Why is the Religious Institutes Bill the latest flashpoint of tension in Pakistan? Religion News

Islamabad, Pakistan – After fending off protests from the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, the Pakistani government now faces a new challenge – a potential agitation led by Fazlur Rehman, the leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl religious school. Party (JUIF).

Rehman, a veteran politician and part of the ruling coalition that ruled Pakistan from April 2022 to August 2023, is urging the government to approve a bill introduced in October to amend the registration process for religious institutes.

In October, the legislation was passed alongside The controversial Twenty-sixth Amendment – Moved by and for which the government Need support JUIF of legislators – which gives Parliament oversight of judicial appointments.

However, when the bill reached it for final approval, President Asif Ali Zardari raised “technical objections” and sent it back to Parliament for further deliberations. Since then, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government has indicated that it also has concerns about the bill, sparking a crisis.

Since then, Rahman has engaged in dialogue with government officials, including Sharif, arguing that the current law governing religious institutes undermines their independence.

Last week, he warned that reneging on commitments he made to his party could further destabilize Pakistan’s already turbulent political landscape.

“We want to create an atmosphere of trust. Improving the situation is the government’s responsibility, but this seems to be pushing people towards extremism and protest,” Rehman said in Peshawar.

So what does the current law say, and what will the new draft law do? What concerns have been raised by Zardari and others? What comes next, for the bill and Pakistan’s fractured political system?

How have religious institutes been governed historically?

The debate over the registration of religious institutes, also known as religious schools, has been ongoing for a long time Controversial In Pakistan.

Historically, seminaries were registered under the colonial-era Societies Registration Act of 1860 at the district level. This decentralized system left the government little control over the seminaries’ curricula, activities, or financing.

In particular, state and federal education officials had no audit of the seminaries, which dealt only with local bureaucrats.

Over time, concerns grew about the lack of any effective monitoring of the curriculum, finances or activities of these schools.

Why did stricter regulation begin?

The turning point was the September 11 attack and the United States launched the so-called “War on Terror.” Pakistan, under the leadership of military leader General Pervez Musharraf, sought to reform seminaries.

It was revealed that many of the men who joined militant groups such as Al Qaeda, or those who later founded the Pakistani Taliban, were former students of religious institutes in Pakistan, prompting the government to declare the proposed reforms “indispensable”. For national security.

After the deadly attack by the Pakistani Taliban on the Army Public School, an army-run school, in December 2014 in Peshawar, the Pakistani government presented the National Action Plan, a comprehensive document that sought, among other proposals, to oversee the registration of religious institutions . Theological institutes.

Between 2018 and 2022 Financial Action Task Force The FATF, an intergovernmental body monitoring money laundering and financing established by the G7 in 1989, has placed Pakistan on a “grey list” of countries that do not fully comply with its regulations. Countries on the gray list risk losing important foreign investments.

One of FATF’s demands before removing Pakistan’s name from the list was for the government to bring religious institutes under its control, to ensure transparency in their financial operations.

In 2019, under the PTI government of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, seminaries were reclassified as educational institutions and brought under the Ministry of Education.

This led to the establishment of the Directorate General of Religious Education, currently headed by Ghulam Qamar, a retired two-star general who is also a counter-terrorism specialist.

The DGRE mandated annual audits and expanded curricula to include subjects such as mathematics and science.

Since its establishment, more than 18,000 seminaries and two million students have been enrolled.

However, many religious institutes, including those affiliated with the JUIF, refused to join the order and continued to operate under the Association Registration Law.

What’s in the legislation proposed by JUIF?

The JUIF amendment to the Societies Registration Act transfers responsibilities for registering seminaries to district deputy commissioners, removing oversight from the Ministry of Education.

The bill also proposes allowing religious institutes with multiple campuses to register as a single entity, a move JUIF says will reduce government interference and protect the independence of these institutions.

What are the government’s objections?

Religious Affairs Minister Chaudhry Salik Hussain defended the government’s resistance to approving the JUIF bill.

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Religious Affairs last week, Hussein said that the government wants issues related to education to remain within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, including the registration of religious institutes.

Al Jazeera reached out to Hussein, as well as Information Minister Atallah Tarar, for comments on the ongoing controversy, and why lawmakers from the government parties overwhelmingly supported the bill in Parliament in the first place if they had reservations. Neither of them responded.

However, at a recent conference in Islamabad earlier this week, government officials and religious leaders expressed concerns about the changes proposed by JUIF. Information Minister Tarar claimed that there were “legal complications” in the draft law – without clarifying this – and called for further consultations.

Federal Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui also added that rolling back the current registration mechanism is out of the question, stressing that such a move would not serve the interests of the nation.

“The seminary reforms have been a serious issue in terms of national security as well,” he said.

What does this mean for Pakistani politics?

Sharif’s government may no longer be in dire need of JUIF’s political support after the passage of the 26th Amendment. But its failure to maintain its commitment to the party that helped it pass a controversial constitutional amendment – ​​which former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party says would weaken the independence of the judiciary – raises questions about the government’s credibility.

“It would be better if the government resolves this issue without creating more chaos,” Shahzad Iqbal, a political analyst and news anchor based in Islamabad, told Al Jazeera.

But that won’t be easy. Iqbal said the government appeared to be under “pressure from some other quarters” regarding the draft law.

In July, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chowdhury, head of the Pakistani military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), visited him. Mentioned During a press conference, he stated that more than half of the country’s religious institutes are not registered and their details, including the source of their funding, are unknown.

This, according to Lahore-based analyst Majid Nizami, is why the debate over religious institutes and their eventual control – “directly or indirectly” – may be what the powerful Pakistani military wants.

“DGRE is led by a former general with a long history of counter-terrorism experience,” Nizami told Al Jazeera. “When the military establishment gives any approval, only then will the political parties act on it. It is not a political concern. “It is a military concern.”