Eenie meenie miny mo, Catch a nig** by his toe, If he screams let him go, Eenie meenie miny mo

A lilting rhyme from our childhood, that is as replete with racial nuance as ever there was any prescript especially formulated for a far right enthusiast. Imprinted on impressionable minds around the world; imparted in the hallowed sanctums of colonial missionary schools. And that racial/ ethnic/ religious bias is the normalcy that we have all grown up with in the west and in the colonies influenced by the west.

At the end of the day, our mindsets are the same: the belief that some of us are more superior than the others and that White, and in our case, Muslim Privilege is as real as the afterlife. This fact, even for the most liberal minded of the said demographic, and despite vehement naysings to the contrary, is hard-coded into our very DNA. (You can read this as Hindu, Christian or Buddhist privilege really depending on which religious majority space you occupy).

Let’s take a little traipse back in time, to just before the East India Company set down its roots of Western imperialism and indeed, the rigours of ethnic division into motion in South Asia. Circa 1600.

The region, while having seen its fair share of invasions and dominions, both overt and covert, was a fairly harmonious, prosperous melting pot of cultures and religions. In the early 17th century in fact, the combined GDP of the Indian subcontinent made up 20% of the global economic output. It was also the richest nation on earth at the time, followed closely by China. (Four centuries hence and in the current world scenario, the George Santayana* adage in one of its many variations comes to mind, “history tends to repeat itself”).

And so together with the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha* (aka the British Royal family!) mandated material exploitation of the continent, self-righteous, self-serving religious machinations were also mobilised with the fire and passion of the Chosen Ones. Missionary schools, by the dozens were set up all over the continent from Kolkata to Murree, from Simla to Karachi, and the mental conditioning of the societal creme de la creme aka the future leaders of the dynastic empire, was set in motion. With the impressionable minds of consequence now squarely under the colonial anvil, focused efforts were put into rending asunder adult mindsets. The flames were insidiously and feverishly fanned on previously immaterial religious differences. Being a Hindu or a Muslim or a new Christian convert, depending purely on what was circumstantially advantageous for the colonists at any given time, meant preferential treatment being meted out ranging from critical day to day conveniences to career breakthroughs and ultimately an overall dominant position in society. By the end of it, the hyper-fuelled differences were so all-consuming, that they became the catalysts for one of the most brutal annihilations of an empire; leading also to the largest mass migration in human history.**

The takeaway from the brief history revisit above is the concept of a religious hierarchy that was instilled and has doggedly survived and indeed thrived to this day. 73 years post colonial rule, and the legacy of deistic superiority still lives on. We behave like the religion of 97% of the 220 million strong Pakistani citizenry (and indeed of the 2 billion strong globally), is under threat of obliteration because of the 3% theistic diversity. If ever there was a chronically suspicious, dogmatic, mired in religio-cultural backwardness and quick-to-judge society, we, the Pakistanis gloriously lead the charge. In fact we have proven time and again that our custodianship of the religion is not only divinely passionate but lurking quite bizzarely on the lunatic fringe. A recent case in point is the righteous trepidation and knee jerk opposition by the Islamists, to the construction of a lone, singular Hindu temple in Islamabad, the capital city, and obvious global showcase of our diversity, inclusion and equality. The only rationale being that the one temple could apparently subvert an entire majority religion, or at least its Pakistani version with its warped ideology, immoral patriarchy and all.

The Islamic State of Mind is indeed a thing. And the lines between it and the Pakistani state of mind have with time become a blurred mess. The disgracefully prejudiced Blasphemy law and the criminally right wing Hudood Ordinance are living vestiges of a society set on the path to a holy implosion.

While the silent majority may disagree with the religious fascists, our silence is compelling of our complicity with the fringe.

In the name of all that is civilised, humane and even remotely religious, it is time to at least break the silence.

Eenie meenie miny mo

Let’s catch these bigots by their toes!

De Khudai pe aman.

*Title adaptiation from the original 1953 dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. The numbers 786 are significant in Islam, denoting the number of letters in “Bismillah…” the opening phrase of the Quran.

*George Santayana: A Spanish philosopher, poet and novelist

*Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: Now called the House of Windsor of the British royal family. The original name was changed in the early 20th century to make it sound less German/ foreign.

**UNHCR estimates that 20 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during the partition of United India in 1947. Compare with the largest documented voluntary emigration in history – the Italian diaspora, which migrated from Italy between 1861 and 1970, with 13 million people leaving the country.