Bane of sectarian violence

A DEPLORABLE side effect of the communalisation of the state in Pakistan is the sectarian frenzy it has released in the country. Had it not been for the fact that the people by and large still display a spirit of tolerance in their inter-sect dealings, as was seen during the month of Muharram, society could well have been up in flames. It is no coincidence that extremists of all shades who preach jihad and justify violence in the name of religion also call for the destruction of minority sects they believe do not fall within the ambit of Islam. But what needs to be viewed with serious concern is that, as the extremists spread their tentacles all over the country, sectarian incidents are on the rise. The killing of the Hazara Democratic Party chairman in Quetta on Monday is a brutal demonstration of this phenomenon. This comes in the wake of a series of assassinations, bomb attacks on imambargahs, target killings and even self-styled executions in Hangu, Kurram, Karachi and Balochistan. The casualties of the last few months run into hundreds. This undercurrent of sectarian violence has not been addressed the way it should have because it has been masked by the mayhem unleashed by terrorists claiming to be fighting an anti-imperialist war for the imposition of the Sharia or the army’s crackdown on the warring Baloch nationalists.Apart from causing loss of life — which should be condemned in the strongest terms possible — the evil of sectarianism, if left unchecked, could prove to be the undoing of our already fragmented social and political fabric. As the Quetta incident shows, the community’s angry reaction to the killing of a high-profile leader can be violent and result in the destruction of property and the breakdown of law and order. Thus the fissures widen as a strategy of imposing peace without addressing the root of the problem allows the perpetrators to attack again when the situation permits. What is harrowing is that the avowedly sectarian outfits, many of which mushroomed under the Islamisation policy of Ziaul Haq, have been allowed to flourish even when they are officially banned. The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, which claimed the killing of the Quetta leader, is one such example of how sectarianism grew blatantly under the benign patronage of the state.It is a pity that governments of the day, by relying on the crutches of religion, failed to anticipate the outcome of their flawed approach. Sectarianism was inevitable when obscurantists were appeased and given a free rein to preach violence. The need of the hour is that the government cracks down forcefully on banned religious groups before their violence spills into neighbouring states and others compel us to act.