Remember the popular Hindi film bhajans ‘Allah tero naam, Ishwar tero naam’ and ‘Ishwar allah tere naam, sabko sanmati de bhagwan’? Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former defence minister Khawaja Asif did that—at his own peril.
He committed the sin of saying that all religions are equal—a sine qua non of a liberal democracy. But then Pakistan is neither liberal nor a democracy; its democratic government is a façade, behind which the mullah-military complex runs its jihad factory. A leader of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf has filed a blasphemy complaint against Asif for his statement favoring religious equality and tolerance.
On Thursday, the PML-N leader had forcefully argued in Parliament that the Pakistan constitution lays down equal rights to all citizens regardless of their faith, caste, etc. He went on to slam the parliamentarians who were against the construction of a Hindu temple in Islamabad. “The people who were against the temple belong to a group that had labeled Muhammad Ali Jinnah—the founder of Pakistan—as kafir-e-Azam.”
The speech came against the backdrop of radical Muslims stopping the construction of the first Hindu temple, Shri Krishna Mandir, in Pakistan. They stormed the site in Islamabad and vandalized the place. This was despite the fact that Prime Minister Imran Khan had provided a government grant for the construction of the temple.
PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif supported Asif: “Islam, our great religion, is categorical about the rights and freedoms of all communities living in Islamic State. Equality is a fundamental principle enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan. What Khawaja Asif said in NA [National Assembly] was in the context of Islamic teachings and constitutional provision.”
Asif and Sharif should be lauded for standing up for the Hindus, but problem is that their own party—like other parties, institutions, and individuals in Pakistan—has too often collaborated with or supported the radicals they are opposing now. To cite just one example, Sharif’s nephew-in-law and PML-N leader has vehemently campaigned against the persecuted Ahmadi community, calling it a threat to Pakistan.
Further, he glorified Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of former governor Punjab Salman Taseer. Qadri, who was Taseer’s bodyguard, had assassinated him for Taseer’s opposition to the blasphemy law, which is frequently used to tyrannize religious minorities.
It needs to be mentioned here that Taseer’s father, M.D. Taseer, was sympathetic to Ilm-ud-Din who had murdered a publisher for having published a book against Prophet Muhammad. Ilm-ud-Din was incensed by the blasphemy. Others who supported Ilm-ud-Din included Jinnah and Iqbal, the spiritual and political fathers of Pakistan (<a href="https://indianarrative.com/opinion/not-just-imran-iqbal-and-jinnah-also-supported-islamic-terror-3988.html">https://indianarrative.com/opinion/not-just-imran-iqbal-and-jinnah-also-supported-islamic-terror-3988.html</a>).
Those who support the cause of radical Islam come to grief—sooner or later. Even is not spared, being called an infidel.
In a nutshell, the law of karma is inexorable; one’s karma comes back to hound them. Those who feed radical Islam are often devoured by it. One hopes that Asif and Sharif are spared of that fate..
