Author: Omar Ali

I am a physician interested in obesity and insulin resistance, and in particular in the genetics and epigenetics of obesity As a blogger, I am more interested in history, Islam, India, the ideology of Pakistan, and whatever catches my fancy. My opinions can change.

Major Amin on the Failure of the Pakistani invasion in the First Kashmir War

Major Amin sent over an extract from his writings about the 1947 attempt to grab Kashmir using tribal lashkars and why it failed. Obviously from a Pakistani POV, but an objective one.. There are formatting issues that I found hard to fix, but you will get the gist.

Liaquat Ali Khan and Malik Ghulam Mohammad’s Kakkezi relative Railway battalion major Khursheed Anwar was the biggest reason for the tribal invasion’s failure on Muzaffarabad-Srinagar axis.
As per Sardar Shaukat Hayat who was closely connected with leading the invasion , the tribal invasion was planned in September 1947 but Khursheed Anwar disappeared to get married to a Muslim League worker.[1]
Pakistani state had two excellent choices , as military commanders to lead the main tribal attack on Muzarrafarabad-Srinagar axis . These were Major Taj Khanzada DSO,MC and Gen Zaman Kiani, sword of honour of IMA and ex chief of Indian national army.
Such was the criminal parochialism in the newly created Pakistani state that a railway battalion emergency commission was handpicked by PM Liaquat and his finance minister Malik Ghulam Mohammad,on grounds that he was Ghulam Mohammads Kakkezai clanmate and relative from Jullundhur.[2]
It was most irrational to pick up a man whose only qualification was petty intrigue and fomenting riots and who had no military knowledge.
But that is how the All India Muslim League was run , right from its creation in 1906.

Continue reading Major Amin on the Failure of the Pakistani invasion in the First Kashmir War

Browncast: Hussein Ibish on the War in the Middle East

Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

In this episode I talk to Hussein Ibish, a resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Insititute in Washington DC and a longtime commentator on Palestinian affairs as well as the Arab world in general. He described how the crisis looks to a liberal Arab scholar who would prefer to see peace for both Palestinians and Israelis, and what we may expect in the future and ended with a rather pessimistic (or optimistic, depending on your point of view) vision of the near future. We hope to have him back soon to discuss what a saner outcome could look like and how that can be achieved (at least in theory; in practice we are probably in for prolonged violence). This is a complement to our earlier podcast with Dr Edward Luttwak, who presented a more optimistic vision of what Israel is trying to achieve and what it is likely to achieve.

Our friends at scribebuddy.com have prepared a transcript. I am posting it at the end below, unedited. But first, here is a chatgpt summary:

Blog Post: A Deep Dive into the Middle Eastern Crisis with Hossam Ibish on The Brown Pundits Browncast

In a recent episode of The Brown Pundits Browncast, Dr. Ali hosts Hossam Ibish, a prominent commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, to discuss the current tumultuous situation in the Middle East, focusing on the complex dynamics between Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Their conversation sheds light on a geopolitical crisis that has long roots in history and contemporary struggles for power, influence, and survival.

The Prelude to a Wider Conflict
Ibish sets the stage by explaining the origins of the current conflict, particularly after Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7. This event was intended to provoke a multi-front war, which Hamas hoped would involve Iran and its network of militias, notably Hezbollah, the Houthis, and pro-Iranian forces in Iraq and Syria. However, despite these hopes, Hamas is not fully trusted by these groups due to its Sunni identity, which clashes with the Shia alignment of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.”

Hamas' attack, while significant, has not succeeded in igniting the widespread regional war it had hoped for. Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, notably went into hiding during the initial escalation, leaving Hamas without the robust military support it had counted on.

The Strategic Calculus: Hezbollah, Iran, and Israel
Ibish highlights how Hezbollah, despite its vast arsenal of missiles, has refrained from fully engaging Israel. The reason? Hezbollah's primary mission, as dictated by Iran, is not to fight for Hamas or Gaza, but to serve as a deterrent in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. This strategic restraint is informed by Hezbollah’s role as a vital asset in Iran’s regional power structure.

While Hezbollah attempted to support Hamas through limited military action on the border with Israel, the group has largely avoided provoking an all-out war. This approach preserves Hezbollah’s strength for its primary purpose—defending Iran—and avoids unnecessary depletion of resources in a battle it doesn’t see as its own. Israel, on the other hand, views Hezbollah’s arsenal and its proximity to its borders as a significant threat, which has led to the current Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Israel's Quest for a Recuperative Victory
Ibish introduces the idea of Israel’s need for a "recuperative victory." Following the security failures of October 7, Israel seeks to restore its national security image and the confidence of its citizens. For Israel, a clear-cut victory against Hezbollah in Lebanon would serve two purposes: weakening Iran's regional influence by crippling Hezbollah and restoring the sense of security for Israelis in the north.

However, Ibish warns that this may lead to only an "illusion of security." Even if Israel manages to weaken Hezbollah and push them back from the border, guerrilla warfare and insurgency tactics will likely persist. This scenario would mirror Israel’s ongoing insurgency struggles in Gaza, where an unending cycle of attacks and counterattacks creates a quagmire that may last decades.

Hezbollah’s Calculus: Back to Guerrilla Warfare?
One of the most compelling points in Ibish’s analysis is Hezbollah’s potential shift back to its guerrilla roots. The expansion of Hezbollah during the Syrian civil war, where it acted as the main ground force for Assad, has left the group vulnerable to Israeli intelligence and infiltration. A return to a more focused guerrilla war in southern Lebanon could help Hezbollah regain its earlier effectiveness as a lean, resilient fighting force, a possibility that Nasrallah seems to welcome.

Iran's Role and the Prospect of a Larger War
The conversation then shifts to Iran’s broader role in the conflict. Ibish points out that while Iran has supported Hezbollah and Hamas in the past, its current priority is regime survival and preventing any attack on its nuclear facilities. The Iranian leadership may be feeling domestic political pressure to act, especially as Israel has been striking at its proxies without significant retaliation from Tehran.

Ibish predicts that a "war of the cities," reminiscent of the Iran-Iraq War, could be on the horizon. Israel could target Iran’s oil production facilities and nuclear infrastructure, which would be a significant blow to Iran's economy and national security. In response, Iran might hunker down and focus on developing a nuclear weapon as a long-term survival strategy, similar to North Korea's approach.

The Grim Reality: Open-Ended Insurgencies
As the discussion wraps up, Ibish emphasizes the grim reality that Israel now faces: open-ended insurgencies in the south (Gaza), the north (Lebanon), and possibly soon in the east (West Bank). This strategy of counterinsurgency warfare offers no clear path to resolution, and Israel’s attempts to secure its borders may only deepen the quagmire.

Conclusion
In this insightful conversation, Hossam Ibish paints a complex and often bleak picture of the Middle East’s current situation. The region’s entrenched conflicts, ideological divides, and strategic imperatives have created a powder keg where no side seems capable of securing a decisive victory. Whether it’s Israel’s quest for security, Hezbollah’s guerrilla warfare tactics, or Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the road ahead is fraught with uncertainty. As the crisis continues to unfold, the stakes for all parties involved remain perilously high.

This episode of The Brown Pundits Browncast offers a sobering reminder of the intricate web of alliances and hostilities that define the modern Middle East, and the dangerous potential for further escalation in the coming months.

Continue reading Browncast: Hussein Ibish on the War in the Middle East

Browncast: Dr Edward Luttwak on Israel and the Grand Strategy of Iran

Edward Luttwak | The Marathon Initiative

Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

In this episode Amey and I talk to famous (and famously pro-zionist) author and strategist Edward Luttwak to discuss the current crisis in the middle east and get the pro-Israel perspective (we also talked to Hussein Ibish to get the liberal Arab viewpoint). I also wanted to ask Dr Luttwak about some other topics (such as the travails of turbo capitalism and the nature and issues of US power etc) but the Iran and Israel clash took up most of our time. Amey did manage to ask Luttwak about the role of innovation in the IDF (a topic on which he has written a book too), but we will have to get him back someday to discuss other interesting topics. For now, here is Edward Luttwak on the Iran vs Israel war and its respective strategies and issues. Transcript below.

Our thanks to our friends at http://Scribebuddy.com (they provide a service that converts audio to text) who have provided the following transcript (not edited, so some errors will be there): Continue reading Browncast: Dr Edward Luttwak on Israel and the Grand Strategy of Iran

Blasphemy Laws and Blasphemy Killings in Pakistan

This was on old post about blasphemy laws that I wrote in 2015 and revised in 2021. It is on the site, but hard to search for, so i decided to repost it now that blasphemy is again in the news with two recent episodes where the police were able to arrest the accused (ie save him from mob killing) but then the police themselves executed the blasphemer in custody. There has been an episode in the past where a Shia who had blasphemed against the sahaba (the companions of the prophet) was killed (with an axe) by a police officer while in custody and there have been a couple of episodes where blasphemers were killed by other prisoners, but this trend of execution by the police is now at a new level. The police officers who carried out the execution were garlanded and immediately received promises of millions of rupees in rewards (though with Pakistan reaching new levels of conmanship, it is likely that some of these pledges are fake). So now, not only will the mob kill you any time you are accused of blasphemy, if the mob fails, the police will finish the job the same day.
Of course, if it does reach trial, the courts will always sentence to death in any case because judges who let off previous accused have also been killed.

 

SO it goes.

Meanwhile, as liberal muslims and Liberals and Leftists in the West who want to use orthodox Muslims for their own purposes and want to find ways to oppose blasphemy laws without upsetting Muslims will dig up their usual “colonial era blasphemy laws in Pakistan” story to see if blame can be pinned on some dead entity, such as the British empire. So I wanted to have a post handy where I could direct them; so here it is, a quick overview of the blasphemy issue in Pakistan

A blasphemy law was part of the 19th century Indian Penal code as section 295.. It was not a bad law at all and the lazy habit of blaming it for later blasphemy law crap in the Indian subcontinent is just that: a lazy habit.

Here is section 295 of the Indian Penal Code of 1860:

 Injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class.—Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defile­ment as an insult to their religion, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

The aim of the law was to prevent/punish things like someone throwing a dead pig into a mosque or a cow’s head into a temple. An actual physical desecration is to be punished. This seems like an eminently sensible law  and cannot really be blamed for all the evils that came later. But in the 1920s there was a famous case in Lahore where a Hindu publisher was arrested by the colonial authorities after Muslims agitated against him for having published a book called Rangila Rasul (“merry prophet”). The British colonial authorities tried to prosecute him for hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims, but the high court in Lahore (quite properly) found him innocent because there was no law on the books against just publishing a book, no matter how offensive it may be to some religious group. Fearing future communal discord from such provocations, the British then had the legislative assembly add section 295A to the law in order to criminalize deliberate attempts to “outrage the religious feelings of any community”. This section states:

Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 4[three years], or with fine, or with both. 

But even with this new and expanded article 295A in place, prosecutions for blasphemy were few and far between until, in the 1980s, General Zia added two new sections to the law in Pakistan and really set the ball rolling.  These infamous sections are labelled 295B and 295C.

295-B:  Defiling the copy of Holy Qur’an. Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur’an or of an extract there from or uses it in any derogatory manner for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.

295-C: use of derogatory remarks etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet: – who ever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation innuendo, or insinuation, directly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable for fine.

Note that the law no longer requires that the offense be malicious in intent. Intent is no longer an issue. Insulting the Quran or the prophet, even unintentionally, is now punishable by death. To seal the deal, in 1991 the Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan struck down the option of life imprisonment and made the death penalty obligatory. 
And of course, the new amendments only apply to blasphemy against Islam, not against all religions (in this sense, the new laws are more “rational” and internally coherent, since all religions blaspheme against all other religions as a matter of course, so the original law was not coherent in principle, though still workable in practice). Between 1984 to 2004, 5,000 cases of blasphemy were registered in Pakistan and 964 people were charged and accused of blasphemy; 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 others. Thirty-two people charged with blasphemy were killed extra-judicially during that time. More have died since. Eighty-six percent of all the cases were reported in Punjab.

Every time the shit hits the fan, many liberal people start hoping that this blasphemy law can be changed to finally stop or slow down this torrent of prosecutions and killings. Others have noted that the law is not the problem, free-lance enforcement of a broader blasphemy meme in the Muslim community is the problem and will likely persist even if the law is repealed. 

In my view the law is not the only problem, but it IS a very potent symbol of the surrender of state and society in front of the blasphemy meme. Repeal of the law will not kill that meme, but repeal of the law will be an equally powerful signal that things have changed and that state and society no longer approve of the killing of blasphemers. It will not end the problem, but it will be the beginning of the end. Repeal of the law is not a sufficient condition for this nightmare to end, but it is a very important necessary condition.

Unfortunately, I don’t think such repeal or amendment is actually likely in the foreseeable future. My predictions: Continue reading Blasphemy Laws and Blasphemy Killings in Pakistan

Capsule Review: To Raise a Fallen People

To Raise a Fallen People is an interesting collection of Indian writings from the late 19th century, compiled by Professor Rahul Sagar, who is Associate Professor at Yale-NUS College and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Professor Sagar has gathered together several Indian writings on national and international affairs from the late 19th century and he has chosen to frame the book as “Indians were not morons and had thoughts about the rest of the world in the 19th century that can tell us about Indian foreign policy today”, but this editorial frame adds nothing to the book. The book is good because the selections are interesting and worth reading, not because it sheds any light on current Indian foreign policy.

One sees what various Indian thinkers thought about their own position in the world in the late 19th century, when the mutiny had been crushed and British rule in India had stabilized and seemed almost permanent. The writers range from famous authors and politicians such as Bankim Chatterjee, Mohandas Gandhi, Annie Besant and Salar Jung, but the one i found most interesting was a letter from Anandibai Joshi (first Indian woman to go to the USA for medical studies) explaining her decision to go to America. The “prohibition” against foreign travel is discussed (and vehemently rejected). The wonders of Great Britain are described, but so are her crimes. There are interesting pieces from some Muslim thinkers, all of whom regard the Hindu majority as basically irrelevant and are focused on the “clash” they think is going on between islamdom and Western powers (with complaints against Russians as oppressors of Ottoman Turkey and invaders of central Asia, but also against the British for raking up Armenian massacres; Muslim writers feel the British empire is also a Muslim empire (since more Muslims were subjects of Victoria than of any Muslim sovereign) and wish Britain would heed their concerns about the caliphate, etc). In short, a great window into late 19th century colonial India and its intellectuals. Ignore the foreign policy hook that the author has used to set up the book and just enjoy the excerpts.

Some representative screenshots follow: Continue reading Capsule Review: To Raise a Fallen People

Anandibai Joshi goes to America-1883

This is an interesting snippet from the book “To Raise a Fallen People”.

This excerpt was written by Dr Anandibai Joshi, the first Hindu lady to qualify as a doctor in America. It is her explanation of why she is going to America, and is a window into a very different time. What a clear headed thinker!

The book (to raise a fallen people) is well worth reading (you can ignore the editorial elements, just read the original texts from the 19th century). It is always good to have an idea of where things were… makes it easier to understand where they are..

My Future Visit to America, 1883

— Anandibai Joshi

. . . Our subject to-day is, “My future visit to America, and public inquiries regarding it.” I am asked hundreds of questions about my going to America. I take this opportunity to answer some of them. . . Continue reading Anandibai Joshi goes to America-1883

Major Amin: How the British Ruled India (and the USA failed in Afg)

 

Some Musings from Major Amin. 

What the US could learn from the British ?  An English Private Company Conquered India and Chastised Afghanistan not by superior weapons but a superior strategy
Agha H Amin
What the US could learn from the British
• July 2024
When I researched the English East India Companys history of conquest of India I arrived at the following conclusions :—
1. An army which was 80 % native was used to win the battles against Indians,Nepalis,Bumese,Afghans,Iranians,Chinese,Indonesians,Ceylon etc.
2. The weapons used were almost similar although the company had an edge in superior strategy, superior tactics, better synchronisation of firepower and movement, superior naval power.
3. After 1780 native states also increasingly mastered European way of warfare that were then considered the best in the world through increased use of European military instructors.
4. However superior diplomacy and superior naval power to switch troops worked in companys favour.
5. The elimination of French naval power after the 1789 revolution also removed the only major naval threat to the English company.This was significant as it is questionable if the Americans could ever have won their War of Independence without French naval support. It was lack of naval interdiction which enabled the British to deploy the biggest army in British history to India in 1858. An army bigger than those used in Europe or the Americas till that date.
6. The companys costs of war were low as native troops constituted 80 % of the army and were very low paid as compared to private european troops or British Army regiments hired for India.
7. It was superior strategy and diplomacy through which the British held India in First World War with just 15,000 troops.
8. It was a superior system under which Indian Army with a large Muslim component was successfully employed against Muslim states like Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan etc.
9. Brilliant employment of the old Roman strategy of Divide et Impera or Divide and Rule enabled the British to control India with a very small British military presence and a corp d elite of just 500 civilians who made key decisions.
10. Various races and ethnicities and religions and sects were brilliantly pitched against each other and a healthy balance was maintained.
11. Afghanistan’s government was controlled with just a small personal retainer to the Afghan king of about 15 Lakh Rupees per year by a private company. Afghanistans foreign relations were kept subservient to the British successfully from 1842 to 1919 and the Nadir Shah dynasty was also installed in Afghanistan in 1929 with British largesse.
12. A small example of setting things right by attacking the centre of gravity. In the  1890s and 1900s it was seen that foreign weapons were arriving in North West India. The origin appeared to be Oman . A naval squadron was deployed and the weapons supply route cut.
13. In 1850-1880 the religious militancy threat was eliminated by creating new sects and religions and infiltrating 80 % of Indian Muslim religious scholars and Mullahs.
14. German efforts to use Afghanistan as a base were totally defeated in Afghanistan.
15. Russian efforts to woo Afghanistan were firmly checked from 1839 to 1947 with a gap of 1919-29 when Afghanistan was hostile.
16. Brave enemies like Nepal were treated with chivalry and their manpower used in British Indian Army as a corp d elite.
17. Brave enemies like Sikhs were specially cultivated and recruited in the army and they proved a strategic asset against any Muslim uprisings .
18. Punjabi Muslims were correctly identified as politically docile and militarily useful and used as mercenaries in the army , sometimes as a counter balance against Sikhs who became increasingly anti British after 1918.
19. Their government was just at non political level, financially clean, forgiving politically, but eliminating ruthlessly where their enemies were regarded as a threat. Thus they treated Afghan kings and opponents chivalrously and gave them estates in their exile in India.However where they saw an enemy who was irreconcilable even that enemys body was destroyed and his place of burial kept secret and his houses raised to ground level as with Pir of Pagara in 1942.
20. Their policy was executed by administrators mostly from British aristocracy but younger sons who could not acquire the family estate ! Educated in Roman and Greek classics who understood how the Roman Empire was run.
21. A relative remembers how the civil servants in the academy were taught how to deal with each man differently !
22. The foundation of British rule was justice at basic level , creating good rural infrastructure , reward of lands and estates to loyal classes ,sophisticated intelligence , divide and rule,maximum use of natives , rewarding old foes if it was politically sound and exreme Machiavellianism at policy level.
23. All intelligence records were destroyed on transfer of power in India leaving no clue for future analysts ! A relative in the Indian Intelligence supervised burning of some records !
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BRITISH AND US POLICY
• THE US UNITED THEIR ENEMIES INSTEAD OF DIVIDING THEM.
• THE US RELIED ON UNRELIABLE AND DOUBLE DEALING STATES LIKE PAKISTAN WHICH COMPROMISED ALL ITS STRATEGIC INTERESTS.
• THE US FAILED TO RELY ON SMALLER BUT MORE SECULAR AND STRATEGICALLY RELIABLE ETHNICITIES LIKE THE KURD, BALOCH , HAZARA, UZBEK ETC.
• THE US FAILED TO INTERDICT AND DESTROY THE FINANCIAL AND LOGISTIC SUPPLY LINE OF INSURGENTS.

Browncast: Major Amin on Current Events

Major Amin – Brown Pundits

Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

In this episode I chat with our regular guest, Military Historian Major Agha Humayun  Amin, but we dont touch on military history in this episode. Instead I asked his opinion on the Trump assassination attempt (he admires Trump), the war in Ukraine, Gaza, Pakistan, India, etc. Enjoy. Comments welcome.

Jewish Muslim Relations

From our regular contributor, Dr Hamid Hussain. He is doing a series on Jewish-Muslim relations and sent these two pieces about prayer and pilgrimage in the two related religions.

Jewish Muslim Relations – Shared Rituals – Prayer

 “Prayer is God’s backstage pass into a personal audience with Him”.    Tony Evans

 Judaism and Islam has a complex relationship over the centuries. On the one hand, there is mutual acceptance of basic tenet of monotheism and soundness of divinely inspired ethical standards to guide a believer’s life by both religions. On the other hand, Judaism’s critique of Islam as not an authentic divine message and Islam’s assertion that original message of Judaism was authentic but was later distorted or corrupted by the Rabbis therefore it is superseded by Islam. 

Continue reading Jewish Muslim Relations

Blasphemy in Pakistan; NOT a Colonial Era Problem

There is an old post about blasphemy laws from 2015 that i revised in 2021. It is on the site, but not well written and hard to search for, so i decided to repost it because blasphemy is in the news again and I cannot count the number of times someone has managed to say “colonial era blasphemy laws in Pakistan” in a misleading manner. I wanted to have a post handy where I could direct them, so here it is, a quick overview of the blasphemy issue in Pakistan

A blasphemy law was part of the 19th century Indian Penal code as section 295.. It was not a bad law at all and the lazy habit of blaming it for later blasphemy law crap in the Indian subcontinent is just that: a lazy habit (mostly promoted by LeLi Indians and Pakistanis desperate to find someone else to blame)

Here is section 295 of the Indian Penal Code of 1860:

 Injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class.—Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defile­ment as an insult to their religion, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

The aim of the law was to prevent/punish things like someone throwing a dead pig into a mosque or a cow’s head into a temple. An actual physical desecration is to be punished. This seems like an eminently sensible law  and cannot really be blamed for all the evils that came later.

But in the 1920s there was a famous case in Lahore where a Hindu publisher was arrested by the colonial authorities after Muslims agitated against him for having published a book called Rangila Rasul (“merry prophet”). The British colonial authorities tried to prosecute him for hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims, but the high court in Lahore (quite properly) found him innocent because there was no law on the books against just publishing a book, no matter how offensive it may be to some religious group. Fearing future communal discord from such provocations, the British then had the legislative assembly add section 295A to the law in order to criminalize deliberate attempts to “outrage the religious feelings of any community”. This section states:

Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 4[three years], or with fine, or with both. 

But even with this new and expanded article 295A in place, prosecutions for blasphemy were few and far between until, in the 1980s, General Zia added two new sections to the law in Pakistan and really set the ball rolling.  These infamous sections are labelled 295B and 295C.

295-B:  Defiling the copy of Holy Qur’an. Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur’an or of an extract there from or uses it in any derogatory manner for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.

295-C: use of derogatory remarks etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet: – who ever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation innuendo, or insinuation, directly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable for fine.

Punishment was later upgraded to the death penalty.

Note that the law no longer requires that the offense be malicious in intent. Intent is no longer an issue. Insulting the Quran or the prophet, even unintentionally, is now punishable by death. To seal the deal, in 1991 the Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan struck down the option of life imprisonment and made the death penalty obligatory. 
And of course, the new amendments only apply to blasphemy against Islam, not against all religions (in this sense, the new laws are more “rational” and internally coherent, since all religions blaspheme against all other religions as a matter of course, so the original law was not coherent in principle, though still workable in practice). Between 1984 to 2004, 5,000 cases of blasphemy were registered in Pakistan and 964 people were charged and accused of blasphemy; 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 others. Thirty-two people charged with blasphemy were killed extra-judicially during that time. More have died since. Eighty-six percent of all the cases were reported in Punjab.

Every time this shit hits the fan, many liberal people start hoping that this blasphemy law can be changed to finally stop or slow down this torrent of prosecutions and killings. Others have noted that the law is not the problem, free-lance enforcement of a broader blasphemy meme in the Muslim community is the problem and will likely persist even if the law is repealed. In my view the law is not the only problem, but it IS a very potent symbol of the surrender of state and society in front of the blasphemy meme. Repeal of the law will not kill that meme, but repeal of the law will be an equally powerful signal that things have changed and that state and society no longer approve of the killing of blasphemers. It will not end the problem, but it will be the beginning of the end. Repeal of the law is not a sufficient condition for this nightmare to end, but it is a very important necessary condition.

Unfortunately, I don’t think such repeal or amendment is actually likely in the foreseeable future. My predictions: Continue reading Blasphemy in Pakistan; NOT a Colonial Era Problem

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