Pakistan has shut down, amid flames of bigotry and hate spreading far and wide.

Why? Because our Supreme Court has found that there is no evidence to hang a poor
Christian women for the offence of blasphemy (for which she was tried and convicted
by a trial court and has already spent nine years in prison).

Rational minds might call this madness. But it makes perfect sense in Pakistan. Aasia
Bibi was booked and convicted for blasphemy only because the lower tiers of the state
couldn’t withstand the coercion now weighing down the highest echelons.

To an ordinary logical mind, the question of punishment for breach of law would only
arise once facts establish that the act that attracts the penalty did transpire. In this
particular case, the SC judgment (and especially Justice Asif Khosa’s note) lays bare
the infirmities in the investigation and misreading of evidence by the trial court and
high court: award of death penalty on the basis of testimony of unreliable witnesses
presenting contradictory accounts, failure of investigators to determine the veracity of
events narrated and efforts to dress up concocted facts.

There is nothing new in any of this. The abuse of the blasphemy law to settle scores
(especially against minorities) and pursue nefarious agendas (such as land grabbing
etc) is as old as this law, which was introduced by Ziaul Haq. It is inexplicable that in
a state comprising over 95 percent Muslims (and religious minorities living in fear of
the majority), blasphemy should become rampant. Belief in the Prophet Muhammad
(pbuh) and the message he unveiled is the basis of the Muslim faith. How can
Muslims or others in an overtly religious society be irreverent toward the Prophet
(pbuh)?

The blasphemy law has become a source of power and a tool for persecution, which
falls within clerics’ exclusive control. In all stories of abuse of the blasphemy law, the
local cleric who rules on the fate of a fellow citizen and decides whether or not
blasphemy charges are to be levelled emerges as the central figure. Anyone defending
someone charged with blasphemy becomes a blasphemer himself and so does one
who seeks proof or refuses to punish the accused. Once the allegation sticks it
becomes a self-executing verdict to be implemented by a vigilante if not the state.

In this tragic story of persecution, that keeps repeating itself, everyone kicks the can
down the road. When the cleric is riling up anger within the community, sensible folk
don’t wish to be seen as complicit with the alleged blasphemer. The police readily
register a case to ward off pressure and cool tempers without any effort to delve into
facts and decipher the truth. The trial court surrenders to the transient emotion of the
day in the hope that the high court will fix the error. The high court usually does,
except where the matter stays in public eye.

The ill-fated Aasia Bibi is nothing more than collateral damage in this game of snakes
and ladders. Those protesting the release of Aasia Bibi are not interested in unveiling
the truth or in a fair determination of whether or not she is guilty of an offence under
Section 295-C. They just don’t wish to share with court the power to sit in judgment
over anyone charged with blasphemy. The boundaries of hate have continued to
expand in Pakistan without any push back from state or society. Clerics see this
verdict as state interference in their exclusive domain.

Previously there was a sense that a sub-inspector couldn’t withstand pressure from
clerics and so an SP should investigate blasphemy charge. That trial courts can’t
withstand coercion but high courts can – and so decisions rendered for extraneous
reasons get corrected during appeal (even if the accused languishes in jail for years).
But now the zone of coercion has expanded. Here we have the highest court releasing
an accused due to absence of evidence of wrongdoing and the result is Pakistan being
shut down by clerics who seek to hang someone to assert their power.

The prime minister has had to address the nation and reveal that the TLP has hurled
death threats at SC judges and called for a coup against the army chief. By doing so,
the TLP has crossed a red line. IK (who while in opposition had piggybacked on the
TLP’s bigotry when it had last locked down Faizabad and used accusations of
blasphemy against the PML-N to gain political support) thankfully stood up as PM,
defended the SC and its right to decide judicial matters and expressed the state’s
resolve to assert its writ against hooliganism and violence.

The three major fault-lines that hold our polity down have been constant: civil-
military, extremist-moderate, and centre-province. As a historical matter, our civil-
military imbalance has empowered unelected institutions at the expense of the elected.
In such a situation, elected governments have found themselves cut to size by
emboldened extremists. The Faizabad dharna was the latest such episode. The
surrender deed the PML-N government was made to sign animated the TLP, whose
showing during Election 2018 cost the PML-N many seats and helped a PTI victory.

All this we know. But we are at a crossroads again. The writ of the state is in tatters,
notwithstanding the elected government, the judiciary and the military being on the
same page. In order for a body politic to run, there needs to be a code that is known to
all and habitually followed. That in Pakistan such code is different from the code
prescribed by the constitution is a separate matter that can be addressed later. Pakistan
runs on a de-facto system that has defined hierarchy between competing power elites.
The TLP is shaking up that system.