international journal on minority and

group rights 22 (2015) 157-181

brill.com/ijgr

Life in Brackets: Minority Christians

and Hegemonic Violence in Pakistan

Amalendu Misra
Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
a.misra@lancaster.ac.uk

Abstract

This article focusses on the Christian minority in Pakistan, and postulates that their
“crisis condition” can be explained within a set pattern of rules. Within that frame-
work, it examines three separate, but interrelated theoretical positions: The rising level
of Islamic radicalism and consequent attack on minority Christians needs to be placed
within the framework of a “thick” and “thin” view of religion; 2. the select “targeting” of
a minority and stirring up of sectarian conflict is the outcome of a clearly thought out
framework of hegemonic violence; and 3. the conscious process of “scapegoating” that
establishes the majority-led in-group and out-group narrative leading to the castiga-
tion and persecution of the marginal group. The last two sections examines the scope
of external intervention on behalf of this beleaguered community. It goes on to assess
the coping strategies of the Christians in the face of mounting Sunni Muslim extremist
violence.

Keywords

Christians – majority – minority – Pakistan – radical Islam – Sunni Muslim – violence

* The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their very helpful con-
structive comments. He is also indebted to Nawar Kassomeh for alerting me to the complex
narratives surrounding Shi’ia-Sunni sectarian violence in Pakistan.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/15718115-02202002

158 Misra

1 Introduction

Sectarian violence in Pakistan can be divided into two categories. The first one
is intra-religious in nature. It is generally played out between various strands
of Islam i.e., Sunni-Shi’a, Sunni-Ahmadiya, as well as between the Sunnis
themselves. The second category relates to sectarianism between Islam and
non-Islamic minorities (Christians, Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs). In contemporary
Pakistan, both strands of sectarian violence appear common. This study, how-
ever, focuses on the second category which is primarily inter-religious in
nature. Within this category it seeks to examine the dimensions of sectarian
violence experienced by one specific non-Muslim minority, Christians.
A precise Christian population in contemporary Pakistan is difficult to
establish.1 According to the official government figures based on a 1998 census,
Pakistan has nearly 2.1 million Christians; constituting some 1.6 per cent of the
total population.2 The figures released by the United States Central Intelligence
Agency (cia) in 2013, however, placed Pakistan’s Christians at 3.5 million or 1.8
per cent of the total share of population.3 Of these, 60 per cent are Catholics
and the remaining 40 per cent belong to various Protestant denominations.
Their geographic spread is countrywide. They live in small pockets from the
Punjab in the East to Baluchistan in the West, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in
the North to Sind in the South. Their biggest concentration, however, is in the
province of Punjab.
As a minority in an overwhelming Islamic nation, Christians were regarded
as integral to the fabric of this new state. At its inception, under the original
constitutional provisions, they were guaranteed equal rights alongside their
Muslim counterparts.4 As a model minority,5 no other non-Muslim religious
community has contributed more to the social sector development of Pakistan

1 A.K. Raina, ‘Minorities and Representation in a Plural Society: The Case of the Christians in
Pakistan’, 37(4) South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies (2014) p. 10.
2 A.S. Ahmed, ‘Pakistan’s Persecuted Christians’, The New York Times, 23 December 2013, p. 9.
3 The World Factbook: Pakistan, cia, <www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
geos/pk.html>, visited on 29 September 2014.
4 Ahmed, supra note 2, p. 9.
5 Although not a homogenous religious group, Christians belonging to various denominations
in the country have always been committed to the Pakistani nation. As the talk of end of
British rule became apparent and there was a reckoning that the former British colony would
be divided into two parts, the Christians living in the region that now consists of modern day
Pakistan put their lot on the side of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his political party, the All
India Muslim League, that called for a separate independent state for Muslims.

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Life in Brackets 159

than the Christians have.6 It is worth mentioning in this context, that Pakistan’s
first constitution was “penned by a Catholic, Justice A.R. Cornelius”.7
Yet, in recent decades, direct and indirect egregious majoritarian violence
against Christians have become persistent and widespread. This violence is
countrywide in its dynamics and it is rural as well as urban in nature. It involves
both ad hoc i.e., apparently spontaneous acts of attack, as well as organised
anti-Christian purges in which government authorities, local and national,
collude either directly or by omission.8 In fact, both formal and informal
discrimination against minorities (which includes all non-majoritarian and
non-Sunni minorities) has gone hand in hand; one has encouraged and deep-
ened the other.9
Although Islam was the raison d’etre behind Pakistan’s emergence as an
independent nation, the new state nonetheless championed equality between
different faiths. Yet that commitment was short lived. Since the 1970s, Pakistan
has been experiencing a steady erosion of tolerance against its minorities.
While focussing on Pakistan in its 2013 Annual Report, the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom, for instance, specified more
than 200 attacks on minority religious groups in the country and reported 1,800
casualties resulting from religion-related violence (one of the highest in the
world).10 In its report published towards the end of 2013, the Minority Rights
Group International (mrg) underscored that Pakistan was at the top of its
“Peoples under Threat” global rankings.11 Similarly the Pew Research Centre’s
report for the same period highlighted that “Pakistan had the highest level of
social hostilities involving religion”.12

6 R.B. Rais, ‘Islamic Radicalism and Minorities in Pakistan’, in S.P. Limaye et al. (eds.),
Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia (Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies,
Honolulu, hi, 2004) p. 461.
7 Raina, supra note 1, p. 6.
8 S. Gregory and S.R. Valentine, Pakistan: the Situation of Religious Minorities, (unhcr,
New York, 2009) p. 18.
9 Rais, supra note 6, p. 463.
10 United States Commission on International Religious Freedom – 2013 Annual Report. <www
.uscirf.gov/reports-briefs/annual-report/2013-annual-report>, visited on 02 May 2013.
11 Minority Rights Group International, mrg Condemns Cttack on Christians in Pakistan and
Calls for Increased Protection of Minorities in the Country, 23 September 2013 <www
.minorityrights.org/12069/press-release/mrg-condemns-attack-on-christia…>, visited on
17 May 2014.
12 Pew Research: Religion and Public Life Project, Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High
14 January 2014 <www.pewforum.org/2014/01/14/religious-hostilities-reach-six-year-high/>,
visited on 02 May 2014.

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160 Misra

What explains this level of violence and loss of tolerance? In order to extri-
cate a credible answer to this question we have to (a) interrogate the nature of
Pakistani politics; and (b) evaluate the majority community’s disposition
towards its minorities.
As Max Weber argued, “the more a religion acquires the aspects of a
‘communal religion’ (gemeinde-religiositat), the more political circumstances
co-operate with it for its further consolidation”.13 A cursory backward glance
into Pakistan’s modern history suggests that in order to raise their status quo
ante, successive regimes have consistently engaged in anti-minority discourse
and policy planning. The first coordinated large-scale attempt to squeeze the
minorities from the public place and create a nationwide dissent against them
was unveiled in the early 1970s. The Pakistan People’s Party (under the leader-
ship of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) nationalised schools and colleges and introduced
laws and policies that encouraged discrimination against the country’s minori-
ties.14 Although there was a slow and steady erosion of tolerance towards the
minorities since the 1950s, Bhutto’s intervention was the first sustained official
attempt to ostracise all non-Muslim minorities from the national mainstream.
In one of the most ‘crippling moves against minorities’,15 Bhutto “liberally
traded minority rights to the Islamists for an ever-elusive political stability”.16
The roots of current majoritarian sectarianism in Pakistan can be traced to
the manipulation of Islam by General Zia ul-Haq. General Zia ul-Haq, who
served as President of Pakistan from 1977–1988 and replaced Bhutto, was very
open about his commitment to the creation of a majoritarian Sunni-dominated
state; even if that meant the erosion of secular credentials and undermining of
the minorities. Interestingly, in an interview with The Economist magazine
shortly after taking over power in a military coup in 1981, he put forward the
argument that “Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state … Take out Judaism
from Israel and it will fall like a house of cards … Take Islam out of Pakistan and
make it a secular state; it would collapse”.17
Notwithstanding this supposed political expediency behind the construc-
tion and preservation of an ideological nation state, General Zia ul-Haq’s Sunni

13 M. Weber, The Sociology of Religion (Methuen & Co., London, 1971) pp. 224–225.
14 The then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is reported to have said “I have said
quite clearly that Islam is our faith. Islam is our religion and the basis of Pakistan and
we are Muslims”. S.S. Panwhar (ed.), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: The Politics of Charisma
<www.ebookbrowsee.net/zulfikar-ali-bhutto-politics-of-charisma-pdf-d56274771>
visited on 17 September 2012.
15 Rais, supra note 6, p. 456.
16 Raina, supra note 1, p. 6.
17 F. Devji, Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Hurst, London, 2013) p. 4.

international journal on minority and group rights 22 (2015) 157-181

Life in Brackets 161

nation-building project was a shrewd attempt at building a popular base for his
regime. General Zia “pushed covert secular laws into religious ones, installing
Shari’a courts and enacting anti-blasphemy statutes”.18 In view of some critics,
this project was introduced specifically to please religious parties supporting
his martial law.19 Being an usurper of power and devoid of a democratic man-
date, General Zia turned to the right wing Islamic elements for support. His
attempt to create an Islamic polity and society was primarily an attempt at
regime consolidation. General Zia’s use of Islam as a tool to legitimise his rule
unveiled the process of Sunnification of Pakistan and was a turning point in
the history of the country’s minorities.20 According to historian Ian Talbot,
General Zia’s rule represented the ‘end of state neutrality’21 toward minority
groups and courting of Sunni sectarianism.
During the 1980s, a wave of Islamisation programme unveiled a country-
wide self-styled “guardians of religion” movement that took upon itself
the responsibility to forcibly convert the country’s minorities including the
Christians. And whenever there was resistance to it from the minorities, they
were swiftly put down by blatant Sunni majoritarian violence – often at the
approval of the regime. Needless to add, persecution of religious minorities
increased with General Zia ul-Haq’s Islamisation project.
From the 1990s onward, various military and civilian governments have pur-
sued a pro-Sunni Islam policy – an undertaking that permeates all walks of life
including the educational system. In the last decade, children in most state-
run educational establishment were expected to recite everyday “Pakistan ka
matlab kya? La illaha illala! (What is the meaning of Pakistan? There is no god
but Allah!”22
According to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (icg), sectarian
conflict in Pakistan is the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation
of secular democratic forces. In its view, instead of empowering liberal, demo-
cratic voices, successive governments have co-opted the religious right and

18 J. Kaleem, ‘Religious Minorities in Pakistan Struggle but Survive Amid Increasing

Persecution’, Huffington Post, 10 February 2014, p. 7.
19 Rais, supra note 6, p. 456.
20 M. Waseem et al., Dilemmas of Pride and Pain: Sectarian Conflict and Conflict Trans­
formation in Pakistan, Religion & Development Working Paper 48, (International
Development Department, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, 2010) p. 7.
21 I. Talbot, ‘Religion and Violence: The Historical Context for Conflict in Pakistan,’ in R. John
& R. King (eds.), Religion and Violence in South Asia – Theory and Practice (Routledge,
London, 2007) pp. 154–172.
22 P. Hoodbhoy, ‘Jinnah and the Islamic State: Setting the Record Straight’, 42:32 Economic
and Political Weekly (2007) p. 3300.

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162 Misra

continue to rely on it to create a firm base among hardliners, which allows

them to maintain their hold on power.23
For instance, none of the post-independent government in Pakistan has
done much to rein in radical Sunni groups who glorify open sectarian vio-
lence. According to one critic, Pakistan “does not have any law that can stop
extremists from changing the slogan ‘Kafir kafir jo na mane woh bhee kafir’”
(infidels, infidels, those who are not believers (i.e., in Sunni Islam) are infidels
too). Conse­quently, these infidels are ‘wajibul qatl’ (deserving of legitimate
killing).24
While the “othering” of the minorities in Pakistan by the Sunni majority has
its origin in political manipulation of religious identity, there are other impor-
tant economic factors that provide a basis to this majoritarian hegemony. This
is very much evident in the context of Sunni-Shi’ia sectarian divide. Many
Shi’ias in the country belong to an affluent class and are powerful landlords.

1400

1200

1000
Incidents
800
Killed
600
Injured
400
Linear (Killed)
200

0
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
2013

Figure 1 Sectarian violence in Pakistan ( January 1989–March 2014)

Source: South Asian Terrorism Portal25

23 International Crisis Group, Pakistan: The Militant Jihadi Challenge, Asia Report, No 164
(International Crisis Group, Brussels, 2009).
24 M. Shehzad, ‘The State of Islamic Radicalism in Pakistan’, 37: 2 Strategic Analysis (2013)
pp. 186–192.
25 South Asian Terrorism Portol, Sectarian Violence in Pakistan, <www.satp.org/satporgtp/
countries/pakistan/database/sect-killing.htm>, visited on 1 June 2014.

international journal on minority and group rights 22 (2015) 157-181

Life in Brackets 163

They often own large estates around Jhang in the Punjab, controlling their
Sunni and Shi’ia clients.26
Consequently, Sunni attempts to break the economic dominance of Shi’ia
elite in the Punjab in the past have become an important factor in the consoli-
dation of majoritarian sectarian violence across the country. Such is the feroc-
ity of this pointed majoritarian aggression that some critics have come to
comment that the Shi’ias have two choices (a) sit and wait for a messiah to
appear to rescue them; (b) relocate to a Shi’ia exclusive enclave elsewhere.27
The persecution of minorities in the hands of hard-line Sunnis in Pakistan
in recent years can also be explained within an archaic religio-juridical con-
text. From the 1990s until now, persecution of minorities has taken a new turn
within the context of ‘blasphemy law’. While the original remits of blasphemy
law was an institutional framework designed to uphold the majority faith from
attacks by rivals – more recently it has been appropriated by individuals and
radical Islamists seeking to settle their own private intolerance against various
Islamic sects and non-Muslims in the country.28
As independent studies have consistently suggested “because minorities are
demographically, socio-economically and politically depressed, blasphemy is
often used by the local power elite, mainly feudal landlords, as a pretext to
appropriate their labour, land and women”.29 The most damning aspect of this
hegemonic design is that the controversial blasphemy law permits any Muslim
(read Sunni Muslim in this context) to accuse a person of insulting Islam with-
out having to produce the required evidence that will stand up in a court.30
According to the 2013 Human Rights Watch Country Report on Pakistan
“abuses were rife under the country’s blasphemy law, which is used by the
Sunni majority against religious minorities, often to settle personal disputes”.31
In view of human rights campaigners, this strict law against defaming Islam is
often misused by unscrupulous individuals to settle personal grudges against

26 E. Murphy, The Making of Terrorism in Pakistan: Historical and Social Roots of Extremism
(Routledge, New York, 2013) p. 27.
27 M. Haider, ‘Time for Shi’ias to leave Pakistan,’ The Dawn, 17 February 2013, p. 11.
28 While no one has been executed under the blasphemy law, since 2001 approximately
32 people — including two judges — have been slain by vigilantes for expressing their
opposition to this “draconian” Islamic stricture.
29 Raina, supra note 1, p. 4.
30 S. Mohsin, ‘Tackling Religious Intolerance and Violence in Pakistan’, cnn, 24 September
2013, p. 8.
31 Human Rights Watch, Country Report: Pakistan, <www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/
country-chapters/pakistan>, visited on 1 May 2014.

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164 Misra

minorities,32 and is particularly common in the context of Christians. In

August 2013, a coordinated attack against Christians in the poor suburbs of
Islamabad led to 400 families fleeing their homes and neighbourhoods. It was
later found that the ringleader of this mob, local cleric Khalid Chisti, “had fab-
ricated evidence in order to rid the neighbourhood of Christians”.33
On balance one must stress that a section of the judiciary and the political
establishment have come to recognise the threat of appropriation of the blas-
phemy law and its remits by self-serving individuals and a given religious con-
stituency. Evaluating the role of judiciary, we find while most of the blasphemy
charges against Christians (including one against a 14 year old child with Down
syndrome) have led to the death sentence by lower courts, though these
charges have been overturned by the higher courts due to lack of evidence.34
Similarly, in an effort to curb the abuse of the provisions stipulated within
blasphemy law and to stem the rising tide of extremism against minorities, two
prominent politicians sought to amend this controversial law. However, there
were countrywide protests and the politicians in the forefront of this drive (the
governor of the Punjab province and the federal minister for minority affairs)
were both assassinated by radical Islamic extremists for even considering such
a move. In addition to these high profile murders, ordinary Pakistanis paid
their lives to voice their concern on majoritarian religious intolerance. Rashid
Rehman, a lawyer and regional coordinator for the Human Rights Commission
of Pakistan (hrcp), was gunned down by assailants (on 8 May 2014 in Multan).
Lawyer Rehaman’s guilt surrounded his defence of a university lecturer who
had been framed on charges of blasphemy.35
Unsurprisingly, these biased and repressive policies and the perpetuation
majoritarian purge have patently disadvantaged the minorities. However, it is
the Christians who have been disproportionately affected by the lopsided
institutional policies and fraying of tolerance on the part of the majority. Since
2000, Pakistan’s Sunni majority Muslims have subjected Christians to wave
after wave of systemic unprovoked assault. Arson attacks, lynching, mob vio-
lence, demonisation through Friday religious prayers, rape of Christian women,
kidnapping of Christian girls and forcing their conversion to Islam, land grab-
bing, destruction of Christian religious buildings, public humiliation,

32 F. Fiaz, ‘Christians in Pakistan sentenced to death over a text’, The Telegraph, 7 April 2014,
p. 11.
33 Human Rights Watch, supra note 31.
34 For a detailed discussion, see, Sawan Masih: Pakistani Christian Gets Death Penalty for
Blasphemy’, <www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26781731>, visited on 30 April 2014.
35 ‘Rashid Rehman shooting: Pakistan Human Rights Lawyer Who Received ‘Death Threats’
over High Profile Blasphemy Case Is Shot Dead’, The Independent, 8 May 2014.

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Life in Brackets 165

k­ idnapping, extra judicial killing, false accusations, eviction and target killings
are some of the ordeals that Christians go through on a regular basis.
If this catalogue of persecution was not enough, there have also been fre-
quent petitions to the country’s highest judicial body, the Supreme Court by a
key political party Jamait Ulema-e-Islam to ban the Bible; in effect disenfran-
chise the Christians of their religion and by extension their primary religious
identity. This unrelenting Islamisation of society and state, according to one
critic, “appears to have acquired autonomy and self-direction; Pakistan’s liberal
elites are unable to resist it, much less reverse it”.36

2 Thinning of Tolerance

A cursory glance at the history of the Christian community in Pakistan sug-

gests that they have had a relatively secure and peaceful existence alongside
the majority of Muslims compared to their other minority counterparts, i.e.,
Hindus.37 In fact, despite the state-sponsored Islamisation of the public space
project (that began in earnest in the 1980s) Christians were mainly left to their
own affairs. However, it is in the past three decades that their lives, culture and
religion have come under relentless majoritarian scrutiny. Following that, they
have been condemned to hegemonic violence. What is the basis of this majori-
tarian intolerance? What sustains this new narrative of violence?
I wish to argue that this conflict dynamic has a lot to do with a specific imagi-
nation process affecting the country’s radical Sunni Islamists in relation to
Christians. This particular imagination is best explained within the framework
of “thick” and “thin” view of “the other”. In social anthropology, political theory
and religious studies, the identification of a given group or ideology by its coun-
terpart at times is done through the particular process of attribution.38 Thick
and thin commitment to religion is often measured within the quantitative and
qualitative markers. While some critics hold that thick commitment to a religion
(and consequently the level of intolerance it displays towards others who are
outside it) is best explained in the context of quantity – i.e., greater the number,
greater the destabilising power of religion39 others take a directly opposite view.

36 Raina, supra note 1, p. 4.

37 Cf., T. Gabriel, Christian Citizens in an Islamic State: The Pakistan Experience (Ashgate,
London, 2007).
38 For a detailed discussion see, C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books,
New York, 1974); M. Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad
(University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, in, 1994).
39 On this point see, A. Margalit, The Ethics of Memory (Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
ma, 2002).

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166 Misra

To those belonging to the other school of thought, it is the quality of com-

mitment to religion that is the key to determining its followers’ level of toler-
ance and intolerance towards others.40 In view of these critics,

approaching the issue of religion and violence by looking at the quantity of

religious commitment – more religion, more violence, less religion, less
violence – is unsophisticated and mistaken. The most relevant fact is rather,
the quality of religious commitments within a given religious tradition.41

Therefore, given that all religions profess fellow feeling, peace and universal
brotherhood, a thick commitment to a religion or unyielding loyalty to a par-
ticular religious outlook, in fact, can be “order restoring and life affirming”.42
Viewed within this framework, while a thick adherence to religion would imply
greater communal harmony, a qualitative erosion or thinning of the original
precepts of religion would find manifestation in inter-communal intolerance.
Although founded as a homeland for Muslims, Pakistan nonetheless had its
basis in a “thick” view of Islam. Consequently, while Pakistan rejoiced the fact
of being a cherished homeland for Muslims, it simultaneously celebrated
its identity as a protector of various other faiths. If anything, it is the “thick”
commitment to a religion that espouses values such as fellow feeling, solidar-
ity and tolerance that was something central to the founder of Pakistan
Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s thinking.43 Given that foundational aspiration, it is
agreed upon by generations of scholars that “Pakistan’s founders envisioned a
secular-liberal democratic Pakistan with equal citizenship, and popular sover-
eignty that was identity agnostic”.44
However, it is the departure from that original “thick” view of religion towards
a “thin,” but zealous understanding of Islam vis-à-vis other co-religionists in the
country that has fostered socio-religious discord, inter-group hatred and inter-
communal violence. Accentuation of this thinness has been made possible
owing to (a) the narrow parochial vision of the state in matters of minority

40 See, M. Volf, Christianity and Violence (University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons,

Philadelphia, 2002).
41 Ibid., pp. 4–5.
42 M. Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God – The Global Rise of Religious Violence
(University of California Press, Berkeley, ca, 2000) p. 242.
43 See, A. Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985); F. Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan
(Columbia University Press, New York, 2009). Unsurprisingly, the new nation state sym-
bolised this commitment towards minorities by placing a white strip in the national flag
(against an overwhelming green strip representing Islam).
44 Raina, supra note 1, p. 4.

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Life in Brackets 167

issues; (b) the predominance of radical interpretation of Islam. Given this dis-
position, certain religious convictions have been misused to castigate the
minority community and use this thin understanding of religion to legitimise
violence against it.
If thinness refers to the decaying of original moral, ethical and secular
­values among a certain community, what are the indicators that highlight that
detrimental development?
One can tease out three strands of thin religiosity in the context of Pakistan.
The first one relates to the creation of a binary divide between who is a true
Pakistani and who is not while using the compass of religion. This referential
framework, again, is based on the hardening of the majority’s views on non-
Islamic religions. This particular outlook holds that Pakistan is fundamentally
an Islamic nation. Hence, other non-Islamic faiths should have no place in this
religio-political entity. Or, to put it slightly differently, since the raison d’être of
the Pakistani nation is Islam, to speak of or mention other religions in this
exclusive polity is quite simply counterintuitive.
Second, given the predominance of this particularised notion of the identity
of the state, the majority also feels it necessary to distinguish their own place or
identity (symbolic or otherwise) vis-à-vis the rest. Therefore, if Pakistan implies
it is “the land of the pure”, those who do not share its core identity, i.e., Islam,
are “impure”. If we regard ‘the physical body a symbol of society’,45 Christians
(among with other non-Islamic religionists) in that imagination constitute the
community of na-Pak, the impure and the unclean entities (bodies).46
Therefore, the majority-minority divide and consequently the confronta-
tion can be explained within that specific framework of imagination. According
to Todorov, a group confronts the problem of the ‘other’ by classifying it as
equal (similar) or different (inferior). Consequently, that specific group’s iden-
tity is built and rebuilt and strengthened through the contact with the other
who is also different; hence if the other is considered inferior, bad and hated,
the majoritarian group constantly seeks ways to reinforce that stereotype.47
45 See, M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo
(Routledge, New York, 2002).
46 In a reductionist analysis of the body and identity, if according to the popular imagina-
tion their (Christian) beliefs are said to make them “impure” and “unclean”, some of the
institutions of the state have gone an extra length to put a stamp of official approval on
such constructions. A case in point is the advertisement of jobs for cleaners in various
municipalities across the country. Most of these institutions routinely advertise that
the municipality “would prefer Christian applicants” for such jobs. See, O. Waraich,
‘In Pakistan, Christianity Earns a Death Sentence’, Time, 4 December 2010, p. 33.
47 An introduction to this can be found in, T. Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism,
Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, ma, 1998)

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168 Misra

Third, in relating to rules surrounding purity and pollution and impurity

and danger in an ordering of social hierarchy, these unclean, impure bodies are
a visible threat to the mainstream purity. Put simply, the very presence and
existence of an impure Christian is an assault on true and pure Pakistani iden-
tity, metaphorically and otherwise. Given the growing and widespread domi-
nance of notions of pure and impure, there has been a consequential decay in
majoritarian morality in relation to their attitude towards Christians.
For Walzer, the importance of a “thick” view to project what is moral and
just cannot be underestimated. In his view, thick morality is “richly referential,
culturally resonant, locked into locally established symbolic system or network
of meanings”.48 A thin morality, therefore, would constitute a depressingly
counterproductive worldview intent upon building boundaries and seeking
out targets to attack.
It is the abandonment of that thick morality – a morality that celebrated the
diversity of the Pakistani state, its rich heritage, and the common contribution
to the development of this nation – in favour of a thin exclusive imagination
that would seem to sit at the heart of this inter-communal conflict dynamic.
Evaluated in this framework, the intolerance of the radical Muslims in Pakistan
towards their Christian counterparts would constitute consolidation of that
thin morality.
It is worth asking, at this point, how the transformation from a thick to a
thin understanding happened and why? While engaging in this exercise, we
are confronted by the following interrelated questions: Is it simply a case of the
mainstream (Sunni-dominated) society becoming more religiously hard-line?
If so, why? In addition, one also needs to ask if the political agencies contrib-
uted to the thinning of religious tolerance.

3 Logic of Targeting

While it is vital to examine the “thick” and “thin” commitment to religion in

order to interpret and explain communal cooperation and divide there are
also other attendant principles that condition and contribute to such conflict
dynamics.
It is true that all minorities in Pakistan (Ahamadiyas, Hazaras, Hindus, Kalash
Kafirs, Mehdi, Shi’ia Muslims and Sikhs) have experiences of discrimination and
violence at the hands of the majority and before the institutions of the State.
Puzzling, however, in recent years, are the Christians in this narrative of

48 Walzer, supra note 38, p. xi.

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Life in Brackets 169

conflict, who appear to have attracted much more attention from their radical
Islamic co-citizens than other groups. If anything, attacks on Christians are
­consistent, disproportionate and ever increasing. In many ways, contemporary
discourse and activism surrounding inter-communal violence in Pakistan puts
Christians at its very centre. Crudely put, this community seems to have been
marked as a key “target” by radical Muslims, but why so?
In this context, using the Horowitzian framework of conflict generation,
one could argue that the selective targeting of a given community or group
is guided by three inter-related principles. First, if the target group is regarded
as a long-standing (vis-à-vis the majority community) enemy. Second, if it
presents a political threat, and third, if it possesses external connections that
augment its internal strength. In sum, from a majoritarian perspective, if the
given minority is thought to exhibit any of these characterological traits; it is
more likely to be targeted in violence than if it lacks those characteristics.49
How does the Christian minority in Pakistan fit in this framework of expla-
nation? For the sake of greater clarity, it is vital that we explore each of the
above mentioned target identification processes in turn.
The first question concerns the issue of the target group being associated
with a long-standing external enemy. “Complex historical and social factors
have shaped the interaction between religion and politics in Pakistan” and con-
sequently the relationship between the majority and minority communities.50
To some observers, “religious minorities with inferred ties to outside states are
subject to particularly strong pressure as ciphers for actions of those states”.51
For instance, given Pakistan’s traditional enmity with India, the Hindu minor-
ity has always been clothed in that ‘enemy’ category.52 But what about the
Christians?
Interestingly, the logic that considers Hindus as anti-Pakistani is liberally
applied in the construction of a given image of Christians. In a politically charged
social context, the Christians, owing to their religion, are easily equated with
the West and Pakistan’s majority shares an uneasy relationship with the West.
Pakistan views the West in a low light and, therefore, it is that specific outlook
that has come to dominate its views on Christians. Thanks to a shared religion,
the Christians are condemned as “proxies for the West”. It is this overarching

49 D.L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot (University of California Press, Berkeley, ca, 2001)
p. 151.
50 Rais, supra note 6, p. 448.
51 Gregory and Valentine, supra note 8, p. ii.
52 I.H. Malik, Religious Minorities in Pakistan (Minority Rights Group International, London,
2002) p. 26.

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170 Misra

trans-national religious belief which has contributed to the construction of

their “enemy” image. The everyday violence the Christians face is misdirected
anger at the West.53 This is substantiated by some Pakistani scholars. Accor­
ding to Akbar S. Ahmed, “while militant groups are frequently the culprits in
attacks on Christians, a general anger against the United States has caused
large numbers of people (read ordinary Muslims) to target Christians, whom
they associate with America, as scapegoats”.54
On the second issue of minorities as a political threat, it can assume a
­general currency if the majority is found to be undergoing a crises of ­confidence.
Select targeting of a given ethnic or religious group during crisis of confidence
among the majority is an established phenomenon.55 If at a given time the
majority community suffers from low morale or feels insecure in the overall
assessment of its identity, then it would vent its anger against its numerically
less powerful co-citizens.56
This particular scapegoating assumes intensity if for some reason the hege-
monic majority associates the minority with an external event, actor or power.
Feeling impotent in the face of external threats or lacking power to confront
this enemy section of the majority may castigate the minority while branding
them traitors, fifth-columnists and even as anti-nationals. In the ensuing
majoritarian activism, the hapless minority attracts all the negative attention
and finds itself in the eye of the storm.
It is the lack of confidence to engage with the external enemy face to face,
which leads to a form of internal implosion. It is during these crises periods
that the regime, institutions of the state and the majority come together to
create an alliance that seeks out easy targets to vent their own sense of
impotency.
It goes without saying that the Pakistani state and its majority community
(Muslims) have consistently nursed an uneasy temperament towards India

53 Kaleem, supra note 18, p. 7.

54 Ahmed, supra note 2, p. 9.
55 For an early and succinct discussion, see, D.L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict
(University of California Press, Berkeley, ca, 1984).
56 Several cases abound in contemporary international politics that confirm this particular
position. Serbian attack on the Kosovo Albanians, Saddam Hussein’s continual persecu-
tion of the Shi’ias and Kurds and more recently, radical Islamists attack on Christians in
Pakistan are all cases in point. In all these three cases, the given minority was reduced/
alleviated to an enemy position because the regime or the majority community con-
cerned felt powerless against some external powers. Consequently it tried to bring about
parity or reclaim its superiority by condemning the given minority to various forms of
persecution.

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Life in Brackets 171

and have felt vulnerable to the West.57 Unsurprisingly, various civilian, as well
as military regimes, the military and the radical Islamists in Pakistan, have
openly engaged in minority bashing in the public arena in order to exorcise
their own private fears and anxieties in relation to external actors.
On the third issue of the targeting owing to the group’s external connections
is slightly problematic in the context of Pakistani Christians. It follows an
established pattern of conferring an enemy status by default during times of
extreme socio-economic and political upheaval.58
Some theorists suggest that when a community feels particularly low and
vulnerable, that given community may engage in spreading “extreme stereo-
typic contents” against the less powerful of the groups to vent its anger against
the external enemy near which it feels impotent.59
Christians’ specific religious identity automatically makes them susceptible
to Islamic extremism that associates the West with Christianity and thus by
default, the Christians of Pakistan have long been recognised as an enemy. As
Bar-Tal and Teichman argue, “the majoritarian belief that there is an enemy in
their midst is related to the definition of a conflict”.60 For example, when the
United States and the coalition forces began their war plan against the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan way back in December of 2001, “Pakistani Christian
leaders demanded security cover for themselves and their Churches”.61
In view of some observers, “many Muslims, not only extremists, believe
that Christians are in collusion with the Western powers and that to attack
them is to attack the West”.62 Hence, unable to confront the enemy directly,
this constituency has from time to time used the minority Christians as a
convenient scapegoat. This position finds ample manifestation in some recent
events.

57 Interesting discussion on this can be found in, S. P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, (Brookings
Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2004); A. Lieven, Pakistan – A Hard Country (Public
Affairs, New York, 2011).
58 For instance, when there is an attack on a Muslim place of worship in India, it leads to a
simultaneous target of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
59 D. Bar-Tal and Y. Teichman, Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: Representations of Arabs
in Israeli Jewish Society (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005) p. 71.
60 Ibid.
61 bbc News, ‘Analysis: Pakistan’s Christian Minority’, 29 October 2001, <www.news.bbc
.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1625976.stm>, visited on 12 September 2012.
62 N. Saeed, ‘No Home for Persecuted Pakistani Christians in any State’, Pakistan Christian
Post, 1 May 2014, <www.pakistanchristianpost.com/headlinenewsd.php?hnewsid=3105>
visited on 13 April 2015.

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172 Misra

Following the terrorist bomb blast in All Saints’ Church in Peshawar

in September 2013, which claimed 86 Christian lives, the spokesman of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (tte-P) group that claimed responsibility, later
justified its actions by suggesting “until and unless drone strikes are stopped,
we will continue to strike wherever we will find an opportunity against non-
Muslims”.63
The external actions that have had repercussions on the country’s minori-
ties have been long been recognised by this community and have proved pain-
fully prophetic. According to Fr. Javed Akram Gill, a parish priest in the town of
Abbotabad (the site of Osama bin Laden’s killing), “every time the Americans
say or do something, Christians in Pakistan become the number one target”.64
For the sake of brevity of the argument, one only needs to compare the dates
or the time frame between Fr. Javed Akram Gill’s expression of anxiety grip-
ping his community and the claim made by the tte-P.

4 Hate and Scapegoating

These earlier discussed primary conditions are also aided by what one might
regard as secondary or attendant conditions that contribute to “pre-select”
the Christians as legitimate targets. These secondary conditions can be
explained within the contexts of religio-cultural devaluation, negative stereo-
typing, scapegoating and object of hate. For each one of these frameworks of
identification provides critical momentum when selecting a target group and
eventually heaping forms of violence on them. For some theorists, devalua-
tion of individuals and groups, whatever its sources, makes it easier to harm
them.65 It also serves as an avenue to prop up the group initiating this process
to feel superior. As Staub puts it, “diminishing others is a way to elevate the
self”.66
Socio-religious devaluation brought in by strict differentiation between in-
group and out-group, us and them, or kafirs and Muslims involves a cognitive
simplification of values along a continuum. Within this process the dominant

63 Quoted in S. Mohsin, ‘Tackling religious intolerance and violence in Pakistan’, cnn,

24 September 2013, p. 8.
64 J. Khan, ‘Pakistani Christians “number one target” after the death of Bin Laden’, <www
.asianews.it/news-en/Pakistani-Christians-number>, visited on 13 June 2011.
65 A. Bandura, Aggresson: A Social Learning Analysis (Prentice Hall, Chicago, il, 1973).
66 E. Staub, The Psychology of Good and Evil (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003)
p. 299.

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Life in Brackets 173

group exaggerates the narrative of difference in order to easily generate an

anti-out group sentiment.67
Similarly, if an in-group and out-group distinction exists between the
majority and minority, then the later may find themselves devalued and
made scapegoats if it is found to be in any way related to primary enemies of
the majority. Given their shared history of persecution, there exists a precari-
ous solidarity between Christians and Hindus in Pakistan. As a measure of
safety from the radical targeting many of the country’s Hindus (a) have
converted to Christianity; (b) sought political alliance with them; (c) forged
hybrid forms of Hindu-Christian religious practices and worship beside
Christians, in order to escape the worse consequence of prejudice in contem-
porary Pakistan.68
A mere survival strategy of the hapless minority has incensed radical Sunni
Islamists of the Taliban-variety. Ideally, they would have liked (a) Hindus to
convert to Islam (rather than Christianity); (b) not formed another conten-
tious identity in a strict Islamic state. Consequently, since Christians have been
instrumental in providing shelter and succour to Hindus, they have inadver-
tently assumed the character of the enemy by default. Hence the traditional
antipathy and anger that radical Sunni Muslims have entertained towards
Hindus (largely due to the historical narrative of two-nation theory which cre-
ated India and Pakistan) finds an easy repository in the Christians.
Furthermore, their scapegoating is made easier not only because Christians
belong to the out-group category, but also because they have forfeited their
rights from the moral realm of protection (that Islam traditionally provided to
minorities living within its fold) because of their reaching out to the nation’s
traditional enemies – the Hindus. Since Pakistani nationalism was built on
religion, i.e., Islam vis-à-vis Hinduism, any association with its arch nemesis, i.e.,
Hindus, creates a constituency of intolerance among extremist Islamic nation-
alists in the country. Needless to add, often times it is this association between
Hindus and Christians and an extremist nationalist imagination that has freed
a constituency in Pakistan from any ethical constraints against attacking
the Christians.

67 Horowitz, supra note 49, pp. 43–44. Other intra-Islamic minorities such as Shi’ias and
Ahmadis often bear the brunt of this devaluation in Pakistan. In Karachi, the country’s eco-
nomic capital graffiti targeting Shi’ia and Ahmadi is everywhere, often calling them infidels
and giving pretexts for slaughtering them. For a detailed discussion, see, M.Q. Zaman,
‘Sectarianism in Pakistan: The Radicalisation of Shi’ia and Sunni Identities’, 32:3 Modern
Asian Studies, pp. 689–716.
68 Gregory and Valentine, supra note 8, p. 21.

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174 Misra

While as a rule of thumb, justification typically relates to what is seen as

specifically offensive to the target group, often times it can also extend beyond
those offenses.69 Paradoxical as it may seem, at a subliminal level the radical
Islamist anger and hate towards the Christians could be argued as a product of
deep-seated psychological inadequacy. This inadequacy or complex is guided
by two sets of anxieties. The first relates to the colonial legacy – when British
rule was associated with Christianity and power.70 The second one is a reckon-
ing that Christians occupy an elite identity (English education, a correspond-
ingly different life style, ability to enjoy alcohol, etc.). Very often the secular
Islamic elite of Pakistan get to entertain the trappings of these cultural facets,
which are otherwise not available or denied to the Muslim majority.
Examined up close, one could easily identify the fallacies in the above two
accusations. In the first place, the majority of Christians have had nothing to
do with British colonialism. They mostly came from lower-caste Hindu back-
grounds (who converted to Christianity in the 1800s to escape the caste hierar-
chy and oppression of orthodox Hinduism).71 In addition a great many of
Pakistan’s Christians live in rural areas and urban slums with little or no access
to the elite identity described earlier.
However, such is the intensity of extremist Islamic disaffection towards this
constituency that they hardly bother to take into account the falsities involved
in the traditional stereotypes associated with Christians. Moreover, since no
avenues exist to revolt against the long-gone colonialism and the lack of ability
to confront the country’s power-holding secular elite (who speak English and
favour a liberal lifestyle), the radicals have found it convenient to channel their
collective fury towards the powerless Christians.
Assessed within this framework, one could argue an anxiety-laden percep-
tion that systematically exaggerates the image of the other eventually commits
the group against, which it is projected to the position of an outsider. Having
consigned it to that particular image, the group orchestrating this process
assigns the outsider to a legitimate object of hate. Following on that, in a
complex religio-political context, the initiator of this image construction even-
tually induces the mainstream to hate the subjugated and the marginal.72
Consequently, hate here is not only legitimised, but it is rationalised too.

69 Horowitz, supra note 49, p. 528.

70 J. Cox, Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940 (Stanford
University Press, Palo Alto, ca, 2002).
71 L. S. Walbridge, The Christians of Pakistan: The Passion of Bishop John Joseph (Routledge
Curzon, London, 2003) pp. 15–16.
72 Bar-Tal and Teichman, supra note 59, p. 73.

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Life in Brackets 175

Besides, when this hate is acquired through a process of selective reading of

the minority identity, it becomes a powerful psychological collective force
intent upon causing maximum damage.

5 Between a Hammer and an Anvil

The Christian community in Pakistan has never had it easy. Apart from being
subjected to majoritarian hatred and hostility, their lives have also been sub-
jected to State-sanctioned official discrimination and persecution.73 According
to one critic, the record of Pakistan’s judiciary about protection of the rights of
religious minorities is uneven and has witnessed a drastic change – from com-
plete protection of the minorities to their outright condemnation in the
nation’s polity over a sustained period of time.
The first phase (from the time of the nation’s independence in 1947 until
1970), is remarkable for unequivocal protection of freedom of religion and
religious minorities.74 The second phase (during the rule of Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto in the 1970s), contracted this protection through undue deference to
the legislature. In the last phase (from the 1980s until now), the judiciary capit-
ulated before ascendant forces of religious reaction and abdicated its protec-
tive role.75
To sceptics, however, in a country consecrated as a Muslim homeland, such
an eventuality was inevitable. To argue that some aspects of the law designed
to protect minorities and foster inter-communal harmony have been gradually
abandoned and patently abused to place radical Islamists, is not an exaggera-
tion. In view of one critic, when it comes to law, Pakistan’s higher judiciary has
formulated a cavalier approach to the protection of minorities and their rights.
Moreover, they have in fact provided ample scope for radical extremists to
­dictate laws that effectively persecute Christians and other minorities simply

73 Waraich, supra note 46, p. 33.

74 See, for instance, the sentiment of the founder of Pakistan M.A. Jinnah on the place of
minorities in the newly created nation. “You are free; free to go to your temples, you are
free to go to your mosques, or to any other place of worship in the State of Pakistan. You
may belong to any religion or caste or creed-that has nothing to do with the business of
the State …We are starting with this fundamental principles that we are all citizens and
equal citizens of our State”. M.A. Jinnah, Jinnah Speeches and Statements, 1947–48
(Introduction by S. M. Burke) (Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2000) p. 17.
75 T. Mahmud, ‘Freedom of Religion & Religious Minorities in Pakistan: A Study of Judicial
Practice’, 19:1 Fordham International Law Journal (1995) p. 40.

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176 Misra

because of difference in faith.76 Such hegemonic discrimination and institu-

tional violation of minority rights in an Islamic polity brings into question the
global responsibilities and obligations.
If the international community (read the West) feels passionately about the
lives and liberties of people under persecution by authoritarian and autocratic
regimes, does that entail the scope of intervention on their behalf in an Islamic
state such as Pakistan? Debating such an undertaking, however, requires a
thorough assessment of the conditions on the ground. Before one goes down
the path of actual intervention or even the mere mention of it, it is pertinent to
ask, how does the international community view the minority Christian ques-
tion in Pakistan in the first place?
Despite a history of persecution, Christians in Pakistan have been peaceful
even in the face of extreme provocation.77 The fact that their condition is made
worse because the “Pakistani state is engaged in or have tolerated severe viola-
tions of religious freedom” is even recognised by the U.S. State Department’s
List of Countries of Particular Concern in respect of religious freedom since
2003.78 Other external bodies such as Minority Rights Group International
placed Pakistan in the top ten of its list of states violating minority rights for
both 2007 and 2008.79 More recently, agencies such as Human Rights Watch
and Amnesty International have singled out Pakistan as a cause of serious con-
cern while assessing the anti-Christian violence in the country. Clearly the
condition of minorities in general and Christians in particular in Pakistan is a
grave human security issue. How then was one able to respond to such a chal-
lenge in an era of cosmopolitan responsibility?
In an age of liberal interventionism, the normative course would be to seek
ways of addressing the issue through some form of intervention. Such an
undertaking to intervene (diplomatic, moral or otherwise) on behalf of those
Christian’s facing persecution, however is fraught with complex challenges and
may prove extremely problematic. In recent years Pakistani Christian organisa-
tions have appealed to Washington to restrict U.S. military aid to Pakistan or
exercise diplomatic pressure to protect minorities,80 but to no avail.

76 An interesting overview on this can be found in, M. Lau, The Role of Islam in the Legal
System in Pakistan (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden, 2006).
77 Rais, supra note 6, p. 461.
78 uscirf, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom – Annual Report
2011 <www.aina.org/reports/uscirf2011.pdf> visited on 17 June 2011.
79 Minority Rights Group International, State of the World’s Minorities 2008 (Minority Rights
Group International, London, 2008).
80 Kaleem, supra note 18, p. 7.

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Life in Brackets 177

Two interrelated factors in this context dominate the minority plight dis-
course and foreclose any possible roll back of aid or any form of diplomatic
intervention or otherwise on behalf of the hapless Christians. First, there is a
moral deficit on part of the West (read the United States) to go down that path
lest that would alienate Pakistani authorities in its partnership with the West
against the “war on terror”.81 This fear of alienation is so pervasive that the
West has shied away from entertaining even the liberal argument that “human
rights must be an essential part of dialogue and discussion” when it comes to
providing overseas aid to countries such as Pakistan.
Second, any generic discussion leading to an eventual policy position is
fraught with the very complex attitude that Islam, in general, and Muslim
­people, in particular, hold towards external intervention. As one Christian
cleric of Pakistani origin has put it, “their (Muslims) complaint often boils
down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are
­victims… and always wrong when Muslims are oppressors or terrorists”.82
Unsurprisingly the West’s refusal to engage with the issue has led some
Christian leaders in Pakistan to argue that their plight is not heard outside
Pakistan and the international community has abandoned them. Speaking in
the aftermath of attack on the All Saints’ church in Peshawar in 2013 (consid-
ered worst-ever attack against Christians in the country’s history), Mano
Rumalshah, the bishop emeritus of Peshawar, stated, “everyone is ignoring the
growing danger to Christians in Muslim-majority countries. The European
countries don’t give a damn about us”.83
On balance, given the problematic and volatile nature of this discourse and
potential threat to an already embattled relationship between Pakistan and
the West, such an undertaking is unlikely.84 Put simply, under the circum-
stances, the solution to the protection of Christians in Pakistan should come
from within – not from outside. If that is so, do we have a constituency that can
commit itself to such an undertaking?

81 Gregory and Valentine, supra note 8, p. 3.

82 bbc News, ‘Bishop Attacks ‘Muslim hypocrisy”, 5 November 2006, <www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/
hi/uk/6117912.stm>, visited on 08 June 2011.
83 J. Boone, ‘Pakistan church bomb: Christians mourn 85 killed in Peshawar suicide attack’,
The Guardian, 24 September 2013, p. 7.
84 Note, for instance, the opposition of some religious leaders in the West against providing
aid to Pakistan unless Islamabad commits to any religious freedom for Christians and the
British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (fco) refusal to entertain such demands. bbc
News, ‘Cardinal brands uk aid foreign policy “anti-Christian’’’, 11 March 2011, <www.bbc.co
.uk/news/uk-scotland-12738479>, visited on 7 July 2011.

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178 Misra

Oftentimes, societies undergoing such radical change create mass con-

sciousness against extremism in the form of positive civil society initiatives.
Unfortunately, the civil society in Pakistan in the current atmosphere of
religio-political turmoil is in the retreat – and increasingly exhibiting signs
of terminal powerlessness and decline. Thus the likelihood of an endogenous
actor or group of actors making a positive change for Christians appears
unlikely.

6 Assessment

Religious minorities, in general, and Christians, in particular, are a persecuted

lot in Pakistan. They are “woefully small and politically powerless”.85 Owing
to their specific faith, the Christians of Pakistan are discriminated against, per-
secuted and killed. One could argue in the current atmosphere that Christians
in Pakistan are undergoing an organised and premeditated majority-sponsored
process of devaluation. “We are like Jews in medieval Europe,” commented one
of the interviewees in this study, while recounting the travails and traumas of
his community.
Such individual security concerns have a collective resonance as well.
According to one recent study, like every other minority in the state of
Pakistan,  the Christians are absolutely helpless to do anything about their
circumstances.86
The security vacuum in which Christians find themselves is an ever-­
widening one. Although they appear homogenous from an external perspective,
their condition is further complicated by the fact that unlike their Muslim
counterparts, Christians do not possess any tribal or group network that could
provide a modicum of security at a time when the state has either abandoned
its law and order obligations and/or is in the retreat. Consequently, while
Christians are made targets for their faith by the extremist Sunni Muslims,
other opportunists feed on them for whatever wealth they have or for their
women.
In the absence of a clearly defined state-sponsored security umbrella for
their protection, they constitute easy targets. At an individual level, Christians
live in a bracketed existence. According to some observers, “It’s easy for kid-
nappers to abduct a minority member compared to local people. Minorities

85 Raina, supra note 1, p. 15.

86 Gregory and Valentine, supra note 8, p. 39.

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Life in Brackets 179

don’t have tribal support, and don’t have the security guards and weapons
that locals do”.87 In the past this community would have received some
degrees of protection from its immediate Muslim neighbours. However,
growing militancy and the tendency to brand anyone sympathising with
minorities as an anti-Islamic activity has precluded any such societal security
guarantees.
How does a minority group cope with the everyday likelihood of kidnap,
forced conversion, rape or death at the hands of its majority co-citizens?
The immediate instinctual response for a minority group facing such degrees
of persecution often results in two sets of out-migration. In the first instance,
it seeks ways to abandon its place of birth and migrate to a third country.88
Faced with such security challenges, various minorities in Pakistan (Hindus
for instance) have sought refuge in India in ever-larger numbers in recent
years.
Such an option, however, is not available to the country’s Christians.89 There
are simply very few states that speak out against the persecution of Pakistan’s
Christians or provide safe haven when the later seek refuge and asylum in a
third country. This is an ironic double bind situation for a community whose
identity is forcefully linked outside Pakistan and they are condemned because
of this association.
Secondly, in the absence of a critical protecting voice from outside and feel-
ing the pressure from inside, the community is slowly giving in to the majori-
tarian persecution. There is a slow, but steady out-migration of Christians in
Pakistan; not physical, but religious. Throughout the country reports abound
of entire Christian families and even villages embracing Islam in order to
escape the institutional ostracism, apathy of the state to their plights, and
overall militancy of extremist Islamists.

87 N.P. Walsh, Pakistan Kidnappings Highlight Dangers for Religious Minorities, 18 March,
2011, www.religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/18/pakistan-kidnappings-highlight-dangers-for
-religious-minorities/, visited on 20 June 2011.
88 For another contemporary story of Christian migration following persecution see,
Y. El Rashide, ‘Egypt: The Victorious Islamists’, 58:12 The New York Review of Books (2011)
pp. 17–19.
89 A snapshot of this sentiment of abandonment can be summed up in the statement below:
In March 2011, Asiya Nasir, a Christian lawyer told the Pakistani parliament: “Today
I want to address Muhammad Ali Jinnah (the father of the nation). You told us to come
here and make a home with you. When the Gojra tragedy happened, I said that our
future generations will ask us if we regret coming here. Now, we are filled with regret”.
See, O. Waraich, ‘Pakistan’s Christians Mourn, and Fear for their Future’, Time, 8 March
2011, p. 39.

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180 Misra

7 Conclusion

Pakistan’s religious minorities share a widespread sense of discrimination and

face constant majoritarian Sunni Islam-led persecution.90 Christians who
remain a tiny and politically weak community feel the heat of persecution
more compared to their other minority counterparts. The rising tide of indi-
vidually mediated charges of blasphemy, as well as organised majoritarian
­vigilante violence against this community is a product of both the erosion of
thick religiosity among the masses and the consolidation of institutional
­religious orthodoxy.
The radical orthodox view of minorities as a “threat” to the Pakistani nation
has coalesced in the last decade due to several external factors. The negative
stereotyping and select targeting of Christians is to some extent a by-product
of Pakistan’s uneasy relations with the West, India and the overall external con-
ditions. Since the Pakistani society at large finds itself powerless against the
external forces whose actions have a direct bearing on its internal affairs – it’s
anger has turned inward.
A shaky majoritarian self-esteem and recognition of its weakness in the
face of external factors/actors has contributed towards the consolidation of
a watertight vision of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Consequently a section of the popu-
lace does not hesitate to engage in majoritarian hegemonic politics and even
feels it is legitimate to persecute the minorities in general and Christians in
particular.
Furthermore, an underlying sense of majoritarian vulnerability to minority-
led sectarianism (Shi’ia extremism or ethno-nationalism of the Baloch-variety)
has exposed the state and its institutions to perpetual manipulation by a
radical majority. Sufficient to say, “Pakistan’s majority, while variously differen-
tiated and in conflict along ethnic, linguistic and regional fault-lines, has
achieved consensus about the Islamisation of the public spheres”.91
Thanks to this majoritarian sentiment, the country’s judiciary has been fre-
quently subverted and misused by successive regimes (democratic and author-
itarian) as well as individuals in order to establish a Sunni dominated state at
the expense of minorities.92 Unsurprisingly, given this collusion and a long
­history of institutional complicity in promoting radical extremism that seeks

90 True, in recent years, their hegemonic Sunni partners have killed more Shi’ia Muslims
than the Christians.
91 Raina, supra note 1, p. 15.
92 H. Haqqani, ‘The Role of Islam in Pakistan’s Future’, 28:1 The Washington Quarterly (2004)
p. 96.

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Life in Brackets 181

to discriminate against minorities, we do not have any mechanism to protect

the persecuted Christians.
The only possibility of rolling back the majoritarian anti-minority sentiment
and its corrosive effect on Pakistani society is perhaps possible under enlightened
leadership and a robust civil society.93 The pervasiveness of vendetta-seeking
majoritarian radicalism, however, has foreclosed any such move in that direc-
tion. In fact, those very few political leaders who have shown courage to stand
up against such partisan politics have themselves become victims of extremist
designs.94
This leaves us with the prospect of some form of external intervention on
behalf of Pakistan’s hapless Christians. Unfortunately, however, due to com-
plex and volatile relationship that the West and Pakistan share, any such move
on that front is highly unlikely. In light of such dire realities, the Christians of
the country seem condemned to a long drawn out majoritarian persecution.

93 For an interesting argument along these lines, see, P. Hoodbhoy, ‘Pakistan’s Westward
Drift’, Himal, September 2008, pp. 11–13.
94 Note, for instance, the brutal assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Minorities
Minister in March 2011 – this occurred shortly after the slaying of Punjab governor
Salmaan Taseer (by his own bodyguard) in January of the same year (both the slain leaders
had called for the blasphemy law to be lifted).

international journal on minority and group rights 22 (2015) 157-181