Daily Times

On the fateful day of September 11, 2001, as airplanes crashed into the twin towers in New York, little did people know in Pakistan, especially those living in towns bordering Afghanistan, that their lives and destinies would change forever. Pakistan joined the War on Terror after the then American president, George W Bush, declared that there was on room for neutrality and that “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.” In the hindsight, if one attempts to evaluate the decision of the Pakistan government to become an ally of the USA, a frightening reality stares back with full force: participation in the war has pushed the country into the bottom pit of violence and destruction. According to the South Asia Terrorism portal, a total of 3,257 people, including security forces and civilians, have been killed in terrorist attacks this year.

Yet, it is naïve to assume, as is commonly peddled by many mainstream political parties, that Pakistan’s involvement in the war on terror has unleashed militant activities in the country. Their argument goes like this: the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 drove Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda militants into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and cemented their alliance with the local militant outfits, leading to the creation of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is mainly held responsible for waging war against the state of Pakistan. Additionally, drone strikes of the USA inside the territory of Pakistan have spurred sentiments against both the armed forces of the USA and Pakistan, and, as a result, people of FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) have been radicalised.

However, to consider the raging militancy in Pakistan, which has so far consumed lives of 45,000 to 50,000 people, as a byproduct of the war on extremism, is overt simplification of a complex phenomenon. The roots of the TTP, battling the armed forces of Pakistan in the tribal regions and parts of KP, are deeply entwined with the slide of Pakistani society into religiosity in the decades of 1970s and 1980s. Further, the pursuit of security policies, that is, the use of non-state actors by the security establishment as war proxies to balance asymmetrical conventional capabilities between India and Pakistan, and the active support extended to the Afghan Taliban, in the 1990s, to gain strategic depth in Afghanistan, have landed the country in hot waters.

In a series of three articles, I will briefly outline the growth trajectory of Pakistan towards religious bigotry that nurtured conditions for spread of militancy, and also suggest some measures to fight back militancy and counter the popular-cum-Jihadi narrative on the war against militancy.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, had a modernist vision and progressive ideas about the newly created state. He declared in the address to the Constituent Assembly, famously known as August 11 speech: “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”

However, Jinnah passed away a year after the birth of Pakistan, and could not get a chance to implement his pluralistic vision constitutionally as well as politically. That said, the other leaders of the Muslim League lacked the popular legitimacy as well as the will of Jinnah to put the country on the path of an inclusive, participatory democracy. As the politicians were quibbling over the extent of executive authority and federal powers, leaders of religious political parties, such as that of Majlis-e-Ahrar, who had opposed the idea of a separate Muslim state, began an agitation against the Qadianis in 1949 to gain political space, which resulted in widespread disturbances, leading to imposition of martial law in Lahore in 1953. Majlis-e-Ahrar was not the only party that took part in the agitation, but had also been joined in the protest by an alliance of religious parties called the Majlis-e-Amal.

The Munir Commission, a judicial commission appointed to hold an inquiry into the Lahore disturbances, quoted Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, then governor of Punjab, regarding the activities of the Majlis-e-Ahrar in the report:” It is believed and not without justification, that the conferences held by Ahrar under the garb of khatm-e-nubuwwat are really meant to farther their political end. The object is to gain popularity amongst Muslim masses who are naturally averse to Ahrar on account of their pre-partition activities.”

Suffice is to say that religious parties were wriggling for political space by preaching an exclusionist ideology, centering on denominational differences, which in the coming decades would solidify sectarian identities in the country: Shia, Sunni, Ahmedi, Deobandi and Brailvi. In addition, these religious parties were not operating in isolation but their protest tactics — tableegh (preach) conferences, inflammatory speeches, marches — harked back to the pre-partition days. They also utilised the already available intellectual tools to build up momentum against the Qadianis; the leaders of the Ahrar cited a pamphlet Ash-shahab, penned by a Deobandi cleric, Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, in the 1920s, which justified the killing of Qadianis on the charge of apostasy.

As the religious parties were increasing their political presence, the state of Pakistan, ravaged by problems accompanying the partition, and reeling from war with India on the disputed territory of Kashmir, was gradually picking the trajectory for a garrison state. There was an air of paranoia, insecurity in the country, and the parties, associations and individuals were imprisoned for acts, deemed prejudicial to state, which, in some instances, consisted of speaking against the partition or shenanigans of politicians. Jogindar Nath Mandal, a Bengali scheduled caste Hindu, and the first president of the Constituent, wrote in his resignation letter to the prime minister of Pakistan in 1950:

“And what about the Muslims who are outside the charmed circle of the League rulers and their corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy? There is hardly anything called civil liberty in Pakistan. A large number of erstwhile League leaders of the Northwest and also of the Eastern belt of Pakistan are in detention without trial. Mr Suhrawardy, to whom is due in a large measure the League’s triumph in Bengal, is for practical purpose a Pakistani prisoner, who has to move under permit and open his lips under orders. Mr Fazlul Haq, that dearly loved grand old man of Bengal, who was the author of that now famous Lahore Resolution, is ploughing his lonely furrow in the precincts of the Dacca High Court of Judicature, and the so called Islamic planning is as ruthless as it is complete.”

(To be continued)

The writer is a public policy practitioner based in Lahore