WHY are the blasphemy laws still on the book? Parliament is sovereign; there is official and public consensus that we do not wish to facilitate fanaticism and bigotry.

And the very context and continuing existence of these laws underpins much social violence and religious intolerance entirely repugnant to Islam. They should have been repealed ever before Gojra became a burning issue. Fanatical elements may still wreak havoc but at least the signals sent out by the state and civil society would be red.

Parliamentary majorities move quickly when it comes to legislation furthering their electoral interests whether it is about separate electorates or raising female representation. But they are sadly lethargic when it comes to doing what civil society demands in the common public weal.

Gen Pervez Musharraf took over when people were rejecting then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's continuing use of religion in the Zia tradition as a political camouflage for the pursuit of absolute power. The usurping general could easily have disarmed the guns of blasphemy and other disputed religious legislation/ordinances. Public opinion was on his side; he commanded the army; the clerically-led parties were in no position to cause him serious trouble — yet he quailed at the first rumble.

Today Bhutto cultism as vented in the presidency, that font of ordinance, is the steam in the ruling PPP's engine. It is salutary to remind those too young to know (like the party's chairman) and others who prefer to obscure matters, that it was none other than the PPP icon Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who unhesitatingly homed in on the Ahmadi community. Legislation in his tenure exposed them further to real persecution and isolation. The position of the Ahmadis is even more perilous in Pakistan than that of Hindus or Christians who are perceived as minorities.

Whatever the varied clerical positions as to sects and heresies, people of the book and those of other faiths; the overriding Islamic principle of tolerance is forever enshrined in the enunciation to you your religion and to me mine.

Unfortunately though, because Pakistanis are deeply and emotionally religious, religion is constantly played upon by demagogues and rabble-rousers. Pakistan has been deeply corrupted by successive governments and regimes — democratic and imposed; civil and military; popular and unpopular — using the emotive factors of religion and ethnicity most viciously and unscrupulously. Human life and public safety have less value than the realisation of selfish political objectives.

At the personal and individual level mere greed or vendetta often prompt blasphemy charges. Persons are hounded away, their properties evacuated and then cheaply acquired, their jobs lost and offices vacated for others to fill. The laws do not deter wanton blasphemers, instead they endanger our citizens.

The blasphemy laws in Pakistan were founded in a context of discrimination and oppression. That mindset continues to animate and empower bigotry and coercive intolerance. Repealing the laws and taking on the backlash is a crucial part of our own war on terror.

Why express and demonstrate devotion and reverence through riotous violence as we did in the case of the deliberately provocative blasphemous cartoons of our Holy Prophet (PBUH)? For the devout Muslim the Prophet has a spiritual status that renders him immune from intended insult. The Danish venture was better left to be exposed and condemned as it rapidly was, at the bar of anyone who was not compulsively hostile to religion or contemptuous of other people's feelings.

But in Pakistan's social climate even delivering a newspaper may expose the person who tosses it over the gate to charges of disrespect for sacred writ. Keeping religious texts on the reachable second shelf rather than the unreachable first shelf may be taken as irreverence. An adjacent photograph may be seen as reflecting sacrilegious intent. Tearing up a wedding invitation may fall within the legal ambit of blasphemous desecration.

And yet many of those most particular about upholding such form and appearance may steal and lie and cheat without a twinge of conscience. It is easier to stress the externalities than strive for spiritual substance. Perhaps it is easier to delude ourselves we are notching up brownie points with the Almighty by attacking blasphemy in others than by becoming impeccable Muslims ourselves.

It is not just the fanatics who are culpable. All of us specifically Muslim Pakistanis are to be blamed for letting the bigoted zealots' interpretative voice speak loudest. We fear dandas and vials of acid. We are scared of having allegations of irreverence, heresy, blasphemy, flung at us by obnoxious and ignorant elements who presume to deem themselves morally empowered to monitor and accuse fellow mortals.

We have to spell out clearly and make it heard that encouraging the good and preventing the wrong as enjoined by religious injunctions is not a carte blanche for persecution, intimidation, coercion, violence and murder in the name of religious propriety and divine law.