The PML-N’s rise to power has brought back, to some extent, the straitjacket religiosity of General Zia’s dark years in power. The ministry of religious affairs, in the beginning of this Ramzan, was pleased draw the attention of the public to the ‘Ehteram-e-Ramzan Ordinance 1981’ (the Respect of Ramzan Ordinance) and remind the public that it was unlawful to eat, drink or smoke publicly during the holy month. The Ehteram-e-Ramzan Ordinance is one of the many incomprehensible laws that General Ziaul Haq’s unconstitutional and illegal regime inflicted upon Pakistan, which no one has dared to challenge on the touchstone of the constitution of Pakistan. It is a pointless law that has no precedent in Islamic history but perhaps is very similar to the Sabbath laws of Jews and Christians, which at one point enjoyed state sanction in many secular western nations including the US. Most of these states have since then repealed these laws or have made them redundant. The law states that any person who is under obligation to fast is not allowed to eat, drink or smoke in public. Now this in itself creates two exceptions: the first would be a person who is not under obligation i.e. a person who is either a non-Muslim, is sick, is elderly or is a woman who may be menstruating. However, the application of this law has more often than not targetted non-Muslims because, in practical terms, it is impossible to tell whether a person is ‘under obligation’ to ‘fast’ just by looking at the person. The second exception is for those people under obligation to not eat, drink or smoke in public. So, in other words, it is okay for a person under obligation to fast to eat, drink and smoke so long as he or she does it privately. Now the logical extension of this would be that a person not under obligation can eat, drink or smoke as he or she pleases. It goes without saying that this legal freedom is not honoured by the police who target the poorest of the poor in enforcing this law. It is quite the sight seeing labourers being hauled into jail for a mere drink of water during these extremely hot months of June and July. Then there is the obvious question of whether or not the state has any right, constitutionally, legally or morally to determine who is under an obligation to fast or not. Pakistan’s constitution, in terms of its relationship with Islam, is an enabling and not an enforcing constitution. The state is required to enable Muslims to live Islamic lives but not to force them to do so. No article of the constitution empowers the state to force people to pray, fast or live according to the injunctions of Islam. Hence the question of whether a person is under any obligation to fast or not is a matter between him and God, and not between the state and the citizen. When General Zia took over in 1977, he introduced the myth that the objective of the Pakistani state was the Islamisation of culture and society. Himself a pious but simple Muslim, the Mard-e-Momin also tried very fervently to change Pakistan’s Independence Day from August 14 to the 27th day of Ramzan. It was a most pathetic attempt to create a counterfactual narrative of the creation of Pakistan but one that has slowly and steadily taken root in the imagination of Pakistani people. As time has gone by, many Pakistanis have sought divine justification for Pakistan’s existence. Obviously, this has been achieved only by whitewashing history and sweeping under the carpet all inconvenient facts. For example, if Pakistan was created on 27th Ramzan, so was India. Tragically, those who wish to seek such spiritual reaffirmation of the country’s existence are up against the facts. On page 51 of the book The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia, a compilation by Gyanesh Kudaisya and Tan Tai Yong, we find the following account of the grand Independence Day gala at the Karachi Club on the night of August 15, 1947 which needs to be quoted in full: “Jinnah arrived with his sister Fatima for the banquet….They were led to the other guests, who included cabinet members, the diplomatic corps, the commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Gracey, British civilians and army officers, Pakistani officers like Iskander Mirza, all resplendent in cummerbunds or dress suits with ladies in colourful saris and evening dresses. At the sit-down dinner around the teak dance floor, they were serenaded by Ken Mac and his band…Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah requested Ken Mac to play So Deep Is the Night because on that Chopin tune. Ruttie had taken Jinnah’s consent for marriage in Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel, ballroom, at her birthday party, on February 20, 1918. Later the Quaid requested the orchestra for Paul Robson’s The End, which, as a courtesy to the Quaid, was sung in the tenor voice by the great Ken Mac himself, for it was known that the founder used to hum the words of The End on Thursday afternoons in Bombay that he devoted to visit the grave of his wife Ruttie, in the Khoja Shiite Isna’asheri cemetery of Bombay. The finale of the evening was given to the music ‘Happy Birthday Dina’ because the Quaid had chosen the Independence Day of Pakistan on the birthday of his only daughter Dina, whom he had left behind in Bombay, with her two children Nusli and Diana.” Clearly, the father of the nation did not feel obligated by any religious observance while listening to Ken Mac’s band — and to be sure there were many toasts in his honour on that night of 28th Ramzan. Whether he prayed tahajud later that night or rose early next morning for sehri is unknown. The time has come for the people of Pakistan and the government to realise that religious observance is a personal matter and not a policy one. It is time to bury General Ziaul Haq’s legacy with his remains at Faisal Mosque. The first step would be to scrap his illegal ordinances given cover by the eighth amendment. The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com