By Imran
Kureshi
February 17, 2015
After the capital shifted to Islamabad and, over the
years, there was an influx of Punjabis and Pathans into all levels of
institutions, especially the lower levels, the Mohajirs found that the Islamic
national discourse was not serving to maintain their position. Also, after the
MQM was formed, it found that its politicians had electorates. Altaf Hussain is
an advocate of the Mohajir perspective. Thus now (always being one step ahead
of the Punjabis), they have adopted a secular discourse. Furthermore, they have
wilfully left the mainstream but retained their foothold in the power structure
and relationship with the army. Also, despite their brinkmanship and bargaining
tactics with the PPP, they still have some sort of equation of a tacit
personalised rapport between Mr Zardari and Mr Altaf.
Moreover, up to the East Pakistan debacle, the army
was secular. Mr Bhutto was a case of someone outside the mainstream gaining
control of the power structure; thus he faced a lot of criticism and was
executed for his temerity. Then came Ziaul Haq with his Islamisation of the
country and army. Zia’s policies had numerous long-term detrimental effects
like supporting the mujahideen that promoted the Kalashnikov culture and drug
trafficking, which later evolved into the Taliban, the start of terrorism,
sectarianism and violent student unions, and the ISI manipulating politics. All
of this resulted in sham democracy, political injustices and declining
professionalism in the army. Islamisation gave a further evangelist mission to
the Islamic discourse.
At this juncture it is important to mention the role
of Islamic parties through partition till today. Being out of tune with modern
trends and the times (which is both their strong point and their weak one) they
took the wrong side before partition. To their credit it must be said that
they, especially the Ahrars, actively canvassed and made efforts to stop the
bloodshed that erupted in Punjab after partition, which conversely Muslim
League politicians (except Liaquat Ali, Mian Iftikharuddin and a very few
others), along with lower level government officials were cruelly promoting.
Reciprocal atrocities were also being committed on the other side by the Sikh
Nawabs, Patels, Akalis and, to a lesser degree, Hindu extremist parties.
However, despite the setback religious parties received with partition, because
of the religious aspect of the new national discourse, they were able to
establish a nook for themselves in the population again.
They took their cue from Allama Mashriqi and the
Khaksars and took over his politics after him. Allama Mashriqi was the pioneer
of the concepts of using tribal mujahideen to fight a proxy war, encouraging
uprisings in Indian-held Kashmir, arranging a long march and staging dharnas
(sit-ins), and practically all the tactics our Islamic parties have employed
thereafter. During this period these religious parties have served to keep the
concept of Islam in the national discourse, pristine and free of any western
associations. Also they have spread obscurantist thinking and anti-west
prejudices. By this method they have always built a core of avid, active
supporters. This factor, aided by the students from their seminaries and the
charitable institutions they control, has enabled them to wield street power
though not electoral power. They reached an apex of effectiveness in the
movement to overthrow Bhutto and then they propagated a more definite religious
discourse (Nizam-e-Mustafa), but they were co-opted by Ziaul Haq, who tried to
shortcircuit the rational democratic discourse, which resulted in this
discourse becoming misdirected with institutional efforts to manipulate it for
partisan ends. The attitudes thus engendered continue to foster a mentality out
of tune with the modern age.
Whereas certain interests tried to continue to
maintain this direction for the national democratic discourse, the army was
conscious of the institutional damage it was suffering and loss of
professionalism. Three Chiefs of Army Staff (COASs) after Aslam Beg — Generals
Janjua, Kakar and Karamat — tried to divest the army of too deep an involvement
in politics and obscurantism. Eventually, the army has steered itself back to
balanced professionalism and has dissociated itself almost entirely from politics
and unnecessary evangelical ascriptions. With good economic and social points
and bad political and ethical points, General Musharraf defined moderate Islam
and perhaps reluctantly realigned the rational democratic discourse. During his
tenure, General Kayani assiduously refused to depose the Zardari government,
though on three occasions mainstream lobbies pressurised him to do so: the
minus one formula, after the floods and lastly the ridiculous Memogate affair.
Thus, in effect, with regards to the problem of the
Taliban and terrorism, the army and politicians have reversed positions. The
army that had initially created the Taliban and protected them, thereafter
progressively realised the limitations and the dreadful threat that developed
from these earlier policies of theirs and slowly moved towards trying to
counteract them. The mainstream political parties kowtow to a popular
simplistic belief to support anything that claims to be religious (and the more
secular parties also are hesitant to oppose this tendency without some definite
reason, except the MQM). Thus the mainstream political parties (PML-N, PTI and
some religious parties) continue to espouse religious slogans tacitly favouring
terrorism and non-state actors (there is also financial and other forms of
support). The true state of affairs became clear when the army conducted an
eminently successful anti-terrorist campaign in Swat that was hailed by the
people, which just goes to show how misleading the religious propaganda of the
mainstream parties was. Our tendency for hypocrisy and a religious blind spot
are probably our greatest handicaps and, unfortunately, the mainstream
political structure continues to actively propagate negative aspects of the
religious discourse on the one hand and behave as if they were the champions of
restoring law and order on the other.
Genuine power, gas and other manufactured crises
gripped the five years of the PPP government and its secular allies. Now, with
a much less intrusive role by the army as an institution, the new mainstream
power structure has played on the increasing unpopularity of the more secular
parties because of the crisis to divest itself of them and try to once more get
its theories on strategic depth, military assets, proxy wars and Islamic militancy
into order. Saudi influence increased again. Then came the most abysmally
rigged elections, umpired by the Taliban, to prevent the more secular parties
from campaigning or setting up any election structure. This was pre-election
rigging, which no one can gainsay. Thereafter, with the PPP relegated to Sindh,
the two mainstream parties (PML-N, PTI) repeatedly acted as apologists for the
Taliban, negotiated with them and tried to delay army action against them for
as long as possible. Of course, when the army began their operation in
Waziristan, these parties once again quickly became steadfast supporters of the
army action. Sadly, it took all too many tragic terrorist attacks and finally
the Peshawar school attack to finally bring about universal condemnation of
terrorism and the Taliban.
(To be continued)
Imran Kureshi is a freelance columnist
Source:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/17-Feb-2015/islam-and-the-politics-of-pakistan-ii
URL of Part 1: http://newageislam.com/islam-and-politics/imran-kureshi/islam-and-the-politics-of-pakistan-—-part-i/d/101596
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/islam-politics-pakistan-—-part-ii/d/101612