A month after India’s Supreme Court delivered a historic verdict in the Sabarimala women-entry case the Supreme Court of Pakistan delivered an even more historic judgment in the Asia Bibi blasphemy case. The two cases have much in common. They reflect the pathetic status of women in India and Pakistan and the stranglehold of religious extremists on the common people in an outwardly democratic milieu. And strangely, super-literate Kerala has just shown the world it’s not immune to undemocratic influences.
Asia Bibi (Asia Noreen), a Christian woman and mother of four, was convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan in 2010 following a verbal spat with neighbours. The dispute was over a bucket of water. When other women said Bibi had touched the cup and made it unclean, she came up with a rejoinder. They accused her of insulting the Prophet Mohammed. She proclaimed her innocence. The world watched as the hapless woman spent years on death row.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws date back to the dark days of the British Raj, 1860 to be precise. The military juntas that held sway post-Independence added their own brand of Islam to the mix. If you speak ill of the Prophet you get ‘death or life imprisonment.’ Since 1990 at least 62 persons have been executed for blasphemy. Poor Asia Bibi was the first woman to be awarded the death sentence under the draconian 1986 law.
In similar cases the threats from vigilante groups often compel the lower courts to award convictions on flimsy grounds. These are later overturned by higher courts for want of evidence. However, the high visibility of Bibi’s case resulted in the Lahore High Court upholding her conviction in 2014. Then in October 2018 a three-judge bench, including Chief Justice Saqib Nisar and his designated successor Justice Asif Khosa, decided there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Bibi. What happened afterwards is a lesson to all of us in God’s Own Country.
Lesson from Pakistan
BBC reported that “Wednesday's verdict by the Supreme Court triggered demonstrations in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Multan. Clashes with police have been reported. A leader of the hard-line Islamist Tehreek-i-Labaik party, Muhammad Afzal Qadri, said all three Supreme Court judges deserve to be killed.”
Radical Islamists called for violent overthrow of the democratically elected government. They came out on the streets in thousands, set fire to vehicles and blocked the Islamabad–Rawalpindi road. They weren’t going to accept the court verdict. Bibi deserved a public hanging – nothing more, nothing less. And what’s more, the judges must be killed too!
Imran Khan, cricketer-turned newbie Prime Minister of Pakistan, reacted swiftly and decisively, taking a firm stand against lawlessness and religious bigotry. He said, "Which government can function like this, blackmailed by protests?” He pointed out that it’s the common people and the poor who suffer due to such protests. “You block the roads, you rob people's livelihood...” he stated. “This is not the service of Islam, this is enmity with the country. Only anti-state elements talk like this...They are only trying to beef up their vote bank."
Sounds familiar right? Kerala’s right-wing Hindu fundamentalists have been doing exactly the same thing after Supreme Court ruled that women must not be restricted from entering Sabarimala. Thankfully, these guys haven’t mustered the courage to say ‘kill the judges’. I suspect that’s only because India and Kerala are slightly more liberal than Pakistan.
The Indian judiciary doesn’t need to fear the army. However, it now faces novel threats that appear innocuous on the surface but are deadly underneath. When a national leader of the ruling dispensation declares that only such judgments must be pronounced that can be implemented, what hangs in the balance is the independence of the judiciary. When politicians and street protesters challenge the judiciary, they are actually hacking away at the root of democracy itself.
In 1973 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s hugely unpopular idea of a ‘committed judiciary’ took shape, presumably under the influence of Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Mohan Kumaramangalam. She demanded that those who occupied the highest position in the judiciary must be committed to the ideology of the government. A N Ray was appointed Chief Justice, superseding three other contenders. To cut a long story short, the Emergency followed in 1975, suspending all democratic rights for two long years.
History has diehard ways of repeating itself. Let us learn to read the writing on the wall. Pakistan is an eye-opener. Here the Bibi blasphemy case had horrendous repercussions. In January 2011, Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab province, was gunned down by his own bodyguard for the crime of visiting Asia Bibi in jail and proclaiming that the blasphemy law needed revision. A few months later Shahbaz Bhatti, Minister for Minority Affairs, was shot dead for expressing similar opinions. When Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of Salman Taseer, was awarded the death sentence and executed in February 2016, he attained instant martyrdom. The mausoleum built over his grave near Islamabad attracts devotees in hordes.
Sadly, Kerala shares many similarities. Open defiance of the apex court verdict, scant regard for the Constitution, unbridled expression of sexist views, hate-mongering, churning out of fake news and historical falsehoods – all these are in evidence in our midst. Here too we hear calls for ‘pulling down’ a democratically elected government. Nobody’s been murdered so far but attempts are being made to pin a pilgrim’s death on the beleaguered Kerala police. The right-wingers are desperately looking for a martyr, suicide dramas by hand-picked ‘devotees’ having come a cropper.
A senior IPS officer was publicly labelled a police dog. And that too by a man who claims to hold a degree in law. Women who attempted to climb Sabarimala were denounced as prostitutes and their houses and workplaces attacked. There was talk of spilling blood or other fluids to pollute the sannidhanam, so the temple can be shut down, thereby keeping away the greater female pollution! (Glad to know male blood is unclean too!)
Those of us who are inciting rebellion in the name of menstruation need to rethink. Is it worth it? Would Lord Ayyappa approve? Are women really ‘untouchable’ at times? How I wish Lord Ayyappa would speak up and tell us which is more unclean – a polluted mind or a polluted body?
Like Imran Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan stuck to his guns. He did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. Both men are facing an uphill task though. Vijayan is the luckier of the two – the Damocles sword of the army is not dangling above his head.
We in India have always thought of Pakistan as a failed or failing state. But today Kerala too is tottering on the brink of failure. And the floods are not to blame. We are.
The time has come to take a good look at ourselves. We’re all in this madhouse together. Are we going to allow the crazies to rule this State or are we going to tackle the divisive forces? Should we rebuild our flood-ravaged infrastructure or fight endlessly over outdated religious beliefs?
It’s time we made an effort to regain our sanity and our sense of purpose. As Robert Frost would have said, “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep”.
(The writer is an IT professional)
