Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Purifying the Land of the Pure
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1963
WEBSITE: https://farahnazispahani.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: Pakistani
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/farahnaz-ispahani * https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/farahnaz-ispahani * http://thediplomat.com/2016/03/interview-farahnaz-ispahani/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016246022
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2016246022
HEADING: Ispahani, Farahnaz
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670 __ |a Purifying the land of the pure, 2015: |b t.p. (Farahnaz Ispahani) jkt. (a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan, journalist, member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, and scholar)
PERSONAL
Born 1963.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC , Global Fellow; Pakistan Member of Parliament and media advisor to the President of Pakistan, 2008-2012. Previously worked as executive producer and managing editor of Voice of America’s Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
WRITINGS
Contributor to Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, National Review, Hindu, India, News, Pakistan and Huffington Post.
SIDELIGHTS
Farahnaz Ispahani is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. She was a Public Policy Scholar at the Center from 2013 to 2014 and was Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, also in Washington, D.C., in 2015. A native of Pakistan and daughter of the first U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Ispahani graduated from Wellesley College and worked as a journalist with MSNBC, CNN, ABC, and Voice of America as well Pakistani publications before entering politics as a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan in 2008. During her term, which ended in 2012, Ispahani served as media advisor to the president of Pakistan. As a politician, Ispahani focused on terrorism, human rights, minority rights, violence against women, and U.S.-Pakistan relations. She was an active supporter of legislation making acid attacks against women a major crime, as well as legislation to outlaw harassment of women in the workplace.
Ispahani’s first book, Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities, traces the history of the country’s intolerance of religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadis, Christians, Shi Muslims, and Parsis, and analyses the ideological and political reasons for this entrenched injustice. As the author explained to Diplomat interviewer Muhammad Akbar Notezai: “Pakistan was originally conceived of as a homeland for South Asia’s Muslims. Pakistan’s purpose was to protect the subcontinent’s largest religious minority. Over time, however, religious and political leaders declared the objective of Pakistan’s creation to be the setting up of an Islamic state. Much of the prejudice against religious minorities can be traced to the effort by Islamists to make Pakistan ‘purer’ in what they conceive of as Islamic terms.”
The author identifies four stages of religious intolerance in Pakistan. The first stage, Muslimisation, occurred during and immediately after the partition of India in 1947, which created the independent dominions of India and Pakistan. Non-Muslims had made up twenty-three percent of Pakistan’s population in 1947, but large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India after partition, after which Pakistan became primarily Muslim. The second stage, Islamic identity, resulted from government indoctrination via textbooks and other campaigns designed to create a national identity based only in Islam. Stage three, Islamisation, came about through legislation that not only made Pakistani law more Islamic but also outlawed blasphemy and designated non-Muslims as minorities/ Stage four, militant hostility, began during the tenure of Muhammed Zia-ul-Haq, who was elected president in 1978 after seizing power in a 1977 military coup that ousted Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Ispahani writes that the kind of organized violence and terrorism that arose during Zia’s era has continued into the twenty-first century. In an eighteen-month period from 2012 to 2013, some 200 incidents of sectarian violence resulted in about 1,800 casualties and more than 700 deaths. Shia Muslims, who are considered among Pakistan’s Muslim majority under the country’s constitution, were major targets of this violence. As the author points out, attacks on religious minorities are seldom prosecuted in Pakistan. When perpetrators are brought to court, they are almost always set free.
Speaking with Caravan contributor Nikita Sazena, Ispahani explained that though Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, had envisioned a pluralist country, he was already terminally ill when Pakistan first gained independence. And other leaders “needed something to glue themselves to power. Most of them had not come from the landmass of the new country of Pakistan . . . [and] did not, as politicians and bureaucrats, have a natural political constituency. They didn’t have voters, they didn’t have ancestral villages, they didn’t have the local languages. . . . What ended up happening was that they turned back to the ‘Islam is in danger,’ that ‘Pakistan is equal to Islam’ and ‘Islam is equal to Pakistan’ trope.”
Since Islamic laws were enacted, the author continued, it has proved very difficult to reverse them. “Religion is very emotive,” she told Sazena. “Pakistan’s people have . . . been told through the media and their textbooks that their first identity is as a Muslim, and so it becomes very difficult to do anything about these laws.” Indeed, many who have openly challenged the anti-blasphemy laws have been killed. In Ispahani’s view, it is the state’s obligation to defend the rights of minorities and punish those involved in mob violence. The author also argues that the government must change media bias and textbook messages that promote intolerance, ensuring that all Pakistanis should be considered equal under the law. Ispahani also believes that the United States, which has supported a succession of military dictatorships in Pakistan, has an obligation to support the Pakistani people by declaring Pakistan a country of particular concern under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.
A writer for Publishers Weekly felt that Ispahani does not do enough in Purifying the Land of the Pure to “interrogate the role of modern statecraft” or the weaknesses of secular governance in the dynamic of religious intolerance in Pakistan. Nevertheless, the reviewer praised the book as an admirable overview of Pakistan’s history and religious identity.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly Dec. 12, 2016, review of Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities. p. 144.
ONLINE
Caravan, http://www.caravanmagazine.in/ (January 23, 2016), Nikita Saxena, interview with Ispahani.
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FARAHNAZ ISPAHANI
Author, Politician & Human Rights Activist
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Farahnaz Ispahani is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC and the author of the book Purifying The Land of The Pure: The History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities (Oxford University Press, 2017). In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014. A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. She was also a member of the Women’s caucus in the 13th National Assembly. The caucus, which straddled political divides, was instrumental in introducing more legislation on women’s issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term. Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America’s Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
With Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, The Patron of Pakistan Peoples Party
Farahnaz Ispahani is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, author of “Purifying The Land of the Pure; Pakistan’s Religious Minorities. She is Foreign Policy Global Thinker.
In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC where she worked on Women and Extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014.
A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Adviser to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Women’s Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Women’s caucus in the 13th National Assembly. The caucus, which straddled political divides, was instrumental in introducing more legislation on women’s issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term.
Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America’s Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
She has contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The National Review, The Hindu, India, The News, Pakistan and The Huffington Post.
Ms Ispahani has spoken at many forums in the US and abroad including the Aspen Ideas Festival, The Brussels Forum, The Aspen Congressional Program, The Chautauqua Institute, The University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College, Jamia Millia University, Delhi.
“The National Endowment for Democracy” introduces Ms Ispahani as:
Ms. Farahnaz Ispahani
Pakistan
“Women’s Political Participation in the Muslim World”
Reagan Fascell Democracy Fellow: Mar 2015 – Jul 2015
Ms. Farahnaz Ispahani has been a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan for the past twenty five years, first as a journalist, then as a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, and most recently as a scholar based in the United States. An advocate of Pakistan’s return to democracy during the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, she served as a spokesperson and international media coordinator for the Pakistan People’s Party, working alongside the late Benazir Bhutto. During her tenure in parliament (2008–2012), she was a member of the Human Rights Committee and the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus. In 2013–2014, she served as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she completed a book on the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan. In 2012, she was listed amongForeign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, as well as Newsweek Pakistan’s Top 100 Women Who Matter. During her fellowship, Ms. Ispahani is exploring women’s political participation in the Muslim world, both in terms of their progress toward gender equality under democratic systems and the converse rise of women as agents of extremist propaganda within the world of the Islamic State.
Articles and Op-Eds
“Silenced: Another Killing Amidst Pakistan’s Democratic Trappings,” Foreign Policy Magazine, April 28, 2015.
Interviews
“EWTN News Nightly – 2015.3.16,” EWTN News Nightly, March 16, 2015.
Presentations
“Religion and the Liberal International Order,” The German Marshall Fund, March 21, 2015.
“The Islamic State and its Impact on International Affairs in the Middle East,” Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University, April 1, 2015.
Link to the page http://www.ned.org/fellowships/current-past-fellows/ms-farahnaz-ispahani
______________________________________________________________________________
Silenced: Another Killing Amidst Pakistan’s Democratic Trappings
How Sabeen Mahmud’s murder reveals the limits of Pakistan’s democracy.
BY FARAHNAZ ISPAHANI
APRIL 28, 2015
Silenced: Another Killing Amidst Pakistan’s Democratic Trappings
Sabeen Mahmud was killed on Apr. 24 after hosting an event in Karachiabout the brutal suppression of an ethnic nationalist insurgency in the restive province of Balochistan. The murder of another leading Pakistani social activist has drawn attention to the systematic elimination of the few liberal voices in the country. Beginning with the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, several outspoken critics of Pakistan’s jihadis and their backers within the state apparatus have either been killed or silenced by intimidation. Yet Pakistan also continues to maintain the trappings of democracy, making it difficult for many both inside and outside Pakistan to understand the method in the violent madness.
Pakistan’s notorious and ubiquitous ‘deep state’ — personified by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency — had blocked a similar event on the suppression of the insurgency in Balochistan at other venues but Mahmud allowed the event to take place at her café and arts space. She was killed soon after she left the talk. Although some critics have pointed the finger at ISI,others have raised the valid question that killing Mahmud right after the event was bound to attract attention to the agency and could be the work of those who wanted precisely to direct blame at the ISI. Unexplained murders in Pakistan are often blamed on ‘foreign hands.’ In most democratic countries, speculation about who murdered Sabeen Mahmud would end with a proper investigation and a credible trial. But Pakistan is not like most other democratic countries.
Pakistan has an elected parliament and a diverse media. It allows contestation for power among an assortment of political parties. Many Pakistanis are able to criticize their government and debate the corruption of politicians. This creates an illusion of Pakistan’s freedom glass being half full.
On the flip side, there are unsolved murders of public figures and journalists; bodies of Baloch nationalists dumped after being killed by security services; and the attacks and threats of violence by as many as 48 Islamist terrorist groups.
Pakistan is considered one of the most dangerous places for journalists by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which has recorded the killing of 56 journalists in the country over the last two decades. Several journalists, likeHamid Mir and Raza Rumi have escaped death after being shot at in what were clearly attempts to silence them.
Violence in Balochistan is endemic. Last year 153 bullet-riddled bodies were recovered in Balochistan, according to human rights groups, which blamed security services for systematically eliminating suspected Baloch militants as well as their sympathizers. Baloch militants, too, have been responsible for killing members of other ethnic groups whom they see as encroachers on their traditional tribal homeland.
There is little discussion of Balochistan in the national or international media. Foreign journalists are not allowed to visit the province except with special permission. Some, like the New York Times’ Carlotta Gall, have beenbeaten up upon arrival in Quetta, the provincial capital, to dissuade them from looking for stories there.
The attack on Hamid Mir followed his attempt to discuss Balochistan on his television show and now Sabeen Mahmud’s murder has also followed an attempt to talk about the situation in the province.
From an international perspective, Balochistan is deemed less important than the challenge of Islamist terrorism in Pakistan. Jihadis, some of whom have been supported by ISI in an effort to project Pakistani power in Afghanistan and against arch-rival India, have wreaked havoc in Pakistan for years. Several thousand Pakistanis, have died in terrorist attacks across the country.
The Pakistani military is engaged in battling some jihadist terrorist groups in the country’s northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan. But other internationally designated terrorist groups continue to operate openly in Pakistan’s cities and their leaders are even able to appear on national television.
The systematic elimination of liberal voices in Pakistan can best be understood in the context of red lines set by the ‘deep state.’ Arrogant in the assumption that they alone know what is good for the country and what should or should not be publicly discussed, Pakistan’s spooks allow only a ‘circumscribed democracy.’ This explains why some ostensibly liberal Pakistanis survive while others do not.
Subjects that incur the wrath of the ‘deep state’ and its terrorist allies include their atrocities in Balochistan and the persisting ties between the ISI and jihadis. Other topics that upset them include suggesting normalization of ties with India without resolving the Kashmir dispute or proposing curtailment of the military’s role in policy-making.
The killing of Sabeen Mahmud is most likely meant to be a warning to others not to publicly discuss state enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Pakistan’s liberals are tolerated as long as they stay within their prescribed limits. They may discuss gender inequality and politicians’ corruption, even religious intolerance. But questioning the ‘deep state’ and its myopic vision is where the line is drawn.
Link to the Article: “Silenced: Another Killing Amidst Pakistan’s Democratic Trappings,” Foreign Policy Magazine, April 28, 2015.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Wilson Center Experts
Farahnaz Ispahani
Public Policy Scholar Farahnaz Ispahani Asia Program
EXPERTISE:
Democracy
Democracy Promotion
Democratic Transition
Gender
Gender Equality
Human Rights
Pakistan
South Asia
Middle East and North Africa
Egypt
AFFILIATION:
Former Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan.
WILSON CENTER PROJECT(S):
“Protecting Religious Minorities in Pakistan”
TERM:
Jun 03, 2013 – Jun 30, 2014
Farahnaz Ispahani is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She is a Pakistani politician who served as a member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan. At the Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America’s Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
Project Summary
Pakistan’s religious minorities are widely viewed as embattled and under attack. This project undertakes a comprehensive analysis of Pakistan’s policies towards its religious minority populations, both Muslim and Non-Muslim, before proposing policy reforms Pakistan can undertake to ensure their protection. A historical overview will be taken in the context of expanding Islamization and evaluate state policy and legal provisions and their impact on the status of religious minorities. It is not only Pakistan where Muslim and Non-Muslim minorities are under attack. This is a phenomenon prevalent in a number of Muslim majority countries and spreading rapidly. The broader aim of this project is to look at Pakistan and other Muslim Majority countries such as Indonesia and Egypt.
Major Publications
Thwarting Blasphemy laws in the Muslim World, National Review
The problem with Pakistan’s democracy, Foreign Policy Magazine
Death by a Thousand Cuts – The Hindu
Democracy Wins, Federation Loses – The Hindu
Related Content for this Expert
Farahnaz Ispahani on Religious Intolerance in Pakistan
Jul 21, 2014
In a new set of interviews, public policy scholar Farahnaz Ispahani outlined the issues faced by religious minorities in Pakistan, and the path to a solution. MORE
Religious Intolerance in Pakistan and the Plight of Religious Minorities
June 04, 2014 // 4:00pm — 5:15pm
In recent years, Pakistan—a Sunni Muslim majority country with Shia Muslim, Christian, and Hindu minorities—has been convulsed by sectarian violence. More than 2,000 people have been killed in sectarian attacks since 2008, and last year sectarian killings rose by more than a fifth from 2012. MORE
Time for Pakistan’s Leaders to Stand Up for Women
Mar 07, 2014
With the Taliban’s call for the imposition of Sharia law during current peace talks between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Pakistani government, there are growing concerns that women’s freedoms will be further eroded, writes Farahnaz Ispahani. MORE
Pakistan’s Former Leader Facing Treason Charges
Nov 21, 2013
Public Policy Scholar Farahnaz Ispahani recently spoke with Radio Australia about the special tribunal which has been set up to try Pakistani General Pervez Musharraf on charges of treason. Ispahani says this groundbreaking occurrence could lead to a conflict between the Pakistani military and its government. MORE
Media Briefing: PM Sharif Visits Washington
October 21, 2013 // 10:00am — 11:00am
Wilson Center Experts to preview the Obama-Sharif meeting, U.S.-Pakistan relations, and domestic challenges facing Sharif MORE
MENA Women in the Reformist Process: A Retrospective
October 18, 2013 // 9:00am — 1:00pm
Experts will discuss women’s role in the reformist process in the Middle East and North Africa region. MORE
The Zardari Legacy
Sep 13, 2013
Zardari’s legacy will be the strengthening of the democratic process. Out of office, he can now work on rebuilding the PPP so that the party can seek a mandate from the people during the next election to actually govern and deliver — something it was not allowed to do last time, writes Farahnaz Ispahani. MORE
The Merits of the Case
Aug 22, 2013
As gratifying as Musharraf’s indictment is, let’s hope that the Pakistani military and justice system treat his trial on its merits and do not move it into a personal or political realm, writes Public Policy Scholar Farahnaz Ispahani on ForeignPolicy.com. MORE
First time in Pakistan’s history coup-making general has to answer charges
Aug 21, 2013
Asia Program Public Policy Scholar Farahnaz Ispahani was interviewed on Voice of Russia regarding charges leveled on former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf. MORE
Pakistan’s Number One Threat
Aug 13, 2013
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has repeatedly declared that his number one priority is rebuilding his country’s economy. But Wilson Center and Asia Program Public Policy Scholar Farahnaz Ispahani warns, in an article published in the Foreign Policy’s AFPAK channel, that the Sharif government may face an even more urgent task: combatting the domestic terrorism that threatens the very future of Pakistan. MORE
Link : Farahnaz Ispahani- Wilson Center Experts
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18 comments
Muhammad Shahid Nawaz
August 5, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Keep working hard and hard for this great nation in the name of Shaheed-e-Jamhoriat Mohtarmma Benazir Bhutto Sahheed.
Reply
khalid
October 28, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Great Women
Reply
kamran
February 5, 2012 at 8:22 am
Jeay Bhutto
Aslam-ele-kum
Pakistan pplz party hamesha kamyab rahy q k es party ne bohat s qurbaniyan di hai
kamran qabulio
kotri hyderbad sindh
Reply
Muhammad Akhtar Ayoub
May 15, 2012 at 6:55 pm
good stay blessd
Reply
HAZRAT WALI KAKAR
July 14, 2012 at 1:10 am
i am very glad to read today your article in Express tribune which highlighting positive aspects of Jinah speech of 11 August 1947.
Reply
Jamil
September 1, 2012 at 12:23 am
Dear Farahnaz,.
I read your op-ed, “Pakistan’s minorities: the bigger issue” on the Daily Times website. It was straight forward and thought provoking.
While reading your op-ed and other op-eds on similar subjects, I got an idea that I propose strictly for the seemingly unchangeable, stuck-in-the-7th-century-mindset, majority-Muslim society of a conservative Islamic country of Pakistan which is found to be Arabizing itself and subjugating women and minorities: If it cannot be repealed due to death threats by Islamists, how about expanding the blasphemy law to include all other religions? To elaborate on the idea, it would be a crime, punishable by law with equal force and effect, to spread a religious hatred by systematically denigrating other religious beliefs, disrespect religious relics, icons, books, writings, statues, symbols or other sacred objects; insult deities, gods, goddesses, saints, gurus or other sacred persons (alive or dead) of any religions or sects thereof; or vandalize or destroy the idols or the places of worships of any religions or sects thereof. This would hopefully be a deterrence to accusation of blasphemy increasingly made by majority Muslims, reduce religious persecution or mob violence by majority Muslims, and minimize supremacy of one religion (or a sect thereof) over the other while resulting in an interfaith harmony and religious tolerance and promoting peace and pluralism in Pakistan.
It would be great if someone like you in Pakistan could write an op-ed based on the abovementioned idea and start a dialog or debate in the Pakistan’s society or political arena through the electronic media so as to bring fairness in the blasphemy law without a need to repeal it.
I would welcome your response.
Sincerely,
–Jamil
California, USA
Reply
Muhammad Waheed Qureshi
March 4, 2013 at 6:29 pm
Dear Jamil
Have you got response from Mrs.Farahnaz about your comments on op-ed written by her.
Reply
Junaid Ali
October 5, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Great, keep it up maim Always Blessed
Reply
shabbir hussain jafery
February 7, 2013 at 6:55 am
couregious women God bless u
Reply
Muhammad Waheed Qureshi
March 4, 2013 at 6:24 pm
Dear Farahnaz, You are too brave woman. God Bless you with health and prosperity.
Reply
qazi azhar
April 1, 2013 at 7:29 pm
My Dear Farahnaz,Ispahani realy i appreciate Ur hardworking sincerity & intellectuality Ur are pztve mind political worker. Ur struggle for women of Pakistan. i heard ur comments in assembly in different issues . God Bless u.
Reply
khizar abbas
April 15, 2013 at 8:59 pm
good worker……….
Reply
abid
May 9, 2013 at 10:56 pm
very beautyful
Reply
ispahanihaqqani
June 17, 2014 at 3:25 am
Thank you and bless you for reading and commenting positively.
Reply
TAHIR
July 18, 2013 at 2:51 am
i read really impress
Reply
Farahnaz Ispahani
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Thanks to all for a productive feedback, surely your comments value for me. God bless everyone.
Reply
khizarabbas
August 4, 2013 at 6:17 am
Keep working i read really impress……….
Reply
ispahanihaqqani
June 17, 2014 at 3:24 am
Thank you very much. Stay blessed. Best regards.
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Important Links
"EWTN News Nightly – 2015.3.16," EWTN News Nightly, March 16, 2015.
"Religion and the Liberal International Order," The German Marshall Fund, March 21, 2015.
Andrew Harrod Reviews Farahnaz Ispahani’s New Insightful Book "Purifying the Land of the Pure; Pakistan Religious Minorities"
Farahnaz Ispahani – Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs
Farahnaz Ispahani as Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar/Expert
FARAHNAZ ISPAHANI – SENIOR FELLOW, SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA ACTION TEAM at RELIGIOUS FREEDOM INSTITUTE
Farahnaz Ispahani from Wikipedia
Farahnaz Ispahani interviewed on the Mimi Geerges show. Pakistan's Persecution of Religious Minorities.
Farahnaz ispahani on Facebook
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Farahnaz Ispahani Scholar at WIlson Center, Washington DC.
Farahnaz Ispahani's Articles to "Daily Times"
Farahnaz ispahani's Articles to "The Hindu"
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Farahnaz Ispahani's Articles to HuffPost
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The Diplomat Interview of Farahnaz Ispahani
Farahnaz Ispahani
Farahnaz Ispahani is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, author of “Purifying The Land of the Pure; Pakistan’s Religious Minorities, Senior Fellow at Religious Freedom Institute. She is Foreign Policy Global Thinker. In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014. A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012.
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Farahnaz Ispahani
Farahnaz Ispahani 2009.jpg
Spokesperson for the President of Pakistan
In office
2008–2012
President Asif Ali Zardari
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani
Preceded by Major-General Rashid Qureshi
Majority Pakistan People's Party
Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan
In office
19 March 2008 – 25 May 2012
Constituency Sindh-XI
Personal details
Born Farahnaz Ispahani
Karachi, Pakistan
Citizenship Pakistan, USA
Nationality Pakistani, USA
Political party Pakistan People's Party (PPP)
Spouse(s) Husain Haqqani
Residence Islamabad, Islamabad Capital Territory
Alma mater Wellesley College
(BSc)
Profession Media administrator and political scientist
Committees Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Information and Broadcasting and Youth Affairs, and Human Rights Committee
Farahnaz Ispahani (Urdu: فرحناز اصفهانی) (born 1963) is a Pakistani author, journalist, politician, and policy analyst. She is a former Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.[1] She is the author of "Purifying the Land of the Pure; Pakistan's Religious Minorities", which describes the problems and victimisation of religious minorities in Pakistan since its creation in 1947. Previously, she served as a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008 until 2012.[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Family and education
2 Professional career
3 Political career
4 References
5 External links
Family and education[edit]
Ispahani was born in Karachi, and grew up in Karachi, Dhaka and London. She graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, majoring in political science.[3]
She is married to Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, and is the granddaughter of Pakistan's first ambassador to the United States, Mirza Abol Hassan Ispahani.[4]
Professional career[edit]
Ispahani spent two decades in journalism—both print and television—before entering politics. She worked in broadcasting, working with MSNBC, CNN, (ABC) and (VOA) assisting in the launch of new programs including CNN's Paula Zahn Now and Anderson Cooper 360°. In addition, she served as the Managing Editor and Executive Producer for the Voice of America Urdu language television program Beyond the Headlines.[5] She served as Editor Special Reports for the leading Pakistani news magazine The Herald, and was the Editor of Zameen, a magazine oriented toward Pakistanis living abroad. She is a regular contributor in The News, Pakistan's second largest English-language newspaper, Express Tribune and Daily Times.
Political career[edit]
In 2008, Farahnaz Ispahani joined the National Assembly of Pakistan as a Member from the Pakistan Peoples Party, representing the Sindh province in the reserved seats for women.[6] She was a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, and the Human Rights Committee as well as Media Adviser to President Asif Ali Zardari.[7][8] In May 2012, the Supreme Court of Pakistan suspended her National Assembly membership due to her dual possession of American nationality.[9]
In 2012, Ispahani was named one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine.[10]
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "Farahnaz Ispahani Staff Profile". The Wilson Center. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
Jump up ^ "Pakistan blocks, restores Twitter". The Nation. Islamabad. May 21, 2012.
Jump up ^ "Several Year-End "Best Of" Lists Included Stories from the Wellesley College Community". January 9, 2013.
Jump up ^ Richter, Paul (24 October 2008). "A Pakistani diplomat's delicate mission". Los Angeles Times.
Jump up ^ http://www.voanews.com/english/About/2005-11-10-voa69.cfm
Jump up ^ PakTribune http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?198177. Missing or empty |title= (help)
Jump up ^ "William Hague meets NA Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015.
Jump up ^ "Tribune Twitterati list: 140 characters of Pakistan". June 24, 2011.
Jump up ^ "SC suspends Farahnaz's NA membership". The News. 25 May 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
Jump up ^ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers". November 6, 2012.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Farahnaz Ispahani.
Farahnaz Ispahani at Twitter
https://farahnazispahani.wordpress.com
Categories: Wellesley College alumniIspahani familyMembers of the National Assembly of PakistanMuhajir peopleLiving peoplePakistan Peoples Party politiciansPakistani expatriates in BangladeshPakistani women in politicsPoliticians from Karachi1963 births
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Wilson Center Home Experts Farahnaz Ispahani
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Farahnaz Ispahani
CONTACT
Farahnaz.Ispahani@wilsoncenter.org
@fispahani
EXPERTISE
Democracy Democracy Promotion Democratic Transition Gender Gender Equality Human Rights Pakistan South Asia Middle East and North Africa Egypt
AFFILIATION
Author and former Member, Pakistan Parliament
TERM
Oct 01, 2016 — Sep 30, 2018
SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW
Ryan McKenna
Ryan.mckenna@wilsoncenter.org
202/691-4217
Bio
Farahnaz Ispahani is the author of the recently released book (Harper-Collins, India) Purifying The Land of The Pure: Pakistan's Religious Minorities.
In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC where she worked on Women and Extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014.
A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Women’s Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Women’s caucus in the 13th National Assembly. The caucus, which straddled political divides, was instrumental in introducing more legislation on women’s issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term.
Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America's Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
She has contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The National Review, The Hindu, India, The News, Pakistan and The Huffington Post.
Ms Ispahani has spoken at many forums in the US and abroad including the Aspen Ideas Festival, The Brussels Forum, The Aspen Congressional Program, The Chautauqua Institute, The University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College, Jamia Millia University, Delhi.
Project Summary
Project Summary from Ispahani's term as a Public Policy Scholar in 2013-2014
Pakistan's religious minorities are widely viewed as embattled and under attack. This project undertakes a comprehensive analysis of Pakistan's policies towards its religious minority populations, both Muslim and Non-Muslim, before proposing policy reforms Pakistan can undertake to ensure their protection. A historical overview will be taken in the context of expanding Islamization and evaluate state policy and legal provisions and their impact on the status of religious minorities. It is not only Pakistan where Muslim and Non-Muslim minorities are under attack. This is a phenomenon prevalent in a number of Muslim majority countries and spreading rapidly. The broader aim of this project is to look at Pakistan and other Muslim Majority countries such as Indonesia and Egypt.
Major Publications
Thwarting Blasphemy laws in the Muslim World, National Review
The problem with Pakistan's democracy, Foreign Policy Magazine
Death by a Thousand Cuts - The Hindu
Democracy Wins, Federation Loses - The Hindu
Previous Terms
Public Policy Scholar, June 2013-2014: "Protecting Religious Minorities in Pakistan"
Resources
High Res Photo (4.35 MB)
RELATED CONTENT
Women Driving Positive Change in the Middle East
Women Driving Positive Change in the Middle East
RELIGION
Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities
ISIS ASIA PROGRAM
Equal Opportunity Terrorism
HUMAN RIGHTS ASIA PROGRAM
Farahnaz Ispahani on Religious Intolerance in Pakistan
HUMAN RIGHTS
Religious Intolerance in Pakistan and the Plight of Religious Minorities
CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND PEACEBUILDING ASIA PROGRAM
Time for Pakistan's Leaders to Stand Up for Women
ASIA PROGRAM
Pakistan's Former Leader Facing Treason Charges
DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION
Media Briefing: PM Sharif Visits Washington
GENDER
MENA Women in the Reformist Process: A Retrospective
DEMOCRACY ASIA PROGRAM
The Zardari Legacy
ASIA PROGRAM
The Merits of the Case
ASIA PROGRAM
First time in Pakistan's history coup-making general has to answer charges
SECURITY AND DEFENSE ASIA PROGRAM
Pakistan's Number One Threat
Welcome to Wilson Center
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202-691-4000
The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community.
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Home
RESEARCH
EVENTS
EXPLORE
EXPERTS
ABOUT
DONATE
You are here
Wilson Center Home Experts Farahnaz Ispahani
GLOBAL FELLOW ASIA PROGRAM
Farahnaz Ispahani
CONTACT
Farahnaz.Ispahani@wilsoncenter.org
@fispahani
EXPERTISE
Democracy Democracy Promotion Democratic Transition Gender Gender Equality Human Rights Pakistan South Asia Middle East and North Africa Egypt
AFFILIATION
Author and former Member, Pakistan Parliament
TERM
Oct 01, 2016 — Sep 30, 2018
SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW
Ryan McKenna
Ryan.mckenna@wilsoncenter.org
202/691-4217
Bio
Farahnaz Ispahani is the author of the recently released book (Harper-Collins, India) Purifying The Land of The Pure: Pakistan's Religious Minorities.
In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC where she worked on Women and Extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014.
A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Women’s Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Women’s caucus in the 13th National Assembly. The caucus, which straddled political divides, was instrumental in introducing more legislation on women’s issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term.
Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America's Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
She has contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The National Review, The Hindu, India, The News, Pakistan and The Huffington Post.
Ms Ispahani has spoken at many forums in the US and abroad including the Aspen Ideas Festival, The Brussels Forum, The Aspen Congressional Program, The Chautauqua Institute, The University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College, Jamia Millia University, Delhi.
Project Summary
Project Summary from Ispahani's term as a Public Policy Scholar in 2013-2014
Pakistan's religious minorities are widely viewed as embattled and under attack. This project undertakes a comprehensive analysis of Pakistan's policies towards its religious minority populations, both Muslim and Non-Muslim, before proposing policy reforms Pakistan can undertake to ensure their protection. A historical overview will be taken in the context of expanding Islamization and evaluate state policy and legal provisions and their impact on the status of religious minorities. It is not only Pakistan where Muslim and Non-Muslim minorities are under attack. This is a phenomenon prevalent in a number of Muslim majority countries and spreading rapidly. The broader aim of this project is to look at Pakistan and other Muslim Majority countries such as Indonesia and Egypt.
Major Publications
Thwarting Blasphemy laws in the Muslim World, National Review
The problem with Pakistan's democracy, Foreign Policy Magazine
Death by a Thousand Cuts - The Hindu
Democracy Wins, Federation Loses - The Hindu
Previous Terms
Public Policy Scholar, June 2013-2014: "Protecting Religious Minorities in Pakistan"
Resources
High Res Photo (4.35 MB)
RELATED CONTENT
Women Driving Positive Change in the Middle East
Women Driving Positive Change in the Middle East
RELIGION
Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities
ISIS ASIA PROGRAM
Equal Opportunity Terrorism
HUMAN RIGHTS ASIA PROGRAM
Farahnaz Ispahani on Religious Intolerance in Pakistan
HUMAN RIGHTS
Religious Intolerance in Pakistan and the Plight of Religious Minorities
CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND PEACEBUILDING ASIA PROGRAM
Time for Pakistan's Leaders to Stand Up for Women
ASIA PROGRAM
Pakistan's Former Leader Facing Treason Charges
DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION
Media Briefing: PM Sharif Visits Washington
GENDER
MENA Women in the Reformist Process: A Retrospective
DEMOCRACY ASIA PROGRAM
The Zardari Legacy
ASIA PROGRAM
The Merits of the Case
ASIA PROGRAM
First time in Pakistan's history coup-making general has to answer charges
SECURITY AND DEFENSE ASIA PROGRAM
Pakistan's Number One Threat
Welcome to Wilson Center
WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027
202-691-4000
The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community.
DONATE NOW
EMAIL UPDATES
Weekly updates from the Wilson Center
enter email
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FOLLOW WILSON CENTER
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Skip to main content RESEARCH EVENTS EXPLORE EXPERTS ABOUT DONATE You are here Wilson Center Home Experts Farahnaz Ispahani GLOBAL FELLOW ASIA PROGRAM Farahnaz Ispahani CONTACT Farahnaz.Ispahani@wilsoncenter.org @fispahani EXPERTISE Democracy Democracy Promotion Democratic Transition Gender Gender Equality Human Rights Pakistan South Asia Middle East and North Africa Egypt AFFILIATION Author and former Member, Pakistan Parliament TERM Oct 01, 2016 — Sep 30, 2018 SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW Ryan McKenna Ryan.mckenna@wilsoncenter.org 202/691-4217 Bio Farahnaz Ispahani is the author of the recently released book (Harper-Collins, India) Purifying The Land of The Pure: Pakistan's Religious Minorities. In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC where she worked on Women and Extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014. A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Women’s Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Women’s caucus in the 13th National Assembly. The caucus, which straddled political divides, was instrumental in introducing more legislation on women’s issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term. Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America's Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC. She has contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The National Review, The Hindu, India, The News, Pakistan and The Huffington Post. Ms Ispahani has spoken at many forums in the US and abroad including the Aspen Ideas Festival, The Brussels Forum, The Aspen Congressional Program, The Chautauqua Institute, The University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College, Jamia Millia University, Delhi. Project Summary Project Summary from Ispahani's term as a Public Policy Scholar in 2013-2014 Pakistan's religious minorities are widely viewed as embattled and under attack. This project undertakes a comprehensive analysis of Pakistan's policies towards its religious minority populations, both Muslim and Non-Muslim, before proposing policy reforms Pakistan can undertake to ensure their protection. A historical overview will be taken in the context of expanding Islamization and evaluate state policy and legal provisions and their impact on the status of religious minorities. It is not only Pakistan where Muslim and Non-Muslim minorities are under attack. This is a phenomenon prevalent in a number of Muslim majority countries and spreading rapidly. The broader aim of this project is to look at Pakistan and other Muslim Majority countries such as Indonesia and Egypt. Major Publications Thwarting Blasphemy laws in the Muslim World, National Review The problem with Pakistan's democracy, Foreign Policy Magazine Death by a Thousand Cuts - The Hindu Democracy Wins, Federation Loses - The Hindu Previous Terms Public Policy Scholar, June 2013-2014: "Protecting Religious Minorities in Pakistan" Resources High Res Photo (4.35 MB) RELATED CONTENT Women Driving Positive Change in the Middle East RELIGION Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities ISIS ASIA PROGRAM Equal Opportunity Terrorism HUMAN RIGHTS ASIA PROGRAM Farahnaz Ispahani on Religious Intolerance in Pakistan HUMAN RIGHTS Religious Intolerance in Pakistan and the Plight of Religious Minorities CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND PEACEBUILDING ASIA PROGRAM Time for Pakistan's Leaders to Stand Up for Women ASIA PROGRAM Pakistan's Former Leader Facing Treason Charges DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION Media Briefing: PM Sharif Visits Washington GENDER MENA Women in the Reformist Process: A Retrospective DEMOCRACY ASIA PROGRAM The Zardari Legacy ASIA PROGRAM The Merits of the Case ASIA PROGRAM First time in Pakistan's history coup-making general has to answer charges SECURITY AND DEFENSE ASIA PROGRAM Pakistan's Number One Threat WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20004-3027 202-691-4000 The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community. DONATE NOW EMAIL UPDATES Weekly updates from the Wilson Center FOLLOW WILSON CENTER Facebook Twitter RSS Youtube Linked In Press About Support the Center 990 Forms/Budget Privacy SUPPORT the Wilson Center with every Amazon purchase. Close Skip to main content RESEARCH EVENTS EXPLORE EXPERTS ABOUT DONATE You are here Wilson Center Home Experts Farahnaz Ispahani GLOBAL FELLOW ASIA PROGRAM Farahnaz Ispahani CONTACT Farahnaz.Ispahani@wilsoncenter.org @fispahani EXPERTISE Democracy Democracy Promotion Democratic Transition Gender Gender Equality Human Rights Pakistan South Asia Middle East and North Africa Egypt AFFILIATION Author and former Member, Pakistan Parliament TERM Oct 01, 2016 — Sep 30, 2018 SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW Ryan McKenna Ryan.mckenna@wilsoncenter.org 202/691-4217 Bio Farahnaz Ispahani is the author of the recently released book (Harper-Collins, India) Purifying The Land of The Pure: Pakistan's Religious Minorities. In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC where she worked on Women and Extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014. A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Women’s Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Women’s caucus in the 13th National Assembly. The caucus, which straddled political divides, was instrumental in introducing more legislation on women’s issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term. Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America's Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC. She has contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The National Review, The Hindu, India, The News, Pakistan and The Huffington Post. Ms Ispahani has spoken at many forums in the US and abroad including the Aspen Ideas Festival, The Brussels Forum, The Aspen Congressional Program, The Chautauqua Institute, The University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College, Jamia Millia University, Delhi. Project Summary Project Summary from Ispahani's term as a Public Policy Scholar in 2013-2014 Pakistan's religious minorities are widely viewed as embattled and under attack. This project undertakes a comprehensive analysis of Pakistan's policies towards its religious minority populations, both Muslim and Non-Muslim, before proposing policy reforms Pakistan can undertake to ensure their protection. A historical overview will be taken in the context of expanding Islamization and evaluate state policy and legal provisions and their impact on the status of religious minorities. It is not only Pakistan where Muslim and Non-Muslim minorities are under attack. This is a phenomenon prevalent in a number of Muslim majority countries and spreading rapidly. The broader aim of this project is to look at Pakistan and other Muslim Majority countries such as Indonesia and Egypt. Major Publications Thwarting Blasphemy laws in the Muslim World, National Review The problem with Pakistan's democracy, Foreign Policy Magazine Death by a Thousand Cuts - The Hindu Democracy Wins, Federation Loses - The Hindu Previous Terms Public Policy Scholar, June 2013-2014: "Protecting Religious Minorities in Pakistan" Resources High Res Photo (4.35 MB) RELATED CONTENT Women Driving Positive Change in the Middle East RELIGION Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities ISIS ASIA PROGRAM Equal Opportunity Terrorism HUMAN RIGHTS ASIA PROGRAM Farahnaz Ispahani on Religious Intolerance in Pakistan HUMAN RIGHTS Religious Intolerance in Pakistan and the Plight of Religious Minorities CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND PEACEBUILDING ASIA PROGRAM Time for Pakistan's Leaders to Stand Up for Women ASIA PROGRAM Pakistan's Former Leader Facing Treason Charges DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION Media Briefing: PM Sharif Visits Washington GENDER MENA Women in the Reformist Process: A Retrospective DEMOCRACY ASIA PROGRAM The Zardari Legacy ASIA PROGRAM The Merits of the Case ASIA PROGRAM First time in Pakistan's history coup-making general has to answer charges SECURITY AND DEFENSE ASIA PROGRAM Pakistan's Number One Threat WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20004-3027 202-691-4000 The Wilson Center, chartered by Congress as the living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, is the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum. In tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue, the Center informs actionable ideas for Congress, the administration, and the broader policy community. DONATE NOW EMAIL UPDATES Weekly updates from the Wilson Center FOLLOW WILSON CENTER Facebook Twitter RSS Youtube Linked In Press About Support the Center 990 Forms/Budget Privacy SUPPORT the Wilson Center with every Amazon purchase. Close ShareThis Copy and Paste
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Farahnaz Ispahani
This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Berkley Center. S/he has contributed to one or more of our events, publications, or projects. Please contact the individual at her/his home institution.
Farahnaz Ispahani has been a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan for over two decades, working as a journalist, member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, and most recently as a United States-based scholar. An advocate of Pakistan’s return to democracy during the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, she served as a spokesperson and international media coordinator for the Pakistan People’s Party, working alongside the late Benazir Bhutto. During her tenure in parliament (2008–2012), she was a member of the Foreign Affairs and Human Rights committees and the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus. In 2013 and 2014 she was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she completed Purifying the Land of the Pure: Pakistan's Religious Minorities (2016), a book on the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan. In 2012 she was listed among Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, as well as Newsweek Pakistan’s Top 100 Women Who Matter.
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INTERVIEWS
Interview: Farahnaz Ispahani
Interview: Farahnaz Ispahani
“Christians, Hindus, Shia Muslims are under attack every day.”
By Muhammad Akbar Notezai
March 10, 2016
Farahnaz Ispahani is a well-known Pakistani writer based in Washington, D.C. She has recently authored a book, Purifying the Land of the Pure: Pakistan’s Religious Minorities. In 2013-2014, she served as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2012, she was listed among Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, as well as Newsweek Pakistan’s Top 100 Women Who Matter. Besides writing for national and international papers, she has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC as a journalist. She recently spoke with The Diplomat’s Muhammad Akbar Notezai.
What do you mean by “Purifying the Land of the Pure?”
Pakistan was originally conceived of as a homeland for South Asia’s Muslims. Pakistan’s purpose was to protect the subcontinent’s largest religious minority. Over time, however, religious and political leaders declared the objective of Pakistan’s creation to be the setting up of an Islamic state. Much of the prejudice against religious minorities can be traced to the effort by Islamists to make Pakistan “purer” in what they conceive of as Islamic terms.
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What do you think about the role of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in protecting the rights of Pakistan’s religious minorities?
When Pakistan was founded in 1947, Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, clearly stated that non-Muslims would be equal citizens in the new country. In his famous speech of August 11, 1947, Jinnah declared, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State.” Reflecting his secular views, Jinnah – himself a Shia – nominated a Hindu, several Shias and an Ahmadi to Pakistan’s first cabinet. Today, non-Muslim representation at the Cabinet level is limited to symbolic appointments. Christians, Hindus, Shia Muslims are under attack every day. And the Ahmadis – who were among the most ardent supporters in the quest for a Muslim homeland on the subcontinent – are completely unrepresented; they live as virtual outcasts in Pakistan today. Unfortunately, as part of the gradual Islamization of Pakistan, the average Pakistani is not taught Jinnah’s true vision of a pluralistic and inclusive [society].
Why was the Objectives Resolution brought? And to what extent has the Objectives Resolution affected the rights of religious minorities?
The Objectives Resolution cannot be seen in isolation but rather in the context of partition and post-partition developments. There were those in the Muslim League who considered Pakistan “a laboratory for applying Islamic ideals” in the modern world and as a citadel of Islam. These views meant that non-Muslims were not equal citizens.
Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan although closely associated with Jinnah, led the way in creating a national narrative for Pakistan that perpetuated the sense of Islamic victimhood. Liaquat also embraced Islamic clerics, many of whom had earlier opposed the creation of Pakistan on the grounds that, according to Jinnah’s pronouncements, it was not to be an Islamic state. Discussions about how to transform Pakistan into an Islamic state thus started almost immediately after Independence.
Liaquat described Pakistan as “a moral sheet anchor” for Muslims in India. In a public statement in January 1948, barely five months after Quaid e Azam Jinnah had spoken about religion having nothing to do with the business of the state, Finance Minister and later Governor General Ghulam Mohammad insisted that Pakistan should be established on purely Islamic concepts. With these public statements and political machinations, Pakistan’s early leaders adroitly steered the country away from the Quaid-e-Azam’s vision.
With the discussion of Pakistan as an Islamic State began the denial of the rights of religious minorities along with the official denial of atrocities committed against them. It is in this context that we need to look at the 1949 Objectives Resolution: a declaration of the goals of the new state that would form the basis of its future constitution and laws. The resolution described a vision for Pakistan diametrically opposed to the secular one Jinnah had offered in his August 11, 1947 speech. The net effect of the Objectives Resolution was to define the state in Islamic terms, opening the door for further legislation based on the interpretation of Islam by a parliamentary majority. In the ensuing decades, democracy in Pakistan became intermittent, leaving the authority of inferring the Quran and Sunna (practices of the Prophet Muhammad) for long intervals in the hands of military dictators.
How do you look at religious freedom in Pakistan today?
Religious minorities are targets of legal as well as social discrimination. We have the toughest blasphemy laws in the world.
In recent years, Pakistan has witnessed some of the worst organized violence against religious minorities since Partition on the Pakistan side of the border. Unfortunately religious and communal violence is also a harsh reality in India and Bangladesh.
In Pakistan, over an eighteen-month period covering 2012 and part of 2013, at least 200 incidents of sectarian violence were reported. These incidents led to some 1,800 casualties, including more than 700 deaths. Many of those targeted for violence during this period were Shia Muslim citizens, who are deemed part of Pakistan’s Muslim majority under its constitution and laws. During the same year-and-a-half period in 2012–2013, Shias were subject to 77 attacks, including suicide terrorist bombings during Shia religious observances. Fifty-four lethal attacks were also perpetrated against Ahmadis, 37 against Christians, 16 against Hindus and three against Sikhs. Attackers of religious minorities are seldom prosecuted – and if they are, the courts almost invariably set them free. Members of the majority community, the Sunnis, who dare to question state policies about religious exclusion are just as vulnerable to extremist violence.
What are the motives behind violence against religious minorities in Pakistan?
In 1947 non-Muslim minorities comprised 23 percent of Pakistan’s population, today that number is 3 percent. Religious minorities both Muslim and non-Muslim face discrimination, threats and violence on a regular basis. Over a period of decades there has been a gradual Islamization of Pakistani state and society. We have an educational curriculum that preaches hatred against minorities, a legal system that discriminates against them, and a national identity that is seen by Islamists to emphasize that you are Pakistani only if you are Sunni Muslim has created an environment that has both tolerated and boosted extremism. This radicalization and Islamization has created an environment that condones attacks on minorities.
What are your thoughts on the state’s response towards violence against religious minorities?
The attempted purification of Pakistani society has taken place over decades and the state apparatus and leaders have played a key role in this process. During the 1950s the state acquiesced in an identity based on religion. Every military dictator from Ayub to Musharraf used Islam as a glue to bind Pakistan together and civilian leaders have sometimes been unable [to do anything to stop that process] and at other times complicit in the creation of the Islamic state. During the time of General Zia ul Haq, the state supported the creation and funding of Islamist and sectarian organizations that have attacked both non-Muslim minorities as well as Muslim sects like Shias and Ahmadis.
A positive recent development has been that the rise in extremism has united many important actors in our civil society to push back in a concerted way.
It has also propelled the civilian leaders to begin to act both symbolically and literally against the dangers of extremism. Recently, Pakistan’s political leaders have been publicly celebrating non-Muslim festivals, which is a positive step. The process of changing the educational curriculum in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab has also begun.
Yet the creation of an identity based solely on religion, the influence of Islamist clergy and their organizations, the laws that have already come on the books, the wide array of jihadi groups that indulge in violence, and the belief by some members of the coercive apparatus of the state of the difference between good jihadis and bad jihadis means that we have a long way to go before we see the end of extremism in my country.
As you have also been leading a voice for women, how do you view women’s rights in the country as compared to the conditions for religious minorities?
As Pakistan became an Islamic state not only in the terms of its constitution but also the gradual radicalization of its society women’s rights suffered alongside those of religious minorities. Women who are religious minorities have suffered from being accused of blasphemy (e.g., Asia Bibi), been forcefully converted to Islam (e.g., Rinkle Kumari) and not been allowed to call themselves Muslims (Ahmadi Muslim women). Women have also suffered from the laws enacted during the time of General Zia when the infamous Hudood ordinances came into being and are still on the rulebooks. Women, both those in public life and those who live outside of that are also often the main casualties of terrorist violence and suffer greatly as refugees or internally displaced persons. Women and girls are also the victims of practices like honor killings that continue to be perpetrated in parts of Pakistan.
On this medieval practice Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has just announced that laws that allow families to murder their daughters in the name of “honor” and avoid punishment will be changed as soon as possible. That would be an extremely important and positive development if this promise is acted upon seriously.
In several cases of violence against religious minorities, mob justice has been witnessed in Pakistan. In your opinion, what can the Pakistani government do to fight this?
Mob justice, in many countries of South Asia, is often the result of planning by elements of the state, political factions or organized non-state actors. What the state can do in these cases is first to ensure that the security forces defend the rights of the minorities and not allow the mob to rule. What is even more important is that instigators of violence should not be seen as being allowed to get away with what they have done. Finally, the government must change the educational curriculum and the media narrative so that all Pakistanis are treated as equal citizens.
In Pakistan, some writers say that the Zarb-e-Azb operation carried out by Pakistan’s military has affected the capabilities of Pakistani Taliban that has been behind the atrocious attacks on minority communities. How do you view this?
Operation Zarb-e-Azb has been fairly successful but it’s a limited operation that does not target all terrorist groups. Until we make the decision to eliminate all terrorists we cannot declare a real and lasting victory. Pakistan and Pakistanis have suffered from selectivity in opposing terrorists for too long. Targeting those responsible for attacks in Pakistan but letting those attacking our neighbors to survive has allowed terrorists to pretend they are in one group while being in another. The same people deemed useful by the state for regional influence have been found involved in sectarian attacks. So, Zarb e Azb is a good first step but it cannot be declared the final step in what is definitely a long battle for Pakistan’s soul.
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TagsAhmadis in PakistanPakistan attacks on minoritiesPakistan blasphemy lawsPakistan minoritiesShia in Pakistan
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Home › Vantage › “The United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan”: An Interview with Farahnaz Ispahani
QUESTIONS
“The United States Has A Special Responsibility Vis-À-Vis Pakistan”: An Interview With Farahnaz Ispahani
By NIKITA SAXENA | 23 January 2016
WILSON CENTER
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Farahnaz Ispahani, a public policy scholar at the Woodraw Wilson Center in Washington, is a former member of Pakistan’s parliament and served as the media advisor of the erstwhile president Asif Ali Zardari. Before she became an active participant in the country’s politics through the Pakistan’s People’s Party, Ispahani spent two decades in print and broadcast journalism, working with organisations such as the networks ABC and CNN in the United States of America. In 2012, the magazine Foreign Policy named her in its list of the top 100 global thinkers. Last year, Ispahani published her book, Purifying The Land of the Pure, which focuses on the state of religious minorities in Pakistan. The book analyses the policies of Pakistan towards its minorities while attempting to explore the genesis of the country. It also scrutinises the change in the ideology of Pakistan from the pluralist country that it had been envisioned as, to the purely Sunni-Islamic nation it is now.
On 18 January 2016, Nikita Saxena, the web editor of The Caravan, met Ispahani in Delhi. During the conversation, Ispahani spoke about the decreasing minority population in Pakistan, the role of the US in creating militias within the country, and the way forward for a state that she believes is committing “slow genocide.”
Nikita Saxena: The percentage of non-muslims in Pakistan has reduced significantly since its formation in 1947. What do you think has led to this decrease?
Farahnaz Ispahani: In my book, I have demonstrated the four stages of intolerance in Pakistan. Stage one is Muslimisation. This was the massive decline in the Hindu and Sikh population from 1947 to 1951 during and after partition, because of which Pakistan’s demographic became primarily Muslim. Stage two is what I call Islamic identity, in which state-sponsored textbooks rejected pluralism. This was the start of changing and shaping the mindsets of the young into this ideology of Pakistan. It was an attempt to forge a Pakistani identity purely on the basis of Islam. Stage three is Islamisation. This was achieved through legislation, by attempting to make the country’s laws more Islamic. It resulted in a legal framework against minorities from 1974 to 1988. This included the law that was passed during the regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [the prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977] in 1974 that designated Ahmedis as non-Muslims and minorities [The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim but their beliefs are deemed by orthodox Muslims as falling outside the tenets of Islam]. After that was Muhammed Zia-ul-Haq [The Pakistani general who served as the country’s sixth president starting 1978, after declaring martial law in 1977] with all his major Islamisation laws including the blasphemy law. Stage four is what I call militant hostility. This is what we are seeing today: terrorism and organised violence starting from Zia to present-day.
NS: Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was himself a Shia—now declared “non-muslim” in Pakistan. Jinnah propagated the idea of a Pakistan as a state that embraced its plurality. How did the country’s Islamisation begin, despite its relatively secular roots?
FI: In the first year of Pakistan’s life, Mr Jinnah was very ill and dying. Soon after, those of the bureaucrats and politicians, who were religious purists, needed something to glue themselves to power. Most of them had not come from the landmass of the new country of Pakistan, because most of them had come from what became Indian regions post-Partition. They did not, as politicians and bureaucrats, have a natural political constituency. They didn’t have voters, they didn’t have ancestral villages, they didn’t have the local languages of Sindhi, any of the Baloch languages, or Pashto. What ended up happening was that they turned back to the “Islam is in danger,” that “Pakistan is equal to Islam” and “Islam is equal to Pakistan” trope.
NS: You mentioned the blasphemy laws that Zia had introduced during his reign. Why has no political party or politician been able to reverse these laws even though they are criticised widely?
FI: When you start changing the country, the way that people think and their mindsets, you mix religion and politics. When you break down that wall between the state, the mandir, the church and the mosque, you end up putting yourself in a situation which is very hard to reverse. Religion is very emotive. Pakistan’s people have, over the years, been told through the media and their textbooks that their first identity is as a Muslim, and so it becomes very difficult to do anything about these laws. Many who stood up, and tried to speak about amending the blasphemy laws have ended up giving their lives. You see that in the case of [the governer of the Punjab province] Shaheed Salman Taseer, and in the case of our first federal minorities minister—who was Christian—and my colleague in parliament, Shahbaz Bhatti, and many, many other people who are known and unknown outside our country.
NS: Is the fear of persecution all that stops the government from changing these laws or is it also a lack of political will?
FI: Of course there is a lack of political will. When you end up in a situation where the majority—I wouldn’t say the majority, I would say the very violent and vociferous minority—is armed, and dangerous, that makes politicians pause. It’s very easy to talk about political will when you’re not in politics. But in Pakistan, our first democratically elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged. Our next four elected prime ministers [Zulfikar’s daughter Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who had two separate terms each] were all thrown out of office by the military—Benazir one, Nawaz one, Benazir two, Nawaz two—so not one of them could end their terms. Benazir tried in her first term, and campaigned against Zia on turning back the Islamisation of Pakistan. She specifically focused on the Hudood laws, which effected women. The combination of the military and the clergy got rid of her very quickly.
Tell me about political will. When our government decided to prosecute Mumtaz Qadri [a former police bodyguard] for the murder of our governer Salman Taseer, it was difficult to find a government prosecutor willing to take the case. The judge who gave the verdict against Qadri had to be whisked out of the country along with his entire family.
NS: You have suggested that the United States State Department should use its authority to declare Pakistan “a country of particular concern.” This designation, according to the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act of the United States must be applied to any nation that “engages in or tolerates particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
FI: For many years now, this autonomous body called the USCIRF—United States Commission on International Religious Freedom —has been putting Pakistan on top of the list of countries that invoke most concern for religious freedom. Every year, it sends its findings to the US State department and every year, the US state department waters down its report on Pakistan. I am not talking in terms of wanting a foreign country to insert themselves into domestic politics. But I do feel that it is time for the United States, which has been the biggest provider of military arms and the biggest supporter of the Pakistan military to stand up perhaps for the people of Pakistan, for the religious minorities in Pakistan and for civil society in Pakistan. You can’t just talk this big talk about being the world’s greatest democracy when this is what are you exporting.
I do feel that the United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan because they have supported every single military dictator. During the reign of General Zia-ul-Haq, where did all the militias and all the funding for Pakistan to take the role of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan come from? Where did the madrasas come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did Wahabi Islam come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did the guns and training come from? The United States of America. So is there no sense of responsibility? If you’re going to interfere in our domestic politics, if you have had a history of upholding these very unjust laws, and if you have turned a blind eye to all of Zia’s Islamisation, I feel you owe us something.
NS: In your book, you mention the case of Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who tried to teach “Islamic science,” a concept openly embraced by Zia-ul-Haq. Mahmood, you note, was a nuclear engineer who proposed nurturing the power of jinn mentioned in the Quran to solve the world’s energy shortage. Is this an instance of Pakistan’s education system reflecting the state’s Islamisation, and is the influence still as clearly visible?
FI: Absolutely. The other thing is, not just the thinking of this man, but the fact that he was in such a senior position. He was not dismissed as a crackpot, he was not dismissed as a marginal figure, this man was in an important position. Just last year in fact, Punjab University—Pakistan’s biggest university—and its vice chancellor, the man who runs that university, published a book with equally crazy, insane ideas. One would have thought, he is the head of a major university, the most major university, that he would be dismissed from his job. Nothing happened.
On the textbook issue, education has been made a provincial subject. So in the Sindh government and the Punjab government, you see efforts to modify the curriculum. There are attempts to remove hate speech against minorities, those from different castes, colours and creeds. There is also an effort to remove the anti-India rhetoric that has been part and parcel of all of our textbooks. There are setbacks. [The former cricketer and politician] Mr Imran Khan’s PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf], runs a government in KPK [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa], which is the former Frontier Province [the North West Frontier Province was an administrative unit created by the British]. Unfortunately, the PTI is in coalition with the Jamaat-e-Islami party and it gave the education ministry in KPK to the Jamaat-e-Islami. As a result, the Jamaat-e-Islami has taken those textbooks, which were probably the most secular and most progressive among any part of Pakistan, and they have re-written them, to make them full of hate speeches, backward thinking and regressive ideas. That has been a setback, but it’s a process. At least there is a movement. These are the glimmers of hope on the horizon.
NS: You had suggested in an article that the killing of the activist Sabeen Mahmud in April last year is meant to be a warning to others to not publicly discuss state-enforced disappearances in Balochistan.
FI: Sabeen really believed in freedom of speech. Her death was as shocking as it was because she was not really a political figure as such. She was known in Karachi and among certain circles for doing a lot of good work and giving a platform, in a small way, to anyone who wanted to speak. And so when she was killed, the message was absolutely chilling, because this could happen even at that level of middle-class, civil society. It really silenced people who would normally not feel that they personally could have been targeted.
NS: You have noted in your book that justice in Pakistan is impeded by the biased attitude of some judges against religious minorities.
FI: The role of the judiciary has been mixed. There are some amazingly brave lawyers and judges in Pakistan. Among those, there are people who have been targeted and killed, such as Rashid Rahman, two years ago. There is fear when you’re dealing with terrorists specifically, who tend to be the perpetrators of most of these attacks. They will make phone calls at the very least. They make references to the judge’s or the lawyer’s family, their children, and they make direct threats. If the judges or the lawyers still go ahead, then they resort to physical violence. On the other hand, you also do have a cadre of judges who are themselves Islamo-nationalists.
NS: It was in response to this mixed judiciary that Nawaz Sharif had introduced military tribunals after the attack in Peshawar on 16 December 2014.
FI: I am personally am not in favour of military courts. I am not in favour of the military being involved in any sphere of civilian life. I think it is a matter of balance, and we are working so hard to create democratic norms that it would have been far wiser to give judges protection. Yes, people were hugely in favour of this because they thought military courts would deliver speedy justice. But military courts can also mean that a lot of people you and I don’t think are terrorists can be picked up, tried and gone, and there can be no questions asked. That’s my personal view, but I understand that people are so tired of the blood bath of killing, that anything that looked like justice, especially speedy justice, was greeted with optimism.
NS: How do you think Sharif has performed in terms of empowering Pakistan’s religious minorities?
FI: Whether it is India or at home, Mr Sharif is trying. I would normally not be the person to greet much that he does with a great deal of optimism, because in the past during a previous prime-ministerial stint, he himself had tried to bring Sharia to Pakistan and made himself the Ameer, basically the Caliph. At this point, anyone who is doing something positive, I feel it has to be publicly affirmed and supported because it will take all of us with different points of view, different political backgrounds, and different ethnic and religious backgrounds, to be able to pull this off. It is a daunting task.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Nikita Saxena is a web editor at The Caravan.
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KEYWORDS
Farahnaz Ispahani, foreign policy, Pakistan, religious minorities
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Home › Vantage › “The United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan”: An Interview with Farahnaz Ispahani
QUESTIONS
“The United States Has A Special Responsibility Vis-À-Vis Pakistan”: An Interview With Farahnaz Ispahani
By NIKITA SAXENA | 23 January 2016
WILSON CENTER
PreviousNext
306 494
Print | E-mail |
Single Page
Farahnaz Ispahani, a public policy scholar at the Woodraw Wilson Center in Washington, is a former member of Pakistan’s parliament and served as the media advisor of the erstwhile president Asif Ali Zardari. Before she became an active participant in the country’s politics through the Pakistan’s People’s Party, Ispahani spent two decades in print and broadcast journalism, working with organisations such as the networks ABC and CNN in the United States of America. In 2012, the magazine Foreign Policy named her in its list of the top 100 global thinkers. Last year, Ispahani published her book, Purifying The Land of the Pure, which focuses on the state of religious minorities in Pakistan. The book analyses the policies of Pakistan towards its minorities while attempting to explore the genesis of the country. It also scrutinises the change in the ideology of Pakistan from the pluralist country that it had been envisioned as, to the purely Sunni-Islamic nation it is now.
On 18 January 2016, Nikita Saxena, the web editor of The Caravan, met Ispahani in Delhi. During the conversation, Ispahani spoke about the decreasing minority population in Pakistan, the role of the US in creating militias within the country, and the way forward for a state that she believes is committing “slow genocide.”
Nikita Saxena: The percentage of non-muslims in Pakistan has reduced significantly since its formation in 1947. What do you think has led to this decrease?
Farahnaz Ispahani: In my book, I have demonstrated the four stages of intolerance in Pakistan. Stage one is Muslimisation. This was the massive decline in the Hindu and Sikh population from 1947 to 1951 during and after partition, because of which Pakistan’s demographic became primarily Muslim. Stage two is what I call Islamic identity, in which state-sponsored textbooks rejected pluralism. This was the start of changing and shaping the mindsets of the young into this ideology of Pakistan. It was an attempt to forge a Pakistani identity purely on the basis of Islam. Stage three is Islamisation. This was achieved through legislation, by attempting to make the country’s laws more Islamic. It resulted in a legal framework against minorities from 1974 to 1988. This included the law that was passed during the regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [the prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977] in 1974 that designated Ahmedis as non-Muslims and minorities [The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim but their beliefs are deemed by orthodox Muslims as falling outside the tenets of Islam]. After that was Muhammed Zia-ul-Haq [The Pakistani general who served as the country’s sixth president starting 1978, after declaring martial law in 1977] with all his major Islamisation laws including the blasphemy law. Stage four is what I call militant hostility. This is what we are seeing today: terrorism and organised violence starting from Zia to present-day.
NS: Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was himself a Shia—now declared “non-muslim” in Pakistan. Jinnah propagated the idea of a Pakistan as a state that embraced its plurality. How did the country’s Islamisation begin, despite its relatively secular roots?
FI: In the first year of Pakistan’s life, Mr Jinnah was very ill and dying. Soon after, those of the bureaucrats and politicians, who were religious purists, needed something to glue themselves to power. Most of them had not come from the landmass of the new country of Pakistan, because most of them had come from what became Indian regions post-Partition. They did not, as politicians and bureaucrats, have a natural political constituency. They didn’t have voters, they didn’t have ancestral villages, they didn’t have the local languages of Sindhi, any of the Baloch languages, or Pashto. What ended up happening was that they turned back to the “Islam is in danger,” that “Pakistan is equal to Islam” and “Islam is equal to Pakistan” trope.
NS: You mentioned the blasphemy laws that Zia had introduced during his reign. Why has no political party or politician been able to reverse these laws even though they are criticised widely?
FI: When you start changing the country, the way that people think and their mindsets, you mix religion and politics. When you break down that wall between the state, the mandir, the church and the mosque, you end up putting yourself in a situation which is very hard to reverse. Religion is very emotive. Pakistan’s people have, over the years, been told through the media and their textbooks that their first identity is as a Muslim, and so it becomes very difficult to do anything about these laws. Many who stood up, and tried to speak about amending the blasphemy laws have ended up giving their lives. You see that in the case of [the governer of the Punjab province] Shaheed Salman Taseer, and in the case of our first federal minorities minister—who was Christian—and my colleague in parliament, Shahbaz Bhatti, and many, many other people who are known and unknown outside our country.
NS: Is the fear of persecution all that stops the government from changing these laws or is it also a lack of political will?
FI: Of course there is a lack of political will. When you end up in a situation where the majority—I wouldn’t say the majority, I would say the very violent and vociferous minority—is armed, and dangerous, that makes politicians pause. It’s very easy to talk about political will when you’re not in politics. But in Pakistan, our first democratically elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged. Our next four elected prime ministers [Zulfikar’s daughter Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who had two separate terms each] were all thrown out of office by the military—Benazir one, Nawaz one, Benazir two, Nawaz two—so not one of them could end their terms. Benazir tried in her first term, and campaigned against Zia on turning back the Islamisation of Pakistan. She specifically focused on the Hudood laws, which effected women. The combination of the military and the clergy got rid of her very quickly.
Tell me about political will. When our government decided to prosecute Mumtaz Qadri [a former police bodyguard] for the murder of our governer Salman Taseer, it was difficult to find a government prosecutor willing to take the case. The judge who gave the verdict against Qadri had to be whisked out of the country along with his entire family.
NS: You have suggested that the United States State Department should use its authority to declare Pakistan “a country of particular concern.” This designation, according to the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act of the United States must be applied to any nation that “engages in or tolerates particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
FI: For many years now, this autonomous body called the USCIRF—United States Commission on International Religious Freedom —has been putting Pakistan on top of the list of countries that invoke most concern for religious freedom. Every year, it sends its findings to the US State department and every year, the US state department waters down its report on Pakistan. I am not talking in terms of wanting a foreign country to insert themselves into domestic politics. But I do feel that it is time for the United States, which has been the biggest provider of military arms and the biggest supporter of the Pakistan military to stand up perhaps for the people of Pakistan, for the religious minorities in Pakistan and for civil society in Pakistan. You can’t just talk this big talk about being the world’s greatest democracy when this is what are you exporting.
I do feel that the United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan because they have supported every single military dictator. During the reign of General Zia-ul-Haq, where did all the militias and all the funding for Pakistan to take the role of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan come from? Where did the madrasas come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did Wahabi Islam come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did the guns and training come from? The United States of America. So is there no sense of responsibility? If you’re going to interfere in our domestic politics, if you have had a history of upholding these very unjust laws, and if you have turned a blind eye to all of Zia’s Islamisation, I feel you owe us something.
NS: In your book, you mention the case of Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who tried to teach “Islamic science,” a concept openly embraced by Zia-ul-Haq. Mahmood, you note, was a nuclear engineer who proposed nurturing the power of jinn mentioned in the Quran to solve the world’s energy shortage. Is this an instance of Pakistan’s education system reflecting the state’s Islamisation, and is the influence still as clearly visible?
FI: Absolutely. The other thing is, not just the thinking of this man, but the fact that he was in such a senior position. He was not dismissed as a crackpot, he was not dismissed as a marginal figure, this man was in an important position. Just last year in fact, Punjab University—Pakistan’s biggest university—and its vice chancellor, the man who runs that university, published a book with equally crazy, insane ideas. One would have thought, he is the head of a major university, the most major university, that he would be dismissed from his job. Nothing happened.
On the textbook issue, education has been made a provincial subject. So in the Sindh government and the Punjab government, you see efforts to modify the curriculum. There are attempts to remove hate speech against minorities, those from different castes, colours and creeds. There is also an effort to remove the anti-India rhetoric that has been part and parcel of all of our textbooks. There are setbacks. [The former cricketer and politician] Mr Imran Khan’s PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf], runs a government in KPK [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa], which is the former Frontier Province [the North West Frontier Province was an administrative unit created by the British]. Unfortunately, the PTI is in coalition with the Jamaat-e-Islami party and it gave the education ministry in KPK to the Jamaat-e-Islami. As a result, the Jamaat-e-Islami has taken those textbooks, which were probably the most secular and most progressive among any part of Pakistan, and they have re-written them, to make them full of hate speeches, backward thinking and regressive ideas. That has been a setback, but it’s a process. At least there is a movement. These are the glimmers of hope on the horizon.
NS: You had suggested in an article that the killing of the activist Sabeen Mahmud in April last year is meant to be a warning to others to not publicly discuss state-enforced disappearances in Balochistan.
FI: Sabeen really believed in freedom of speech. Her death was as shocking as it was because she was not really a political figure as such. She was known in Karachi and among certain circles for doing a lot of good work and giving a platform, in a small way, to anyone who wanted to speak. And so when she was killed, the message was absolutely chilling, because this could happen even at that level of middle-class, civil society. It really silenced people who would normally not feel that they personally could have been targeted.
NS: You have noted in your book that justice in Pakistan is impeded by the biased attitude of some judges against religious minorities.
FI: The role of the judiciary has been mixed. There are some amazingly brave lawyers and judges in Pakistan. Among those, there are people who have been targeted and killed, such as Rashid Rahman, two years ago. There is fear when you’re dealing with terrorists specifically, who tend to be the perpetrators of most of these attacks. They will make phone calls at the very least. They make references to the judge’s or the lawyer’s family, their children, and they make direct threats. If the judges or the lawyers still go ahead, then they resort to physical violence. On the other hand, you also do have a cadre of judges who are themselves Islamo-nationalists.
NS: It was in response to this mixed judiciary that Nawaz Sharif had introduced military tribunals after the attack in Peshawar on 16 December 2014.
FI: I am personally am not in favour of military courts. I am not in favour of the military being involved in any sphere of civilian life. I think it is a matter of balance, and we are working so hard to create democratic norms that it would have been far wiser to give judges protection. Yes, people were hugely in favour of this because they thought military courts would deliver speedy justice. But military courts can also mean that a lot of people you and I don’t think are terrorists can be picked up, tried and gone, and there can be no questions asked. That’s my personal view, but I understand that people are so tired of the blood bath of killing, that anything that looked like justice, especially speedy justice, was greeted with optimism.
NS: How do you think Sharif has performed in terms of empowering Pakistan’s religious minorities?
FI: Whether it is India or at home, Mr Sharif is trying. I would normally not be the person to greet much that he does with a great deal of optimism, because in the past during a previous prime-ministerial stint, he himself had tried to bring Sharia to Pakistan and made himself the Ameer, basically the Caliph. At this point, anyone who is doing something positive, I feel it has to be publicly affirmed and supported because it will take all of us with different points of view, different political backgrounds, and different ethnic and religious backgrounds, to be able to pull this off. It is a daunting task.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Nikita Saxena is a web editor at The Caravan.
MORE FROM THIS SECTION
Three Years Since the Launch of Swachh Bharat, A Look At Its Progress in Modi’s “Adopted” Villages of Nageypur and Jayapur
As the Swachh Bharat Mission Enters its Fourth Year, Revisiting Its Progress in Varanasi and Ahmedabad
“Barter System of Appointments”: The Debate Over The Collegium System And The NJAC
In Haryana: How the Dera Sacha Sauda’s Grassroots-Level Mobilisation Attracts Dominant-Caste Followers
In Conversation: The Uncharted Territories Covered By “Bheda,” The First Dalit Odia Novel
The Professional Fortunes Of Cops, Bureaucrats and SIT Members Associated With the 2002 Godhra Investigation
RELATED ARTICLES
How a 1983 Discussion Between Beijing and Delhi Informs Indo-China Relations
Undercover
Dictators and Dissenters
Not Ensuring Freedom, but Toleration: The Constituent Assembly Discusses the Fundamental Right to Propagate a Religion
“Sovereignty is Always Limited”: The Constituent Assembly Discusses the Inclusion of a Fundamental Right on Personal Laws
One Night In Abbottabad
KEYWORDS
Farahnaz Ispahani, foreign policy, Pakistan, religious minorities
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ShareThis Copy and Paste ABOUT US | CLASSIFIEDS | EVENTS | ADVERTISE | REGISTER | LOGIN Search for: CURRENT ISSUE VANTAGE ARCHIVE REPORTING & ESSAYS OPINIONS BOOKS ARTS FICTION & POETRY SUBSCRIBE Home › Vantage › “The United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan”: An Interview with Farahnaz Ispahani QUESTIONS “The United States Has A Special Responsibility Vis-À-Vis Pakistan”: An Interview With Farahnaz Ispahani By NIKITA SAXENA | 23 January 2016 WILSON CENTER PreviousNext 306 494 Print | E-mail | Single Page Farahnaz Ispahani, a public policy scholar at the Woodraw Wilson Center in Washington, is a former member of Pakistan’s parliament and served as the media advisor of the erstwhile president Asif Ali Zardari. Before she became an active participant in the country’s politics through the Pakistan’s People’s Party, Ispahani spent two decades in print and broadcast journalism, working with organisations such as the networks ABC and CNN in the United States of America. In 2012, the magazine Foreign Policy named her in its list of the top 100 global thinkers. Last year, Ispahani published her book, Purifying The Land of the Pure, which focuses on the state of religious minorities in Pakistan. The book analyses the policies of Pakistan towards its minorities while attempting to explore the genesis of the country. It also scrutinises the change in the ideology of Pakistan from the pluralist country that it had been envisioned as, to the purely Sunni-Islamic nation it is now. On 18 January 2016, Nikita Saxena, the web editor of The Caravan, met Ispahani in Delhi. During the conversation, Ispahani spoke about the decreasing minority population in Pakistan, the role of the US in creating militias within the country, and the way forward for a state that she believes is committing “slow genocide.” Nikita Saxena: The percentage of non-muslims in Pakistan has reduced significantly since its formation in 1947. What do you think has led to this decrease? Farahnaz Ispahani: In my book, I have demonstrated the four stages of intolerance in Pakistan. Stage one is Muslimisation. This was the massive decline in the Hindu and Sikh population from 1947 to 1951 during and after partition, because of which Pakistan’s demographic became primarily Muslim. Stage two is what I call Islamic identity, in which state-sponsored textbooks rejected pluralism. This was the start of changing and shaping the mindsets of the young into this ideology of Pakistan. It was an attempt to forge a Pakistani identity purely on the basis of Islam. Stage three is Islamisation. This was achieved through legislation, by attempting to make the country’s laws more Islamic. It resulted in a legal framework against minorities from 1974 to 1988. This included the law that was passed during the regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [the prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977] in 1974 that designated Ahmedis as non-Muslims and minorities [The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim but their beliefs are deemed by orthodox Muslims as falling outside the tenets of Islam]. After that was Muhammed Zia-ul-Haq [The Pakistani general who served as the country’s sixth president starting 1978, after declaring martial law in 1977] with all his major Islamisation laws including the blasphemy law. Stage four is what I call militant hostility. This is what we are seeing today: terrorism and organised violence starting from Zia to present-day. NS: Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was himself a Shia—now declared “non-muslim” in Pakistan. Jinnah propagated the idea of a Pakistan as a state that embraced its plurality. How did the country’s Islamisation begin, despite its relatively secular roots? FI: In the first year of Pakistan’s life, Mr Jinnah was very ill and dying. Soon after, those of the bureaucrats and politicians, who were religious purists, needed something to glue themselves to power. Most of them had not come from the landmass of the new country of Pakistan, because most of them had come from what became Indian regions post-Partition. They did not, as politicians and bureaucrats, have a natural political constituency. They didn’t have voters, they didn’t have ancestral villages, they didn’t have the local languages of Sindhi, any of the Baloch languages, or Pashto. What ended up happening was that they turned back to the “Islam is in danger,” that “Pakistan is equal to Islam” and “Islam is equal to Pakistan” trope. NS: You mentioned the blasphemy laws that Zia had introduced during his reign. Why has no political party or politician been able to reverse these laws even though they are criticised widely? FI: When you start changing the country, the way that people think and their mindsets, you mix religion and politics. When you break down that wall between the state, the mandir, the church and the mosque, you end up putting yourself in a situation which is very hard to reverse. Religion is very emotive. Pakistan’s people have, over the years, been told through the media and their textbooks that their first identity is as a Muslim, and so it becomes very difficult to do anything about these laws. Many who stood up, and tried to speak about amending the blasphemy laws have ended up giving their lives. You see that in the case of [the governer of the Punjab province] Shaheed Salman Taseer, and in the case of our first federal minorities minister—who was Christian—and my colleague in parliament, Shahbaz Bhatti, and many, many other people who are known and unknown outside our country. NS: Is the fear of persecution all that stops the government from changing these laws or is it also a lack of political will? FI: Of course there is a lack of political will. When you end up in a situation where the majority—I wouldn’t say the majority, I would say the very violent and vociferous minority—is armed, and dangerous, that makes politicians pause. It’s very easy to talk about political will when you’re not in politics. But in Pakistan, our first democratically elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged. Our next four elected prime ministers [Zulfikar’s daughter Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who had two separate terms each] were all thrown out of office by the military—Benazir one, Nawaz one, Benazir two, Nawaz two—so not one of them could end their terms. Benazir tried in her first term, and campaigned against Zia on turning back the Islamisation of Pakistan. She specifically focused on the Hudood laws, which effected women. The combination of the military and the clergy got rid of her very quickly. Tell me about political will. When our government decided to prosecute Mumtaz Qadri [a former police bodyguard] for the murder of our governer Salman Taseer, it was difficult to find a government prosecutor willing to take the case. The judge who gave the verdict against Qadri had to be whisked out of the country along with his entire family. NS: You have suggested that the United States State Department should use its authority to declare Pakistan “a country of particular concern.” This designation, according to the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act of the United States must be applied to any nation that “engages in or tolerates particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” FI: For many years now, this autonomous body called the USCIRF—United States Commission on International Religious Freedom —has been putting Pakistan on top of the list of countries that invoke most concern for religious freedom. Every year, it sends its findings to the US State department and every year, the US state department waters down its report on Pakistan. I am not talking in terms of wanting a foreign country to insert themselves into domestic politics. But I do feel that it is time for the United States, which has been the biggest provider of military arms and the biggest supporter of the Pakistan military to stand up perhaps for the people of Pakistan, for the religious minorities in Pakistan and for civil society in Pakistan. You can’t just talk this big talk about being the world’s greatest democracy when this is what are you exporting. I do feel that the United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan because they have supported every single military dictator. During the reign of General Zia-ul-Haq, where did all the militias and all the funding for Pakistan to take the role of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan come from? Where did the madrasas come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did Wahabi Islam come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did the guns and training come from? The United States of America. So is there no sense of responsibility? If you’re going to interfere in our domestic politics, if you have had a history of upholding these very unjust laws, and if you have turned a blind eye to all of Zia’s Islamisation, I feel you owe us something. NS: In your book, you mention the case of Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who tried to teach “Islamic science,” a concept openly embraced by Zia-ul-Haq. Mahmood, you note, was a nuclear engineer who proposed nurturing the power of jinn mentioned in the Quran to solve the world’s energy shortage. Is this an instance of Pakistan’s education system reflecting the state’s Islamisation, and is the influence still as clearly visible? FI: Absolutely. The other thing is, not just the thinking of this man, but the fact that he was in such a senior position. He was not dismissed as a crackpot, he was not dismissed as a marginal figure, this man was in an important position. Just last year in fact, Punjab University—Pakistan’s biggest university—and its vice chancellor, the man who runs that university, published a book with equally crazy, insane ideas. One would have thought, he is the head of a major university, the most major university, that he would be dismissed from his job. Nothing happened. On the textbook issue, education has been made a provincial subject. So in the Sindh government and the Punjab government, you see efforts to modify the curriculum. There are attempts to remove hate speech against minorities, those from different castes, colours and creeds. There is also an effort to remove the anti-India rhetoric that has been part and parcel of all of our textbooks. There are setbacks. [The former cricketer and politician] Mr Imran Khan’s PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf], runs a government in KPK [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa], which is the former Frontier Province [the North West Frontier Province was an administrative unit created by the British]. Unfortunately, the PTI is in coalition with the Jamaat-e-Islami party and it gave the education ministry in KPK to the Jamaat-e-Islami. As a result, the Jamaat-e-Islami has taken those textbooks, which were probably the most secular and most progressive among any part of Pakistan, and they have re-written them, to make them full of hate speeches, backward thinking and regressive ideas. That has been a setback, but it’s a process. At least there is a movement. These are the glimmers of hope on the horizon. NS: You had suggested in an article that the killing of the activist Sabeen Mahmud in April last year is meant to be a warning to others to not publicly discuss state-enforced disappearances in Balochistan. FI: Sabeen really believed in freedom of speech. Her death was as shocking as it was because she was not really a political figure as such. She was known in Karachi and among certain circles for doing a lot of good work and giving a platform, in a small way, to anyone who wanted to speak. And so when she was killed, the message was absolutely chilling, because this could happen even at that level of middle-class, civil society. It really silenced people who would normally not feel that they personally could have been targeted. NS: You have noted in your book that justice in Pakistan is impeded by the biased attitude of some judges against religious minorities. FI: The role of the judiciary has been mixed. There are some amazingly brave lawyers and judges in Pakistan. Among those, there are people who have been targeted and killed, such as Rashid Rahman, two years ago. There is fear when you’re dealing with terrorists specifically, who tend to be the perpetrators of most of these attacks. They will make phone calls at the very least. They make references to the judge’s or the lawyer’s family, their children, and they make direct threats. If the judges or the lawyers still go ahead, then they resort to physical violence. On the other hand, you also do have a cadre of judges who are themselves Islamo-nationalists. NS: It was in response to this mixed judiciary that Nawaz Sharif had introduced military tribunals after the attack in Peshawar on 16 December 2014. FI: I am personally am not in favour of military courts. I am not in favour of the military being involved in any sphere of civilian life. I think it is a matter of balance, and we are working so hard to create democratic norms that it would have been far wiser to give judges protection. Yes, people were hugely in favour of this because they thought military courts would deliver speedy justice. But military courts can also mean that a lot of people you and I don’t think are terrorists can be picked up, tried and gone, and there can be no questions asked. That’s my personal view, but I understand that people are so tired of the blood bath of killing, that anything that looked like justice, especially speedy justice, was greeted with optimism. NS: How do you think Sharif has performed in terms of empowering Pakistan’s religious minorities? FI: Whether it is India or at home, Mr Sharif is trying. I would normally not be the person to greet much that he does with a great deal of optimism, because in the past during a previous prime-ministerial stint, he himself had tried to bring Sharia to Pakistan and made himself the Ameer, basically the Caliph. At this point, anyone who is doing something positive, I feel it has to be publicly affirmed and supported because it will take all of us with different points of view, different political backgrounds, and different ethnic and religious backgrounds, to be able to pull this off. It is a daunting task. This interview has been edited and condensed. Nikita Saxena is a web editor at The Caravan. MORE FROM THIS SECTION Three Years Since the Launch of Swachh Bharat, A Look At Its Progress in Modi’s “Adopted” Villages of Nageypur and Jayapur As the Swachh Bharat Mission Enters its Fourth Year, Revisiting Its Progress in Varanasi and Ahmedabad “Barter System of Appointments”: The Debate Over The Collegium System And The NJAC In Haryana: How the Dera Sacha Sauda’s Grassroots-Level Mobilisation Attracts Dominant-Caste Followers In Conversation: The Uncharted Territories Covered By “Bheda,” The First Dalit Odia Novel The Professional Fortunes Of Cops, Bureaucrats and SIT Members Associated With the 2002 Godhra Investigation RELATED ARTICLES How a 1983 Discussion Between Beijing and Delhi Informs Indo-China Relations Undercover Dictators and Dissenters Not Ensuring Freedom, but Toleration: The Constituent Assembly Discusses the Fundamental Right to Propagate a Religion “Sovereignty is Always Limited”: The Constituent Assembly Discusses the Inclusion of a Fundamental Right on Personal Laws One Night In Abbottabad KEYWORDS Farahnaz Ispahani, foreign policy, Pakistan, religious minorities READER'S COMMENTS Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment Name * Email * Website CURRENT ISSUE Cover StoryIn this Issue DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION AT Follow us on MOST READMOST COMMENTED The Tempest The Emperor Uncrowned Is Patanjali’s Desi Cow Ghee Even Cow Ghee? Unhealed Wounds Fast and Furious Terms of Service Privacy Policy About Us Masthead Policies Classifieds Syndication Careers Internships Contact Us Facebook Twitter YouTube RSS Store Locator Vantage Archive Reporting & Essays Opinions Books Arts Fiction & Poetry Subscribe ABOUT US | CLASSIFIEDS | EVENTS | ADVERTISE | REGISTER | LOGIN Search for: CURRENT ISSUE VANTAGE ARCHIVE REPORTING & ESSAYS OPINIONS BOOKS ARTS FICTION & POETRY SUBSCRIBE Home › Vantage › “The United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan”: An Interview with Farahnaz Ispahani QUESTIONS “The United States Has A Special Responsibility Vis-À-Vis Pakistan”: An Interview With Farahnaz Ispahani By NIKITA SAXENA | 23 January 2016 WILSON CENTER PreviousNext 306 494 Print | E-mail | Single Page Farahnaz Ispahani, a public policy scholar at the Woodraw Wilson Center in Washington, is a former member of Pakistan’s parliament and served as the media advisor of the erstwhile president Asif Ali Zardari. Before she became an active participant in the country’s politics through the Pakistan’s People’s Party, Ispahani spent two decades in print and broadcast journalism, working with organisations such as the networks ABC and CNN in the United States of America. In 2012, the magazine Foreign Policy named her in its list of the top 100 global thinkers. Last year, Ispahani published her book, Purifying The Land of the Pure, which focuses on the state of religious minorities in Pakistan. The book analyses the policies of Pakistan towards its minorities while attempting to explore the genesis of the country. It also scrutinises the change in the ideology of Pakistan from the pluralist country that it had been envisioned as, to the purely Sunni-Islamic nation it is now. On 18 January 2016, Nikita Saxena, the web editor of The Caravan, met Ispahani in Delhi. During the conversation, Ispahani spoke about the decreasing minority population in Pakistan, the role of the US in creating militias within the country, and the way forward for a state that she believes is committing “slow genocide.” Nikita Saxena: The percentage of non-muslims in Pakistan has reduced significantly since its formation in 1947. What do you think has led to this decrease? Farahnaz Ispahani: In my book, I have demonstrated the four stages of intolerance in Pakistan. Stage one is Muslimisation. This was the massive decline in the Hindu and Sikh population from 1947 to 1951 during and after partition, because of which Pakistan’s demographic became primarily Muslim. Stage two is what I call Islamic identity, in which state-sponsored textbooks rejected pluralism. This was the start of changing and shaping the mindsets of the young into this ideology of Pakistan. It was an attempt to forge a Pakistani identity purely on the basis of Islam. Stage three is Islamisation. This was achieved through legislation, by attempting to make the country’s laws more Islamic. It resulted in a legal framework against minorities from 1974 to 1988. This included the law that was passed during the regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [the prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977] in 1974 that designated Ahmedis as non-Muslims and minorities [The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim but their beliefs are deemed by orthodox Muslims as falling outside the tenets of Islam]. After that was Muhammed Zia-ul-Haq [The Pakistani general who served as the country’s sixth president starting 1978, after declaring martial law in 1977] with all his major Islamisation laws including the blasphemy law. Stage four is what I call militant hostility. This is what we are seeing today: terrorism and organised violence starting from Zia to present-day. NS: Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was himself a Shia—now declared “non-muslim” in Pakistan. Jinnah propagated the idea of a Pakistan as a state that embraced its plurality. How did the country’s Islamisation begin, despite its relatively secular roots? FI: In the first year of Pakistan’s life, Mr Jinnah was very ill and dying. Soon after, those of the bureaucrats and politicians, who were religious purists, needed something to glue themselves to power. Most of them had not come from the landmass of the new country of Pakistan, because most of them had come from what became Indian regions post-Partition. They did not, as politicians and bureaucrats, have a natural political constituency. They didn’t have voters, they didn’t have ancestral villages, they didn’t have the local languages of Sindhi, any of the Baloch languages, or Pashto. What ended up happening was that they turned back to the “Islam is in danger,” that “Pakistan is equal to Islam” and “Islam is equal to Pakistan” trope. NS: You mentioned the blasphemy laws that Zia had introduced during his reign. Why has no political party or politician been able to reverse these laws even though they are criticised widely? FI: When you start changing the country, the way that people think and their mindsets, you mix religion and politics. When you break down that wall between the state, the mandir, the church and the mosque, you end up putting yourself in a situation which is very hard to reverse. Religion is very emotive. Pakistan’s people have, over the years, been told through the media and their textbooks that their first identity is as a Muslim, and so it becomes very difficult to do anything about these laws. Many who stood up, and tried to speak about amending the blasphemy laws have ended up giving their lives. You see that in the case of [the governer of the Punjab province] Shaheed Salman Taseer, and in the case of our first federal minorities minister—who was Christian—and my colleague in parliament, Shahbaz Bhatti, and many, many other people who are known and unknown outside our country. NS: Is the fear of persecution all that stops the government from changing these laws or is it also a lack of political will? FI: Of course there is a lack of political will. When you end up in a situation where the majority—I wouldn’t say the majority, I would say the very violent and vociferous minority—is armed, and dangerous, that makes politicians pause. It’s very easy to talk about political will when you’re not in politics. But in Pakistan, our first democratically elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged. Our next four elected prime ministers [Zulfikar’s daughter Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who had two separate terms each] were all thrown out of office by the military—Benazir one, Nawaz one, Benazir two, Nawaz two—so not one of them could end their terms. Benazir tried in her first term, and campaigned against Zia on turning back the Islamisation of Pakistan. She specifically focused on the Hudood laws, which effected women. The combination of the military and the clergy got rid of her very quickly. Tell me about political will. When our government decided to prosecute Mumtaz Qadri [a former police bodyguard] for the murder of our governer Salman Taseer, it was difficult to find a government prosecutor willing to take the case. The judge who gave the verdict against Qadri had to be whisked out of the country along with his entire family. NS: You have suggested that the United States State Department should use its authority to declare Pakistan “a country of particular concern.” This designation, according to the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act of the United States must be applied to any nation that “engages in or tolerates particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” FI: For many years now, this autonomous body called the USCIRF—United States Commission on International Religious Freedom —has been putting Pakistan on top of the list of countries that invoke most concern for religious freedom. Every year, it sends its findings to the US State department and every year, the US state department waters down its report on Pakistan. I am not talking in terms of wanting a foreign country to insert themselves into domestic politics. But I do feel that it is time for the United States, which has been the biggest provider of military arms and the biggest supporter of the Pakistan military to stand up perhaps for the people of Pakistan, for the religious minorities in Pakistan and for civil society in Pakistan. You can’t just talk this big talk about being the world’s greatest democracy when this is what are you exporting. I do feel that the United States has a special responsibility vis-à-vis Pakistan because they have supported every single military dictator. During the reign of General Zia-ul-Haq, where did all the militias and all the funding for Pakistan to take the role of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan come from? Where did the madrasas come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did Wahabi Islam come from? Saudi Arabia. Where did the guns and training come from? The United States of America. So is there no sense of responsibility? If you’re going to interfere in our domestic politics, if you have had a history of upholding these very unjust laws, and if you have turned a blind eye to all of Zia’s Islamisation, I feel you owe us something. NS: In your book, you mention the case of Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who tried to teach “Islamic science,” a concept openly embraced by Zia-ul-Haq. Mahmood, you note, was a nuclear engineer who proposed nurturing the power of jinn mentioned in the Quran to solve the world’s energy shortage. Is this an instance of Pakistan’s education system reflecting the state’s Islamisation, and is the influence still as clearly visible? FI: Absolutely. The other thing is, not just the thinking of this man, but the fact that he was in such a senior position. He was not dismissed as a crackpot, he was not dismissed as a marginal figure, this man was in an important position. Just last year in fact, Punjab University—Pakistan’s biggest university—and its vice chancellor, the man who runs that university, published a book with equally crazy, insane ideas. One would have thought, he is the head of a major university, the most major university, that he would be dismissed from his job. Nothing happened. On the textbook issue, education has been made a provincial subject. So in the Sindh government and the Punjab government, you see efforts to modify the curriculum. There are attempts to remove hate speech against minorities, those from different castes, colours and creeds. There is also an effort to remove the anti-India rhetoric that has been part and parcel of all of our textbooks. There are setbacks. [The former cricketer and politician] Mr Imran Khan’s PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf], runs a government in KPK [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa], which is the former Frontier Province [the North West Frontier Province was an administrative unit created by the British]. Unfortunately, the PTI is in coalition with the Jamaat-e-Islami party and it gave the education ministry in KPK to the Jamaat-e-Islami. As a result, the Jamaat-e-Islami has taken those textbooks, which were probably the most secular and most progressive among any part of Pakistan, and they have re-written them, to make them full of hate speeches, backward thinking and regressive ideas. That has been a setback, but it’s a process. At least there is a movement. These are the glimmers of hope on the horizon. NS: You had suggested in an article that the killing of the activist Sabeen Mahmud in April last year is meant to be a warning to others to not publicly discuss state-enforced disappearances in Balochistan. FI: Sabeen really believed in freedom of speech. Her death was as shocking as it was because she was not really a political figure as such. She was known in Karachi and among certain circles for doing a lot of good work and giving a platform, in a small way, to anyone who wanted to speak. And so when she was killed, the message was absolutely chilling, because this could happen even at that level of middle-class, civil society. It really silenced people who would normally not feel that they personally could have been targeted. NS: You have noted in your book that justice in Pakistan is impeded by the biased attitude of some judges against religious minorities. FI: The role of the judiciary has been mixed. There are some amazingly brave lawyers and judges in Pakistan. Among those, there are people who have been targeted and killed, such as Rashid Rahman, two years ago. There is fear when you’re dealing with terrorists specifically, who tend to be the perpetrators of most of these attacks. They will make phone calls at the very least. They make references to the judge’s or the lawyer’s family, their children, and they make direct threats. If the judges or the lawyers still go ahead, then they resort to physical violence. On the other hand, you also do have a cadre of judges who are themselves Islamo-nationalists. NS: It was in response to this mixed judiciary that Nawaz Sharif had introduced military tribunals after the attack in Peshawar on 16 December 2014. FI: I am personally am not in favour of military courts. I am not in favour of the military being involved in any sphere of civilian life. I think it is a matter of balance, and we are working so hard to create democratic norms that it would have been far wiser to give judges protection. Yes, people were hugely in favour of this because they thought military courts would deliver speedy justice. But military courts can also mean that a lot of people you and I don’t think are terrorists can be picked up, tried and gone, and there can be no questions asked. That’s my personal view, but I understand that people are so tired of the blood bath of killing, that anything that looked like justice, especially speedy justice, was greeted with optimism. NS: How do you think Sharif has performed in terms of empowering Pakistan’s religious minorities? FI: Whether it is India or at home, Mr Sharif is trying. I would normally not be the person to greet much that he does with a great deal of optimism, because in the past during a previous prime-ministerial stint, he himself had tried to bring Sharia to Pakistan and made himself the Ameer, basically the Caliph. At this point, anyone who is doing something positive, I feel it has to be publicly affirmed and supported because it will take all of us with different points of view, different political backgrounds, and different ethnic and religious backgrounds, to be able to pull this off. It is a daunting task. This interview has been edited and condensed. Nikita Saxena is a web editor at The Caravan. MORE FROM THIS SECTION Three Years Since the Launch of Swachh Bharat, A Look At Its Progress in Modi’s “Adopted” Villages of Nageypur and Jayapur As the Swachh Bharat Mission Enters its Fourth Year, Revisiting Its Progress in Varanasi and Ahmedabad “Barter System of Appointments”: The Debate Over The Collegium System And The NJAC In Haryana: How the Dera Sacha Sauda’s Grassroots-Level Mobilisation Attracts Dominant-Caste Followers In Conversation: The Uncharted Territories Covered By “Bheda,” The First Dalit Odia Novel The Professional Fortunes Of Cops, Bureaucrats and SIT Members Associated With the 2002 Godhra Investigation RELATED ARTICLES How a 1983 Discussion Between Beijing and Delhi Informs Indo-China Relations Undercover Dictators and Dissenters Not Ensuring Freedom, but Toleration: The Constituent Assembly Discusses the Fundamental Right to Propagate a Religion “Sovereignty is Always Limited”: The Constituent Assembly Discusses the Inclusion of a Fundamental Right on Personal Laws One Night In Abbottabad KEYWORDS Farahnaz Ispahani, foreign policy, Pakistan, religious minorities READER'S COMMENTS Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. 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Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of
Pakistan's Religious Minorities
Publishers Weekly.
263.51 (Dec. 12, 2016): p144.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan's Religious Minorities
Farahnaz Ispahan! Oxford Univ., $29.95 (216p) ISBN 978-0-19-062165-0
Ispahani, a longtime journalist, former member of Pakistan's National Assembly, daughter of the first U.S.
ambassador to Pakistan, and wife of another former ambassador, has a firm grasp of Pakistan's modern
national narrative and keen insight into its intricacies. Making wide use of her wealth of experience, she
analyzes Pakistan's policies toward its religious minorities over nearly 70 years, arguing that much of the
prejudice against religious minorities--including Ahmadis, Christians, Shia Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Parsis,
and Jains--can be traced to the efforts of Islamist radicals to purify Pakistan according to their own terms.
Ispahani carefully contours the creeping climb of Islamization and obscurantist sectarianism that determined
who was Muslim and not Muslim--and, by extension, who was Pakistani and not Pakistani--over the last
several decades. Her work serves as a good overview of key people, events, laws, and movements, but
Ispahani fails to interrogate the role of modern statecraft in this process or consider how Western powers,
the shortcomings of secular governance, and the politicization of religious identity also contributed to the
current state of affairs. Ispahani effectively demonstrates her specific position, but her refusal to examine
how "secular" machinations contribute to the production of fresh forms of communal polarization in
Pakistan limits the scope of this short book. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of Pakistan's Religious Minorities." Publishers Weekly, 12 Dec.
2016, p. 144. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475225124&it=r&asid=f70616f89fa382714f5f59ef19282c33.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475225124