Reckoning with Risk, Contesting Constraint: Osman Haneef’s Blasphemy and the Parameters of Secular Criticism

The 2011 assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, following his call for reform of blasphemy laws, indicates the level of constraint faced by critics of Pakistan’s religious offence regulations. Taseer, who was criticised by mainstream media for being “pro-Western” and labelled a blasphemer by radical Islamic religious groups, was seen by his supporters as a patriotic individual who appreciated the arts. However, his efforts to reshape the discourse within a broader context of enlightenment and national advancement may have worsened the division between different groups. Osman Haneef’s legal thriller, Blasphemy, invokes Taseer as a “fearless” reference point as it interrogates constraints imposed by blasphemy laws on Pakistani citizens. Conscious of the demerits of Eurocentric critiques of religious regulation in Muslim South Asia, yet also of the need for “radical” secular approaches, this chapter asks what such anglophone novels reveal about the discursive modes through which protest against the manipulation of religious rules and anti-minority discrimination may be articulated.