Unveil A Buddha And Declare That the New Pakistan Is Able to Respect A Heritage That Is Pre-Islamic
By
Rafia Zakaria
22 Jul,
2020
THREE years
ago, Pakistan was celebrating statues of the Buddha. One of the world’s oldest
sleeping Buddha had been unearthed in Bhamala in Haripur. The unveiling of the
sleeping Buddha was strategic, meant to highlight the end of an era. The
ravages of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were now over, as was their
theatrical destruction of ancient relics that are a part of world history. No
longer would Pakistan be known as a place where the unthinking destruction of
world history occurs, no longer would Pakistan be a place where there was no
tolerance for the religious relics of other faiths. Even then opposition leader
Imran Khan made a statement noting that the issue “is a question of preserving
these heritage sites, which are an asset for the country”.
The Sasal Buddha at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, pictured before its
destruction in 2001. Photograph: Ian Griffiths/Corbis
----
That was in
2017, just a year after the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Antiquities Act was passed. The
legislation made it mandatory for anyone who found ancient artefacts to
immediately inform the government. Even more importantly, it made it a crime to
“destroy, break, damage, alter, injure, deface or mutilate or scribble, write
or engage any inscription or sign on, any antiquity or take manure from any
protected antiquity or important antiquity”. Even more crucially, the act
specified that any person committing these crimes could be imprisoned for five
years or fined Rs2 million, or both.
It is now
time to enforce the act. Earlier this week, a video surfaced on social media
showing a group of men unearthing an ancient Buddha sculpture. Then a man takes
a hammer and starts destroying the relic. Other men can be seen watching and
making videos of the destruction. The act was allegedly carried out at the
behest and provocation of a cleric who had told the men that even their nikah
would be rendered invalid and they would no longer be considered believers if
they did not immediately destroy the statue.
After everything
was over and the statue had been destroyed, police arrested four men under the
Antiquities Act. The director of archaeology and museums, Abdul Samad, declared
that those who had destroyed the statue would be duly punished. A few hours
later, officials tweeted that the four men responsible for the vandalism had
been arrested and were in police custody.
Bamiyan residents in favour of rebuilding the Buddhas seem less
concerned about UNESCO’s insistence on using original materials. Photograph:
Corbis
------
The Buddha,
of course, is destroyed. It had been found accidentally, and it is evident from
the video that it was in good condition when it was found. It will never be in
good condition again. Even after the men have been punished, put in prison for
five years or been made to pay Rs2m, the destroyed piece from so long ago will
never be whole again. That is the thing with things that are destroyed; they
can never be returned to what they were.
If the
unveiling of the sleeping Buddha discovered in 2017 is any evidence, Pakistan’s
rediscovered respect for history was supposed to represent the turning of the
page on the age of the TTP. The new tolerant Pakistan, equipped with the
particular legislation on protecting antiquities, was not supposed to do such a
thing. And yet, as these recent events point out, the production of a tolerant
Pakistan has not been so easy. Clerics in villages are still saying the same
things that they have said to incite people to violence — against people,
against objects and against history — as they have done before.
Sunken, 600-year-old Buddha emerges from water in China | CNN Travel
-----
Solutions
are hard things to find. On the provincial government’s part, a law has been
passed and is being enforced. After all, how are the police to know that such a
statue has been found and, then, in the current mess of the pandemic and heat
and deprivation, respond and protect such an object? Then, there is the fact
that while the TTP’s hold has to some relative extent been reduced, little can
be done about the people who still exhibit TTP tendencies. Even as governments
change and wars end, people can remain the same, hold on to the same prejudices
and believe that the mere existence of a historical relic is a threat to their
beliefs.
Given the
importance of unveiling the sleeping Buddha in 2017, our governments evidently
realise that there is international import to the discovery and restoration of
the ancient relics that are found in Pakistan. In this respect, simply and only
passing a law, whose existence is unknown to most of the people who would and
could find such a relic in the rural areas of northwest Pakistan, cannot be the
solution. The edicts of clerics in mosques and their incitement to force the
destruction of antiquities cannot be countered so easily.
If Pakistan
is really turning the page on its terrible ‘Talibanised’ past, it should make a
more sincere effort. The area where the Buddha was found is one where hundreds
of ancient relics have been excavated. It would make sense for the government
to provide some funds for their excavation and proper storage in a museum. Acts
such as these would state clearly and for all that Pakistan accepts the part of
its heritage that existed before Islam. If this sort of rational thinking is
not possible, the excavated objects could be given away to a museum in a
country that does not feel threatened by its own history.
It is easy
to say that the era of the TTP is over. It is just as easy to unveil a Buddha
and declare that the new Pakistan is able to respect history and a heritage
that is pre-Islamic. Much more difficult is the project of transforming a
culture that has been so corrupted with religious obscurantism that inanimate
objects are a danger to its very existence, its idea of itself.
Rafia
Zakaria is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
Original
Headline: The fallen Buddha
Source: The Dawn, Pakistan
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