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Jehad in retreat

Jehad in retreat

Author: Mubashir Zaidi
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: January 20, 2002

President General Pervez Musharraf's speech on January 12 banning two jehadi groups, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, two militant sectarian groups, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Tehrik-e-Jaferia, along with an Islamic movement, Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammedi, reflected the sentiments of the people of Pakistan in general. There is no doubt in that. They have had enough of religious fanaticism.

His outburst against extremism and religious intolerance was music to Pakistani ears, which were otherwise tuned to jehadi music for the last decade-and-a-half. The announcement to put the genie of fundamentalism back in the bottle uncapped in the 80s by another military dictator General Zia ul Haq has been widely welcomed.

But the General unfortunately found a very convenient way of side-stepping the question of accountability of the military-dominated establishment, which once again found scapegoats for its follies. Mullahs and jehadis - now outcastes with the same establishment that created them, pampered them, financed them and helped them to cross borders, be it on the east or the west - are on the run. Almost 2,000 of them are in jail along with their leaders, Qazi Hussain Ahmed of Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Fazlur Rehman of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Maulana Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed and dozens of local level leaders of the now defunct Pakistan-Afghan Defence Council. Interestingly, General Hamid Gul, the former ISI chief and the brain behind the Council, has not been touched or even questioned. Some things remain unchanged in a sense.

The strategy appears to be: Go get the monster, but don't touch Dr Frankenstein.

Big problems

The damage this so-called Islamisation has done to Pakistan is irreparable. Jinnah's vision has been mutilated so much that more than two-thirds of Pakistanis believe that he was a very religious man, and the rest insist that he was secular. No one's even sure now what he wanted from his followers. Not even the civilian governments of the 90s, neither the Oxford-educated Benazir Bhutto nor the homegrown Nawaz Sharif.

The radical Islamisation of Pakistan began in the 80s when former military dictator General Zia ul Haq drafted the Ulema or Mullahs to legitimise and extend his unconstitutional rule. In the process several controversial Islamic provisions were inducted in the Constitution, which later proved to be so damaging to the Constitution and the rights of the people that they changed the very complexion of an otherwise non-violent Pakistani society.

The shameful Hudood laws curbing the rights of women, redefining laws of evidence, amending the blasphemy law, establishing Federal Shariat Court and revising religious laws to create rifts among various sects were some of the more obscurantist changes. These changes made life hell for women. For example, a rape victim had to produce at least two eyewitnesses to prove she was raped. So many Christians and Ahmedis, a sect declared non-Muslim - incidentally by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and not Zia - were either killed by religious fanatics or jailed for life by the zealots in uniform for alleged blasphemy. Similarly, Zia and the successive governments used Shariat Court to their advantage by issues fatwas targeting rivals.

Zia exploited religion to the hilt. Despite a solemn pledge, a defiance of which is strictly prohibited in Islam, he delayed the return of democratic government for 11 years. He misused religion to prolong his despotic rule. Political workers were awarded harsher punishments, including lashes for speaking against the government.

When the US-Pakistan-Mujahideen nexus was formed, Zia "sold" thousands of brainwashed Mujahideen to fight against the former USSR. Zia exploited this jehad to strengthen religious parties with State backing, to marginalise the influence of the then mainstream political party Pakistan Peoples Party.

The militant sectarian groups, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Tehrik-e-Jaferia, now banned by General Musharraf, also surfaced and flourished under General Zia's patronage. Ethnic parties, especially tje MQM and its rival group Haqiqi, were also said to be the creation of the martial law administration.

After Zia's death in a plane crash, the military establishment quickly found a set of politicians, collected under one banner by the ISI (and its then chief General Hamid Gul) in the name of Islamic Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), to prevent Benazir from getting a majority in the 1988 elections. They succeeded. Benazir had to settle for a simple majority.

The Benazir era

Then started a propaganda war with mullahs openly declaring a woman prime minister as un-Islamic. Benazir could do very little to break the ISI-religious parties nexus. So she figured, if you can't fight them, join them. Immediately after her election as prime minister, she went straight to the General Headquarters to take directions from the then Army chief, General Mirza Aslam Beg.

The jehad in Kashmir began during her tenure when she was clearly told by the establishment to stay away from foreign policy and defence matters. Though she did try to establish good relations with India, she was told in no uncertain terms to curb her enthusiasm: in 1989, the ISI planted stories in newspapers that she had provided a list of Sikh leaders supported by it. Despite hundreds of denials by Benazir, many Pakistanis still believe she actually did that. The ISI knows how to hit hard.

The same establishment-mullah nexus caused her downfall. In the 1990 elections, the establishment's most favoured politician, Nawaz Sharif, became prime minister. And not without a little help from the ISI, which, it is alleged, financed anti-PPP politicians to ensure Benazir's defeat. This was later confirmed by the then ISI chief and now Pakistani ambassador to Saudi Arabia, General Asad Durrani.

The establishment then used Nawaz Sharif to marginalise the opposition by getting him the support of fundamentalists. But when he tried to follow his father, widely known as Abbaji, rather than his sponsors - the establishment - he was unceremoniously dumped. Benazir returned, this time with a new strategy: Tactical Dressing. With a dupatta and tasbih she tried to win over the fundamentalists and followed the establishment in letter and spirit. She allowed the military establishment - and her own cabinet colleague Nasirullah Babar - to create the Taliban, who unleashed upon the world the worst form of religious fundamentalism. She allowed the ISI to cope with the foreign policy and devoted herself to consolidating her rule at home.

Interesting that she should project herself as a religious person. No one was fooled: though she made several rounds of mazars she got very little in return from the peers. And when she tried to curb ethnic violence in urban Sindh, she was confronted. Though she succeeded the MQM, an establishment's creation, accused Benazir of extra judicial killings. She also lost her brother, Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed in circumstances still not clear and shortly, her very own trusted President, Farooq Leghari, dismissed her government in collusion with the ISI and the army.

The return of Sharif

Nawaz Sharif returned in 1997 with an unprecedented majority. Again, with the help of his sponsors, the establishment, to which he quickly and promptly yielded. His policies were dictated by the establishment right from the beginning. He targeted the opposition and used religion in the name of the controversial Shariat Bill. On the jehadi front, being a zealot himself and an obedient child of Abbaji, he never interfered in the ISI's proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir. He praised and encouraged the military thinkers to think of highly ambitious plans to "teach the enemy a lesson". The donation boxes at shops, Lashkar posters and statements on walls and Osama posters all surfaced for the first time during his tenure.

When Sharif appointed General Musharraf as the Army chief little did he know it would prove to be his worst mistake. Sharif and General Musharraf fell out over Kargil. The Army thought he had acted against national interest by telling the US all about the Kargil operation and the jehadi movement.

Finally, Sharif was ousted and an apparently pro-jehadi military regime led by a highly Westernised Musharraf assumed power. With people so apathetic, disappointed and disgruntled by the previous regimes, they remained sceptical of Musharraf's policies. In fact, few people trusted him at all.

Musharraf's regime was opposed from every forum. He did try to convince the world that the government was ready to control the extremists, but there were no takers. That's when the military establishment decided to take on the extremists, and sectarian activists in particular, to improve the image of the country.

September 11 gave birth to a new establishment in Pakistan. Fortunately for him, lack of public support for the jehadis went in his favour. He put the powerful leaders of religious parties in jail without any resistance.

Since January 12, Musharraf has stepped up the pressure. Jehadis now complain they are not getting a single bullet not to speak of the automatic weapons. They are being told that they will die if they dare to cross the border.

People in the streets are in support of the General's new-found anti-extremism and hope that it is here to stay. But the question every one is asking is this: Can he sustain this Big Jehad?
 


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