Terrorism has ‘reared again,’ there is a general unease about inaction by the army and social media is trending with despairing tweets urging the former army Chief General Raheel Sharif to return to nip the violent monster. The inference is obvious, that is, the resurgence in violence has a nexus with the change in army’s command, implying possibly that the new army chief — General Qamar Javed Bajwa — is less assertive. The reality is howevercomplex and different.
Ever since Pakistan’s participation in the so called war on terror, the country has solely relied on a warfare approach to deal with terrorism. Operation Zarb-e-Azbwhich was initiated in June 2014 has been the last major military operation in the country’s counter terrorism campaign since 2003. Through these encounters, military was able to turn the tide, and seemingly restored calm, evident from dramatic decrease in the incidence of violence since 2015. During this while, two important strategic documents were also evolved — National Internal Security Policy (NISP), and the National Action Plan (NAP), the latter following massacre of school children at Peshawar in December 2014. The former was a continuation of a prior effort legislating the establishment of NACTA. Both of these articulations were legitimatsed by the country’s legislatives. NAP was an extra-parliament development.
All of it sounded cozy to the citizenry, and especially so when the military was ‘winning.’ If that were the case, the conditions that were created by Zarb-e-Azb under the command of General Sharif should have persisted. Why then the bloodletting should have resurfaced in the first place and with remarkable intensity, and why there is the wider perception about the army’s conceding its predominant role in the hitherto full-blown prosecution of national counter terrorism effort. Two aspects warrant attention; first, reduction in violence, which was misconstrued as a victory, is historically not a reliable indicator of waning of terrorism, leave alone decimation of perpetrator groups. Thus an uninformed sense of security was created, which resulted in the relaxing of guards specifically in the civil sphere. Secondly, the objectivity would reveal that the army is continually committed, as it was previously, and its lead role in supporting intelligence based operations throughout the country, within its capacity, too has not altered in direction and scale.
The more expanded role of civilian government and the bureaucracy has dismally failed to creatively and perpetually engage with the remaining and increasingly broader segment of the action spectrum entailing an array of political, legal, religious, cultural and socioeconomic measures to exploit the gains in order to contain the spate of violent extremism and prevention of incubation spaces to terrorists. More importantly, the pervasive mindset embedded in social structures and competing doctrinal landscapes in Pakistan, which is susceptible to inimical ideologies, has yet not been targeted.
For instance, the statecraft is entirely wanting in the use of diplomacy for forging international cooperation to further the country’s stability. The role of foreign office is nigh absent e.g., in developing mutually inclusive relationship with Afghanistan for joint operations else in formalizing parameters for hot pursuits, beyond the artillery shoots, which is direly warranted in the prevailing conditions. The military being characteristically a coercive instrument, does not possess the diplomatic acumen to materialize aspects of foreign policy. The public diplomacy likewise required articulation of a coherent, plausible and professionally devised narrative to challenge the militants’ radicalizing appeals, that has not only happened but more worrisomely the crucial significance of understanding as well as developing a home grown expertise drawing upon scientific knowledge to address the menacing inspiration has not even taken root. In fact, the extremists’ clout was aided by the government to further encroach upon public space, when the sectarian and terror groups were refused to be compared, with the former being declared by one of the key ministers as non-terrorist.
Furthermore, the NAP which was more of a checklist than a wholesome strategy has gradually worn down more so due to realpolitik undermining it. Besides, it should have been considered a temporary measure, which it was given its out-of-parliament profile; to the contrary, it has been perceived as the panacea for all ills besetting Pakistan. There was and has not been a sense of urgency among political elites to address the root causes of terrorism, which is essentially a long-term commitment. Justice Isa Commission report was a timely and much needed intervention. However, instead of inspiring reflection and self-correction, the Inquiry Report was subjected to aggressive charges by the government ministers, whose policy and cerebral inadequacies it has highlighted.
The basic question is can we liquidate and diminish terrorism and extremism from Pakistan. Indeed, we can bring the rebel violence to under acceptable levels, because it is unlikely to subside any time soon. Nevertheless, the militaries are not designed to deal with such ‘disease’ which is wholly a social phenomenon, and requires addressal in the public arena. A starting point should be recourse to NISP, which despite some of its snags, can provide a guiding framework to develop a comprehensive counter terrorism strategy based more broadly on dealing with non-military aspects of the threat. It implies broadening the existing response approaches i.e., by shifting away from purely military injunctions to a largely civil led law enforcement articulation, with ‘prevention’ becoming a heightened priority through the application of non-lethal soft power innovations. Along the path, a host of measures — argumentation, engagement, persuasion, counter/de-radicalisation, development, emancipation etc — will need to be instituted through NACTA coupled with the cooption of other ministries including the civil society, academia, clergy, intellectuals, poets, activists, media, experts and entertainment industry.
The political leadership should come forward to reclaim its writ though a wholesome and result oriented governance commitment among other things, to arrest violent persuasions in the society while retaining the military as an instrument of last resort only. In any way, reactive response to acts of terrorism is transitory and hence unlikely to yield any meaningful results.
The writer teaches at the University of Management and Technology, Lahore and can be contacted at [email protected]