Sectarian Strife in Pakistan: A Legacy of Nineteen Eighties

Abstract

In religious and ethnic violence the human race faces ‘a moral collapse that leads to the most diabolical acts of cruelty’.1 Sectarian strife took roots in Pakistan in the decade of eighties. Scholars have articulated two different views about the emergence of sectarianism in Pakistan. One school of thought blames General Zia’s Islamization policy for the emergence of this phenomenon that established a sort of state monopoly on religion and the majority Sunni sect became more overtly dominant than ever before. On the other hand scholars like S. V.R. Nasr claims that the sectarian violence in the eighties was the direct result of the unfolding Iranian revolution and the beginning Afghan-Soviet war in the end of 1979. Pakistan utterly failed to contain the impact of these developments on its domestic politics. In undivided India there used to be sporadic outbreaks of Shia-Sunni clashes particularly in Bengal, Awadh and northern India2 but after the creation of Pakistan, sectarian clashes were not so common nor were they on a big scale.3 –––––––––