THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS AS A MINORITY: SHIA COMMUNAL ORGANIZATIONS IN , 1948-1968

ANDREAS RIECK

Numbering today some 15-20 million, Pakistan's Twelver Shiites are the second largest Shia community in one country after that of . 1 But, living in a country of 130 million, more than 80 per cent of them Sunni , their situation is fairly representative for that of Shiites world-wide within the Muslim umma. Unlike the Shiites of , who have emerged as the strongest political entity of their country since two decades, and those of , who may in future translate their demographic strength into political dominance, those of Pakistan had to adjust to their status as a vulnerable minority right from the foundation of the state in 194 7. This state has also been a sort of mirror-image of the Muslim world with its multitude of contesting ideologies and concepts regarding the proper imple• mentation of the "injunctions of " in legislation, socio-economic order and political system. 2 Under the umbrella of the national ide• ology that "Pakistan was created for the sake of Islam", many different schools of thought have prospered and continue to do so, including various brands of Sunni openly antagonistic to Shiism. Although the large majority of Pakistan's Muslim population has always been opposed to sectarian against Shiites, a militant minority has been able to create much trouble for them during the last five decades. Pakistan has always been a country granting many freedoms for minorities, but that has also applied to intolerant groups which have

1 Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam, p. 282. No census data on Shias in Pakistan are available. Most estimates vary between 10 and 15 per cent Shiites among the total population. 2 For the ideological and political battles about "" in Pakistan since its foundation see Binder, and Politics; Anita M. Weiss (ed.), Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan: The Application ef Islamic Laws in a Modern State, (Syracuse, : Syracuse University Press, 1986); , Pakistan. A Religio-Political Study, (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1997). SHIA COMMUNAL ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN (I948-I968) 269 openly called for denying the Shiites and other such freedoms and equal rights, while the state remained passive. 3 Opportunist laxity in dealing with such elements has been an almost permanent short• coming of successive Pakistani governments. Thus on the one side the Shiites in Pakistan have always enjoyed considerably more reli• gious rights and a greater share in positions of influence than, for example, the Sunnis of lran,4 but on the other hand they have never enjoyed that protection against abuses from fanatic elements which they themselves felt entitled to. And whereas systematic violence and terrorism against Shiites has become a problem since the mid- l 980s only, Pakistan has been an open playground for die-hard anti-Shia propaganda of certain groups already in the 1950s. This state of affairs had been predicted by many Shiites already in the 1940s, after the All- Muslim League had launched its campaign for a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims. In March 1940, shortly after the Muslim League had passed the famous "Pakistan-Resolution" at its annual session in , Maharaj Kumar Amir I:Iaydar Khan of Ma}:imudabad5 wrote a letter to MuQ.ammad 'Ali" Jinna}:i6 asking him to provide a number of safeguards for Shiites so that they could whole-heartedly support the Muslim League in its struggle for Pakistan. 7 The following excerpt from JinnaQ.'s writ• ten reply dated 8 April 1940 has been quoted again and again by Shia organizations and journals in Pakistan for decades and treated as a sort of sacred covenant sealed by the Father of the Nation:

3 The first and best known example was the violent campaign against the AJ:imad• iyya in 1953; see , Report ef the Court ef Inquiry consti• tuted under Pu,Yab Act II ef 1954 to inquire into the Disturbances ef 1953 (also known as Munir Report). On that sect see Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continues: Aspects ef Ahmadi Religious Thought and its Medieval Background, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 4 On the discrimination against the Sunni minority in Iran since 1979 see Buchta, !Ae iranische Schia, pp. 171-204. 5 Amir I:laydar Khan was the younger brother of Raja Amir AJ:imad Khan (d. 1973), who, like his father Sir Mui).ammad 'Alf Mui).ammad Khan (d. 1931) before him, had largely financed the Muslim League in the 1930s. On his further contributions to the see S. I. Husain, The Life and the Times ef Raja Saheb ef Mahmudabad, passim. 6 The leader of the Muslim League from 1934 until his death 1948 and founder of Pakistan, revered as the Qg'id-i A',::am ("Greatest Leader"); see Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah ef Pakistan, (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). 7 Text of his letter (translated into ) in M. W. Khan, Tashkil-i Pakistan men shf'an-i 'Alf ka kardar, vol. I, pp. 226-38.