Religious Nationalism

In recent general elections, the wind of change has replaced aristocratic leaders in the majority of the country. Current leadership ran a huge media campaign against corruption and took advantage of popular demands for political reform and won elections, only to find themselves very quickly under pressure by joining the hand with political figures against whom they have levied the corruption charges. Within a span of two and half years, these democratically elected non-corrupt (as they like to introduce themselves) leaders too succumbed to the upheaval that continues throughout our political history.

Since the birth of this ‘land of pure’ one thing seems crystal clear that though we wanted freedom in reality we were unprepared to be free. If that was not the case why are we are still wandering for a perfect governing model for us after seven decades of liberation? Centuries of enslavement have taken away to think of ourself a free and autonomous nation.

For every political and social development, we look for guidance from a leader who has an outside connection to lead us as we have lost the sense of self and no more trust ourselves as a nation. Now whether that connection needs to be a divine one or an earthly (western) one depends on which group of society you belong to.

Thanks to the nation’s ‘popular vote’ this time we have a charismatic leader who shares both characteristics at a time. On one side he claims to know the west better than them, on the other hand, his connection with the divine is time to time evident from state staged photoshoots.

In today’s world, it is no more the business of an outside authority especially a government to know how a person is living his religious life unless it interferes with the basic rights of other human beings. But when a government seeks to dismiss the capacity of a person to think of himself as a free individual and wants to make him see government as a continuation of a divine plan it reflects that government is lacking its capability to rule of law and hiding behind the holy curtail.

It is nothing but an attempt to insinuate enslavement into the lives of the nation with propaganda and distract them from current state affairs. Because when a government starts claiming that it derives authority from divinity it seizes to explain her actions. All its actions become holy and it takes every measure to sustain its rule and crush opponents in the name to reform society under spiritual guidance.

A state must separate religion from the political arena and its government should be answerable to the nation for its policies and progress for the period they were provided rather than their religious beliefs. The purpose of a state is unity and order among all its citizens without differentiating their ethnicity and religious beliefs. That was also the rule of law in the first Muslim state of Medina where the whole of Medina was constituted a single state establishing a kind of federation of the eight Medinan tribes and Muslim emigrants from Mecca and specifying the rights and duties of all citizens.

However, as per the Covenant of Medina all of its citizens were free for their religious practices and as a federation State of Medina had nothing to do with their beliefs or practices. As a nation, we are looking towards the government to provide us hassle-free public goods economic security, and well-functioning public departments not how they are performing their religious practices.