When posterity fails to extract spiritual satisfaction from religion, it tends to console itself with temporal justifications. Religious intolerance and bigotry are perhaps its chief examples, and Salman Taseer is one of the victims.
It is the first-person narrative to explain what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a pointed sword in Pakistan.
It happened nine years ago this day, on January 4, 2011, while I was walking along with a friend in a local park. A phone call apprised me of the assassination of Salman Taseer, the serving Governor of the largest province of Pakistan.
At first, I dismissed it as a joke. Soon, I came to know that he “deserved” to be killed as he had committed blasphemy. At least, it is what his proud assassin believed before executing the act.
Yeah, blasphemy is an unpardonable sin in Pakistan: zero tolerance.
Even if the court acquits a person accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, he cannot escape the “justice” of the people of God.
The Day of Taseer’s Assassination
On January 4, 2011, Salman Taseer was having lunch or tea at a restaurant in Islamabad. Little did he know it would be the last meal of his life.
For, as soon as the governor came out, one of his guards took the life of the man he was bound by duty to protect. Yet, whatever happened in Islamabad’s market that day was not as important, or even as tragic, compared to what has followed since.
The assassination of a serving governor of Punjab virtually divided a society. On one side, there is a majority of those who considered the “righteousness” of Mumtaz Qadri, the bodyguard-turned-assassin. Qadri’s religious interpretation had declared Taseer an apostate, for he had supported a Christian woman, Asia Bibi.
Related: Section 295C, A hanging sword for the minorities in Pakistan
Asia Bibi was a Christian woman, accused of committing blasphemy, and was in prison when the governor gave a reckless statement in her support. He had the temerity to say that the “blasphemy law is the black law”.
The above statement is a perfect example to show how a few words could lead a person to an early grave!
However, this is not a salutary article solely aimed at suggesting to choose the words wisely. It is about drawing a sketch of where bigotry of a society stifles the voice of dissension, which might not always be misleading.
Now, Salman Taseer is gone, and with him gone, the reputation of the family. For he is cursed by a huge section of society.
On the other hand, Mumtaz Qadri is “immortalized” by his interpretation of vigilante justice. People showered loved on him, and when the reluctant court ordered his death penalty, a majority of them bewailed his death.
Many in Pakistan denounced Qadri’s capital punishment as an international conspiracy against religion. Some even found a political justification for Qadri’s piousness.
Personal Regrets!
As a citizen of Pakistan, I regret to be the part of a clamoring multitude that can readily lynch someone on his personal beliefs.
I have my own beliefs and opinions, too, that I want to share as an informed person with a moral sense of right and wrong. But, I cannot as part of a hostile society that claims to be religious without being spiritual.
What the Pakistani nation could learn after nine years of that fateful assassination is more relevant than the events that happened nine years ago.
I wanted to share my feelings more expressively, but there is no denying of admittance of the failure in doing so. It is probably because of a general sense of fear has internalized among those who have dissenting notes in hand.
It is the fear of being on the receiving side of a pointed sword, unsheathed by a ready assassin, and an advocate of religion that he never practiced in his daily life.
