“If we are going to allow ourselves to be influenced by the public opinion that can be created in the name of religion when we know that religion has nothing to do with the matter, I think we must have the courage to say, ‘No, we are not going to be frightened by that’,” suggested Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s decision to omit paragraph 42 of his judgment in review under pressure from the religious parties and goons who mobbed the Supreme Court is just the latest in a series of capitulations by the Pakistani state in face of public opinion created in the name of religion which started on September 7th 1974 – that infamous day when Pakistan’s unthinking parliament, led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (and completely supported by Opposition leaders Wali Khan and Mufti Mahmood) decided to declare Ahmadis non-Muslim. The list of votes is a shameful reminder of what happens when we allow uninformed public opinion formed in the name of religion to dictate the questions of public policy. The vote was unanimous thus making the entire country complicit in what can only be described as a crime against humanity.

It bears repeating that it was not always like this. As Dr Ali Usman Qasmi writes in his book Qaum Mulk Sultanat: Citizenship and National Belonging In Pakistan, when the issue was first raised in 1953, the Prime Minister’s office had circulated a memorandum which stated that declaring Ahmadis non-Muslim would violate the longstanding policy of the Muslim League to not get into sectarian questions, referring to Jinnah’s decision to veto a resolution to expel Ahmadis from the Muslim League.

On 30 July 1944, Maulana Abdul Hamid Badayuni had presented a resolution calling for such expulsion, but Jinnah had forced him to withdraw it. For this, he earned the sobriquet Kafir-e-Azam or the great infidel. If there was any ambiguity about the status of Ahmadis in the League, it was laid to rest by Jinnah when he deputed Sir Zafrullah Khan to first represent Pakistan as counsel before the........

© The Friday Times