Azadi. There is a ring to the word, a stirring one. It has roused rebels, motivated poets and inspired musicians — to move into action against oppression, to throw away the shackles of convention, to break free of the constricting form and the format. It is making teenagers in Kashmir resist suppression with pebbles; it is turning many a Baloch into angry young men against systemic discrimination; it is moving farmers in Okara into staking a claim to the lands the military says it owns.

Azadi is freedom from disease and want, liberty from subjugation and independence from all forms of exploitation. Or, at least, this is what the dreamers and the idealists among us have always told us.

Azadi means no one is above or below anyone; no one is superior or inferior; no one is purer or more impure than the other. Or at least that is what we understand when we proclaim that we are free — that no one owes anything to us and we owe nothing to anyone; that no one subjugates us and we subjugate no one; that no one exploits or maltreats us and we exploit or maltreat no one.

Also read: How Okara farmers have become the latest 'enemies' of the state

If we look around, we are far from being azad — that is, free, as translated in a language we learnt as slaves. When no one owes anything to us, we owe billions of dollars to other states, to international financial institutions, to our own state (in evaded taxes and unpaid utility bills). When no one subjugates us (though it is debatable if no one really subjugates us considering our massive economic and strategic dependence on others), we subjugate many among ourselves: those living in peripheral regions, non-Muslim Pakistanis, women, daily wage workers and the landless peasants in central regions.

Azadi is under fire everywhere. From the vales of Kashmir to the deserts of Balochistan, from the public squares in Turkey to the streets of Bahrain, from Kabul in Afghanistan, Fallujah in Iraq and Aleppo in Syria to Paris in France and Brussels in Belgium. The state’s coercive power and terrorism’s destructive capacity are scaring the hell out of those who want to enjoy a little bit of sunshine, a small patch of moonlight, a whiff of a breeze that can give them warmth, enlightenment and rejuvenation.

Azadi has become a demand rather than a fact. It is the cry of a Hindu after his co-religionist is killed by a mob in Ghotki, Pakistan, at the hands of a Muslim mob enraged over the desecration of the Quran. It is the slogan raised in remonstration by a Dalit after his caste-comrades are stripped naked and beaten up in public in Indian Gujarat. It is the last statement of a dying young girl against her tormentors.

Azadi is August 14th. It is the celebration of independence. It is a patriotic song. It is the colour green.

A tiny group among us would want to claim that the ‘real azadi' is August 11th: the day Jinnah made a great speech, enunciating the features of a purported social contract that the new state would have with its citizens. It is an acknowledgement of our religious diversity. It is a commitment to equality. It is the colour white.

Also read: Acts of faith — Why people get killed over blasphemy in Pakistan

The middle of this month will mark the start of the 70th year of Pakistan’s existence — as an azad country, many constituent parts of which are not so azad. Consider women. To borrow half a phrase from Karl Marx, they were born free but everywhere they are in chains. Consider Punjabi Christians, who may have changed their religion many times over since their ancestors first thought conversion would rid them of their subhuman status, but have never been counted as free citizens, equal in rights and responsibilities as anyone else in the republic.

Consider the Baloch in Lyari, the Saraiki in Bahawalpur, the Pakhtun in Quetta, the Sindhi in Karachi — they all remain enslaved to racial profiling and ethnic discrimination. Consider a Zikri Baloch in Gwadar, a Seraiki Dalit in Rahimyar Khan, a Hindu Pakhtun in Peshawar, and a Sindhi Sikh in Shikarpur — they all will appear more bound than their Muslim counterparts in the same regions in every social, political and religious respect.

Now consider a Punjabi Christian woman working in Quetta as a midwife, or a Hindu woman from Thar employed as domestic help in Karachi — these demographic features alone are sufficient to suggest that they, perhaps, would be the most unfree Pakistanis one can ever imagine.

Azadi, this August 14th, should be observed with the solemn pledge that it will accrue to all and sundry in equal measure across Pakistan regardless of gender, caste, colour, creed and race. The unfree, the less free and the relatively free must all become free — and equal.

That is when azadi will really dawn.

This was originally published in the Herald's August 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

This is the epoch of belief; we have so many peddlers of belief selling their wares to eager customers every day on television. This is the epoch of incredulity; so many of us are losing faith in our own humanity, seeing young girls torched to death and young boys kept in sexual slavery.

This is the season of light; the light of righteousness shining bright over the wayward and the sinful, the corrupt and the crooked. This is the season of darkness; the darkness of poverty, exploitation, illiteracy, disease and death. This is the spring of hope; so much is changing around us for the better ­— underpasses, flyovers, posh housing and mass transport systems.

This is the winter of despair; so much around us is bleak and dreary — our drinking water is either poisonous or running out, we fail to keep the lights on, our schools are in ruins and our hospitals in shambles. We have everything before us: a massive population of young people who could reach the moon if given the right kinds of tools and training.

We have nothing before us; no one in the world likes us and our domestic options are almost non-existent to keep the ever-growing number of mouths to feed and young hands to employ in industries other than those fueled by sectarian and religious hatred and financed by bigotry, misogyny and xenophobia.

Also read: Pakistan's foreign policy betrays deep domestic insecurities

There was a king with a large jaw and a wide grin on the throne of Pakistan a few years ago and there has been a king with a round face on the country’s throne for quite a few years now — and yet the lords of the state are not sure if there is anything that is ever so slightly settled in the republic. This past month, we have been through the “best of times” and the “worst of times”, all in the space of a few days. From embarking on a collective journey of cleansing our bodies and souls through fasting, we have run the whole gamut of fighting with our neighbours to killing our daughters and a lot worse in between.

We need a Charles Dickens to make sense of the muddle we are in — or perhaps we don’t. Perhaps we only need more of everything: more public displays of piety, more reasons for restrictions on our womenfolk, more game shows where facetious questions and mindless antics can win us more prizes, more televangelists preaching to us that climate change is a conspiracy against Muslims, more public thinkers informing us how the military is the only institution that can guard us against international and regional conspiracies. And much more of our belief in our own spiritual and moral superiority, which we keep exercising on the weak of belief, gender and economic status among us so that we are well-practiced in the art of inflicting our self-righteous wrath on others as soon as we get the chance.

The more the world around us changes, the firmer we are becoming in our belief that we have been doing very well by not changing — or at least, not changing much or as quickly. The more the world around us changes, the clearer it is getting that it is becoming more like us: conservative, close-minded, wary of difference and worried about challenges. That is why we are doing more of what we have been doing since decades. The present of the rest of the world is so much like our forever that, to invoke Dickens again, “some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Also read: Who feels safe in Pakistan?

If only some among us can keep their mouths shut. It gives our great country and our great religion a really bad image when they say bad things about the treatment of some sections of our society that have the tendency of going astray — such as girls wanting to play cricket, teachers bent upon questioning the conventional thinking and historians, and writers who, in the name of modernity and liberalism, criticise our great cultural traditions of misogyny, blind faith and conservatism. They are doing all this to destroy our social and family values, to hurt our religious sensibilities and furtively question our faith.

There is only the small matter of putting a handful of people on the right path: women, non-Muslims, artists, children, the poor, the Baloch who insists on protesting against the disappearance of his son, the Pakhtun who keeps being caught in other people’s wars, the Sindhi who nostalgically sticks to his Sufi past, the Saraiki who hankers after an identity, the Urdu-speaker who demands recognition and the Punjabi villager who is not willing to be seen as a part of a culture of political and economic domination. After we have reformed the wavered ways of all these sections of society, only then will we experience the best of times.

This was originally published in the Herald's July 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Foreign policy is the extension of domestic policy. Thus goes a Marxist cliché that keeps reappearing with reference to situations seemingly different from each other such as parading nuclear weapons on Independence Day and an American drone strike killing the Afghan Taliban chief in Pakistani territory. On the surface of it, building a nuclear arsenal is necessitated by our (lack of) foreign relations with India and Mullah Akhtar Mansour’s death is an effect of our (lack of) foreign relations with Afghanistan. Where is the domestic policy here?

The question has an awkward answer: the two events, indeed, are not as much about the nature of ties we have with our next-door neighbours as they are about what kind of state and society we are or want to become. Building atom bombs and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan is more about how we feel about ourselves than the insanity of having prolonged conflicts with states on either of our flanks. It is our internal insecurity that is projecting itself onto our external policy.

Also read: The lure of nuclear missiles—Pakistan’s strategic options

Why are we so doubtful about our survival that we need the protection of the most lethal – and also the most expensive — weapons that human beings have developed so far? Why do we feel so unsure of our existence that we seek safety in the embrace of a militant religious movement that has an unparalleled track record of committing the most horrific atrocities mankind has ever suffered?

To answer these questions is the domain of experts but that still leaves space for looking into whether weapons of mass destruction can be used as weapons of mass protection and whether a violent, extremist ideology can be relied upon to foster neighbourly love and affection.

Building atom bombs and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan is more about how we feel about ourselves than the insanity of having prolonged conflicts with states on either of our flanks.

The latter first: we saw the Taliban shun and spurn us with effortless ease when they were ruling Afghanistan; even more dangerously, they provided a safe haven to sectarian militants and trained and armed them so that they could launch attacks in Pakistan with impunity. Even as a dislocated guerilla movement, they utilise our territory and our identification documents to remain hidden from their enemies and yet have never stopped their Pakistani franchise from committing mind-numbing acts of violence in our markets and shrines.

Now the former: since the 1980s, we have endured economic sanctions at least twice as a result of our pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our economy has been suffering all these decades because we needed undisclosed – but certainly stupendous – amounts of money to keep our nuclear programme going; and the costs have not been economic only.

Also read: Fighting the Taliban—The US and Pakistan's failed strategies

Twice since our nuclear tests in May 1998 (an anniversary which we just celebrated albeit in a low-key fashion), we have almost gone to war with India. In one instance, Kargil in 1999, we actually did go to war though we continue to deny that fighters on our side were army regulars. We have bestowed the highest military honours on two army officials for losing their lives in that very war but we also insist that, since 1948, it is only the irregulars – ex-soldiers and jihad-inspired civilians – that fight on our behalf in Indian-administered Kashmir.

What prevented the Kargil episode from exploding into a full-scale war was not our nuclearised long-range missiles but mediation by the United States.

A nuclear deterrence to a full-scale war is premised on a crazy notion: Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD for short. When two states armed with nuclear weapons have the capability to annihilate each other entirely is when they desist from launching the first attack. This looks terrifying even on paper.

It suffices to say that almost everyone understands that the two countries are engaged in an unwinnable – and highly expensive – race ...

In practice, MAD requires perpetual parity between nuclear weapon capabilities of the two states: if one side upgrades or diversifies its arsenal, the other side must match that with similar ability to inflict nuclear horror. If India deploys a nuclear armed submarine, Pakistan should have tactical nuclear weapons; if India toys with the idea of developing a second strike capability then Pakistan must build multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

For a Pakistani selling onions on a cart in Lahore or for an Indian purchasing pani puri in Mumbai, it is well nigh impossible to understand what these vehicles do and what advantages a second strike capability can confer. It suffices to say that almost everyone understands that the two countries are engaged in an unwinnable – and highly expensive – race to acquire more tools for annihilating each other out of existence. What a horrible idea to even contemplate!

The only thing on par with it in terms of naivety is the assumption that sovereignty is something material which gets breached by an American drone but remains intact when the leader of a foreign guerilla movement roams around carrying identity and travel documents provided and endorsed by us.

Can we vanquish our enemy on our east and our hostile Muslim brethren on our west so that we can then focus on such domestic issues as economic and social development? The answer is an obvious no. It is about time to reprioritise. Peace and harmony within could induce peace and harmony without. Foreign policy, after all, is an extension of domestic policy.

This was originally published in the Herald's June 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

After the concluding speeches were made, final slogans were raised and last prayers were offered, there was still something left to do. And a contingent of several thousand people set out – hands flailing in anger, voices raised in protest and feet stamping in earnest – to do just that. The security cordons parted; the barricades evaporated; the police vanished — as if some invisible force was at work to help. Driven by a zeal only the most devout have, encouraged by a lack of resistance only those on a divine mission expect and spurred by a rage only the wronged can muster, a crowd arrived at Islamabad’s largest and most significant public space.

It smashed bus stations, put vehicles on fire and disrupted whatever life it could find around the square that links the state of Pakistan with the society of Pakistan. For the better part of a week, that link was broken — with the state having retreated into the deepest recesses of its heavily-guarded and intensively-fortified bunkers and the society having moved along as merrily, or morosely, as ever. The mob, a few hundred strong, knew it had no agenda to pursue, no plans to follow and no leaders to obey. It only vaguely believed that it could not have been there without a reason. The reason? Dissent. Defiance. Disruption.

Dissenters, by their definition, do not belong to the majority. Defiance cannot occur against a state that has no backbone left — or at least is unwilling to show one. It was sheer mindless disruption. And yet, it had a purpose — a worldly purpose. The mob wanted to talk to the people watching the idiot box in the comfort of their homes. It hankered after a version of itself augmented by creative camera techniques. It desired for a voice amplified by mics capable of turning a whisper into a windstorm.

It needed coverage. The coverage that was denied to it by a state that never fails to give the impression that it is not in charge, that it is doing someone else’s bidding, that it is a puppet whose masters keep changing — from moolah to military to moulvi and back again. And as it changes masters, so it goes about doing its business: loving and hating, accepting and rejecting, colliding and colluding with different sections of the society at different times and in different spaces, depending on who pulls its strings.

Those in the state apparatus who thought they would muddle along through the bluff, bluster and blackout of the news. They were so blinded by the brilliance of their ideas that they could not even see what was coming their way until it came and sat on their chest like the heavy burden of failure. Their liberal backers – living in the tiny space covered by the op-ed pages of the English language newspapers, operating in a reality that calls itself ‘virtual’ for a reason and thriving on the unhealthy diet of micoblogging – were deafened by the sound of their self-congratulatory voices until they were drowned in the noise from Islamabad’s high-security zone. Their foreign minders – guided by political righteousness, driven by ideological correctness and spurred by cultural authoritarianism – were deluded by the obedience of the minions, except that the disobedient soon outshouted the obedient.

If only those mourning for Mumtaz Qadri were given as much media coverage as every semi-literate mullah is getting, we would not be mourning the death of the state now. The rules start losing relevance when too many exceptions are made in their implementation. When, however, exceptions become the rule, then thinking of implementing the rules is not only impossible, it also become counterproductive as we have seen in the case of 1,500 clueless mobsters blocking the heart of the capital, as long as they did not tire of their own tiny spectacle. They saw the media blockade of their activities as a sectarian move, selectively slapped by a state that has allowed every halfwit to rave and rant on the telly for hours and days on end. And if anyone thought that not allowing the media coverage of Qadri’s funeral has taken the edge off the blasphemy issue, they must share their thoughts with anyone on the street — and expect their illusions to shatter instantly.

By grimacing at the cameras, shouting at mics and talking to the people watching, the crowd would have dispersed after the funeral at Liaquat Bagh. They were, instead, made to snatch the proverbial limelight — smashing television vans, kicking journalists and forcibly diverting the attention of the television audiences from a massive tragedy that was unfolding right then at Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is sounding victorious with the benefit of hindsight, patting himself on the back that he did not negotiate, did not compromise and did not give into any demands by the mob. He does not realise they had nothing to negotiate for, nothing to give and take and nothing to demand for. That a 1,500-strong mob can manage to get as much attention as it likes for well over three days is what they were looking for, and that is exactly what it got.

And after having done all that, they did something else: they showed the space that once connected the state with the society has become a vast no man’s land — available to anyone with the will, the verve and the capacity to create violence to grab, hold and destroy.

This was originally published in the Herald's April 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

He lives in a country of his own that no one can enter without his permission. There may be cases registered against him outside the boundary of his country but he cannot care less about them. He will not surrender to the police and the courts whose jurisdiction stops where his own jurisdiction starts. He can challenge the government, he can defy the state by issuing statements supporting those who are bent upon destroying it, and he – along with his family – can lead pitched battles against the law enforcement agencies causing a civil war within the heart of the federal capital. Anyone trying to arrest or try him better be warned. The whole country burnt the last time someone attempted to do that. His supporters blew themselves up as human bombs, taking hundreds of lives with them; his students launched numerous deadly attacks on security forces wherever they could.

He goes by his own set of laws and under those laws there is nothing wrong with spreading sectarian hatred, with accusing parts of the state of conspiring against him, even subjecting the writ of the courts to his own whimsical choices disguised as wait for a divine signal. It does not matter that there is a law against hurting other people’s religious sentiments; against questioning the integrity of the state institutions; against willfully indulging in contempt of the courts. What could have Abdul Aziz done to possess such superhuman powers? His Lal Masjid is a fort – made impenetrable by his acolytes willing to serve as human shields – where messengers from the police and the courts can only enter to confer not confront.

Contrast this with the hapless parents of a boy who topped all the exams he took. Coming from a poor family living in a crumbling single room house in a nondescript village, he moved to a big city for studies owing to the scholarships he had won on the basis of his stellar academic record. And then he went missing within months after his name had appeared on a merit list of students chosen for receiving laptops under a government scheme.

Also read: Republic of fear

Initially, the police said he was killed in a shootout with the law enforcement agencies in July 2014. His house was searched and his parents were taken into custody. Then they retracted and said he was alive and in the custody of the military intelligence.

Nobody ever disclosed where he was arrested from and what for. Yet somehow, slightly less than 18 months later, an army spokesman released his name to the media. He was among nine people whose death warrants the army chief had signed at the turn of the year. A brief description under his name said he “was an active member of Al Qaeda” and “was involved in attacks on law-enforcement personnel which claimed casualties”. There was no other detail — who he had attacked and killed, or where and when he had committed these acts. He had pleaded guilty of committing those offences “before the Magistrate and the trial court” which had tried him on four charges and “awarded death sentence”. There was no mention of where and when he was produced before a magistrate (even though we can assume that the court that had tried and punished him was a special military tribunal). What could have Aksan Mehboob done to avoid that fate? His story has fascinated no prying journalists. His case has attracted no attention from human rights activists and lawyers.

The difference between Aziz’s might and Mehboob’s plight is not merely the difference between the situations of two individuals. It is the difference that defines how the state acts – or does not act – selectively. It is the difference that determines why the state can – or cannot – enforce its writ in a uniform and equitable manner in all parts of its jurisdiction, on all sections of its citizens.

Also read: Triangle of terrorism

Both Aziz and Mehboob enjoy – at least in theory – the same constitutional protections against the arbitrary use of power by the state. Both Aziz and Mehboob deserve – at least ideally – the same legal treatment considering that they have been facing the same kind of allegations: of being in cahoots with militant organisations, of attacking members of the security forces. How come, then, Aziz can walk around a sizeable patch of the capital as if he owns it and Mehboob cannot even have a public trial where he can defend himself?

The reason: they live in two different countries. One, where a powerful mullah can hold the entire state apparatus hostage to his ability to shed blood. The other, where laws such as the Protection of Pakistan Act and forums such as the military courts are increasingly smothering the unheard voices of the already voiceless. Unless that difference ends, no amount of security operations, quick convictions and hurried hangings can bring peace. A first step to end that difference could be to deny Aziz the protection of a country within a country that he now so publicly enjoys.

This was originally published in the Herald's February 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

We think, therefore, we are. Our republic and all its working is founded on deep thought: deep individual thought by our civilian and military saviours; deep collective thought by the leaders and readers of public mind. Thinking is our natural national habit.

When there was a crisis beyond our borders, we hunkered down and just thought. When a problem arose within the boundaries of the realm, we got together and did what we have always done think. From foreign policy to national security, from economy to politics, from health and education to the environment, there was nothing that we didn’t think over. We had multiple forums where we did our thinking: if one forum couldn’t somehow bring itself to think, another would rush in to fill the gap. In high offices, in the military’s command-and-control rooms, in the parliament and at All-Parties Conferences, in newspaper columns and television talk shows thinking men, and sometimes thinking women, everywhere, always hard at work. Thank goodness for such a comprehensive process of thinking clearly, we have solved all our problems.

Except for a few minor irritants, of course. To begin with, we only need to decide whether civilian democracy suits us; we only don’t understand what role religion should or should not play in the affairs of state and society; we are only ever so slightly confused about the need for empowering the provinces and regions so that they can create a durable republic that can endure. Also, possibly a couple of other smaller issues, like the division of national resources, distribution of national and individual wealth and incomes and depleting water resources.

Not that we haven’t thought about these issues. We have. We only get distracted. By what is happening in Yemen. By the people who want to return to their homes in a land still claimed both by military and militants. By the demands that we keep our lights switched on and our factories humming with electric power that never takes a break. By this election or that, by this political conflagration or that, by this law-and-order problem or that.

We encounter these day-to-day distractions by, well, not thinking. When a brotherly Muslim country, home to the most sacred Muslim sites in the world and our munificent benefactor of the first and last resort asks for help, should we just ask that it wait before we think through the possible consequences? When those displaced from North Waziristan are told by the military to go back home, why should we stop and ponder over the unconstitutional and utterly inhuman demands being made of them before letting them return to what are essentially their native lands? When another brotherly Muslim country sends us liquefied natural gas, why should we waste our time wondering about its prices? And what about a senate election marred by a last-minute presidential order to keep tribal-area legislators out of the number game, a judicial commission to probe election fraud, continued siege-and-search operations in Karachi by military-led security forces do we really want to think if all these are constitutional or even legal?

While we have done all our thinking already, we can’t really think about such ordinary, day-to-day stuff. Things happen. Somebody does them. Yemen is being taken care of, the displaced are being made to sign on the mortifying dotted line before they head back to their ancestral villages and towns, liquefied natural gas is flowing somewhere and the money for it is also flowing somewhere. Political questions are being addressed.

We, after all, are not standing still. So, why should we think about where we are being moved, for what and by whom?

We think, therefore, we are. That should be sufficient for a people who have already done all their thinking.

Repent, thou sinning secularist. Or thou shalt be banished by the believers, listening in on thine dangerous thoughts. Banished to the ever-burning fires of Hades, with those rattling flames that leap forth and singe and burn down everything they touch. Silence, or thou shalt be forced to be silent.

Surrender, or thou shalt be treated as a traitor. Listen, or thou shalt be tagged and condemned and damned. Faith shalt prevail in the kingdom of faith.

Thou non-believer, thou supporter of the infidel, thou friend of the idolater, how can thou even demand a voice? The voice of religion shalt prevail in the community of the believers.

Blaspheme thou shalt not, nor shalt thou weigh the sacred writ against the writ of men — who sin, whose minds are polluted and whose souls are corrupted by ideas and ideals of the non-believers. Or else, thou shalt be judged for thy sins. Lest thou forget, all shalt perish in the city of God, except God. Why canst we, the believers, hasten the end? We shalt, and we do. We name and shame, we maim and murder — all to hasten the end where only God shalt survive.

The Day of Judgment shalt be upon those who don’t listen. Those who doubt, those who think, those who question and those who resist. What is there to doubt, think, question and resist when God has spoken? And His word shalt prevail here and hereafter.

Thou who shalt doubt, thou shalt be doubted upon. Thou who shalt think, thou shalt suffer for thine thoughts. Thou who shalt question, thou shalt be answered in brickbats. Thou who shalt resist, thou shalt be resisted with the might of the mob. God’s sovereignty shalt brook no doubters, no dissenters, no sinners. Idols shalt fall, philosophers shalt leave, prophets shalt surrender — peace and silence shalt prevail. Peace that cometh after death and silence that marketh the graveyard.

After every doubter, every dissenter, every sinner is taken care of, the wrath of God shalt not go to sleep. It shalt blow across the breadth and width of the realm, searching for those who may sin, who may resist, who many think, who may doubt. Out of the pure shalt emerge the purest and therefrom shalt be born the rightful ruler of the kingdom of Heaven – the most pious, the most daring and the most dashing, clad in white, riding a white steed and holding aloft a gleaming scimitar. God is great; His holy writ alone shalt prevail.

Tailpiece: A republic is a republic as long as it is a community of equals. Only when it treats its citizens equally does a republic emerge. Only when it gives all its citizens all freedoms, all rights, does a republic endure. Only when it protects difference of opinion but tolerates no discrimination, does a republic succeed. Only when it preserves diversity and tolerates no attempt to impose uniformity and conformity, does a republic become worth fighting for.

In Pakistan, people may fight for tribe, for language, for sect, for religion, even for land, but they will never raise their voices, let alone arms, for ensuring that the country stays a republic. Every Pakistani wants to prosper individually and indeed he may wish his family, his business, his assets to prosper, but never will he do anything that helps the republic succeed in mainlining its unity in diversity. He wants to monopolise all the freedom and all the rights for himself, including the freedom to violate the laws of the land and the freedom to trample on the constitution of the country. He may even like to have the same freedoms and same rights for his tribe, sect or faith. But no one will work for the republic to provide enduring freedom and everlasting rights to all and sundry. In a place where one person tends to be more equal than the next for reasons of region or religion, nobody cares a hoot if that place calls itself a republic. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is only Islamic and it is only meant for those who are pure of heart and soul.

In a perverse sense, the country is still a republic. After all, its treats Sawan Masih, a poor illiterate Christian, and Raza Rumi, an upper-middle class professional, equally shabbily. Masih received the death penalty because he blasphemed, and Rumi shall suffer for he preaches rationality in the land of blind, angry faith. The republic of fear has ensured that the two are equals, liable to equal measures of condemnation and damnation. Coupled with recent attacks on Hindu temples across Sindh, the punishment inflicted upon the two must remind everyone, if they don’t already know, that a religious society cannot but be a hierarchical one — with sinners, thinkers, heretics, atheists and infidels forming the bottom of the pile in the same order. Only the pure, indeed the purest, shall rule in the land of the pure. All the rest shall perish. God is great, republic is not. His holy writ shall prevail.