A RECENT report from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reiterates what we already know: sectarian violence in Pakistan has risen to unacceptable levels. The HRCP counts 687 killings in more than 200 sectarian attacks in 2013, up 22pc from 2012.

With each attack — targeted assassinations on busy street corners, mob violence in far-flung tehsils, massacres in Hazara ghettos, carnage in churches — we think we have seen the worst and that nothing more brutal can happen. And then it does.

It doesn’t help that religious divides are infinite — Shias, Deobandis, Barelvis, Ahl-i-Hadith, Hindus, Christians, Ahmadis, Ismailis. Everyone on social media loves quoting the line by Martin Niemöller, “and then they came for me”, but the true scale of the horror does not seem to have sunk in. As Pakistanis are shot in their neighbourhoods, murdered while at prayer, falsely accused of blasphemy and dug out of their graves, the country’s social fabric is being shredded.

The interior ministry informed the Senate last week that 2,090 people were killed in sectarian incidents in the past five years. In response, senators contested the figures and asked questions about the number of convictions for those accused in sectarian incidents. Some questions were answered, others ignored — official theatrics staged to make it seem as if the government is ‘taking note’ of sectarianism.

But let’s be clear — nothing about sectarianism is organic or inevitable. Rising sectarian strife in Pakistan is largely the result of deliberate state policies or wilful neglect, which means that it can be stemmed. And that makes the loss of each life to sectarian or communal hatred all the more senseless and savage.

The history of state security policies that cultivated ‘strategic assets’ that engage in sectarian violence is well known. The fact that sectarian militant groups flourish (and win elections) in Punjab — home to the ruling PML-N — is also known. As is the fact that that the government relied on banned sectarian groups to rally votes on its behalf in the last election.

That same government is now snuggling up to Saudi Arabia in exchange for cash handouts to make for snappy headlines on business pages. Never mind that this particular kingdom is revving up for a grand battle for influence over the Islamic world — one that is being fought strictly along sectarian lines. And certainly never mind that it has a history of funding madressahs in our country, many of which perpetuate divisive beliefs.

The Senate also heard last week how just 15 madressahs — 11 of which have not received an NOC from the interior ministry — received Rs258m from Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, in the last year. Successive government security policies call for madressah reform, and yet these institutions are mushrooming throughout Pakistan, many spreading intolerance.

The matter of escalating sectarian attacks does not appear to be on the table for discussion with the TTP either. The Pakistani Taliban persecute religious minorities and are closely affiliated with the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, the main perpetrator of violence against the Shia community and arguably the most virulent sectarian militant force in Pakistan.

The group, reportedly, also threatened the Ismailis and the Kalash in a video which was released once peace talks were under way. While the threat provoked some discomfort among government negotiators, we continue to engage the hate-spewing TTP.

What is being increasingly reported is that despite the deteriorating situation, sectarian militant groups continue to be viewed as strategic assets by the security establishment. These groups are allegedly being given a free hand in Balochistan, for instance, where nationalist and separatist movements are gaining steam in response to human rights violations such as illegal detentions, the suppression of free speech, torture and extra-judicial killings.

The logic, as ever, is twisted: undermine the fervour of nationalist sentiment by replacing it with the fervour of religious fanaticism. Apparently, the former threatens the federation while the latter bolsters it. Except that it doesn’t.

The sectarian dimensions of Pakistan’s religiosity threaten more fragmentation than any other challenge the country faces. And this fragmentation is occurring at the most local level — within families, neighbourhoods, communities, college campuses, political organisations, civil society groups. Unlike big ideas of nation and politics, sectarianism is personal, and hits close to home.

The unfolding Hamid Mir saga demonstrated once again that the go-to bogeyman is the ‘foreign hand’ — the Indian agent, the CIA stooge. All our country’s problems and divisions, any note of dissent or critique, is framed as the result of foreign meddling. But as far as sectarianism is concerned, we don’t need foreign hands to cause trouble. As a society, we are now primed to cannibalise ourselves.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

huma.yusuf@gmail.com

Twitter: @humayusuf