Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban

4. Colonial Origins, Ambiguities, and Execution of the Blasphemy Laws

chapter 4 colonial origins, ambiguities, and execution of the blasphemy laws this chapter will offer further examples that support the claim that blasphemy laws put in place by some Islamic states as part of the sharia are manipulated for political agendas. As detailed earlier, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws under General Zia-ul-Haq emerged as a result of the geopolitics of the region in the 1970s when Pakistan’s military led a CIA-backed incursion into Afghanistan to contain the Soviets. Together with the mujahideen , the Afghan warlords, and funding from Saudi Arabia, an Islamic rhetoric was generated to give momentum to the Afghan adventure. Pakistan ’s extremist religious parties such as the Jamaat-e Islami were on board with General Zia-ul-Haq, and what could legitimize such an undertaking better than the use of so-called sharia laws derived from medieval tribal Arabia? The medieval laws carried substantive corporal punishments but also served the interests of the ruling male elites, especially the military and the mullas. These laws only served the interests of a segment of the theocratic establishment that Zia-ul-Haq created in which his key supporters were the foreign donors as well as the mullacracy (the clergy). This chapter also looks at the origins of the blasphemy laws under the British colonists, the template on which Zia-ul-Haq’s laws were superimposed . For this discussion data are derived from Siddiqui and Hayat’s article “Unholy Laws and Holy Speech” and firsthand observations, such as the charges leveled against Dr. Surriya Shafi and myself.1 blasphemy laws’ precedents in india Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are based on Act 45 of the Indian Penal Code,2 which the British colonial government put in place in 1860. In Chapter 15 of the code, “Of Offences Relating to Religion,” the law commissioners of the British government declared their intent to include the following in the Indian Penal Code: 74 pakistan’s blasphemy laws The principle on which this chapter has been framed is a principle on which it would be desirable that all governments should act but from which the British Government cannot depart without risking the dissolution of society ; it is this, that every man should be suffered to profess his own religion and that no man should be suffered to insult the religion of another.3 The British colonial administrators created these blasphemy laws to keep peace in a heterogeneous society like India, where the majority were Hindus , with strong numbers of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Christians, and others. The British ensured the “writ of the state” through these laws, which are as follows: Section 295 Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as an insult to their religion, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term that may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.4 Section 298 Whoever, with the deliberate intention [emphasis mine] of wounding the religious feelings of any person utters any word or makes any sound in the hearing of that person or makes any gesture in the sight of that person, or places any object in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine or with both.5 In 1927, Section 295 A was added to the Indian Penal Code through the Criminal Law Amendment Act (25 of 1927), which says,6 Section 295-A Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of His Majesty’s subjects by words either spoken or written ,7 or by visual representations, insults or attempts to insult the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.8 Through these laws the British superseded some remnants of Muhammadan law that prevailed in India until the British came. It should be execution of the blasphemy laws 75 pointed out that although Muslims were a religious minority in India, the Muslim rulers who arrived in India with Muhammad...