Why Pakistan Needs Secular Politics, Not an Anti-Faith Crusade

Over the weekend, I came across an Instagram page titled “Secular Republic of Pakistan.” One of their recurring arguments was familiar: Europe progressed because it separated church and state.

What they didn’t mention is why Europe did that.

What often gets left out when people cite Europe’s separation of church and state is not what happened, but what problem it was responding to.

The shift did not come from a sudden hatred of religion, nor from a belief that faith was irrational or obsolete. It emerged at a moment when absolute moral authority, once embedded in religious institutions, had become deeply entangled with political power. As societies grew more complex, that fusion began to limit governance itself.

The solution Europe arrived at was not to erase God from society, but to remove moral absolutism from the machinery of the state. Administration, law, and policy needed to function without invoking divine finality, because when power claims sacred certainty, dissent becomes sin and disagreement becomes treason.

Secularism, in this sense, was not a moral rebellion.
It was a way of preventing authority from becoming untouchable.

That context matters. Because when secularism is discussed in Pakistan, it is often framed as a cultural betrayal rather than what it historically was: a reorganization of power, not a rejection of faith.

The Immediate Panic: “So You Want Alcohol and Immorality?”

I was recently debating whether Pakistan should be a secular state when the counter-argument thrown at me was predictable:

“Tu chahta hai sharab khuli bikay, fahashi aam ho?”

No. I never said that.

This is a strawman fallacy. Secularism does not mandate vice. It does not instruct people to abandon morality. It simply means the state does not enforce morality through religious doctrine.

More importantly, alcohol already exists in Pakistan. Prostitution exists. Crime exists. Religious law has not eliminated these realities; it has merely pushed them into hypocrisy, selective enforcement, and denial.

If religious law were sufficient to engineer moral behavior, we would already be living in a utopia.

We are not.

If Fear Is the Only Restraint, That’s Not Morality

This is where the conversation gets uncomfortable.

Many arguments against secularism rest on the assumption that without religion, society would collapse into chaos. That people behave ethically only because they fear Judgment Day.

But philosophers, ethicists, and even theologians have questioned this for centuries.

Socrates posed the dilemma long before modern secularism existed:
Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?

If goodness only exists because of divine command, then morality is obedience, not ethics. Modern moral philosophy largely rejects this view, arguing that moral reasoning arises from empathy, social cooperation, and rational assessment of harm and fairness.

Contemporary research in ethics supports this. Moral behavior is observable in secular societies not because people fear punishment, but because social trust, accountability, and shared norms are institutionally reinforced.

Even religious thinkers have acknowledged this. The Dalai Lama, for example, has repeatedly argued that compassion and ethical conduct are human capacities independent of religion. Ethics rooted solely in fear of divine punishment are fragile; they disappear when belief weakens.

That’s not moral strength. That’s conditional restraint.

Violence Isn’t Born From Religion. But It’s Justified Through It

From the Holocaust to Gaza, from colonial massacres to the Taliban, violence is often blamed on religion. But serious historical analysis tells a different story.

Religion is rarely the cause. It is the scapegoat.

Power, nationalism, fear, resource control, and dehumanization are the engines. Religion becomes the vocabulary and excuse used to legitimize decisions already made.

This is precisely why merging religion with state power is dangerous. Once faith becomes law, dissent becomes heresy. Politics turns sacred. Violence gains moral immunity.

What Theologians Actually Say About Secularism

Contrary to popular belief, the idea that religion must directly govern the state is not universally accepted within theology itself. Many religious thinkers, including Muslim scholars, have warned that when faith becomes a tool of political authority, it risks losing its moral substance.

One of the most prominent contemporary Islamic thinkers on this question is Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na‘im, who argues that religious principles can only carry ethical weight when they are freely chosen. In his view, once religious law is enforced by the state, it ceases to be an expression of faith and becomes an exercise in obedience. The state may gain legitimacy, but religion loses sincerity.

This concern is not entirely modern. Classical Islamic political thought often treated governance as a practical, human responsibility, distinct from the spiritual cultivation of individuals. Scholars such as Al-Mawardi discussed rule primarily in terms of maintaining order and justice, rather than enforcing moral perfection. Ibn Khaldun, writing centuries earlier, cautioned that political authority grounded in sacred legitimacy tends toward absolutism, because it presents itself as beyond question.

More recently, scholars like Wael Hallaq have argued that the modern nation-state, by its very structure, is ill-suited to embody religious ethics. The state governs through coercion, surveillance, and uniform enforcement, while religious morality depends on conscience and intention. When the two merge, moral responsibility is replaced with compliance.

Similar debates occurred in Christian theology after Europe’s religious wars. Many theologians concluded that when the state claims divine authority, religion becomes entangled in power struggles, producing violence and authoritarianism rather than piety. The separation of church and state emerged not from hostility to faith, but from an attempt to limit the damage caused by sacralized power.

Across these traditions, the concern is not that religion is dangerous, but that unchecked authority is. Political secularism, in this sense, is not a rejection of belief. It is a safeguard against the state monopolizing moral truth.

Secular governance allows religion to function as conviction rather than command, as conscience rather than code. For many theologians, faith survives more authentically there than under compulsion.

Pakistan’s Real Problem Is Not Secularism. It’s Confusion

Pakistan has never fully committed to being either a theocratic state or a secular one. Instead, it oscillates between religious symbolism and pragmatic governance. This ambiguity has empowered rigid actors, intensified sectarian divides, and made religion a tool of political legitimacy.

Research on Pakistan’s political evolution shows that the refusal to clearly separate religion from state affairs has contributed to instability rather than cohesion.

When faith becomes policy, it becomes power. And power does not tolerate interpretation.

Secularism Is Not Atheism. It’s Neutrality

Supporting secular politics does not mean abandoning belief. It means accepting that the state must serve citizens as citizens, not as theological categories.

A secular Pakistan would not stop anyone from praying, fasting, believing, or fearing God. It would simply stop the state from deciding whose God gets to rule everyone else.

That distinction is crucial.

The Myth of Sacred Exceptionalism

We need to let go of the idea that we are morally superior because we are “Islam’s fortress” or God’s chosen nation. Every empire, every ideology, every system believes the same thing.

We are not unique.

A just society is not one that fears God the loudest.
It is one that chooses restraint even when it could get away with cruelty.

If our goodness evaporates the moment religion steps back, then religion was never the source. Fear was.

And a society built on fear can never be moral.