Appointing Qaris as Islamiat teachers in govt schools guarantees neither reduction of sexual abuse in madrassas nor decrease in enrollment. Madrassas run on donations & give free room & board. Plus, though our constitution has Islamic provisions, we've had martial law since '18. https://twitter.com/umar7181/status/1292438117677436928

Try putting a single sentence into an Islamiat book, which condemns vigilantes who kill to avenge blasphemy. Theoretically, Muslim jurists agree that vigilante action is unlawful. But certain interpretations become dominant in our state & society due to political considerations.

Madrasa grads are an organized lobby with a network that spans the length & breadth of this country. They, like other Muslims, are taught to "enjoin the good and forbid the evil." Their definition of good includes purdah & gender segregation. They are also not pluralist.

It's a colossal mistake for other academics to approach this situation as a "neutral debate" rather than for the arrogant, coercive, opaque process that it was.

Yes, our constitution guarantees Islamic values. Yes, parliament supports this.

But SNC process wasn't democratic.

In order to engage with this debate, we must first forget the repression & pol engineering that PK has been subjected to since 2018. Then we must trust the intentions of technocrats. Then we must listen to them talk about constitution & democracy when we currently have neither.

For some reason, the initial TV programme with Hoodbhoy led the 'debate' to be framed as a question of misogyny/chauvinism or secularism/Islamic constitutionalism. That's a distraction. The key problem is that the SNC process continues the legacy of coercive authoritarian reform.