Running with the hare and hunting with the hounds is an idiom that summarises Pakistan’s consistent tryst with religiosity. Contradictions are genealogical, as its Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had ironically propounded, You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state in the ‘land of the pure’ or Pakistan, the only country in the world to be created in the name of a religion.

As Jinnah’s words militated with religious fervour, the recording of this famous speech to the Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1947 was conveniently ‘lost’. Beyond the perfunctory picture of a dour looking Jinnah wearing the Karakul cap (popular as ‘Jinnah Cap’) on currency notes and government offices ~ the inherent contradictions of wanting to be ‘pure’ yet secular, have fallen apart, as Pakistan is a religious tinderbox that threatens to implode. The genie unleashed by the flawed ‘two-nation theory’ that was predicated on Islamic nationalism has refused to be contained, and has now metastasized out of control. Pakistan’s backbreaking socio-economic woes are intertwined with its duplicitous stand on religious extremism and terrorism, as it hopes to continue ‘exporting’ the same to its neighbours, whilst selectively fighting it at home. It is a tightrope attempt that has failed miserably, as religious extremism is eating Pakistani society from within.

Recently while addressing the UN General Assembly, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif recalled We have paid a heavy price in the war against terrorism. 80 thousand brave soldiers and civilians have been martyred. The bitter memories of the attack on the APS school are still fresh. Our economy has lost 150 billion dollars. One would logically presume that after such an ordeal and consequences of playing with fire (read, religious extremism), the Pakistani State would have learnt the lesson. Optics and developments post Shahbaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan suggest otherwise.

Islamabad yet again chose to flex its patent lever of religiosity by rolling out the red carpet for India-born Islamic preacher, Zakir Naik, a fugitive wanted in India on charges of terror financing, hate speech, inciting communal disharmony etc., To suggest that Zakir Naik does not personally bear arms or suggests doing so explicitly (he does so implicitly), is to be naïve ~ it is the inherent supremacism, revisionism and fundamentalism of his teaching that breed intolerance, exclusion and bigotry. As a nation sucked into violent terrorism by zealots fired by such ideologues, one would expect Pakistan to know better than to pander to yet another one. Most likely, it does know the same, but the sheer temptation of riling India is just too tempting.

The brave Pakistani voice of moderation and rationality, Pervez Hoodbhoy, commented presciently, I am saddened but not shocked that Zakir Naik has been invited as a state guest and added, The state is adding more fuel to the fire. How Zakir Naik’s official welcome could help Pakistan’s deeply fractured and wounded society given the religious tensions, extremism and intolerance, is unfathomable. True to his small-spirited ways, the preacher courted controversy by walking off stage during an event by an NGO supporting orphaned girls. His shocking explanation was that the girls were ‘na-mahram’ (unmarried women who are not blood related), in a display of brazen misogyny.

He further chastised the announcer who referred to the orphans as ‘daughters’ by spewing, You cannot touch them or call them your daughters. With neighbouring Afghanistan reeling under the regressive control of the Taliban who were similarly trained in madrasas in Pakistan by such preachers, the future of Pakistani women after sermons by such ‘State Guests’ can only be imagined. That the Afghan Taliban have become a Frankenstein’s Monster for the Pakistani state is a footnote in the inevitable consequences that await the official sanction of such bigotry. This is, after all, a nation that valorizes Zakir Naik but not achievers like Nobel laureates Prof Abdus Salam or Malala Yousafzai. On cue, Shahbaz Sharif expressed his personal admiration for the controversial preacher and added that he had personally benefited from his sermons.

History is witness that despite their claimed moderation and even commitment to secularism, all elements of the ruling troika in Pakistan i.e., Sharif family’s PML-N, Bhutto family’s PPP, and the Pakistani ‘establishment’ (Military) have had murky dalliances with religious extremism. The Sharif family owes its political initiation to the medieval and theocratic impulses of Zia-ulHaq, whereas Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto’s misuse of religious sentiments and alliances with religious parties is well-documented. Even the once-secular Pakistani military now marches to ‘Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabillah’ (Faith, Piety, Holy war in the path of Allah) ~ a religiously charged change from the more professional sounding ‘Ittehad, Yaqeen aur Tanzeem (unity, faith and discipline).

The fact that many terror organisations also contextualise their actions to war in the path of Allah makes for ominous and confusing stances, when the Pakistani military has to take on terrorists. Subtle slides and infusion of religious fervor in the normalcy of Pakistani governance has wrought havoc with the temper, instincts, and tenor within the country. It is against this backdrop that the welcoming of a Zakir Naik must be seen in moulding (or perpetuating) its unique and incorrigible narrative. Zakir Naik’s monthlong schedule will be filled with exclusionary religious rhetoric which is bound to inflame religious passions in a State that is ostensibly at war with religious extremism and the accompanying terrorism. The last thing that Pakistan should be investing in is more Salafism, more anti-rationalism or anti-progressive moorings but that is exactly what it is sowing by welcoming the preacher.

Zakir Naik’s earlier commentary on Osama Bin Laden, If he is terrorising America the terrorist, I’m with him, and that Every Muslim should be a terrorist personifies his own mealy-mouthed insinuations. Seemingly, there is a patent playbook of incorrigibility that defines Pakistan and dissuades it from breaking free from religious extremism, whatever be the eventual price.

(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)