Straight Line
Behind the militancy in Pakistan
There have been efforts to brand Pakistan as a terrorist state where, according to some quarters, the so-called Islamic militancy is actually uncontrollable. Such quarters are of the view that the Muslim mind, particularly in Pakistan, is predisposed to becoming the wellspring of terrorism. Proponents of this view strongly feel that the Muslim mindset needs to be somehow suitably molded and rounded up to accommodate and live with modernity.
A considered view is that one needs to focus on the specific political context that has produced the so-called phenomenon of Islamic militancy in Pakistan. This is pertinent to understand its organisational potential and future direction. The Pakistan context has been characterised and shaped by the ongoing crisis of civil-military relations, which had helped to bring Islamic parties and groups onto the political stage as a counterweight to the constitutional sources of legitimacy.
There is no doubt that Pakistan had emerged out of partition as a constitutional state. It had a long history of transplantation of institutional and constitutional arrangements. The legal system in Pakistan is based essentially on British common law. In Pakistan, state organs display a secular character in structural and operational contexts, although Islamic ideology has progressively dominated the self-image of general population. Thus, while public policy remained secular, the national profile became increasingly Islamic.
Immediately after the 1971 war, when Z.A. Bhutto dominated the ruling dispensation in Islamabad, he became the grand symbol of people's power. At that time, the vested interests of the army, bureaucracy and the business community in general took recourse to Islamic ideology as a counterweight to the apparently leftist ideology of Bhutto's PPP.
The Pakistan army provided the power base of the anti-Bhutto camp overtly, and later covertly in the post-Zia-ul-Haq ruling set-up. The Islamic parties provided the ideological platform to anti-Bhutto forces in both electoral and non-electoral terms. The alleged "military-mullah" nexus was further cemented in the backdrop of the decade-long Afghanistan war in the 1980s.
When Nawaz Sharif held the reins of power he continued the legacy of Islamisation of laws, education, morals and manners against what was generally considered and condemned as the Bhutto legacy based on populist as well as progressive causes underscored by a relatively diffuse class dynamics.
The so-called Islamic parties in Pakistan were used by the vested interests to counter the appeal of the traditional mainstream parties at the national level as well as the ethnic level. At the same time, the Pervez Musharraf government did not find it politically wise, even after 9/11, to opt for cracking down on the Islamic extremist elements due to fear of alienating one chunk of the political community. Terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament and massive deployment of the Indian army on Pakistan's border indicated that unbridled militant activities could endanger national security.
The Pervez Musharraf government deliberately adopted politics that undermined the potentials of constitutional parties while opening considerable space for the so-called Islamists. As a result, Islamists succeeded in forming a government in NWFP and became a coalition partner in Balochistan. The political fall-out from their acquisition of power in sensitive spots has not been helpful to the fight against terror.
The point to note is that the establishment support of extremist views both in the wake of Afghan war against Soviets and later brought about crucial changes in the institutional balance within the power structure of Pakistan. Extra-constitutional sources became prominent in the affairs of the state. The debates about democracy, economy, education, culture, women's issues, human rights issues, as well as he functioning of basic regulatory organs of the state, started drawing heavily on the divine sources of morality, authenticity and accountability.
The more the Pakistan establishment provided space for politics of Islam due to its own strategic compulsions in both foreign policy and domestic contexts, the more the disparate Islamic elements sought to shape the country's ideological discourse according to their own priorities and preference.
Various Islamic sectarian groups carried out terrorist activities against each other in the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time, they continued to take a clear and unequivocal stand on issues where they found themselves on the opposite side of what was understood to be the secular and pro-western elite.
The above parties and groups and other institutions started operating collectively as an Islamic establishment. On the one hand, the state sought to define religion according to its own vision of the destiny of Pakistan and the Muslim world at large. On the other hand, religious groups sought to define the state through street agitation, lobbying, networking and vote politics.
The establishment continued to address the issue of madrassa-based militancy from the perspective of modernising them and, thus, bringing them into the mainstream educational system. However, various intellectual and political circles showed skepticism as to the efficacy of these measures.
In fact, it was argued that this approach would further strengthen these madrassas, whereby their agenda would be followed even more efficiently and effectively by their students through the computer, internet, fax, video technology and other implements of electronic media.
A predominant part of the Pakistani world view is that the military power of the west is the key to its perceived arrogance, its aggression against Muslim societies, its connivance with Israel for occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and its complacency about Russia's oppressive policies towards Chechnya.
The radical opinion holders argue that if power is the way in for the West, power is the way out for Muslims. The focus is on the use of power in pursuit of policy. Different sections of the general public have been converted to this approach in varying degrees. By default, the liberal current of opinion has been de-legitimised in the process.
The "modernist" military elite of Pakistan sought to activate the divine sources of legitimacy during the Afghanistan war in partnership with the American military might and financial muscle. In the process, Islamabad and Washington ended up strengthening the Islamic establishment beyond all proportion. During the current war against terrorism, the agenda for democracy in Pakistan again lost momentum.
At the heart of the problem lie the unresolved conflicts and the increasing cynicism about a just solution of the conflicts, and not the body of Islamic faith itself. What is needed is a policy on conflict, not a policy on Islam. Sadly, the latter has emerged as a major occupation of the intelligentsia and policy makers.
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist of The Daily Star.
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