is to say you may have your rights and security, but my group still gets to be the one in total control of that decision. My race, religion, caste, or gender gets to stay on the pedestal and yours doesn’t. This country is basically ours, but not to worry — you’ll find us to be quite hospitable!
Among the most telling opponents of the government’s move is not a political party or a maulvi, but the Private Schools Management Association (PSMA), whose members raised a hue and cry shortly after the Chief Minister’s announcement.
“Today we are announcing a public holiday for Holi, tomorrow we will be telling everyone to read Ramayana!’” PSMA Chairman Sharafuz Zaman says. He adds that he is worried that having a holiday on account of Holi will have “a negative impact on the young and innocent children" and says other schools agree with him.
Without taking names of specific schools, Zaman says faculty members have been calling him all morning to report that many students want to learn about the festival, and want to know when it will be celebrated in their schools.
“What do we tell them? Do we tell them it’s a festival where people throw colours, drink bhang, and dance? If someone wants to go play holi, they can go ahead,” Zaman goes on. “But by declaring it a public holiday, we have advertised it in every home."
Zaman exposes a major chink in the armour of the Pakistani society that, while insisting on sharing history right from Indus Valley Civilisation, since Mohen-jo-Daro falls in its domain by the British-engineered accident of history and geography, fear and hates anything that is remotely Hindu in its perceptions.