Pakistan - The rise of
religious extremism
ßDecember 11, 2017I By Claude
Rakisits
The recent and successful ‘sit-in’ by religious
extremists in Islamabad and the release of the founder of the LeT will
strengthen both the hand of Islamists as well as the advantaged position of the
military vis-à-vis civilians. This is not good news for the future stability of
Pakistan. It will also complicate its bilateral relationships with both the US
and India.
Two critical events in late November — the end of a long
‘sit-in’ in Islamabad by some 2500 followers of an Islamist political party and
the release of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), from
house arrest — may well turn out to be the inflection point when Pakistan’s
political trajectory takes a radical turn and religious extremism deepens. This
would not be good for Pakistan’s future stability. Let us briefly examine these
two events as well as their potential long-term significance for Pakistan’s
domestic scene.
The Islamabad ‘sit-in’
On 27 November 2017 a three-week-long ‘sit-in’ by the
Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY), a relatively new Islamist political
party led by Maulana Khadim Hussain Rizvi, at a major intersection in the
capital eventually ended peacefully. Still, six protesters and a policeman were
killed and 200 injured during a clash a few days earlier as the police tried to
disperse the protesters.
But the final agreement came at a great political cost to
the newly-installed Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. The ‘sit-in’ was a
protest for what appeared to be a softening of the government’s stance on the
country’s blasphemy laws meant to appease religious minorities such as the
Ahmadis. The protestors demanded the resignation of the law minister, Zahid
Hamid. Under intense pressure to resolve this protest, which had spread to
other cities, notably Lahore and Karachi, the government not only fired the law
minister but also freed and dropped all charges against the protesters. This
capitulation became inevitable when the army refused to use force to remove the
protesters. As a matter of fact the final agreement was brokered by the army’s
intelligence service (ISI) during talks which did not include civilian
government officials. Needless to say, Rizvi and his thousands of followers
were pleased and only had praise for the army and its head, Gen. Qamar Javed
Bajwa.
Hafiz Saeed’s release
Turning to the second event under discussion, a court in
Lahore released Hafiz Muhammad Saeed on 24 November from a three-month house
arrest on the grounds that the government had not provided sufficient evidence
for extending his detention. The government had argued that Saeed remained a
threat to public safety and that his release would attract financial sanctions
against the country and lead to a halt in foreign funding due to Pakistan’s
failure to move against terrorism financing. Saeed is the leader of the
Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a proscribed charity organisation generally considered to
constitute but a front for the LeT, a US- and UN-designated terrorist
organisation.
India has accused Saeed of being the mastermind behind
the Mumbai terror attack that killed 166 people in November 2008. Not
surprisingly, the Indian government was “outraged” by the court’s decision. The
Indian foreign ministry stated that Saeed’s release was an attempt by ‘the
Pakistani system to mainstream proscribed terrorists’. Notwithstanding these
Indian outcries, privately Delhi probably was not too surprised. Saeed had been
arrested several times on criminal and terrorism charges since the 2008 Mumbai
attack, but each time his house arrest had been lifted. The Indian government
has repeatedly made clear that any improvement in the bilateral relationship
would require Pakistan to hand Saeed over for trial in India.
The Trump Administration was also not pleased at all with
Saeed’s release. The US State Department posted a $10 million bounty on his
head in 2012. The White House “strongly condemned” his release and urged
Saeed’s “immediate re-arrest and prosecution”. Significantly, it stated that if
Pakistan did not detain and charge Saeed, this would have “repercussions for
bilateral relations”.
Political consequences
The government’s complete surrender to Rizvi’s political
blackmail and concession on all his demands will most likely tempt other
religious groups to stage ‘sit-ins’ in order to advance their extremist agenda.
In other words, the successful tactics of the TYL have boosted the power of extremist
groups in Pakistan. Yet even more worrisome for Prime Minister Abbasi and his
governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N), is that the
existence of the TYL is evidence of rising Barelvi militancy. And this is bad
news for the prime minister and his party whose base of support are Barelvi
voters.
For a stark proof of the rapid rise of militant Islamic
parties one only needs to look at the September by-election results for NA-120,
the Lahore-based federal seat which former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had to
vacate after he was disqualified by the Supreme Court of sitting in Parliament.
Kalsoom Nawaz Sharif, the wife of Nawaz Sharif who ran for her husband’s seat,
managed to keep the seat. However, and not surprisingly, the party’s 2013 overwhelming
majority of over 40,000 votes was reduced to 14,000 thanks to a credible
showing by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI). Much more troubling
still were the results of the two new Islamic parties. The TLY candidate came
third, with almost six percent of the votes; the Milli Muslim League (MML), the
political front for the JUD, came fourth with almost five percent. While these
figures are low, they do 1 indicate a significant rise in the popularity of
these parties. One needs to bear in mind that neither the TLY nor the MML
competed in the 2013 election. Moreover, the MML was only created a month
before the election. Compare these results to those of the traditional,
long-established Islamic parties, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamiat
Ulema-e-Pakistan, which could never muster any electoral support.
Significantly, now that Saeed has been released he will be legally allowed to
run as a MML candidate, undoubtedly strengthening the party’s political hand.
So while the PML-N is not likely to lose the next federal election, which has
to be held in the second half of 2018, the competition will be fierce and could
throw up some real surprises.
More power to the military
In addition to the TLY and potentially other Islamic
groups, the army is the other big winner of these two events. The army’s
crucial role in brokering a peaceful end to the ‘sit-in’ and its refusal to use
force against the protestors as requested by the government reaffirmed the
army’s pivotal role in Pakistani politics. This civilian government is now
beholden to the army for having resolved this issue peacefully. As to the
release of Saeed, given that the army has long been considered the midwife in
the establishment of the LeT, the end of his house arrest would have been very
well received among the military establishment. Former military ruler Gen
Pervez Musharraf even stated that he was the “biggest supporter” of the LeT,
confirming that the Pakistani army still values the LeT’s contribution to the
country’s on-going confrontation with India. Of course the army’s position was
already very strong before these events, having had, among other things,
parliament pass bills in 2015 and 2017 amending the constitution in order to
establish military courts allowing the army to try civilians charged of
terrorist acts. Yet the army’s hand vis-à-vis the civilians is now even
stronger. It is important to remember that all these developments need to be
seen in the present political context, which includes some 50,000 civilians
killed since about 2007 as a result of terrorist acts and on-going
counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency military operations, principally in
the tribal areas.
So what does it mean for the future of Pakistan?
The likely fallout of these two events — the ‘sit-in’ and
the release of Hafiz Saeed — is bad news for Pakistan’s long-term stability for
two reasons: it strengthens the position of both religious extremists in
general and the military establishment vis-à-vis civilians. But this should
come as no surprise to anyone given the military’s tacit, if not direct,
support first for some Islamic parties soon after Partition and later for
Jihadist groups, whether India- or Afghanistan-focussed. It was in the 1980s
under Gen Zia-ul-haq that this collaboration really took off. Inevitably, it
would only be a matter of time before the effects of this support would spill
over into the wider society and radicalize large swaths of the population,
especially amongst the youth. This steady process of radicalization has been
reinforced with the rapid growth of madrassas (religious schools), the bulk of
them financed by Saudi Arabia. This normalization of religious extremism
combined with Pakistan’s myriad of socio-economic problems, such as lack of
funding for public schools, health care, public transport and housing, and
insufficient energy, is a toxic mix for the future stability of Pakistan.
Moreover, the continued radicalization of society will further complicate
Pakistan’s relations with the US and India. This is not good news for a region
which is already very fragile and whose future is uncertain.
— Claude Rakisits is a Senior Fellow at Georgetown
University’s School of Foreign Service. He is also Director at PoliTact, a
Washington-based advisory firm which focuses on South Asian and Middle Eastern
issues.
Courtesy — SADF
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