Wen Will Pak Cease To Exist?

[apnepart2]

Can Pakistan tackle Taliban?

Army is scared of militant Islamists

by Sushant Sareen, Tribune India

THE Pakistani political establishment is too compromised, too corrupt, too effete and has lost all credibility to stand up against the Taliban. The ordinary man on the street has neither any stake nor any faith in the current system and is, therefore, unlikely to put his life on the line for its preservation. The civil society doesn't count for anything. In any case, the middle class is not exactly known for picking up arms to defend itself.

It depends on the state machinery - the police and the army - for security. But the military appears either sympathetic to the militant Islamists or too scared of them irrespective of the drive it has launched in the Swat region under the US pressure. A couple of years ago I was having a conversation with a Pakistani friend about the growing attraction of radical Islam in Pakistani society. This friend, who has done pioneering work in documenting the origin and growth of jihadist militias in Pakistan, said my fears about Talibanisation in Pakistan were over-blown.

In his view, Pakistani society will never accept the Taliban brand of Islam. According to him, Pakistani Pakhtuns are very different from Afghan Pakhtuns and will find it difficult to swallow the Taliban Islam. The Baloch, he said, gave more importance to ethnic nationalism, which protected their identity, than to radical pan-Islamism that sought to subsume it. The Punjabi and Sindhi society was deeply influenced by Sufi saints who dissented against the doctrinaire Islam.

As it appeared, my friend was putting much faith in the Punjabis and the Sindhis, who, in his opinion, would straightaway reject the stone-age tribalism and barbarism that the Taliban represented. I couldn't help pointing out to him that the cultural values, social mores and philosophical syncretism that he thought would act as a bulwark against the spread of radical Islamism were all based on and drew inspiration from the teachings of a long line of great Sufi poets and saints, the last of whom walked these lands some three hundred years ago.

Since then there has been neither any ideological and philosophical challenge nor any impelling societal rejection of those who advocate a literalist, if obscurantist and extremely intolerant, interpretation of Islam. I wondered if the Sufi influence was now wearing thin and being replaced by religious dogmatism towards which more and more people in Pakistan seemed to be gravitating.

Interestingly enough, the immense popularity of Sufi syncretism in Punjab and

Sindh grew partly because it represented dissent against the established religious

and political order of those times. In the past, doctrinaire Islam symbolised the

established order; today it represents dissent, empowerment and a revolutionary

break from the rapacious social, economic and political system that is unjust,

unfair, unequal. The liberal interpretation of Islam is now the preserve of the

Pakistani elite and establishment.

The hard line and literalist Islam represents the huge underclass of Pakistan which sees the Taliban as the deliverers. Ironically, the descendants of Sufi saints today comprise the ruling class of Pakistan, and the Islamist insurgency (Talibanisation) is, in a sense, a revolt of the underclass against the current system, and by extension, against the Islam propagated by the Sufis.

Despite this, many people think - not just in Pakistan but also in India - that Punjab at least will never accept Talibanisation and will react very violently to the Taliban. But the sooner people disabuse themselves of this notion the better because when the Taliban mounts pressure, Punjab will simply capitulate and collaborate. This is so for three reasons.

One, the Taliban will not be seeking a "no objection certificate" from Punjab before it imposes its version of Islam. The acceptance or otherwise of the Punjabis is quite immaterial. Those who resist the Taliban will simply be butchered and the others will fall in line.

Two, Punjab has no history or culture of resisting invaders and marauders from the North-West. The only Punjabi ruler who fought and defeated the Pakhtuns was Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Three, a huge section of the Punjabi population actually identifies with and subscribes to the Taliban type of Islam. Over the last few decades, Punjab has become more orthodox and fundamentalist.

The signs of this tectonic change in Punjabi society can be seen everywhere, only one needs to admit this reality. Adding to the power of the Taliban is the prevarication and ambivalence of the political class on the issue of Islamisation. Not a single politician or political party is willing to stand up and speak in favour of secular laws over Islamic laws.

Even members of the only political party to openly oppose the Nizam-e-Adl

regulations in Swat — the MQM — take the position that as Muslims they are

all in favour of Sharia and that their opposition is to the manner in which Islamic

laws are sought to be imposed by the Taliban and to an extent the Taliban

interpretation of Islamic laws.

The irony is that parties like the ANP that claim to be secular have used their secular credentials as a license to accept and even promote Talibanisation. What the Pakistani politicians can't seem to understand is that their failure to take a clear position on the issue of Islamisation effectively lends legitimacy to the stance of the militant Islamists. After all, if everyone is willing to live under Sharia then the only question that remains to be decided is who will decide the version of Sharia to be imposed. How this question gets answered - through democracy or by the use of arms - is altogether another matter.

Even if the people and the politicians were to somehow reject the Taliban, they would have to depend on the Pakistan Army to fight and defeat these barbarians. But the Army doesn't seem inclined to fight. Perhaps this is because the rank and file of the Army has come around to the view that only the Taliban can ensure an end to the craven subservience of the military top brass and the political establishment to the US. There are also suspicions backed by some evidence that while the Army makes a show of fighting the Taliban, it also appears to be facilitating them and using them to for achieving political and strategic objectives. Pakistan today resembles the Mughal state in its last days. Although the Mughal state was losing territory and authority all the time, there was hardly anyone who imagined that the Mughal state would simply disappear one day. The Mughal nobility, like much of the Pakistani elite and establishment, seemed the least bothered about the withering away of the state. The nobles shamelessly indulged in power games while foreign invaders were knocking at the doors of Delhi. Then it was Delhi, today it is Islamabad.