Daily Times

Pakistan is passing through as perilous phase — a phase that can be ended quickly through decisive action, but if allowed to prolong, it could bring the entire edifice tumbling down. From being just a fear, this has gradually grown to assume the proportions of a foreboding.

Nothing is going right, not because nothing can go right, but because nothing is meant to go right.

As one gets inexorably sucked into the putrid juices of religiosity so sickeningly flowing through every vein in the country, one is reminded of the prophetic words of Chandra Chattopadhyay, the leader of the opposition in the first constituent assembly of Pakistan, who said while opposing the adoption of the Objectives Resolution: “I say, give up this division of the people into Muslims and non-Muslims and let us call ourselves one nation. Let us call ourselves one people — people of Pakistan”.

He begged not be shorn of his honour: “Let us form ourselves as members of one nation. Let us eliminate the complexes of majority and minority… I do not consider myself as a member of the minority community. I consider myself as one of seventy million Pakistanis. Let me have the honour to retain that privilege”.

A state can survive and prosper only if it is an equitable entity meting out equal treatment to all its citizens without any discrimination

When people were robbed of that privilege to call themselves Pakistanis like others, equal among equals, the rest was only a matter of time. The apparel of religion that the state was forced to wear on that tragic day and the fake fabrication of unity that was hoisted was bound to unravel with time.

Taking the state hostage by a few hundred religious fanatics is just one manifestation of the gruesome aliment that Pakistan has been suffering from, apparently without a clue how to untangle itself from the deepening tentacles of the hydra that was included as preamble to Pakistan’s Constitution. The seeds of inequity, inequality and discord that were sown then are now towering trees wearing everyone down under their harrowing and lengthening shadows.

The fight in Pakistan is no longer between the left-of-centre and the right-of-centre, or the liberal and the conservative. The fight now is between who is more militant among the comity of militants — a title which every citizen of the state has been forced to wear for survival.

What we have witnessed on the streets of Islamabad and Rawalpindi is the direct offshoot of an internecine religious war. It is a battle for turf between the Barelvi and Deobandi sects within Islam.

Traditionally, the Barelvi faction, the claimants to the heritage of the Farangi Mahal Scholarship and Imam Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi, has represented the relatively inclusionary worldview in the Muslim social life, and the Deobandi the exclusionary one. With financial and other largesse from the Saudis going into setting up a horde of seminaries throughout the country, the Deobandis have consolidated their position within the religious divide. This threatened the relevance of the Barelvi sect and a need arose for re-branding themselves as the more militant of the militant brands. Thus, they chose the extremist Labaik Ya Rasool Allah (LYRA) umbrella for putting themselves in contention for gaining more relevance.

They engaged in this public battle to reclaim lost territory using emotional and religious tools including eulogising murderer Qadri and bashing the Ahmedis. It has been painful to see them celebrating Mohammad, PBUH, in the month of his birth, by stooping to the use of choice expletives.

Getting them there has been the culmination of a sequence of blunders on the part of the sitting government. A small motley crowd of about three-hundred people were allowed the luxury of travelling on G. T. Road for a good five days without any let or hindrance. Arriving in Rawalpindi, they were allowed to stage their sit-in at Faizabad — the most critical of intersections connecting Rawalpindi with Islamabad. As the citizens of the twin cities faced untold hardships, the agitators were allowed to remain there as a trail of other militants continued joining them from the adjoining seminaries and mosques. Their phones kept functioning and their supply lines remained open.

The sham and shame operation conducted to displace the militants blocking the twin cities has taken dereliction to a different level. Essentially, the ruling elite’s operatives, by default or connivance, were the original instigators for the sit-in simply because they are the established overarching criminal mafia and these other manifestations are only splinter groups separating from the main hulk.

It was a sham operation because the government did not want to undertake it in the first place. All it was interested in doing was to create a calculated level of chaos in the country and try to pin the blame on the military which it has been consistently blaming as being the power behind the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif.

It was also a shame operation because the manner in which it was conducted was amateurish beyond description. It appeared to be an extremely disorganised and lackadaisical effort which was undertaken without any extensive planning for weighing in strengths and weaknesses on ground and ascertaining the level of preparedness and motivation on the part of the agitators.

As expected, the agreement finally came on the terms and conditions of the militants. But, this ominous capitulation is not the end. In failing to establish the writ of the state, immeasurable ground has been ceded to the militants who will, henceforth, be operating from a pedestal of unprecedented ascendance, heaping further scorn on the writ of the state, if ever there was any!

We are past the stage of feeding antibiotics to the state that is in need for an extensive surgical procedure to rid it of the huge ailments that it has carried ever since its appearance on the map of the world. We can’t do with tending to symptoms alone. We have to remove the causes that are spreading the malaise, and that necessitates going back to the working board and making a list. Nothing can be left out, not even the Objectives Resolution and its many tributaries including the Blasphemy Law, the Hadood Ordinance, the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance, Evidence Act 1984, Shariat Act 1991 and the 8th Constitutional Amendment.

A state can survive and prosper only if it is an equitable entity meting out equal treatment to all its citizens without any discrimination. Not being such a state, Pakistan has tottered from one crisis to the next, becoming increasingly weaker along the way. It is now on the brink when a mere few hundred people can hold it hostage irremediably.

It is time to take a step back and think hard, but do I see the one who will carry the burden of sagacity and tread this path of wisdom? Pity the nation!

The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan

Published in Daily Times, November 28^th 2017.