This September 11 as we mark Jinnah’s death anniversary, Amrita Pritam’s sentimental poem on Partition comes to mind in which she passionately exhorted Waris Shah, the Punjabi poet laureate of the epic, Heer, to come revisit his Punjab as it became the killing fields of hate. The land of pastoral abundance and romance, of which Waris Shah sang so eloquently, was littered with bodies of the slain whose blood ran through its five rivers. This was not Waris Shah’s Punjab, of fabled love and lore anymore, just like Pakistan is not Jinnah’s all-inclusive society today as he had envisioned it. Exclusionism based on hatred of the ‘other’ has been eating away at its soul.

No good can ever come of hate, of the urge to eliminate all those who dare to believe otherwise: Ahmadi, Shia, Barelvi, Christain and others who do not subscribe to the Taliban’s reading of Islam, for instance, and how it should be enforced in this country—God forbid. The murder and mayhem wreaked by extremist militants in the name of religion, and the collusion they get in the form of silence from those who would not denounce them, have made Jinnah’s dreamland run wild with its self-inflicted wounds.

It is not Jinnah’s spirit that should be invoked today for guidance, for that is only a poetic escape; it will not come to the rescue in the real world with all its horrors that are of our own making. Jinnah did his bit by the people that he led as he saw fit in his own time. We saw the undoing of his vision a year after his death when Objectives Resolution was passed. Religion subsequently became a divisive force instead of the glue that was sought by the post-Jinnah, inept leadership to hold this nation together.

There’s a fine line between Muslim nationhood and being an Islamic republic, and Jinnah knew this distinction. His failure was to convincingly pass it on to the deputies he left behind. Or were they so incompetent for the job that it escaped them altogether? Pakistan was sought as an independent homeland comprising the Muslim-majority provinces of British India, just like Bosnia became an independent state and not an Islamic republic, for “mullahs with a divine mission to rule it”, in Jinnah’s words.

All that is history; and it will have many interpretations. It is now up to us what we make of that which we have here and now. The strange mix of religion and politics has proved lethal for Pakistan. It is a country where a vast majority is not free anymore to lead life as they desire, follow the religion as they feel fit, with a small minority holding everyone to ransom. The so-called Islamic laws that General Zia-ul-Haq enacted, and his successors have even added to, have systematically created apartheid, robbing women and minorities of their equal rights. A justice system that imparts injustice under the garb of any religion brings that religion into disrepute.

It is a mix of intellectual dishonesty on the part of those who know better, and a lack of ability to understand on the part of the rest, as to what went wrong and how. We have failed Islam by manipulating it for political ends, by labelling all those who do not conform to a one-size-fits-all interpretation of a great religion as enemies, and then by making a horrible example of them as often as we can. Islam is not simply safe in our hands anymore. We’ve distorted it beyond all reason, and we’ve done it with a vengeance to come to a pass where it must be rescued out of the political equation for its own health’s sake.

The world outside Pakistan admits and enjoys multiple interpretations of Islam. Religion is not seen as being in conflict with people’s varied ways of life in those Muslim countries that do not seek to politically enforce one version of Islam above all others. In the real world out there Muslims do follow varying creeds without labeling fellow Muslims as heretic. By contrast, the few Islamic republics there are run their straigtjacket writ on the back of the gun rather than their people’s will. A tyranny established in the name of religion remains a tyranny no less, because it infringes on the freedom of choice which is a God-given right, even in religious parlance.

Bangladesh High Court’s recent rulings that have banned any resort to introducing Islamic justice system in that country’s legal framework or any institution imposing rules that require you to dress a certain way are a refreshing example of statecraft by a judiciary that is free to pass judgments without endangering its faith, or being labelled as anti-Islam. Bringing Islam into legal practice and politics has proved divisive everywhere it has been attempted, and Bangladesh wisely wants to avoid that. The difference between Bangladeshis and us is that they did not have the misfortune of enduring the Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship, nor indeed the Bhutto populism that first actively started mixing religion with politics by declaring Pakistan an Islamic republic, and Ahmadis non-Muslim, for instance. The need is to disown this excluding, intolerant ideology which is based on suspicion of the ‘other’ and hate for pluralism in society.

This is easier said than done.

Murtaza Razvi is the Editor, Magazines, at Dawn.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.