It is often cited that the serene landscape of Malakand and Swat was freed from the despotic rule of the so-called Taliban under Sufi Mohammad and Mullah (Radio) Fazlullah’s Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariati Mohammadi (TNSM) almost five years ago. The stark reality is that the region is still under duress from the reactionary socio-cultural onslaught but this time it is of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) variety. For the filthy rich obscurantist clergy of the JI, it has become a cardinal sin to challenge capitalist/feudal subjugation. This appalling social despotism was exposed when a brilliant and handsome youth Sajid Alam died tragically in a road accident. Sajid was just 23 years old and a recent graduate of electronic engineering from Sarhad University Peshawar.
Sajid was the inhabitant of a region that not only lacked a neurological unit but even a decent hospital. He suffered brain injuries and had to be taken to a private hospital in Peshawar for treatment. Sajid’s impoverished family had no choice but to seek support from their relatives and Sajid’s comrades who contributed generously to pay the exorbitant costs of a private hospital. He eventually succumbed to his fatal injuries after five days. Sajid’s death exposes the deterioration of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the so-called sea change and development in the province by Imran Khan’s coalition regime of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and the JI. As if Sajid’s death was not bad enough for his family, the fundamentalists led by the local JI bosses and backed by a local feudal family, injected venomous poison and unleashed a campaign against his ideology, declaring him an infidel and an apostate. There were even designs to sabotage and disrupt his funeral, but fortunately that did not materialise.
Sajid belonged to a village in the same vicinity where the TNSM had its headquarters when the Taliban dominated this region from 2008 to 2009. It was from here that Mullah Fazlullah started his notorious radio station that issued fatwas against individuals and groups that had progressive and revolutionary ideas. One of their main targets was Sajid’s comrade Ghufran Ahad, the former elected mayor of Malakand. These revolutionaries not only openly defied Mullah Radio but also succeeded in building a movement in Malakand to fight fundamentalism and imperialist stooges. They had set up relief and rehabilitation camps for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Swat and other areas during the military operation, withstood their ground and defied the dangers to their lives while other leaders of the so-called secular and democratic parties fled the region.
Sajid was a committed revolutionary socialist and had studied Marxism from a very early age. While he was studying in Peshawar, he organised and educated the youth and workers on the basic causes of the prevailing economic crisis, Marxist philosophy and revolutionary politics. Apart from revolutionary work in Peshawar, Sajid also continued to play this role in Malakand during his vacations. After completing his studies he was in the forefront of protests, rallies and campaigns for the rights of workers, peasants, women, students and the unemployed in Malakand. The religious bigots and the local JI leadership went to great lengths to oppose Sajid’s activities in schools and colleges, including calling him and his socialist comrades infidels and sprouting the venom of sectarian and religious hatred against them. On October 20, 2014, the main leader of JI in Malakand, Mullah Mohammad Ismail, had declared in a written fatwa: “Anyone who talked about socialism would be a kafir (infidel).”
At his death, Sajid’s family and comrades paid the most befitting honour by organising a commemorative meeting in his village. People came from different parts of the country to pay tribute. Speaking at the occasion, his primary school teacher Muhammad Sabir said, “Sajid was a serious young boy who had a deep interest in literature and poetry, and hated exploitation and suffering in society. He had a deep aversion against this system even at a very tender age.”
This commemorative meeting infuriated the mullahs and they mobilised about 400 hundred vigilantes flaunting weapons in a threatening manner, and from their pulpits they blared virulent sermons. In reality, it was the desperation of the JI exuding from their dwindling base due to poor governance, rampant corruption, burgeoning poverty and crime in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In their frustration they are trying to fabricate and whip up such reactionary ploys of creating religious and sectarian conflicts to distract the masses.
The JI, darling of US imperialism and its Islamic fundamentalist vanguard in the mid-20th century, is now a mere shadow of its past self and has been eclipsed by more lethal and barbarous fundamentalist terrorist groups as a result of the CIA’s dollar jihad in the 1980s. The JI’s deceptive ambivalence towards fundamentalist terrorism reflects the party’s torn soul where it has been commercialised and its idealism has been diluted with the perks of power and capital. Its leadership is worried about being outflanked by other bestial terrorists and losing their own youth to them. The JI leadership has never condemned Islamic terrorism and has maintained covert links with several of these groups. The JI was responsible for the Talibanisation in Swat and Malakand.
Anatol Lieven, in his book Pakistan: A Hard Country, reveals, “The expansion of TNSM power was made possible by the presence of the MMA Islamist government in Peshawar, which strongly discouraged tough action against them, and in particular the MMA-appointed commissioner of Malakand division, who is widely accused of having been a Taliban sympathiser. He was arrested in May 2009 for abetting the rebellion, though some officials have told me that he was made a scapegoat and that he was simply implementing government policy and was released again in October 2009.” The JI was again the main party in the NWFP government under the Musharraf regime. The terrorists of the TNSM are now sheltering and operating under the political posturing of the JI.
Islamic fundamentalists had vowed to attack Sajid Alam’s comrades and families after the Friday congregation on October 24. They had distributed a slanderous pamphlet against Marxists to instigate violence. However, on the fateful day, they could not muster enough courage and public support to carry out their sordid threats. The comrades had mobilised enough mass support to transform the equilibrium almost overnight. To justify its disgraceful and cowardly retreat, the JI appointed a ferocious feudal aristocrat as the chairman of the Islamic Ideological Committee to look into the ‘affair’. This landed aristocracy, composed of British stooges, had amassed huge wealth and land by grabbing land, sheep and cattle from the poor peasants. The only difference now is that the Pakistani and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regimes have become their patrons along with the state or black capital-sponsored Islamic fundamentalists.
The threats to the lives of Marxists and their families are serious. The leaders of the so-called anti-fundamentalist and secular PPP and ANP betrayed comrades in the struggle against this menace at this crucial juncture. The maligning campaign by these Islamic fanatics continues unabated. In spite of the dangers, these revolutionaries have vowed to fight to the finish, with the support of the toilers and the youth from the region and far beyond.
The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at [email protected]