Author: G Parthasarathy
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April, 19, 2007
Over two decades ago, a visiting Indian journalist,
charmed by the old world splendour of Lahore and the vigour and vitality of
the bustling commercial city of Karachi, where I was then India's Consul General,
described Islamabad as a city of "bureaucrats, bores and boulevards".
Islamabad has always been a sanitised city, far removed from the reality of
what is Pakistan. The Army and bureaucracy that have received preferential
allotment of housing plots are comfortably ensconced there. It was always
presumed that the capital would remain immune to ferment elsewhere in the
country.
Two events in recent days have shattered this comfortable belief. The first
has been the unprecedented solidarity of the legal fraternity, after Pakistan's
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry unexpectedly refused to bow when peremptorily
sacked by President Pervez Musharraf, dressed up in his attire of a four-star
General. The more ominous development has been the defiance shown by two clerics,
Maulana Abdul Aziz and his brother Abdur Rashid Ghazi, who appear determined
to challenge the established order and coerce it into adopting shari'ah in
the capital.
While it was widely expected that the ouster
of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 would lead to a reduction in Islamic
radicalism in neighbouring Pakistan, the opposite seems to have happened.
With Taliban and Al Qaeda supporters seeking haven in Pakistan, their radical
supporters, particularly in the tribal areas (FATA) and elsewhere in the North-West
Frontier Province and in Baluchistan, have risen to challenge the writ of
the Pakistani state. These areas bordering Afghanistan are now becoming progressively
Talibanised.
When Gen Musharraf deployed over 80000 troops
in FATA to force tribals to end support for the Taliban, the Pakistan Army
received a bloody nose, losing over 700 soldiers. More ominously, over 300
officers and men reportedly face disciplinary action for refusing to take
up arms against fellow Pashtuns. Paradoxically, even as Pakistani soldiers
were being killed by Taliban supporters in Waziristan, Gen Musharraf permitted
Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders to seek haven in Quetta.
With Gen Musharraf's writ over the NWFP being
successfully challenged, pro-Taliban elements soon established shari'ah courts,
banned videos and music, forbade barbers from cutting and trimming beards
and prevented girls from receiving modern education. In Peshawar and other
places in NWFP that abut the tribal areas, local Taliban have threatened English
language schools, warned schoolgirls to veil themselves and ordered men not
to shave their beards. Elsewhere in FATA, armed Taliban stop vehicles and
remove cassette players and radios and force men to grow beards. What is shocking
is that the two clerics in Islamabad are threatening to enforce similar measures
in Islamabad from the precincts of a masjid-madarsa complex they control,
which is located barely one mile away from the Prime Minister's Secretariat,
the Supreme Court and the Parliament.
Maulana Abdul Aziz runs Lal Masjid, set up
with tacit approval of the powers that be, in the very heart of Islamabad.
His brother Abdur Rashid Ghazi runs two madarsas - the Jamia Hafsa (for burqa-clad
girls) and Jamia Faridia (for bearded male students). A few months ago, the
girl students of Jamia Hafsa forcibly occupied a children's public library
after the administration demolished seven illegally constructed mosques.
The two brothers then proclaimed their determination
to enforce shari'ah in the capital. They set up a shari'ah court to hear public
complaints, with their male students warning owners of video parlours and
music cassette stores to close shop, while females driving cars were warned
to stop doing so. They even issued a fatwa against Pakistan's gutsy Tourism
Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar for being hugged by a paragliding instructor in
Paris. A campaign against vice was launched with the abduction of a woman
accused of encouraging prostitution and two of her family members. When the
Islamabad police sought to rescue the kidnapped women, they had to beat a
hasty retreat when their vans were seized in retaliation. In the meantime,
the shari'ah court started entertaining petitions from women police personnel,
complaining of sexual harassment.
There is an understandable disinclination
to use force against the masjid-madarsa complex. Over 70 per cent of the students
are Pashtun. They are evidently well-armed. Given the fact that around 20
per cent of the Pakistan Army is made up of Pashtuns and recent experiences
in Waziristan, any significant loss of lives would provoke Pashtun outrage.
Moreover, responding to appeals from the clerics, a large number of madarsa
students from across Pakistan have converged on the site of Lal Masjid.
Gen Musharraf deputed the President of the
Muslim League (PML-Q) Chaudhry Shujat, who is given to yielding to pressures
from religious extremists, for talks with Maulana Aziz. Shujat has held talks
with the clerics, with the Musharraf dispensation showing signs of buckling
to their demands. The Government has agreed to reconstruct the seven illegal
mosques it had pulled down. It has also agreed to act against alleged centres
of prostitution. The clerics have refused to close down their shari'ah court
and remain firm on their demands for the introduction of shari'ah. Measures
to deal with this situation will figure prominently when Pakistan's real rulers,
the Army's Corps Commanders meet in Rawalpindi this week.
Reflecting on developments in Islamabad, the
Editor of the Lahore-based Friday Times, Najm Sethi notes: "More mullahs
(across Pakistan) are likely to follow suit, if the issue is not 'closed'
swiftly. Brothels, billboards, veils, music, film, haircuts, dress, and schools
- there will be no end to 'concessions' demanded in the name of jihad and
Islam." The process of Talibanisation moving eastwards from the NWFP
appears to have commenced. In Lahore, the student wing of the Jamat-e-Islami,
the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, has beaten up "un-Islamic" students
and proclaimed "Islamisation" of the campus. Can this process of
creeping Talibanisation of Pakistan be halted?
It can, if Gen Musharraf and the Army establishment
take a few crucial steps. These include an irrevocable break with their traditional
partners - the Islamic political parties - an end to support for groups like
Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which declare "Hindus, Christians and Jews" as
"enemies of Islam", and for the Taliban, apart from the secularisation
of education, with mainstream political parties being allowed to function
freely. Whether Gen Musharraf has the inclination, will or ability to undertake
these measures remains to be seen.
