As expected, leaders of all political parties as well as the Army chief have strongly condemned the assassination attempt on Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal by a man affiliated with the Tehrik Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYRA), which is a result of unrestrained spread of religious extremism in this country. Talking to journalists on Monday outside Islamabad's NAB accountability court, former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif rightly averred the attack on the minister is an ultimatum not only for the PML-N but all political parties - one must add, for the entire society.
He was also right to point out that the extremist mindset had existed in the country for long, and that it was encouraged by the "quarters concerned." Turning to a more recent disastrous event, the 2017 Faizabad sit-in staged by TLYRA, however, he was not quite exact as he laid the entire blame at the door of the "quarters concerned" conveniently ignoring the role people around him played in bringing matters to a head. He said people wanted to know why Rs 1000 each was distributed among the protesters. (It may be recalled that after the TLYRA protest sit-in ended in an army brokered agreement - widely decried as a shameful capitulation of the State - a senior army officer was seen handing out money, ostensibly as return fare, among the protesters.) What Mian Sahib tried to get at, of course, is more than obvious. But people also want to know some other things, such as that why did the younger Sharif brother, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, despite knowing the TLYRA men's intentions, happily waved them on all the way from Lahore to Islamabad to create trouble there. Also, why did the CM lend his voice to the demand for the sacking of the law minister, a key issue that TLYRA used to produce a situation that brought the government to its knees? Regrettably, some opposition parties that are now condemning the attack had also expressed sympathies for the troublemakers to earn some brownie points with gullible sections of society, without a care for the consequences.
Equally if not more important is the question why has not Nawaz Sharif reined in his own son-in-law, captain Safdar, who has been fanning extremist passions? The man has publically been showering praise on Mumtaz Qadri, sentenced to death by the State for assassinating Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, and to whom TLYRA pays allegiance as a defender of the faith. According to the husband of Mayram Nawaz, whom Mian Sahib has wanted to be his political heir, Qadri who killed the governor he was duty-bound to protect, was a blessed man for doing what he did. Last October, captain Safdar also delivered a virulent tirade inside the National Assembly against the already persecuted Ahmadi community. Accusing its members of acting against the country's interests, he had called for evicting them out of government jobs. Considering that the retired captain has been getting even his pocket money from his father-in-law, it is hard to believe he would be making such inflammation statements without approval from Maryam or Nawaz Sharif.
The sad reality is that both sides, civil and military, have been playing with fire by supporting and nurturing extremist elements for the furtherance of their respective ends. Wittingly or unwittingly, they have created an atmosphere of fear, causing distortions in the national narrative rational people can counter only at the risk of their own lives. There is no doubt about that the soldiers played a big part in putting the country on a path deviant from the one envisioned by the founding fathers. It is worth noting that the phrase "Ideology of Pakistan" did not occur in the national lexicon until introduced by the ever inebriated and infamous womanizer military ruler Gen Yahiya Khan's information minister Nawabzada Sher Ali Khan with a view to promoting religious parties, especially the Jamaat-e-Islami. Later Gen Ziaul Haq, employing religion as an argument to rule, made wholesale changes in the socio-political landscape to suit his purposes. The retrogressive changes he made in school curriculums, the religious right he planted in the academia, the laws he put in place, and the foreign sponsored seminaries that mushroomed on his watch till today are at the root of almost every problem facing this state and society. Further complicating matters has been the establishment's continual reliance on extremist elements for the attainment of external agendas and some internal objective too. As the just resurrected Asghar Khan case has revealed, in 1990 the military intelligence agency, ISI, gave money to rightwing politicians so as to ensure the liberal Pakistan People's Party did not return to power. Given the past experience, suspicions linger on about the military establishment's role in the rise of new religious groups now challenging civilian authority.
At a time our brave soldiers are making the ultimate sacrifice of life fighting extremist forces on different fronts, all stakeholders need to talk to rather than at one another. They must not forget the lessons our own recent history taught us: There are no good or bad religious extremists. Once they come into their own, they all have a habit of becoming hostile towards their benefactors and challenge the authority of the State. Exploiting religious sensitivities of the people is easy, but controlling the outcomes is not. All concerned need to realize things have reached the point beyond which is only a deep abyss. Unless they work together to fight the common enemy this State will implode.
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