Irene Ameena May 15th, 2020 Non-Muslim in One Nation, Non-Refugee in Another: Ahmadis in Pakistan and India Ahmadis are at a unique intersection of identities. In Pakistan, their explicit classification as non-Muslim has been reinforced and strengthened through de jure (state-sanctioned and legalized) discrimination. In India, their unstated classification as Muslims is now being used to justify their exclusion from the provisions of the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019. For Ahmadis from countries like Pakistan, this is a painful and confusing indication of the way their identity is framed outside of their control and how that can be used against them. Ahmadiyyat is a minority sect of Islam. Ahmadis, like other Muslims, believe in the five pillars of Islam and assert the value of Prophet Muhammad as the holiest of all prophets. The key difference is that Ahmadis accepted the coming of a reformer (“Mahdi”) in the 1800s in the figure of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a man from Qadian. Ahmad claimed to be sent by God as a metaphorical second coming of Jesus to revive the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (Alislam). For many mainstream Muslims, the acceptance of Ahmad was an act of blasphemy, as it violated their belief in Prophet Muhammad as the last of God’s prophets. Ahmadis are able to reconcile their acceptance of Ahmad with Muhammad being the last prophet by factoring in an important distinction: Ahmadis only believe that Muhammad was the last law-bearing prophet, because Ahmad did not bring any new laws and is only reinforcing the law of Prophet Muhammad (Alislam). Yet for other Muslims, especially those in the Sunni sect, this is often not enough of a justification. The result is discrimination, harassment, and death. Pakistan is the prime case study for the persecution of Ahmadis, as it is codified into its laws. Human Rights Watch traces the history of this persecution. British colonial authorities were the first to enact blasphemy laws within Pakistan’s Penal Code. The Second Amendment of the Constitution of Pakistan declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims, and Ordinance XX was published by the military government of General Zia-ul Haque in 1984 to forbid Ahmadis from identifying themselves as Muslims. The idea of “identification as a Muslim” encompasses several behaviors: using the greeting Assalamu Alaikum, reciting the shahada (the pledge for Muslims), building mosques, saying the Adhan (the call to prayer), and from Islamic modes of worship. General Haque then sought to strengthen blasphemy laws by “Islamicizing them” so that they could be used to criminalize the beliefs of Ahmadis. His government introduced Section 295-C to the penal code, now called the Blasphemy clause. According to this Section, anyone found guilty of “defiling the name” of the Holy Prophet Muhammad risked a punishment of life imprisonment or death - purposefully leaving the definition of “defiling” vague so that the clause could be applied more widely. In 1991, the Federal Shariat Court took an additional step of removing the option of life imprisonment, so that the only penalty available now is for the individual to be put to death. Recent government actions in Pakistan have supported the earlier discriminatory policies. For example, President Pervez Musharraf passed Executive Order No. 15 which creates a separate electoral list for Ahmadis during elections. The Election Act of 2017 clarified that to be a part of the joint electorate, an individual must declare that they are not Ahmadi. How does the de jure d iscrimination play out in the day-to-day lives of Ahmadis in Pakistan? According to Human Rights Watch, because they are not classified as Muslims, Ahmadis have been subject to stonings, shootings, and miscarriages of justice. For Pakistan, this is often accomplished because of the close tie between local mullahs, or clerics, and the government. For example, in April 1995, two Ahmadi men were stoned by a mob in the town of Shab Qadar, right in front of police officers who stood and watched. Nobody was charged with any crime after the deaths of the two men. More recently, in the 2010 floods in Pakistan, forty Ahmadi families who took refuge in a public school received no relief from the government. Another one hundred Ahmadis were trapped at the shrine of Shahjamal. After local clerics issued a ruling to not help Ahmadis, the district police officer and coordinator officer refused to send a boat or a team to rescue them. The 2010 Lahore Massacre is the worst attack on Ahmadis to date when shooters entered a mosque during Friday prayers and killed 94 Ahmadis and injured another 120. Although some politicians condemned the attacks publicly, ministers, politicians, and other prominent leaders did not attend the funeral services. There was no media coverage of the burial ceremonies. In 2018, during the holy month of Ramadan, a mob attacked an Ahmadi mosque in the city of Sialkot and destroyed it as they chanted anti-Ahmadi slogans. The leader of the attack has been linked to the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan. India, in comparison, has been a safe haven for Ahmadis. There are between 60,000 and a million Ahmadis spread across India (admittedly a very broad and vague range). Although the number of Ahmadis makes up only 0.6% of the total Muslim population in India at best, making them still a minority, Ahmadis are well integrated into most Indian cities and most are safe to practice Islam (Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada). Qadian, a city in the province of Punjab, is the birthplace of the reformer Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and thus somewhat of a holy city for Ahmadis. However, there are still fundamental theological differences championed by non-Ahmadi leaders as reasons to reject Ahmadis as Muslims. There have been occasional incidents of communal violence and kidnappings (Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada). Still, in the eyes of the Indian government, Ahmadis are Muslims (Katiyar). In December of 2019, the Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act. This act is ostensibly designed to support refugees seeking shelter in India by giving them a pathway to citizenship (Bajwa). The biggest point of contention for critics of the act was in its explicit naming of the groups that were eligible for this pathway: Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, and Parsis from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. When the public protested, members of the BJP (the ruling party in India) were swift to defend the exclusion of Muslims from this list, asserting that all three of the nations named are Muslim-majority countries and thus Muslims from those countries do not need the protections offered by the CAA as they would not be persecuted for their religion (Bajwa). There is a clear error in this line of thinking - what about Muslim minorities like Ahmadis, who are persecuted in their home countries? Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi dismissed the demand for the inclusion of Ahmadis under the CAA by asserting that “Ahmadis are no different from Muslims for us.” Partap Singh Bajwa, a member of Parliament, wrote about the discussion in the Rajya Sabha about Ahmadis. He said that upon questioning, many leaders claimed that “since there are enough countries that have Muslim majorities, these persecuted sects, especially the Ahmadis...need not come to India.” The implication is clear: even if they need refuge, the majority did not want Pakistani Ahmadis (and other minority sects of Islam) to come to India. This begs the question of whether the CAA had malafide Anti-Muslim sentiments; if the politicians who helped pass it were prioritizing the safety of refugees, why would Ahmadis be the exception? The CAA looks more arbitrary and possibly more sinister when examined under this lens. The Citizenship Amendment Act’s selectivity harms more than just Ahmadis: critics have noted that it also excludes Rohingya Muslims from Burma, Tamilians and Christians from Sri Lanka, Shi’a Muslims from Pakistan, and Hazaras from Afghanistan. Yet Ahmadis are unique in that their validity as Muslims is being used to persecute them. Defenders of the CAA argue that Ahmadis cannot be included because India recognizes them as Muslims. Yet if the country they come from does not, shouldn’t the CAA be the tool used to protect and shelter them? Furthermore, the fact that the persecution against Ahmadis is de jure is particularly harmful in terms of the defense that the Ahmadi community has against discrimination from the CAA. Because Pakistan requires Ahmadis to explicitly deny the validity of their messiah and other tenets of the faith in order to get any official documents (like passports), many Ahmadis choose not to obtain those documents. Those who do have documents are simply listed as “non-Muslims.” The result is that Pakistani Ahmadis cannot prove their religion or nationality as required under the CAA. (Parihar) The framework of Muslim versus not-Muslim by a government has implications beyond the denial of an important facet of an individual’s identity - it has both encouraged de jure persecution, as seen in Pakistan, and resulted in a complicated, harmful orientation for Ahmadis within the framework for citizenship provided by India’s new Citizenship Amendment Act. Works Cited “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community - Official Website.” Islam Ahmadiyya, 8 July 2019, www.alislam.org/. Bajwa, Partap Singh. “The Ethos of India Is to Protect the Oppressed.” Tribuneindia News Service, 2019, www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-ethos-of-india-is-to-protect-the-oppressed-1400 Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, India: Treatment of Ahmadis [Ahmadiyyas, Ahmadiyas] by society and authorities; state protection , 30 September 2015, IND105313.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57552ea64.html [accessed 15 May 2020]. Katiyar, Prerna. “In India, Ahmadis Are Muslims: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.” The Economic Times, Economic Times, 4 Jan. 2020, economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/in-india-ahmadis-are-muslims-mu khtar-abbas-naqvi/articleshow/73101497.cms?from=mdr. “Pakistan: Ensure Ahmadi Voting Rights.” Human Rights Watch, 9 July 2018, www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/28/pakistan-ensure-ahmadi-voting-rights. Parihar, Parth. “Why India's Citizenship Amendment Act Is Not Selective.” Medium, Medium, 2 Jan. 2020, medium.com/@parihar.parth/why-indias-citizenship-amendment-act-is-not-selective-b8c92 5fb9d99.
