Parallax View: Lessons from the assassination of Salman Taseer

When I studied politics, I was told that great religious battles were things of the past.

Look at England, they said. For much of its history, Catholics and Protestants had fought each other. But now, even though the Church of England (Protestant) was

the official church and there was, effectively, a state religion, the tensions of the past had receded.

 

   Many reasons were given for this shift, among them rising levels of education and prosperity. Besides, we were told, people needed something to believe in. Give them an idea that supplants religion in the political imagination and religious violence becomes a thing of the past.

 

   To some extent, the Hindu revivalism of the late 1980s could be explained by traditional political thought. By 1989-90, India was bankrupt. The political system was seen to have failed. And people were returning to the loyalties that had preceded the emergence of this political system: ethnic and religious identities.

 

   Some people would argue that the BJP had no choice but to move away from aggressive Hindutva in this century because the political system was seen as delivering on prosperity, education levels were rising, and the mood was one of optimism. Therefore, the BJP identified itself with the rising middle-class and tried to reflect its aspiration.

 

   Plus, there is one other factor that political scientists often underestimate. People turn to religious loyalties when they face injustice. Rightly or wrongly, many Hindus believed in the late 1980s that the political system had failed to look after their interests. The trauma of the Punjab militancy was fresh in their minds when the Congress government appeared to bend over backwards to appease Muslim vote-banks.

 

   When L.K. Advani said that Hindus felt like second-class citizens in their own country, he may have been misrepresenting the truth. But equally, there is no doubt that his words struck a chord and contributed to the rising tide of Hindu revivalism.

 

   But here’s my problem with traditional political theory. I don’t think it explains the religious revivalism of the 21st century.

 

   If you examine the profiles of the so-called Internet Hindus, you will find that not only are they people who have done well out of the political system but they also remain optimistic about the future of India. Further, some of them don’t even live in India and no matter how harshly they view the excesses of Indian secularism, these are not problems that they have to cope with on a daily basis.

 

   The conventional view that politics and religion mingle only when a secular political system is seen to have failed, when there is despondency in the air and when education levels are low, simply does not fit the facts in this case.

 

   But forget for a moment, the Hindu revivalism on the Internet, which is at best a micro-phenomenon and concentrate on what is happening in the Islamic world.

 

   The sympathetic caricature of religious fundamentalists who turn to terror is that society has been so unfair to them that they have nothing left to lose. As Imran Khan once put it at an HT Summit, “If a man is willing to become a suicide bomber then this means that the world has made his life seem worthless to him.”

 

"As we glide further and further into the 21st century, the more convinced I am that political theory needs to be rewritten to cope with the rise in religious fundamentalism."

   I doubt if even Imran would use that line these days. The truth is that modern suicide bombers are often people to whom the world has been exceedingly kind. The 9/11 attackers were not drawn from refugee camps in Gaza. They were well-educated, middle-class Saudis. There is no evidence that the United States had done them any personal harm. And yet, they delighted so much in killing Americans that they were willing to sacrifice their lives in this endeavour.

 

   More recently, and nearer home, there has been the assassination of Salman Taseer, the Governor of the Punjab province of Pakistan. My concern is less with the assassin who seems like a common garden-variety fanatic than with the way in which educated Pakistanis have responded to the incident.

 

   From what I can tell, Taseer was assassinated because he objected to Pakistan’s barbaric blasphemy laws which – and let’s not be politically correct about this – have no place in a civilised society. It is possible to disagree with his view (though, frankly, I don’t see how) but impossible to argue that he deserved to die because he held out for the virtues of civilisation against the forces of barbarism.

 

   And yet, as the shocked international media have reported, there is jubilation among educated Pakistanis over the assassination. Many people are hailing the weirdo who murdered Taseer as a hero. The Internet is full of celebration. There are Facebook pages lauding the assassin and his ilk.

 

   I am not going to insult your intelligence by even suggesting that any of this is remotely justifiable. Nor am I going to pretend, as some liberals do, that these fanatics represent a tiny, insignificant minority of Pakistanis.

 

   My question is more basic: how do you explain the rise of politico-religious fundamentalism among educated Pakistanis? It is all very well for us to caricature Pakistanis but the truth is that in some respects, young Pakistanis do not seem very different from young Indians. They talk the same language, they eat the same food, they have the same interests, etc.

 

   And yet, in this respect, their behaviour seems completely weird and off the wall.

 

   None of the usual explanations offered by political theory can account for their behaviour. They are relatively affluent. They have the benefits of education. But their views are probably more extreme than those of their parents. And the biggest problem facing their country is one of their own creation: religious fundamentalism.

 

   As we glide further and further into the 21st century, the more convinced I am that political theory needs to be rewritten to cope with the rise in religious fundamentalism. None of the existing explanations seem to me to make much sense. Old religious loyalties that should have been replaced by the rise of newer institutions – the nation state, the liberal society, etc. – are stronger than they have been for centuries. Even during the 1940s, when the movement to create Pakistan was at its zenith, this kind of lunatic religious fervour was rarely visible.

 

   Ultimately, what use is prosperity and what is the point of technological advancement if the world is going to be at the mercy of murderous religious fundamentalists?

 

   If the 21st century is not going to be remembered as the century of religious revivalism, of a clash of civilisations, and of holy wars, then perhaps we need to spend more time working out what it is that turns otherwise sensible people into religious nutcases.