Prime Minister Nawaz Shari invited vituperation of religious lobby when he claimed that nation’s future lies in a democratic and liberal Pakistan where the private sector thrives and no one is left behind. He made these remarks during his speech on the occasion of Pakistan investment conference.

The statement and the occasion show he was implicitly referring to a liberal economy only yet the very term "liberal" was good enough to be misconstrued by the right wring elements. Terms like liberal and secular are much demonised by orthodox right wing political and faith groups in Pakistan.

Religious groups devoid of a strong political base vilify these terms without bothering to understand their conceptual evolution through centuries and their relevance to the contemporary societies.

They refer to these terms as a euphemism for the lifestyle of free societies, which they believe are bereft of morality and manners. Seizing the opportunity, a huddle of religious groups indulged in a debate on national ideology and made scathing remarks on the ‘sinful’ utterance by the prime minister.

Sirajul Haq, Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, advised the prime minister and supporters of liberalism and secularism to migrate to India. Clerics also reminded that the country was founded on Islamic ideology and any attempt to make it liberal is anathema to the ideals of Jinnah and Iqbal. They did not explain why the founding fathers of their organisations were rabidly opposed to the country and its founder.

The religious leaders invoked Jinnah and Iqbal’s philosophy behind the creation of the country but did not educate us as to why Maulana Maudodi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, and Ahrar leaders ridiculed Mohammad Ali Jinnah and likened him with infidels when he was struggling for their ideological haven now called Pakistan. It would have been more apt if they had questioned the rationale behind the prime minister’s egregious model of liberal economy which entails far graver implications for the socio-economic wellbeing of citizens.

During the cold war era, the word "communist" was considered synonymous with "kafir" in Pakistan. Witch-hunt of left wing progressive parties and individuals was justified as a war against Soviet agents who were bent upon engendering the country with ‘infidelity’. This narrative was exploited to make the country a battleground for war against Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The same religious forces were jostling for holly dollars to fight against the kafir communists. The US and its allies were the torch bearers of Islamic ideology and patrons of sacred crusade. The so-called guardians of liberal world unleashed a pathological monster of extremism that has now gone haywire.

The peaceful citizens of Pakistan have paid a staggering price for the heinous deeds of its elite establishment. The avaricious bunch all over the world has an unquenching thirst for conflicts and wars. They generously invest in war, may it be through religious elements or against them.

Thus, abhorrence for a secular and liberal society is less for any ideological reasons and more for maintaining status quo. Lexicology defines liberal as an attribute that is willing to understand and respect other people’s behaviour, opinions, etc. especially when they are different from your own. Although Jinnah had been somewhat inconsistent about the nature of state he wanted to carve out, he made it abundantly clear that he was not pursuing an Islamic orthodoxy. All he wanted to achieve was safeguard of political and economic rights of a Muslim minority.

Movement for Pakistan was a political movement and not a religious crusade as being depicted in our textbooks. Jinnah’s reluctant acceptance of Cabinet Mission Plan just a year before the creation of Pakistan was only because the proposed plan envisaged a confederation with territorial autonomy over internal affairs. Jinnah, as a seasoned politician, acceded to the plan that aimed to keep India unified. He did not cling to a demand for a separate Islamic state but demanded guarantee for parity in legislatures. He could easily fathom the magnitude of risk to his popularity that common politicians jealously guard amid such hard choices.

At the peak of Pakistan movement, agreeing to a formula bestowing longevity to a unified India was against the norms of popular politics. He made a rational choice only because he found it close to his objective of political and economic safeguards for Muslim minority. Had he been jostling for an Islamic country, he would not have preferred a political solution.

Islamic ideology stitched with Pakistan is a handiwork of the religious lobby. The fiction writers who have fabricated a religious narrative for Pakistan movement have distorted the fundamental principles of creation of Pakistan. For the same reason, they completely gloss over the original resolution of 1940 that was the lynchpin of Pakistan movement and a magnet for small provinces like Sindh.

A promised federation of autonomous states has been eclipsed by two-nation theory that is avidly invoked by the centralist lobby to deny political rights to the federating units. A monolithic Islamic state has been propounded as a motto of Pakistan, which is a gross misinterpretation and blatant distortion of history. This fallacy is aimed to justify denial of political rights and exploitation of disenfranchised masses, especially in small provinces, which is nothing but an anathema to the 1940 resolution. Had religion been the sole bonding glue, Pakistan would not have been dismembered in 1971.

In an unfortunate development provincial governments were dissolved and authoritarian decisions were unilaterally imposed on the provinces. Within no time, the country was taken over by the proponents of centralisation in the name of one nation and one religion.

A liberal, democratic and secular state in this context is the one that guarantees socio-economic and political justice to its citizens irrespective of their ideologies and identities. It has nothing to do with morality, belief and faith of people.

In liberal and secular states religious rights are not abrogated; they are respected as a mark of diversity. The religious parties are only distorting the concept of a liberal society amid a faltering public support for their narrative.