Hosseini, A Mighty Heart and Beyond

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I'm posting this from a different city, and a good 4 days after I posted part-1. The primary motivation remains the same: the sheer power of his writings.
There is however an additional impetus, in the same direction, in the form of A Mighty Heart which I happened to watch on HBO yesterday. The movie captures the sequence of events that describe the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Daniel Pearl, the journalist of the Wall Street Journal. The whole episode was so gruesome, mysteriously factless and haunting that I still remember seeing it over the pages of TOI years ago.
In a nutshell, here's what happens:
Daniel Pearl tries to meet religious leaders and is misguided into an appointment with a leader Gilani, who, (as investigations reveal much later) had never granted him one, which means Pearl had been tricked and trapped by some unknown parties.
Mariane Pearl (played by Angelina Jolie in the movie), wife of Daniel, who delivers a baby merely three months after Daniel was beheaded, an unbelieaveably calm girl of mixed race, describes Pearl as a man who was Jewish by birth, as one who'd never advertise his religion, but as one never denying it if confronted. This, she believes, could've made him more vulnerable in the eyes of his captors.
The investigation is so complex and confusing, (with suspects having multiple identities, missing links in the communication chain leading from Daniel Pearl to the leader Gilani) that the viewer realizes how terribly messy the whole situation in Pakistan really is. All men dress alike. Terrorists, policemen, investigators, common men, religious clerics. Everyone. So frikkin confusing. For you, me, the US, and anyone else interested/bold enough to try distinguishing between the lot. They all wear clothes characteristically Muslim.

No offense meant, but in one single sentence, here's my point:

Religious leaders must never be allowed to govern a nation or even as much as a valley in it.

The Swat Valley "peace" deal is a shocker. The Pak Government's attempts to distinguish between the Good Taliban (as they call it) from the Bad Taliban are such a pathetic eyewash that it is absurd, shocking, unfair and insane all at the same time.
When we talk of religion in such terms, I sometimes seriously wonder if we have completely forgotten the aspect of GOD in a religion. The close association of every religion with Him, the former merely being an illuminating path to attain the latter. Because the moment one remembers this, a number of questions arise.
Has any religion ever described norms for governing a large populace? Does any religion have anything remotely resembling (in principle or otherwise) a constitution that describes rights of an individual - social, economic, civil ? Does it identify the definitive rights of man as equality, libert,y fraternity, social justice and the most fundamental of them all - freedom? Does any religion even so much as treat all its followers on an equal footing - does it ever prescribe or define equality of all men in the eyes of God? On the contrary, every religion has some form or the other of sub-division: sub-sects, sub-castes, types, forms etc etc etc. The list is endless. My objective here is not to criticize religion, but to try, identify and understand its goal.
The purpose of religion was never to equalize men. It was (and still is, I trust) to teach us the best way to attain, understand and feel God. Although it does prescribe morality, ethics and a general heuristic model of acceptable behaviour at the most - these are never enforceable and binding upon anyone. This is exactly why religion is purely a matter of choice - because it tests one's own understanding of its teachings, which frankly might be quite complex for some and very simple(and beautiful) for some others. In short - every follower of a particular religion X will never understand it(and hence abide by its teachings) to the same extent. And that is why it can never be law. It has never been understood to the same level by all men.
Unlike a nicely put down constitution whose first declaration is that all men are equal in its eyes.

Be it in India or in Pakistan, religion can never be law. It is a non-enforceable guide that attempts to teach us something very complex : God. And we, the citizens of a nation, will learn it differentially - as a function of our ability/willingness to understand and appreciate them.

Muslim clerics cannot and must never try to rule a place. Their tools, they must not forget, are God, religion and faith. Which are not exactly what is required of an administrative Government. Radical Islamic groups can better utilize their energies in uplifting the people, in bettering their current standards of living and rescuing them from their impoverished states, which I am confident is a much, much more challenging task than what they pursue at the moment.