Daily Times

Looking at the sorry state of affairs in Pakistan and especially at the domestic level, one wonders as to whose country this is anyway. Sectarian slayers with their outfits and their front religious parties, pressure groups, and media mouthpieces seem to be operating without much hindrance; while law abiding innocent citizens are left bewildered by the state. Take the case of two young students Aitzaz Hassan and Mashal Khan and the kind of dilemma their families have been going through.

As if the killing of Aitzaz, Mashal and many like them wasn’t enough to shake the state, we were further shocked to see the families of these two departed souls appealing to the authorities for protection. Aitzaz’s family approached the police in April for protection when they received a threatening letter from the TTP. The family also wrote to the Inspector General of the KP Police and to the Federal Minister of Interior. But to virtually no avail.

There is a similar story for Mashal’s family who following threats appeared on the media with appeals for protection — especially for Mashal’s sisters who are still pursuing their studies.

It is such a shame to see Mashal and Aitzaz’s families appealing to the very state that failed these innocent young lads because it could not exercise its writ in the first place and is still in a deep slumber, while Mashal and Aitzaz’s families continue to be threatened by sectarian outfits.

However, the provision of a police guard or the setting up of a picket at their houses is not a sustainable solution since the state cannot provide pickets or police guards to every vulnerable family.

The issue of sectarian radicalization, terrorist groups and consequent violent terrorism isn’t one of policing or of simple law and order, but of national security. We have a National Internal Security Policy (NISP) since 2014 which touches the right chords such as supporting pluralism and freedom but is in essence — defunct.

Apparently, the government formed the NISP only to pacify its critics. While the policy recognises that terrorist networks lurk in the shadow and thrive on a strategy of invisibility and ambiguity, and that they operate in an ideologically motivated network to embroil the state on physical, psychological and ideological fronts, these shadows and ideological fountains have continued to operate with impunity. How else could these bigots have threatened these two families or have carried out the bloodbath which left so many dead in Quetta and Parachinar?

It is such a shame to see Mashal and Aitzaz’s families appealing to the very state that failed these innocent young lads because it could not exercise its writ in the first place. Moreover, the state is still in a deep slumber while Mashal and Aitzaz’s families continue to be threatened by sectarian outfits

This state of affairs is hardly surprising considering the government’s ambivalence towards sectarian hatred. We see the Prime Minster participating in festivals of minorities and assuring them of their rights as equal citizens. This is contrasted by the Federal Interior Minister’s frequent acts of appeasement and apologia for sectarian groups; he also has a record of regularly wailing over the deaths of TTP leaders.

More often, the Federal Interior Minister is seen meeting the leaders of sectarian organizations and their front-men, while I have yet to see him meeting the bereaved families of Aitzaz and Mashal, let alone members of our civil society and ethnic and religious minority groups. Certainly, sectarian minorities, rights groups, and the common citizen believe that perhaps they don’t belong here or are, at best, lesser mortals and expendables.

Unless our national security vision is freed from theological undertones and replaced by a concern for the socio-economic wellbeing of commoners, we cannot be on the path to peace and prosperity.

But then, many say that there are so many beneficiaries of a conflict economy and of keeping Pakistan a security state that it might not happen anytime soon. If this is the scenario, millions of Pakistanis stuck in poverty have no chance of a dignified life — at least for the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, optimism demands that the state for its own sake will have to come forward to stand with the innocent people and redefine the role of religion and clergy for its people.

It is paramount to a nation state such as Pakistan that clerics who are so zealously committed to their respective sectarian worldview do not define terms of reference for the state. For if we leave it to the clerics, they will do what the Taliban did in Afghanistan and what the TTP’s de facto sway showed us in Malakand.

If one finds these two instances blurred in the distant past, an incident of clerics in an Islamabad mosque-thrashing a TV news crew on suspicion of drinking water last week in Ramazan should serve as an idea.

The writer is a sociologist with interest in politics and history. He’s accessible on Twitter: @ZulfiRao1

Published in Daily Times, June 29th, 2017.