Author: Kuldip Nayar
Publication: Dawn, Karachi
Date: March 3, 2001
WHEN Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee visited Lahore nearly two years ago, the banquet in his honour
was delayed by three hours. The road leading to the historic Qila, venue
of the banquet, had been taken over by the extremists. They were stoning
every vehicle passing that way. Police first chose to leave them alone
but, after some time, it chased them away and cleared the road to enable
the PM's cavalcade to proceed.
Subsequently, Shahbaz Sharif, the
then chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab, remarked that the Jamiat had
gone back on its word and had stood out one hour more than the time agreed
upon. In fact, what he meant was that the government had made a deal with
the extremists but they had violated it.
In other words, they were permitted
to hold the demonstration to impress upon Vajpayee that the then prime
minister, Nawaz Sharif, was holding talks with India despite the fundamentalists
opposing them. They were supposed to withdraw and did not do so. On their
part, the extremists were satisfied that they had made their presence felt.
It is the same exercise which the
Pakistan military government is going over again. It lets the fundamentalists
display "their might" to let the world know that they are a powerful lot.
At the same time, it threatens to take action against them to show that
the government was "determined to suppress them." To many, it looks like
a drama enacted by both sides, playing their assigned roles faithfully.
Take, for instance, Interior Minister
Moinuddin Haider. He addresses a press conference in Karachi to announce
that Pakistan's jihadi groups will not be allowed to collect donations
from the public for buying arms and training their members for jihad. He
also says that there is no holy war going on. The impression he creates
by his statements is that a massive crackdown on militant groups is imminent.
The interior minister goes back
to Islamabad and, in the face of "open defiance" by the fundamentalists,
he is forced to backtrack. He then changes his mind and tone to say: "We
respect jihadi outfits and we never called for giving up jihad in Kashmir."
Some of the leading religious and militant outfits, present at the meeting
where the minister spoke, renew their determination to carry on with jihad.
Thus, the show goes on.
For some reasons, Islamabad believes
that its statements to take action against fundamentalists are sufficient
to make international opinion believe that the government is out to chastise
the extremists. Islamabad deludes itself. Outsiders are seeing through
the game, particularly when they find the fundamentalists having their
way.
The danger in such an exercise is
that hardliners come to believe that their pressure counts. This is what
is beginning to happen in Pakistan. The extremists have become stronger
than before. Although General Pervez Musharraf has put their number at
around 10 per cent as against the 90 per cent liberals, it is militancy
which seems to count increasingly.
The genii of fundamentalism, released
first to join hands with the Taliban in Afghanistan and then goaded to
fight in Kashmir, will not go back into the bottle even if Musharraf wants
it to. After all, it has tasted blood and is enjoying the limelight. Now
it has become a Frankenstein devouring Pakistan, bit by bit, facet by facet.
Instead of the government challenging
them, it is the religious leaders who are giving an ultimatum to the government
to introduce a rigid, retrogressive version of Islam. Maulana Akram Awan
of Tanzeemul Akhwan has threatened that his followers would march on Islamabad
if Shariat was not introduced. Azam Tariq of Sipah-i-Sahaba wants the Qazi
courts to operate in large cities to implement the Islamic laws.
The Musharraf government has placated
them to a large extent by lending them its voice and weapons in jihad against
India in Kashmir. But the fundamentalists are not content with the state
as such. They want to convert Pakistan into a religious state. Over the
years, its polity has grown democratically weak. The mullahs and maulvis
have come to acquire more and more say because of the strength they have
gained through seminaries (madrassas), which produce some 40,000 graduates
every year.
"The privately funded Islamic schools,
where children - mostly boys - receive education together with food and
accommodation, are commonplace throughout Pakistan," says a US State Department
report on global terrorism. While many are part of a tradition dating back
almost as far as Islam itself, a significant number of them owe their existence
to General Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization drive. Estimates of their strength
vary widely from 15,000 to 25,000 or more. The number of young people studying
in them easily runs into the tens, maybe even hundreds, of thousands.
The fundamentalists are well trained
and well armed. They are ready to die for a place in jannat (paradise)
which their religious heads promise. Brainwashed as the followers are in
the madrassas, they are willing to do anything in response to the call
of jihad. It is not possible to give them any gainful employment. Their
education does not equip them for that because they are versed only in
religious teachings. Musharraf may be serious about curbing fundamentalism,
one for the image of Pakistan and, two, for the sake of escaping America's
wrath.
Not long ago, Musharraf even ordered
the registration of madrassas. But this move was openly opposed by the
two religious leaders, Fazlur Rahman and Sami-ul-Haq of Jamiat-i-Ulema
Islam. Will Musharraf join issue with them is the question. If more aptly
put, can he do so? He is far weaker now than when he assumed power. The
backtracking by the interior minister shows that. The Musharraf government
had made a hasty retreat last year when it met with opposition on the proposal
to amend the blasphemy law. In fact, it went further in criminalizing any
person or group whose beliefs deviated from the accepted Muslim orthodoxy.
Musharraf may have been daunted
by the islamization of the armed forces during Zia's period. By now the
extremists have come to occupy senior positions in the military. Former
ISI chief Hamid Gul takes credit for the "islamization" of some top army
positions. Musharraf's dilemma may be that if he takes tough measures against
the fundamentalists, he may risk dividing the armed forces. But, on the
other hand, if he doesn't do anything, he may be reduced to a figurehead
before long.
India cannot keep its eyes shut
to the spread of fundamentalism in Pakistan because the extremists are
spreading over a large area, right up to the Central Asia. In the words
of a Pakistani editor, "ten million of Afghans destablized us, 130 million
Pakistanis. Together we can destabilize India of one billion." It is a
horrible thought but it is possible for a failed state to adopt such a
course. If the fundamentalists could mess up things in Kashmir, it is not
beyond them to create serious problems in the rest of India.
Strange, some organizations like
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad should believe that Muslim fundamentalism can
be thwarted by Hindu fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is fanaticism, a culture
in pursuit of religious rituals. There is no place in it for a sense of
accommodation or spirit of tolerance. The only way to fight fundamentalism
is to strengthen pluralism, the composite culture. That alone can be our
bulwark against any religious onslaught, not slogans like Indianizing Islam
or Christianity.
