Enlightened moderation? Tell it to those in the Northern Areas of PoK. Tampering of school-syllabi is not just an issue in India, but very much alive in Gilgit and elsewhere in Pakistan, where a particular variant of Islam is sought to be propagated.
Celebrating liberal democracy during his speech to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, Pakistan'sQuaid-i-Azam (Great Leader) Mohammad Ali Jinnah said, "You may belong to any religion or caste orcreed... that has nothing to do with the business of the state. We are all citizens and equal citizens of thestate."
Fifty-seven years since, even as President and General Pervez Musharraf exhorts the people of Pakistan toadopt 'enlightened moderation', Pakistan's tentative quest for a non-discriminatory liberal democracycontinues to unravel. Indeed, the ideology of fundamentalist Islam appears to remain at the heart of theMusharraf regime's strategy of national political mobilization and consolidation, despite talk of 'enlightenedmoderation' - as recent developments in the Northern Areas (NA) of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK)demonstrate.
Agitated over contentious sections in the textbooks prescribed in state-run schools, protestors of the Shiacommunity in the Gilgit city of NA clashed with troops on June 3 during a curfew that had been imposed in thecity's municipal limits. While one protestor was killed near Khomer Chowk, clashes and arson were reportedfrom all over the district. A Pakistan Radio van and transmitter, the Danyore Police Station, the PoliceTraining Centre, the Gilgit Deputy Commissioner's office, a rest house and the Northern Areas LegislativeCouncil hall were damaged by angry mobs.
Shia clerics in Gilgit had called for a rally after failing to reach a compromise with the officials overthe textbooks, which they felt were against their belief system, and sought to propagate a particular brand ofSunni Islam in the Shia dominated Northern areas. The Army was called out in Gilgit to maintain law and orderafter Shia leader Agha Ziauddin Rizvi set June 3 as the deadline for the administration to resolve the issue.Another three persons died when troops opened fire on a vehicle which was violating the curfew on June 6.
The severity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that more than 200 school-children from the Shiacommunity staged a three-day hunger strike in Gilgit on May 17 against the existing syllabus. At the time ofwriting, authorities had imposed a round-the-clock curfew and deployed troops and police in Gilgit city. TheNA administration has decided to close all government schools in districts Gilgit and Skardu for an indefiniteperiod. The underlying fear in Islamabad is that the sectarian unrest that engulfed Karachi in recent dayscould fuel greater anger among the Shias in Gilgit and elsewhere in the Northern Areas.
But what precisely are these objections? The Curriculum Reform Committee of Northern Areas, Gilgit, whilestating that certain sections are repugnant to the Shia school of thought, added that these have beendeliberately inserted to alienate the Shia school-children from their faith. According to Mohammad Shehzad,writing in the Friday Times on July 10, 2003, these offending sections include, among others:
The Northern Areas of PoK, spread over an area of 28, 000 square miles, comprise the five districts ofGilgit, Ghizer, Diamer, Skardu and Ghanche. The population of approximately 1.5 million has ethnic groups asvaried as the Baltees, Shinas, Vashkuns, Mughals, Kashmiris, Pathans, Ladhakhis and Turks inhabiting theregion, speaking a variety of languages like Balti, Shina, Brushaski, Khawer, Wakhi, Turki, Tibeti, Pushto andUrdu.
Unlike the rest of Pakistan, Shias dominate the demography of the Northern Areas. According to FaqirMohammad Khan's The Story of Gilgit, Baltistan and Chitral: A Short History of Two Millenniums, Gilgitis 60 percent Shia, 40 percent Sunni; Hunza is 100 percent Ismaili [a Shia sub-sect]; Nagar is 100 percentShia; Punial is 100 percent Ismaili; Yasin is 100 percent Ismaili; Ishkoman is 100 percent Ismaili; Chilas is100 percent Sunni; Astor is 90 percent Sunni, 10 percent Shia; Baltistan is 96 percent Shia and 2 percentSunni.
The Northern Areas, administered directly by the Federal Government from Islamabad, is governed by theFrontier Crime Regulations framed during the British colonial era. The region is ruled directly by theMinister of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas with a six-member Cabinet. It remains largely neglected, withno university or professional colleges. With an acute absence of industry, subsistence is overwhelmingly basedon tourism.
The people of the Northern Areas are denied representation in the Federal Parliament and the local electedbody, called Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC), has no powers even comparable to that of a municipalbody in a Pakistani city. Although elections to the NALC were held under the military regime in 2000,financial and legislative powers are yet to be delegated to the NALC.
Amidst the lack of civil and political rights, many movements articulating dissent have emerged. The lack ofpolitical representation has fueled demands for both formal inclusion within the Pakistani state and forself-determination. In 1988, there was sectarian unrest in Gilgit after Shias demanded an independent state.However, the Pakistani army suppressed the revolt, allegedly with the assistance of armed Sunni tribesmen froma neighboring province.
The absence of a politics of criticism has dominated the Northern Areas' historiography. Freedom ofassociation and assembly is restricted. Political parties advocating either self-rule or greater politicalrepresentation within Pakistan have, more often than not, found their leaders being subjected to arbitraryarrest and long prison terms. One such formation, the Balawaristan National Front (BNF), estimated in 2003that more than 70 individuals are facing sedition or treason cases as a result of their political activities.BNF leader Abdul Hamid Khan, while referring to the region as 'the heart of darkness', notes that politicaland administrative circumstances in NA - with total control exercised by Islamabad through the Army, with nopopular freedoms or rights, and tight censorship of all information flows - make the region an ideal andsecret place for the relocation of the dislocated hub of international terrorism.
Pakistan's military regime is apprehensive of a geographical spread of the sectarian cauldron, with the possibility of outlawed groups like the Sunni Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Shia Sipah-e-Mohammed Pakistan (SMP) fishing in troubled waters in the NA. Earlier, in February 2004, Islamist extremists had destroyed at least nine schools in Diamer. Many in NA believe that the schools were possibly targeted because they are foreign funded. Mir Aman, resident editor of the Kunjarab Times International, a Gilgit newspaper, said that, as these schools began to attract students, "enrollment in madrassas [seminaries] started declining and the fundamentalists took that as a threat to their value system. The people in this backward area are very religious and female education is considered a waste."
During the same month, the Federal Government had cracked down on an unnamed group led by Maulvi Shahzada Khan in NA for its alleged involvement in terrorist activities. Reportedly involved in bomb blasts and firing at Social Action Programme school buildings in the NA, the group is linked to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and other banned Sunni Jehadi organisations. Intelligence sources quoted in a Daily Times report of February 25 said that the group played a leading role during the 'invasion' of Shia localities by an armed tribal force in Gilgit in 1988. Being strategically vital to Islamabad's Kashmir policy, the military regime can ill-afford another violent front being unlocked, as it is already beleaguered on the Afghan border, Karachi, Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province.
The problems over the syllabus and school curricula currently being encountered in Gilgit and elsewhere inPakistan, are largely the product of a state endeavour to support a particular variant of Islam. The veryconverse of 'enlightened moderation' is being vigorously propounded by what an official of the Curriculum Wingsaid is a 'powerful lobby' of ultra-Islamists who follow the Wahabi school of thought. To be fair to themilitary regime, however, a separate curriculum for the Shias is unlikely to provide a solution given that itwould only further aggravate sectarianism. The roots of the problem lie in the Pakistani state'spre-occupation with the entire process of Islamization, as also in the 'disengagement' of the Northern Areas,a region that remains deeply neglected, exploited and that has been denied a clear political identity. Theresulting ground reality is that the region is a tinderbox and the syllabus issue may well be the spark thatsets it aflame.
Kanchan Lakshman is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines:Writings on Conflict & ResolutionCourtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South AsiaTerrorism Portal