LIKE a recurring nightmare, the Hasba Bill has returned to haunt us. We thought we had seen the last of this pernicious piece of legislation when earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down its original version for being against the rights of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution. But like the Terminator, the bill drags itself up each time it gets knocked down.

A hundred miles from Peshawar, where the provincial assembly approved the bill, there was better news for human rights in the National Assembly in Islamabad. Here, members approved the Women’s Protection Bill which has removed some of the more viciously anti-women aspects of Zia’s infamous Hudood Ordinance. Although many activists deplore the compromises that have reduced the actual protection the bill gives women, the fact is that it is better than nothing. If, as Musharraf claims, this is the first of a series of pro-women bills to be presented in parliament, then there is reason for quiet satisfaction, if not for noisy celebration.

These two bills, passed within a day of each other, illustrate (yet again) how schizoid our society has become. On the one hand, legislators in Peshawar have voted to set up vice squads to bully and browbeat ordinary citizens to conform to their narrow vision of morality. At the same time, their colleagues in the federal capital have responded to domestic and international pressure to lift some of the more absurd and baneful provisions of the anti-women laws imposed by Zia.

The whole business of a raped woman having to provide four male witnesses to the crime in order to press charges was so repellent a concept that it made a mockery of justice. And to term this requirement ‘Islamic’ was to sully the name of the faith. For over two decades, this law saw thousands of rapists get off scot-free. Simultaneously, untold numbers of women were imprisoned on charges of ‘fornication’ because obviously, they could not produce four adult male witnesses to the crime.

While we engage in these mediaeval legislative antics, the outside world can be excused for looking on in wonder and ill-disguised horror. The divergence between what is happening in the rest of the world and here in Pakistan makes it seem that we live on another planet. In the North Western Frontier Province, where the MMA has been in power for four years, illiteracy, poverty and disease are getting worse, while unemployment and the law and order situation spiral out of control. And at the end of its tenure, how does the government of clerics respond to the problems the common people of their province face? By passing a bill giving mullahs more power than ever.

Observers have pointed out that this is a watered-down version of the earlier one, and now amounts to no more than a ‘publicity gimmick’. But gimmicks have a way of polluting the environment, and acquiring a life of their own. When Bhutto banned alcohol and gambling when under pressure from the right-wing Pakistan National Alliance in 1977, these new laws were also dismissed as political gimmicks. And yet, here we are, nearly 30 years later, still living under their shadow. Meanwhile, the state has been deprived of literally hundreds of billions in revenues, while bootleggers and smugglers have been enriched by a similar amount. Yet these laws have not had any effect on those who drink and gamble.

When Zia announced all kinds of phoney edicts to promote his fundamentalist vision of Islam, I was naive enough to think that they would be swept away after his departure from the scene. But the ostentatious display of religious ritual that he demanded has become the norm. One of the more ridiculous requirements of the civil service, for example, was the inclusion of two new columns in the annual confidential report that is filled in every year for all officers. One required the reporting officer to grade his subordinates on their ‘knowledge of Islam’, while the other had to be filled in for their ‘attitude towards Islam’. Since these columns counted towards the overall grading, and hence promotion, there was a strong incentive for the outward display of religiosity.

These columns continue to be a part of the annual assessment of civil servants. To this day, I have never been able to figure out how a senior officer is supposed to judge somebody else’s knowledge or attitude towards Islam without engaging them in prolonged conversation at the taxpayers’ expense. I must confess that I uniformly gave officers I was reporting on an ‘excellent’ grade on both counts. Musharraf’s contribution to the promotion process in the civil service has been to ask the ISI for a report on officers in grade 20 and above.

Civil society has been rightly incensed by the anti-human rights aspects of many of these laws and rules. Of particular concern has been the way so-called Islamic legislation has eroded the rights of women and the minorities. In addition, some of these policies have caused sectarian tension and open warfare: Sunnis and Shias are at each other’s throats, while Deobandis battle the Barelvis. And all this in the name of a religion that sought to bring peace and harmony.

At the heart of these self-created problems is the notion that religion must be the basis of law-making, and should govern every aspect of our lives. By moving faith from a spiritual, personal experience into the public sphere, we risk pulling it down to the level of everyday politics, a notoriously dirty business. And since there are so many diverse interpretations and varying doctrines, any attempt to impose one school of thought carries the danger of antagonising the others. The logical way out of this impasse is the route others have taken over the centuries. By separating the church from the state, other countries have put sectarian strife behind them, and moved on.

Pakistanis, because their state was created in the name of religion, seem to assume we have a monopoly on Islam, and somehow, we must be better Muslims than all others. To this end, politicians feel obliged to pay lip service to the outward symbols of religion, while ignoring its deeper message. But as long as we continue our futile attempts to govern according to centuries-old tribal laws, we will perpetuate the confusion we are floundering in.