In post partition Pakistan, apart from a few clashes during Muharram ceremonies, Shias and Sunnis remained on mutually indifferent terms, under a state that posed no threat to their individual religious identities.
In 1979 however religious differences in the region assumed a political garb; with Zia’s fundamentalist approach towards political affairs and attempt to implement Sunni Hanafi Fiqh, and secondly the Iranian Revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini that tried to export its influence into Pakistan. The Iranian influence triggered proxy wars that were then sustained by stakeholders of Iran-Iraq war and the Mujahedeen who fought to drive the red army out of Afghanistan. Therefore Pakistan’s sectarian conflict was fueled by ‘Islamizing’ the state of Pakistan the Sunni way, in a region that had just been exposed to Shia nationalism.
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