Time for Pak to end good, bad jihadi distinctions: Ex-Pak MP Farahnaz Ispahani

Pakistan has suffered immensely from supporting extremist jihadis and time has come for it to end 'good jihadi, bad jihadi' distinctions and recognise that those who attack Pathankot can also attack Peshawar, says Pakistani politician and policy analyst Farahnaz Ispahani.

Noting that 60,000 Pakistanis have died at the hands of terrorists, she says, "Pathankot is a reminder of jihadi influence in Pakistan and a warning that we need to fight all jihadi groups, including those that attack across our borders."

"It is time for Pakistan to end good Jihadi, bad jihadi distinctions and recognise that those who attack Pathankot can also attack Peshawar, Ispahani told PTI in an interview.

The former Member of Pakistan Parliament and wife of the country's ex-ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani has recently come out with a book titled Purifying The Land of The Pure: Pakistan s Religious Minorities, published by HarperCollins India.

She says the book is a labour of love, the result of years of watching the transformation of the country she was born in and she loves.

"After spending years working as a journalist, a human rights activist, and a legislator, I wanted to narrate how Pakistan changed over the years and what is the situation of religious minorities in my country of birth," the former media advisor to the president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2012 says.

The book, she says, is a must read for every Pakistani and anyone who wants to understand Pakistan, adding it is about how over the decades in Pakistan there has been a gradual purification of its minorities, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

On the state of religious minorities in Pakistan, Ispahani says minorities both Muslim and non-Muslim face discrimination, threat and violence on a regular basis.Ispahani says minorities both Muslim and non-Muslim face discrimination, threat and violence on a regular basis.

Pakistan was created as a Muslim homeland and in 1947, non-Muslim minorities comprised 23 per cent of its population, today that number is 3 per cent As I point out in my book starting with the Objectives Resolution there has been a gradual Islamisation of the Pakistani state and society.

An educational curriculum that preaches hatred against minorities, a legal system that discriminates against them and a national identity that emphasises that you are Pakistani only if you are Sunni Muslim has created an environment that has both tolerated and boosted extremism, she says.

Asked how Hindus are viewed in Pakistan, she says, In the case of Pakistan, starting with the Objectives Resolution, religion has defined Pakistani identity. The state in Pakistan has allowed Islamist clergy and non-state actors to define what it means to be a Pakistani and the educational curriculum and media have only perpetuated this narrative.

Communal majoritarianism is posing a threat to minorities everywhere in the world. India is no exception. India has the advantage of having a secular constitution which Pakistan did not develop.