State doesn’t align with those who harm minorities: Kakar

Two days after the Christian community in Faisalabad’s Jaranwala was attacked over blasphemy allegations, Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Friday said that the Pakistani state and society do not align and identify with the elements involved in attacks on the minority community.

“They may be from us but they are divorced from our identity. We do not identify with them,” he said while addressing the newly sworn in caretaker federal cabinet.

The caretaker PM warned against any possible play between law and politics. “I know it is a polarised society and in this polarised environment we will try to differentiate between politics and law. There is a law and there is a rule of order. We would ensure that the rule of order is not compromised in any way. Rule of order would ensure and lead to rule of law,” he said.

In the same breath, he added that “if there is chaos and anarchy then no government system, secular or religious, could exist. So we know the sanctity of order and that would be kept at any cost”.

In a nod to the country’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his famous speech of August 11, 1947, Kakar said there would be “no identity-based rights” be prescribed. “Rights,” he said, “will not be given to people on the basis of nouns, but rather on adjectives, on the basis of conduct, character and behaviour.”

He called upon the nation to start envisioning a “Pakistani dream” and to start working towards realising it.

“We would strongly discourage rigidity be it any form in this society. We do not stand for the forces of darkness,” he stressed. “Extreme attitudes” which he said included “secularism” and “religious” ones, would not only be “unwelcomed, but would be discouraged. They would be curbed and controlled by the law.”

“The minorities, so help us Allah, will stay protected in this country. There may be an attempt to harm them by the marginalised and peripheral group of people but that will be responded to sternly by the state and society, both,” he said.

“When you are in the majority, the minority must be protected,” he added, “not on the basis that they would convert to your worldview. They can differ with you. But their human dignity and security and their provision and sustenance have to be ensured by this divinely inspired idea”.

‘Will lay foundation of continuation’

Kakar said that the cabinet while not having a perpetual mandate “will try to lay some foundation where we have a sense of continuation of national and international commitments.”

He added that the cabinet will try to support new initiatives within the bounds of the law and Constitution.

“I am hopeful that Almighty Allah would enable us to lead and steer this nation in this interim period,” he said.

Addressing the cabinet, Kakar said that his able team would work towards countering the “huge” economic challenges it faces through “financial discipline” and have a “sense of sanctity of the taxpayers’ money”.

May 9 events

Towards the end of his address, Kakar also expressed his “discomfort and disappointment” over the events of May 9.

“These state symbols when they are attacked, the state does not disappear or vanish in a day or two or a week. It’s a process and the initiation of that process, or an attempt at least to do so, was exhibited on May 9.

“We not only condemn it, now we are in the role to ensure that justice is being done and whosoever violated the laws on those days will be treated by those laws. There won’t be any favour, there won’t be any fear. We will try to implement with justice and neutrality,” he said.

Further, he took the opportunity to express his government’s commitment to the issue of Kashmir which he described as part of the Pakistani nation’s soul.