Religion, a potent factor in election – By Zahiruddin
One of my children reading in a primary school and attending a seminary of the village in the evening for learning the basics of the reading of Quran got hold of his mother a day before the 2018 polls asking her to vote for a cleric. He was strongly of the view that (his innocent mind had been moulded so) ignoring the cleric in voting will invite the ire and displeasure of Almighty Allah and it was a great sin classified as unpardonable in the court of Allah. Pressed by the arguments of her child, she pledged to vote the ‘Maulana’ and I found my child filled with joy and contentment. This is the point blank intrusion of religion in politics on the part of the exponents of political parties which use ‘religion’ as lever and called themselves ‘religious political parties’. They use the pulpit of mosques for canvassing during elections and portray a picture where ‘Islam’ is in the height of perils all around and it will be a doomsday if the ‘Islamic’ parties are not voted to power. Leaving no stone unturned, they ingrained the innocent (also blank) minds of the small children reading Quran in their seminaries after the school hours.
Elections are held in regular intervals in democracies to assess the views of the public about the incumbent rulers and give them a chance to replace them with better ones and this is the pivotal point of the system. The elections are the medium of change in government through which better people are given the chance to take into their hands the helms of the affairs and deliver in an efficient and satisfactory ways and manners. In the western democracies and America, the transition of power takes place in a peaceful way without any hullaballoo where merit is the sole criterion which an electorate looks into while casing his or her vote. The system fails or falters when other considerations surfaced instead of merit of a political party and the candidates it nominates. Geography, demography, religion and dogmatic schisms coupled with some other considerations including monetary benefits (sale of ballot papers) are the factors which marred a democratic system.
The rulers coming to power on such grounds have always been proved incompetent and corrupt to the core and this is the dilemma with our country where religion is used for ulterior and nefarious motives by the religious leaders. The non-religious political parties are always seen in the hot pursuit of forging electoral alliance with religious political parties to take into fold the votes of the gullible voters who take it their religious obligation to vote in the name of Islam. All the three mainstream political parties; PPP, PML-N and PTI have forged electoral alliance with religious parties including JUI, JI, JUP and others. The grand electoral alliances including the PDM have religious political parties as its inseparable and vital components. The Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) launched against ZA Bhutto was an historical and formidable political alliance in the history of the country had both JUI and JI fused into it giving a street power. The military dictator who took over the country in a bloodless coup d ‘etat had the full support of JI. Dictator Zia kept on exploiting the name of Islam and used it as a powerful tool to elongate his rule of tyranny for eleven years.
The factor of religion in the elections has continued to be an important factor hugely contributing to success in the recent past both in the local polls and the national elections and will continue to prevail in the same degree for many decades to come when the fact of their religioucity will dawn upon the people. The narrow angle of religion in the election process is of immense concern which has the potential of polarizing the society in the name of religion thereby feeding to extremism and total annihilation of accommodation. The phenomenal rise of Tahreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan in the general elections of 2018 was an eye opener for all of us which testified the gruesome fact that how religion was being used by certain quarters for political gain. The blatant use of mosques, seminaries and other religious congregations including the funeral ones during the canvassing days of elections goes unnoticed by the concerned authorities for one reason or the other.
Section 44 of Elections Act 2017 clearly puts a bar on the practice of using religion during the election campaign which reads as ‘political parties, contesting candidates, election agents and their supporters shall not propagate against the participation of any person on the basis of religion’. The issuance of decree by the clerics during the election days to mould the opinion of the voters in favour of the candidates of religious parties and declaring the voting against them (religious parties ) a departure from the path of Islam is a clear violation of the basic articles of the code of conduct for the contesting parties and their candidates. For the perpetuation of democracy and strengthening of democratic norms in the country, the use of religious cards should be banned rigorously and give the electorates an environment free of all coercion, force as well as misleading narratives which tarnished the sanctity of ballot paper.
