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Is secular Sindh turning fundo?
Article requires registration.Sindh, along with Baluchistan and the NWFP all had prominent leftist, secular movements until the last few decades. Since then the Islamists have systematically taken over the NWFP, and is working on the other two provinces with the help of petrodollars. The Army is supporting the effort because they saw the socialists and 'liberals' as anti-nationals. Cracks have begun to emerge in the politically secular fabric of Sindh, the land of the Sufis. Signs of sectarianism and religious extremism are emerging, the clearest indicator of which is the 100,000 students who are studying at 1,000 madrassas operating in different parts of interior Sindh. Surely, the madrassa culture, which was until now only rampant in Punjab, some parts of the NWFP and the Pashtoon dominated areas of Balochistan, has succeeded in getting the better of the people of Sindh. Over the years, Karachi, which once used to be the most modern and liberal city in Pakistan, has turned into the biggest centre for madrassas. There are over 3,000 madrassas in Karachi alone where hundreds and thousands students, most of them from impoverished tribal families, seek religious education. About 130,000 students, of whom 10,000 were women, appeared in the religious seminaries' annual examination last month. After acquiring an "Alim-Fazil" degree, at least 5,000 of these students either join a mosque or a madrassa as teachers or carry out research for religious organisations. Thousands of others, however, join different religious and sectarian parties or become jihadis and work for jihadi outfits. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-10-08 |
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