Dealing with TLP

The violent confrontation between Tehrik-e-Labaik (TLP) protestors triggered by their accusation that the government in Islamabad has failed to deliver on its promise made to TLP last year that their demands would be met in good faith including the release of its detained young leader Allama Saad Rizvi, has resulted in an agreement, the details of which have not been made public yet.

According to media reports, however, the agreement has clauses in which Islamabad has committed itself not to treat TLP as a banned organization, release its apprehended supporters and regard this violent outfit as a normal political organization. In return, TLP has promised to call off its violent protests and not challenge the writ of the state.

This agreement comes as a welcome development, and it will defuse the tense situation growing out of TLP’s demand to seek implementation of their demands by staging a dharna in the Federal Capital. To thwart TLP designs, the Interior Ministry had announced the handing over of the provincial administration to Rangers for two months, and had blocked the GT road by using containers at Jhelum and other checkpoints.

In an NSC meeting held in Islamabad on October 30, the government announced that it “would not tolerate any breach of law by TLP” which has been described as a banned organization. As a proscribed entity, TLP had to make a decision whether to call off their protest or face the coercive power of the state. Any escalation of the looming confrontation would have resulted in heavy loss of life.

According to government sources, already six policemen have lost their lives in the line of duty and scores of them have been injured. Given Islamabad’s determination not to cave in to the demands of the TLP because it would undermine the writ of the state, there is enormous pressure on TLP to seek a peaceful way out of this violent standoff. Hence the agreement.

Ever since its founding in early 2016’s by late Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a religious clerk and former employee of Punjab Auqaf (Religious Affairs), TLP has seen its meteoric rise by using the religious card against its opponents and by exploiting the name of Islam to promote its agenda.

There is no gainsaying the fact that in its mission TLP has been nurtured and tolerated by elements of the security establishment and all political parties including the ruling PTI. It has been allowed to participate in elections and in the province of Sindh, it has won two seats in 2018 elections. This molly-coddling approach of the successive governments clearly runs contrary to the article 256 of the Pakistani Constitution, which calls for a ban on “any private organization, which is capable of acting as a military organization.”

The real question is why successive governments allowed TLP to weaponize its ideology in 2017 and 2010 by occupying Faizabad chowk and disrupting the flow of public life with impunity?

In its checquired history, both civilian and military governments have used the name of Islam to seek legitimacy for their rule and under Zia-ul Haq the “Islam in danger” slogan was raised and propagated, with little regard for the long-term deleterious consequences of such bogus political slogans for the welfare of the people. One should have asked how Islam could be in danger in a country in which 97 percent of people are Muslims and believers in Islam?

Apart from this strategic opportunism vis-à-vis the role of Islam, we have seen that the government always approached the question of Islam with a certain degree of “fear” because it does not want to be accused by those groups agitating and advocating the cause of Islam of being “un-Islamic”.

Unfortunately, rather than challenging those calling for Jihad in the name of Islam, the successive governments have preferred to join the bandwagon of Islam. Instead of coming up with a true version of Islam which is democratic, welfare oriented and peaceful, we have let a motley of religious group play havoc with the writ of the state by propagating a distorted version of Islam which has nothing to with the spirit of and true meaning of Islam.

These limitations notwithstanding, the government should adopt a strategy in which there should be zero-tolerance of the politics of protests indulged in by TLP. The government should try to isolate group like TLP from the general public and should not fall in the false trap by assuming that such violent groups command wider public support. Judged by results of the electoral politics in Pakistan, no religious party has ever gained more than ten percent of the popular vote.

The government should develop a coherent policy in dealing with violent extremism that should be implemented across the board without exception. There are many who have promoted the fallacious notion that we should try to mainstream violent groups like TLP regardless of their agenda. Mainstreaming should be done only on one condition: if such groups commit themselves to conducting their activities within the framework of Pakistan constitution, law and totally abjure armed violence.

Any group that does not abide by these fundamental norms and challenges the writ of the State by resorting to violence should be met with the full might of the state. Instead of playing footsie with such groups, we should be prepared to deal with them as an existential threat to the security and safety of Pakistani people. And finally, instead of engaging with these groups in talks, the Pakistani state should always be prepared to deal with them with an iron fist. Let us hope that following the latest NSC meeting, a message has clearly gone out to these violent groups that Pakistani state means business and it will not be held hostage to these violent groups. We will have to wait for the secret agreement to be brought into the public domain to make an evaluation about whether it represents time buying or it contains sound principles of conflict management.

The writer is a political scientist and defense analyst.