The Meaning of Religious Freedom: From Ireland and India to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

Nelson, Matthew J.

Abstract

This chapter examines the political circumstances that transformed the meaning of constitutional provisions protecting a right to religious freedom (“subject to . . . public order”) as they migrated from anti-colonial Ireland, via postcolonial India, to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Even as constitutional texts guaranteeing a fundamental right to peaceful religious practice were imported, almost verbatim, into Pakistan, political, legal, and conceptual modulations ensured that certain forms of peaceful religious practice were recast as a source of religious “provocation” posing a threat to “public order.” This chapter shows how, far from protecting religious freedom, a refashioning of imported constitutional clauses via references to public order underpinned the formal restriction of an otherwise explicit right.

Citation

Nelson, M. J. (2021). The Meaning of Religious Freedom: From Ireland and India to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In K. Barkey, S. Kaviraj, & V. Naresh (Eds.), Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism in India, Pakistan, and Turkey. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197530016.001.0001

• Publication Date: Sep 30, 2021
• Deposit Date: May 13, 2018
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Book Title: Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism in India, Pakistan, and Turkey
• ISBN: 9780197530016
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197530016.001.0001