ABSTRACT
Religion is a key existential symbol of majority of the Muslim states in the world. The Muslim states in general are synonymous with dictatorship – either military or monarchical – repression, social injustice and corruption, in contrast to democracy, human rights and multiculturalism of the West. These predicaments have been intimately related with the colonial and postcolonial relationship between the Muslim states and the West. This is particularly true when states become the principal carriers of the secular policies internally and externally. The political manifestation of secularism, wherever it has not been an indigenous theme, if associated with colonial inducement would have been in a bewildering position. The political question of majority community versus minority community becomes prominent and troublesome even in a society with one dominant religion, which implies the dearth of multiculturalism. In the states of South Asia, this is unambiguous. This subject is a greater divisive force in states where religion is the source of political legitimacy or the basis of a state’s identity. Religion turns out to be a treacherous political weapon when the majority religious community endeavours to personify the state’s culture, social institutions and the state itself according to a specic belief system. Separate electorates was enshrined in the character of the Pakistani state following its creation in 1947. When the Muslims became a majority, Pakistan had a formidable
task of reassuring its religious and ethnic minorities and integrating them into mainstream national politics. In the 1956 constitution, and later in the amended 1973 constitution under the Zia-ul-Haq regime, Pakistan practiced separate electorates against the will of its minorities. Today Pakistan has become a battleeld between two factions. One clings to religion for the justication of its identity; on the other side is a small group of vocal liberals. Meanwhile, the majority of the country fends o poverty and starvation, and is too busy making ends meet to bother with candle-lit vigils to protest against discriminatory legislation.
