ABSTRACT
Various regimes in Pakistan have attempted to follow what we might call the ‘Goldilocks rule’ of getting Islam right: not so hot that it damages the regime, but not so cold that it fails to service the state’s aims. The Islamic element is ‘just right’ when it provides plentiful symbolic capital without making unduly onerous claims on state institutions. Starting in the 1980s, a series of steps taken by the military regime of Zia-ul-Haq tipped the balance, and the Islamic component of the Pakistani state became increasingly difficult to manage. This was because the substantive laws that were formulated to deliver on the promise to Islamize the polity created sacralized boundaries that could no longer be amended or even discussed without exacting a substantial political price. Blasphemy statutes became one such boundary. Blasphemy statutes have become ‘too hot to handle’ for the Pakistani state. In this chapter, I focus my attention on the administrative state – the law and order bureaucracy, the judicial infrastructure, and the Islamic Ideological Council – to apprehend why it has become impossible for the state to manage blasphemy statutes.
