Bhopinder Singh | As Pakistan lies on edge, can it dig itself out of extremist mess?

Religion envelops everything in Pakistan. That is not surprising for the only nation in the world to be created in the name of religion. Every institution -- the military, civilian politicians, judiciary, bureaucracy, and even once-flamboyant cricketers -- have been trying to outdo others in terms of displayed piety and toxic puritanism. Many attribute the regressive slide of religiosity to the late military dictator, Gen. Zia-ul Haq, and the Islamist era that he spawned, but many more since are equally complicit to turn the nation into an extremist tinderbox.

The perennial curse of Pakistan has been the consistent and misplaced belief of its leadership that it can somehow use religion to its advantage, without falling prey to its inevitable and pernicious outcomes. The nation’s founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was the original believer in this failed logic of running with the hare and hunting with the hound. Today’s retrograde Pakistan does not look anything like the one that was envisioned in Jinnah’s “secular” speech to the Constituent Assembly in 1947 -- the recording of which has been conveniently “lost” and the spirit buried for posterity. Even the relatively modern and secular Pakistani “establishment”, meaning the armed forces, now marches to its new moto of “Imam, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah” (faith, piety, holy war in the path of Allah)! Befittingly, Gen. Asim Munir is the first Pakistan Army Chief to be a “Hafiz Quran” (one who has memorised the Quran).

Civilian politicians too have much to atone for fanning religiosity and the so-called secular elements like the Bhutto family have blood on their hands by initiating constitutional discrimination against the Ahmediyas in 1974, and the creation of the Taliban (by the PPP’s interior minister Naseerullah Babar) -- later Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged by an even more bigoted Zia-ul Haq and Benazir was to be assassinated by a radical extremist. The Sharif family’s Nawaz was Gen. Zia’s handpicked choice and the PML(N) led by the Sharif family was to make many alliances with many religious parties and clergy. Even former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan was to posit Riyasat-i-Madina as its idyll and was later infamous by his moniker of Taliban Khan. The more dire and desperate the Pakistani situation became, the more intolerant, extremist and violent the Pakistani society became.

Exporting religious fundamentalism (especially in the 1980s and 1990s) became an industry and India was an obvious market. Hillary Clinton’s sage warning that “snakes in the backyard do not only bite the neighbours” remained unheeded, till the inevitable happened. Pakistan’s own doings had created a Frankenstein’s monster, and the unleashed genie of extremism refused to be put back in the bottle again, and terrorism became an inevitable outcome. Also, once on auto-pilot mode, terrorism can never be controlled, and it soon turned on its progenitor – the Pakistani State.

The creator of the Taliban is now ironically facing an existential crisis from its metastasised creation -- the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), one of the many self-goals. Over 80,000 Pakistanis have died in the last couple of decades owing to extremist forces from across the Durand Line, far more than the fatalities in all battles with India. The last 18 months have been particularly devastating, with over 700 recorded terror attacks, just last year. This despite various military operations like Operations Radd-ul-Fasaad, Khyber, Zarb-e-Azb, Rah-e-Shahadat, etc, all singularly militaristic. Yet, terror thrived.

Finally, a belated and very vital realisation of conjoining terrorism with latent religious extremism has evolved with the conceptualisation of Operation Azm-e-Intehkam (strong resolve for stability), as a “multi-domain, multi-agency, whole-of-the-system national vision for enduring stability in Pakistan”. Seemingly, there is a realisation that you cannot be pandering to unrestrained religiosity and expecting it not to run amok, as it always does anywhere in the world. The telling differences between the multitude of previous military operations and Operation Azm-e-Intehkam seems to be in the comprehensive and expanded “scope” of the operation, that purportedly includes socio-economic-political imperatives, along with military operations.

It is premature to speculate on its operational efficacy for that will depend on the underlying intent, sincerity, and integration with which various levers of the Pakistani leadership -- the military, politicians, judiciary and even the clergy -- are able to cleanse themselves from the instincts institutionalised over decades of religious-inspired impulses. This mandates a complete U-turn in sovereign narrative. Given that religion legitimises so many power centres within Pakistan, to expect a complete and unified reneging of the same is to be overly optimistic. Many even attribute this wholesomeness of course-correction to a “whitewash” to convince the likes of China, multilateral bodies and even the Arab sheikdoms, who are extremely wary of extending any more aid to bail out Pakistan, without substantial course-corrections.

But the sheer acceptance of the task to de-radicalise society (to be as important as military operations) is a fundamental break from the past. Religious extremism is the oxygen on which terror survives -- the moment the State restrains the relevance of religion (beyond it to be a private affair) in societal/governance sphere, it to break from the shackles from the historical past that enflamed and imploded Pakistan from within. Oddly enough, the precariousness of the coalition government’s public credibility and the unprecedented violence on the Pakistani military personnel bode well for creating a joint commitment to extricate themselves from this extremist mess. But Pakistan has traditionally remained incorrigible on some fronts, especially on religion, and therefore one must remain realistic (but hopeful too) for the success of “Azm-i-Intehkam”. If nothing, it is a positive realisation.