Give a clarion call

My article that appeared in The News on October 26, 2013 (http://bit.ly/1g1WRt2)


Imran Khan’s position on the ‘war on terror’ has been roundly criticised after a spate of bomb blasts in Peshawar in the wake of the All Parties Conference. Somehow our current policy impasse viz WoT is entirely blamed on his stance, specifically on the issue of talks with the Taliban. This outrage being singularly targeted at his position on this issue is hardly understandable. He fought the election on this stance and the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa voted him in partly because of this position.

It is quite natural to expect that he would stick to the position that he has consistently held for the past several years now, recent attacks in Peshawar notwithstanding. No incident in the past, no matter how horrific, has made him review his position on the ‘war on terror.’ To expect Khan Sahib to change his stance on WoT and start beating the war or the operation drum now is a bit naïve. Our inability to come up with a way to tackle terrorism should not be laid at Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s door. One must look for the reasons elsewhere.

Let us fast rewind to the 2013 general elections held in May and the time immediately before that. The political forces in Pakistan who have had a stance on terrorism and how to tackle it were the PPP, the ANP, the MQM, and the PTI. Yes the PTI. Here’s how. The so-called liberal parties (PPP, ANP, and MQM) have been consistently arguing for the use of force against the TTP and others like them for some time now. The stance could not be turned into concrete action because of lack of any support on this issue from Mian Sahib’s PML-N. Let us ignore whether PPP, ANP, and MQM’s stance on the issue of terrorism is correct or not.

Imran Khan’s position on the issue has been based on two key points. First, Pakistan must extricate itself from the US-led war on terror and, second, we must hold talks with the TTP to secure peace internally. Let us ignore for the moment whether the PTI’s position is tenable. What we can clearly say about the PTI position is that it has been very consistent. Imran Khan has been arguing his case on these two points for the last several years.

Which party is conspicuous by its absence in the discussion above? The PML-N, whose position on the issue of terrorism has been unclear for quite some time now. Mian Sahib’s election promises were vague as well. The only level of commitment that he displayed while campaigning (and before) was that his government will deal with the issue of terrorism in a decisive manner. The how and the what were always missing.

The only ‘new’ thing that the recent APC brought to fore is that now we know that PML-N also favours talks with the TTP. Even then the party’s position got muddled after the attacks by TTP in Upper Dir and Peshawar. The prime minister’s statements over these attacks left us wondering about what the ruling party was really thinking. The point here is that the dilly-dallying over the issue of tackling terrorism comes not from the PTI’s position on the issue but from the ruling party’s lack of concrete position and will on the matter. The reasons for this lie in the politics in Punjab.

There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that any decision to launch a meaningful operation against the TTP will lead to a blowback in the country, at least in the short-run. Meaningful here needs qualification. Analysts agree that the TTP is no longer restricted to just Fata or KP. In fact its organisational tentacles are spread in the Punjab and Karachi as well. Any operation against it must involve a crackdown on its organisational structure (or of its supporters) in Punjab and Karachi as well. Hence, an operation conceived at this large a scale may lead to a blowback in the short run in Pakistan in general and in Punjab in particular. This is what makes the PML-N very uncomfortable.

North and central Punjab have largely been spared the violence unleashed by terrorism in the rest of the country. Both these regions form the backbone of the PML-N’s electoral support base in the country. Its decisive victory in the province ensured it a government in Islamabad. Hence any step vis-à-vis the issue of terrorism that may shake the confidence of its support base will give it a reason to pause and think. This is particularly important in the context of the looming local bodies elections in Punjab. If the elections are to take place in the next six months then the PML-N will be weary of losing any ground to the PTI or the PPP.

The previous PML-N government in the province was just as indecisive over the issue of the Punjabi Taliban. The reason at that time was again the looming national and provincial elections. Now that it enjoys a very comfortable position in the Punjab Assembly the provincial government continues to show the same level of indecision and confusion over the presence of jihadi infrastructure in the province.

The PML-N enjoys a comfortable majority in the National Assembly and as such does not really need to negotiate with anyone to develop a clear position on the issue of terrorism. In Karachi the government moved more decisively and did not back down on its decision despite pressures or protests from the MQM. It is therefore puzzling when analysts (liberals in particular) blame only Imran Khan for sowing the seeds of confusion over the issue of terrorism.

This is not a defence of Khan Sahib’s position or his supposed confusion. The purpose here is to highlight the confusion in the mind of the ruling party. It is unfortunate that the short-sighted calculus of its politics in Punjab is limiting its ability to devise short and long-run plans against militancy and extremism. Mian Sahib will have to take the lead in the short-run steps (talks or an operation) and devise a long-term plan that allows us to think beyond the binary of ‘talks’ and ‘operation’.

Tailpiece: I don’t think that talking with the Taliban will bear any fruits. Yet I find the position very problematic that one kind of violence (the Taliban’s) can only be decisively dealt with the use of a more crushing type (the state’s use of force). Religious militancy and extremism need to be understood in a larger context of history and its political economy. The short-run binary of an ‘operation’ and ‘talks’ limits our ability to understand this issue in that way.