Of late, Pakistan’s civilian Intelligence agency, Intelligence Bureau (IB) has been presenting a professional look. In the 1990s, the IB was notorious for chasing and harassing politicians and journalists who were opposed to the government in power. It also attracted controversy when it was revealed during a court proceeding in the mid-1990s that it was tapping the telephones of judges, journalists and opposition politicians. But then the IB retracted itself from controversies. There were no disclosures about IB chasing journalists, politicians and judges. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that the IB is out of business of keeping tap on the government's opponents.
But it also certainly means that the IB was no longer in the business of harassment because in a tiny city like Islamabad harassment cannot remain hidden from public eyes. Our journalist friends are very poor at keeping secrets. I used the word professional for IB because during the course of investigating a story in the last decade, I was informed by a former IB chief that the agency institutionally opposed the idea of government bestowing policing power—or power of arrest without the presence of a first-class magistrate—on the Intelligence Bureau. This power, the IB bosses thought, would complicate their operations and drag the agency into unnecessary controversies.
On 18th September, news stories in leading newspapers informed readers that the caretaker Prime Minister Mr. Kakar had tasked IB for investigating the organization which has organized a beauty contest among Pakistani damsels for selecting a young woman for representing Pakistan in the Miss Universe beauty contest—an international competition in which a large number of countries participate. The Prime Minister’s directives are not clearly reported. This much is clear from the reports that IB has submitted an initial report with the caretaker Prime Minister. It is not clear whether the IB report would become the basis for some criminal proceedings against the organizers of beauty contests in which Pakistani girls participated and whether the participants themselves would be subjected to any law or coercive measures. Reports in the newspapers also indicated that Prime Minister Kakar took this action in response to an entreat from the renowned religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani, who through a tweet expressed his concerns over the news item that five Pakistani girls would be participating in international beauty contest, “Have we stooped so low?” Usmani said in a tweet. He has urged the government to take criminal action against the organizers.
Countries or nation-states are abstract realities, and personal traits like honor and dignity cannot be applied to them. Besides, Taqi Usmani is extremely naïve, as he doesn’t seem to know what kind of obnoxiously immoral acts Pakistanis indulge in both within the country and outside the country.
This is a classic case of inexperienced and inept government using the coercive machinery of the state to enforce morality instead of law. The Intelligence Bureau is part of the coercive machinery of the state and its use against a group of private citizens would reinforce the already existing impression that coercion is the only feature of Pakistani state structures that is still intact. That it can hardly deliver services, and it can hardly administer social and political life in the society has become all too obvious after the Jaranwala debacle, where Christian houses and families were attacked and burned.
Ironically, religious scholars like Taqi Usmani didn’t raise any hue and cry when Jaranwala incidents exposed the body politic of Pakistan as horrifyingly bigoted before the whole world. He is too worried about the exposure of female skin. These girls are not known to him personally, and thus he has no right to dictate personal morality to them. Taqi Usmani spoke from the pedestal of nationalism, as if he is the spokesman of the whole nation, as if Pakistan is a person who has honor and that honor will be lost in case these five girls participate in an international beauty contest. Countries or nation-states are abstract realities, and personal traits like honor and dignity cannot be applied to them. Besides, Taqi Usmani is extremely naïve, as he doesn’t seem to know what kind of obnoxiously immoral acts Pakistanis indulge in both within the country and outside the country. Even from a conservative point of view, a beauty contest would not appear as deeply immoral compared to other immoralities Pakistanis indulge in.
This is an era of hyper globalization and human acts—doesn’t matter whether they are moral or immoral—can not be contained within the borders of any state or country.
The religious clergy and the coercive machinery of the state are a lethal combination—together they can destroy the social and political fabric of society. In fact, in our case, in tandem, they nearly succeeded in destroying the social and political foundations of society as recently as the Zia era. The enforcement of morality through the coercive machinery of the state is a problematic proposition. In modern times, when states have tried to use force to enforce morality or religious precepts on society, authorities have always been confronted by the question as to what extent force or violence could be used to enforce moral or religious precepts? There is no agreed upon answer to this question. Morality in a society is never based on broad consensus. Social classes in the same society observe different schemes or models of morality. Every era or every generation develops their own concepts of morality.
The religious clergy and the coercive machinery of the state are a lethal combination—together they can destroy the social and political fabric of society.
In Pakistani society, there are a large number of people who don’t subscribe to Mufti Taqi Usmani’s interpretation of the moral code prescribed by Islam. And yet, they consider themselves staunchly Muslims. There are others in our society who don’t believe that religious scriptures should be the basis of social morals. They exist in large numbers. If the inept and inexperienced government listens to Taqi Usmani only and enforces his interpretation of morality on the whole of Pakistan, who is going to represent the rest of the ideological positions on the ideological spectrum. And what if in the process appeasing the conservatives the government reaches a point where it starts using coercive machinery of the state to enforce Taqi Usmani’s model of social morality?
Female bodies participate in what Taqi Usmani would deem dishonorable in many forms in our society—from television dramas, feature movies, advertisements, to singing and dancing - all are activities partaken in by Pakistani women. What if Mufti Usmani’s honor is hurt next over these expressions? Will the caretaker Prime Minister then ask another, more powerful intelligence agency to submit another report as to who is behind these forms of exposing women's bodies?
Morality is not one constant reality throughout society. It changes from time to time, from one social class to another, from region to region, and from religious communities to another religious community. Enforcing a single model of morality through the coercive machinery of the state is a recipe for anarchy and chaos. The coercive machinery of the state is meant to enforce law, and not morality. What Mufti Taqi Usmani is suggesting is beyond the scope of a modern state’s functioning. Besides, his model of morality is not even observed by the most devout members of our society. It is observed by a deeply religious fringe. In such a situation, using coercion as a tool to enforce this model of morality will invite big trouble. Our caretaker Prime Minister is inexperienced, and doesn’t seem to realize the complications this will unleash.
The Prime Minister’s directive could be a good PR strategy to appease the conservative segments of the society. But it would not lead to a stable Pakistan. If people like Taqi Usmani have their way in Pakistan, they will only be happy to introduce a Mao-like Cultural Revolution, that would destroy the very social and political basis on which our society is standing. God forbid.
I would expect that a society which is facing more than one existential threat would not try to devote much time discussing the participation of five girls of Pakistani origin in a beauty contest in a far-off land. This should have been treated as a trivial matter. My advice to Mufti Taqi Usmani and the caretaker Prime Minister is that they should leave women’s bodies alone for a while, and take care of the exposed body politic of Pakistan, which stands dishonored in front of the whole international community in the wake of the burning of poor Christian houses in Jaranwala.