THERE has recently been a spate of incidents against citizens of the Christian faith in Punjab. In a number of these, economic and/or other social scores have been settled by invoking the controversial blasphemy laws.

Though the government, major political parties and the judiciary have condemned the actions and promised ‘justice’, if we go by the history of investigations of previous such incidents, we can be pretty sure that nothing much is going to happen. The incidents will eventually move out of media and public attention; we will, collectively, move on to another crisis, and the whole ‘justice’ thing will be swept under the carpet. Where the murders of prominent public figures have gone unpunished, what is the likelihood that poor people will get any justice from such a system?

But this violence against blasphemy accused — which in several instances has resulted in murder — will not be forgotten by those whose families have been affected, and it will not be forgotten by affected communities. They have been terrorised. And it is not only the young children of the couple recently burned to death who have been terrorised, it is entire communities who have been terrorised. These communities know that if anyone who belongs to the majority does not like them, or dislikes them enough, all it takes is a blasphemy accusation and they will, in all likelihood, be beaten and perhaps murdered, even before the incident becomes breaking news.

Is creating a feeling of profound insecurity in a community not the definition of terror?

They know that the state institutions will not protect them. But more importantly, they also know that other citizens with whom they share this society will not be able and/or willing to protect them either.

Also read: Gunmen target lawyer defending blasphemy accused

Is creating a feeling of profound insecurity in an individual and/or community not the definition of ‘fitna’ and terror? Should we not revisit a law that, in practice, is so easy to abuse and with such dire consequences not just for individuals but for entire communities?

Many people are reluctant to have a conversation on religious laws and edicts in our society. Most of us are afraid, and rightly so, of what the reactions will be like.

Given the level of intolerance present in our society, and which we can expect would be displayed in a discussion on blasphemy laws, the reluctance and fear is understandable. But this is exactly the terror we are talking about. Not only has the Christian community been terrorised, we stand terrorised too.

State institutions are supposed to protect all citizens. We know that power structures are very lopsided in Pakistan.

The landowner, the patron, the local badmaash have a lot of power to threaten people around them and even carry out these threats. But this is only possible with the tacit or explicit complicity of state institutions. If these local strongmen knew that state institutions would stand with those who have been wronged and would ensure justice and fair treatment for them, they will think twice before threatening anyone or before actually acting on those threats.

While carrying out a household survey in some districts of central Punjab, we came across a number of villages where a local patron had the entire village in his grip. Villagers were afraid of the patron to the point where they would vote as he instructed, they would not let their sons go to college because of their fear of him and would not even send their primary school-age girls to school as the patron, to ensure his control, had had the girls’ school constructed near his house (dera).

And it was not even that these patrons were large landholders. Sometimes they derived their power from having a brother or relative in politics or bureaucracy (especially police), or even from sheer threats of violence. But without exception in all cases, state institutions, explicitly or implicitly, were behind the patron. Police, local bureaucracy and local judiciary were either using the patron for their own benefit (hierarchies of patron-client relationships) and in turn providing protection to him, or were protecting the patron at the behest of higher level patrons.

We even came across a village where members of a particular caste were treated as outcasts from the rest of the society. These people were forced to inhabit the worst land area in the vicinity and had to walk long distances in search of forage and water and other means of survival and livelihood. Many women and young girls from this group complained of constant and serious harassment and molestation at the hands of men from other castes in the area.

But they all felt they had no option but to live on the margins of society as they could not appeal to state institutions to intervene on their behalf. Is this not terror? Is this how citizens of Pakistan should be treated?

When state institutions resort to extra-judicial means to deal with a situation, using disappearances, illegal detention, torture, and/or extra-judicial killings, they undermine the very purpose of their creation. But such means are resorted to not just to punish an individual or his/her family. It is to terrorise an entire population. It is to give a message to a group that they are completely vulnerable and at the mercy of the state institutions and their arbitrary power.

We have seen the use of this instrument very often in Pakistan and are witnessing it even today in various parts of the country.

An attempt to make a group or person insecure is tantamount to terror. It is the quintessential definition of ‘fitna’.

It does not matter if the perpetrator is the state, groups of individuals or even individuals acting alone, and it is also not predicated upon the goal which these individuals might think they are trying to achieve. It is still an attempt at terrorising people and thus condemnable.

The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2014