AT PENPOINT
The end of the Tehrik e Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) march on Islamabad may have ended for now, but the very fact that both the government and the TLP were unwilling to reveal the details of the agreement, indicates that one, or more likely both, sides had made commitments that they did not want made known to their supporters.
The origin of the TLP is in doubt, with some claiming the PML(N) encouraged it, as a means to breaking off Barelvi support from Tahirul Qadri’s Tehrik e Minhajul Quran around the time of the Modeltown shootings, but the TLP then staged a sit-in at Faizabad, which only ended when a member of the Nawaz Cabinet was forced to resign. The TLP accused him of being a member of the Qadiani minority, posing as a Muslim.
The TLP then shifted focus, to blasphemy, taking up the case of the French President supporting the blasphemous cartoons othe the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and demanding the expulsion of his representative in Pakistan, the French Ambassador. The Ambassador having left Pakistan, the TLP demands the closing down of the French Embassy.
Did the government agree to do so? Even if it did, it realized that it could not fulfill this demand, not with the clout France has within the European Union, and the fact that Pakistani textile exports go to the EU. The government committed to bring the subject up in Parliament, which it did not.
This led to the TLP launching a movement, which not just led to a grinding to a halt of normal life, but clashes of protesters and police. Policemen were killed, and the protests ended with a new deadline. Meanwhile, new TLP chief Hafiz Saad Rizvi was not just arrested, but detained. His detention was not extended, because the state had failed to prepare any sort of case against him.
This led to the present protests, with the demands being not just for the closing of the Embassy but also the release of Saad Rizvi. Along with Saad, the release of those arrested the last time was also demanded.
There is going to be a limit to how much the police will stolidly take casualties, especially when they feel that the crowd’s cause is just. If that ever happens, the government may find that even the military can no longer be relied on
This march saw an escalation, as the Rangers were called out. The Rangers are better armed, but they are not generally trained for crowd control. During their deployment in Sindh, at least one person ended up getting killed. However, there was luckily no clash and the Rangers suffered no blemishes on their reputation.
The TLP has made demands from which it cannot resile, while the government cannot concede any of them. The TLP may be under the influence of extraneous powers, but they have clearly touched a nerve. Islam may well be a religion of tolerance, but the honour of the Prophet (PBUH) is a red line, as much a red line as the freedom of speech which the blasphemous cartoons rest on.
This is perhaps the only issue on which liberals do offer pushback. There may be rejections of hudood punishments as excessive, but the is no denying that the Prophet (PBUH) must be defended. There may be debate about how it is to be defended, such as the argument that it does not attract the death penalty. At the same time, the TLP has entered uncharted territory by suggesting breaking diplomatic relations.
When Sultan Abdul Hameed II of Turkey was faced with a similar situation, of blasphemy in France, he threatened war. However, he did not even threaten the breaking of diplomatic relations. Actually, the punishment is to be applied to the blasphemer, not an entire nation. True, if his nation chooses to defend him, that defence is to be combatted. However, refusing to talk to that country might not cut it theologically.
It is interesting that an economic argument is being made. That France leads the EU and the EU takes our exports is not supposed to matter. The law is supposed to be blind, and whether or not blasphemy is a legal fact, not an economic one. To take an extreme example, would exports justify the French state killing any Pakistani citizens?
One problem with banning the TLP, which the government claims it has done, but which it has apparently not told the Election Commission about, which is probably why its candidates still contest elections is to to let the TLP join the political mainstream.
Is there an effort to harness the religious vote? The TLP has shown that religious issues are touch-button issues. At the same time, economic issues loom large. Indeed, the economic argument of exporting to the EU has so far trumped the religious one of blasphemy. However, the TLP, or any other religious party, will have to argue that it had a solution for the country’s economic problems, and that it had the competence to deliver.
The problems that Imran Khan is facing are not just about law-and-order, or even how top-level appointments, such as of the DG ISI, are made, but about the economy. Whatever the reasons, whatever the excuses, the economy has tanked, jobs are being lost, and those who manage to remain in employment, are being badly hit by inflation.
It seems that the natural instincts of the masses, to turn back to their belief system, Islam, is only stymied by doubts about whether such a party would be able to solve their economic problems. This wish has been encouraged by the inability of any type of rule, of whichever party, or of the military, to solve those problems.
Another issue that needs to be considered in the context of religious forces agitating is the effect on the police. It should not be forgotten that the steel framework of the Empire, whether in India or West Africa, was the police, not the military. The military was only meant to ‘act in aid of the civil power’ when the forces opposing the police had too much force, in being too many, or too well-armed.
It might seem an extreme example, but in the Partition, when so many were massacred, the vaunted Punjab Police collapsed, and it was two Boundary Security Forces, drawn from the Army, which performed policing functions, like bringing refugees to safety. The troops were Indian, and were commanded by Indian officers.
The TLP protests have been testing the Punjab police, which has so far been true to its salt. However, that cannot be guaranteed forever. It should be noted that while most continue on the line of duty, religious belief may be greater than loyalty.
While the police force may hold, individuals may break. Most recently, a Punjab Police sub-inspector broke, Mumtaz Qadri, when he assassinated Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, whom he had been assigned to guard, but Satwant Singh and Beant Singh of the Delhi Armed Police, assigned as bodyguards to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, assassinated her in October 1984, in response to Operation Blue Star, which was the attack on the Akal Takht and the slaughter of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale and his followers.
As a matter of fact, Partition too divided people on religious lines. A policeman no longer was a cop, but a Muslim or Hindu or Sikh.
The British had no answer to that. They had all along run their empire on the basis of recruiting natives for both police forces and armies, but with a final layer of British troops behind them. After World War II, when the British government realized that it could not provide sufficient troops to serve as the stiffening force, and that its armies and police forces were infected by communal feeling, it decided to withdraw.
There is going to be a limit to how much the police will stolidly take casualties, especially when they feel that the crowd’s cause is just. If that ever happens, the government may find that even the military can no longer be relied on.
