In the shadow of a heinous crime

PAKISTAN'S CIVIL SOCIETY faces a qualitatively new challenge in the aftermath of the gruesome murder of 16 worshippers and a security guard at a church at Bahawalpur in the country's premier province of Punjab on Sunday. It is obvious that the present regional context may only magnify the international concerns about the possible escalation of social-political trouble in Pakistan, whatever might have been the actual motives of the gunmen themselves or their masters, if any, who plotted the carnage itself. However, the reality check is one that Pakistan itself should devise. For several weeks now, civil society in Pakistan has found itself being sucked into the vortex of an enormously complex identity crisis, which certainly is not of Islamabad's own making. Now, official Islamabad is continually rocked by the rumblings of some high-voltage popular discontent over the emergence of Pakistan as the only conspicuous `frontline state' in America's ongoing military operations in Afghanistan. The well-orchestrated popular anger against the U.S. and official Islamabad may not enjoy a huge constituency within Pakistan itself. The social order in Pakistan is under tremendous strain at present following the decisively swift manner in which the President and Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, recently pushed the `Islamic republic' into an open alliance with the U.S.-led West in genuinely volatile circumstances. An obscurantist Taliban regime in Afghanistan and its notorious ally, Osama bin Laden, a radicalised `Islamic' ideologue, are currently the prime ``enemies'' of the U.S. So, the pressure on Pakistan's social cauldron has risen immeasurably, especially on account of the country's highly proactive segment of Islamic fundamentalists on the fringes. It is this overall social milieu that might define Pakistan's new challenge of reassuring its tiny Christian minority about its security.

Gen. Musharraf, who represents the moderate face of Pakistan, has lost no time in not only condemning the ``heinous act against the tenets of Islam'' but also recognising the mayhem as an act of terror. One aspect that will doubtless exercise the minds of international pundits, especially in the West, is whether the Bahawalpur tragedy could be the handiwork of some amateurish proponents of a ``clash of civilisations'' in the particular context of the current U.S.' operations against Osama bin Laden.

Regardless of any particular line of investigation and criminal justice, Pakistan's socio-political dilemmas can only be solved on the basis of the country's own basic ethos. A variety of historical factors account for the current virulence of extremism within pockets of Pakistan's overwhelmingly Islamic majority. The Musharraf administration's task of safeguarding the stability of Pakistan is clearly cut out, and his responses indicate that he is seized of the magnitude of the problem. The nation's blasphemy laws and, more importantly, their judicial and political interpretations have sometimes led to a backlash from the fundamentalists. Pakistan's religious minorities, very small in size, have often been caught in such social storms, and the country's human rights activists have also not fought shy of turning the spotlight on such issues with a view to improving social harmony. For Gen. Musharraf, a careful crackdown on the religious hawks is an indicated course, while India should let the Pakistani leaders and people know that it wishes them well. A stable Pakistan is in the enlightened interest of India's pluralist society.

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