The Caravan — February 2018

54 THE CARAVAN

bearing the cross · reportage

In her book The Christians of Pakistan: The

Passion of John Joseph, the anthropologist Linda

Walbridge explores in great detail the bishop’s

life and his activism in the face of opposition from

Christian religious institutions in Pakistan, which

had stressed an apolitical engagement with their

parishes since Partition.

According to the book, the bishop had been the

face of several movements in the 1980s under the

Zia-ul-Haq government, and in the 1990s under

successive Pakistan Muslim League and Pakistan

Peoples Party governments. In 1992, when the

government proposed that every citizen’s iden-

tity card indicate their religion, the proposal was

rejected outright by all religious minorities, with

the Shia community opposing it most vociferously.

Joseph decided to go on a week-long hunger strike

in the centre of Faisalabad, during which he was

constantly surrounded by Christians from various

denominations, singing psalms. The protest sent

the government a clear message that minorities

would not stay passive in the face of discrimina-

tory laws, and the proposal was eventually with-

drawn. This move earned Joseph praise from all

religious minorities, and the slogan “Bishop John

zindabad” was shouted in protests organised by

Shias.

Walbridge also described the bishop’s work

among residents of kachchi abadis, or shanty-

towns, where he fought for their right to hous-

ing and worked towards building trust between

Christians and their Muslim neighbours. How-

ever, it was the issue of the blasphemy laws that

would thrust the bishop to the frontlines of a

struggle culminating in a horrendous tragedy.

On 6 May 1998, the bishop travelled to the city

of Sahiwal to deliver a sermon. Towards the end

of the prayer meeting, people gathered around

him to inquire about the fate of Ayub Masih, who

had been sentenced to death for committing blas-

phemy by the Sahiwal district court a week earlier.

Joseph told them that he had managed to file an

appeal in the Lahore High Court but did not think

the lawyer could get Masih off.

According to the eyewitness account of Patras

Masih, the bishop’s driver, Joseph announced to

the congregation that if there was no bloodshed,

if there was no sacrifice, the black law would

never be repealed. A few hours later, Joseph asked

Masih to drive him to the courthouse where Ayub

had been sentenced to death. Joseph got out of the

car, and, standing in front of the court building,

shot himself in the head.

On 7 May 1998, a sea of mourners gathered

in the compound of St Thomas High School in

Khushpur. News of the bishop’s suicide had trav-

elled and, overnight, thousands of Christians from

all over the country had made their way to the vil-

lage. The school compound was the only space big

enough to accommodate that many people. It was

the tenth day of Muharram, a day of mourning for

Shias—but that day, the Christians of Khushpur,

too, carried out a traditional mourning procession,

some even flagellating themselves as they went.

Elderly residents of Khushpur tut-tutted recall-

ing the spectacle, emphasising that mourning by

flagellation finds no place in their religion, but

conceded that they, too, had been part of the pro-

cession—their sorrow was too great.

Young volunteers, most of them CLF members,

tried to maintain order amid the thousands of

mourners, and security personnel pushed through

the crowd to make way for the coffin being carried

to the bishop’s house, from where the funeral pro-

cession would head towards the graveyard. Pastor

Sadiq from Multan, who was then a deacon at a

Pentecostal church, had arrived in Khushpur with

prominent members of his church and a Christian

member of the provincial assembly from south

Punjab. “There was an argument at his funeral,”

Sadiq told me. “The residents of Khushpur wanted

to bury his body there because it was his native

village. Some people from Faisalabad, however,

demanded that he be buried in the city, amid loud

protest from the church and diocese.”

The young pastor and a companion climbed

onto the rim of a well in the midst of the school

compound to photograph the funeral procession.

Sadiq recalled that as the crowd parted to make

right: Protestors
hold a candlelit
vigil after the 2011
assassination of
Shahbaz Bhatti,
Pakistan’s minister
of minorities.

opposite page:
Bishop John Joseph
was the face of
several minorities’-
rights movement
in Pakistan in the
1980s.

mohsin raza / reuters