Khadim Hussain Rizvi And Politico-Religious Landscape Of Pakistan
By Hussain H Zaidi
December 5,
2020
Khadim
Hussain Rizvi, who recently passed away, had risen to prominence in a short
period on the politico-religious landscape of Pakistan. His reputation rested
on two things: the ability to agitate on the highly sensitive issue of
blasphemy so successfully as to bring the government on its knees; and speaking
with a sense of no-holds-barred and brutally stigmatizing anyone – including
the clergy – who dared to question his tactics.
Thus in
2017 and later in 2020, on both occasions in November, his party the
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) demonstrated its capability to throw life in
the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad into a tailspin. On both the
occasions, the party forced the government of the time to strike a deal on the
former’s terms.
As in the
case of most other religio-political leaders in Pakistan, Rizvi dominated his
organization so completely that his sudden demise has put its future under
question. Although the late leader has been succeeded by his son – in keeping
with the prevailing political norms – it remains to be seen whether the new TLP
chief will be as effective as his father was.
More important
than the TLP is the narrative that it espouses – though it must be admitted
that the party has been a cut above the rest in whipping up its followers’
sentiments to the point of frenzy – which will remain virile. Seen in a broader
context, the rise of the TLP is part of the ascendency of right-wing parties,
which has been the seminal political development taking place in recent years.
Right-wing
parties may be classified into two categories: One category comprises
religio-political outfits, such as the two factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam
(JUI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP), the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and now the
TLP. The last mentioned represents the Barelvi sub-sect, the largest Muslim
sub-sect in Pakistan. The party gets its inspiration from the execution of
Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer. The governor was
gunned down by one of his guards for being critical of the blasphemy law. In
the eye of a considerable section of society, even a soft criticism of the
blasphemy law is itself blasphemous and thus constitutes an unpardonable act.
The
religious parties are strong exponents of subordinating politics to religion,
using the state machinery to make people ‘good’ Muslims – as per their
interpretation – and punish those who do not measure up to their standards.
The other
right-wing category consists of mainstream conservative political parties, like
the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
(PTI). Unlike religious parties, their support is broad-based and is not
confined to a particular creed or sect. But they do make an appeal to the
religious vote-bank as well as strike electoral alliances with religious
outfits. These parties play upon religious sentiments when doing so they find
it to their advantage. The PML-N in recent years has sought to reposition
itself as the party of the centre-right. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on
quite a few occasions declared that he represented all the citizens and not
merely Muslims – for which he was rounded on by the clergy.
In its
inaugural general elections in 2018, the TLP fielded 571 candidates including
178 for the National Assembly. Although it secured only two provincial assembly
seats – significantly enough, both in Karachi – the party emerged as the fifth
largest party nationwide with 2.2 million votes, accounting for 4.2 percent of
the total votes cast, narrowly behind the relatively moderate clergy alliance
MMA’s 2.56 million votes. In the Punjab province and the two biggest cities
each, the TLP finished third in terms of votes obtained.
In order to
explain the rise of the TLP, we need to briefly and broadly take stock of the
circumstances that condition political parties’ birth and growth. Political
parties grow out of the cleavages present in a society. Typically, these
include political ideology, creed, ethnicity, location, caste or race and
social class. The relative importance of these divisions across societies as
well as within a society over time depends primarily on social ethos. In Pakistan,
a multiethnic, multi-faith society, creed (religion or sect) and ethnicity have
constituted far more significant cleavages than social class. This explains why
society has not yet seen the rise of a workers’ party. Cleavage consciousness
is thus a fundamental condition for the rise of a political party.
This has
been at work in the case of the rise of the TLP as well. Barelvi political
parties, such as the JUP, have contested national elections since 1970. The
electoral appeal of these relatively moderate parties remained largely confined
to urban Sindh, notably Karachi. Other sects or sub-sects have also had their
political parties. Over the years, the electorate has not been much impressed
with religious parties and overwhelmingly voted for the mainstream political
parties.
The rise of
the MQM in the mid-1980s strengthened the ethnic cleavage in urban Sindh at the
expense of religious parties. As a result, parties like the JUP were reduced to
a rump. In other parts of the country, the Barelvi vote bank was mainly
captured by the PML-N. Despite the presence of the Barelvi-Deobandi cleavage,
an electorally viable political party could not be mobilized. The efforts of
Allama Tahirul Qadri, a renowned Barelvi scholar who founded the Pakistani
Awami Tehreek, to make a niche for himself in electoral politics also came to
grief. Disillusioned with the electorate, he reposed his faith in agitation
politics.
Both the
events – the execution of Mumtaz Qadri and the promulgation of the Election
Act, 2017 – which catapulted the TLP into popular politics took place when the
PML-N, Barelvis’ first electoral choice, was in the saddle. The TTP’s rise was
also aided by the changing political ethos under which politics has become
largely a squalid affair in which demonizing rivals, showing zero tolerance for
dissent, and the ability to command mindless submission from supporters have
come to be prized as the foremost virtues of a leader. The TLP made adroit use
of social media where the audience is remarkably impressionable and can be
beguiled with myth-spinning without much ado.
Unlike most
mainstream parties, the TLP’s leadership is drawn from the lower middle and
bottom of the economic heap. Rizvi himself was a man of humble origins. Those
two factors placed him in an excellent position to garner support of the
underprivileged sections of society. The combination of religion and economics
that the TLP represents may turn out formidable if the people are convinced
that their economic plight is underpinned by the prevalence of an ‘un-Islamic’
culture and system.
The
ascendency of the right-wing parties started with the 2013 general elections,
which resulted in their overwhelming victory and defeat of the progressive
parties. The 2018 elections were also largely a contest among the right-wing
parties.
The rise of
right-wing politics is a matter of grave concern, because mixing religion and
politics is a dangerous game for a multi-creed polity like Pakistan. The
edifice of such a society must rest on the pillars of a pluralistic philosophy,
which accepts diversity of beliefs, practices and codes without trying to
reduce the diversity to a unity. In such a society if the social order is to
work smoothly, religion should not be used for political purposes, because this
invariably promotes one community at the expense of others.
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Hussain H Zaidi is an Islamabad-based
columnist.
Original Headline: The rise of the TLP
Source: The News, Pakistan
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