Pakistan is a nation of contradictions, a country created by a staunch secularist on the foundation of Islam, and so it is hardly surprising that the battle between secularity and religiosity is one that has been waged since its inception. Secularism, however, has never been antithetical to religion. Most Pakistani secularists are also proud Muslims who merely reject religious hegemony over matters of state. They start at a distinct disadvantage. Islam is central to Pakistani identity. It is the very glue holding the state together, offering Pakistanis a tool to transcend their complex ethnic and communal divides, a prism with which to unite and frame resistance to India, and a potent strategic weapon to advance the regional security ambitions. Today, secularist dysfunction has pushed religious identity to the forefront. In the tribal agencies, Pashtun irredentism has fused with radical Islam to create an all-out insurrection the Army is ill equipped to handle. The Punjabi heartland too, once insulated from radical ideologies, is no longer firewalled from militant Islam, as state control over the militant faucet slips and radical ideologies increasingly enter the mainstream discourse.
Historically, the secularist tradition has withstood the many turbulent tides of Pakistani politics. In the late 1970s, General Zia, bracketed by the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Indians in Kashmir, sought to fuse Wahabbist dollars and Deobandi ideology in an attempt to institutionalize a more militant Islamist culture. But even his large-scale attempt to Islamize society fell short, not least because the majority of Pakistani powerbrokers have historically also been the country’s secularist guardians. The whiskey-drinking generals of Rawalpindi and the neo-bourgeois of Lahore and Islamabad may dabble with the Islamists to battle each other for control of the center, but the austerity of radical Islam holds little appeal outside strategic value in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Zia, for all his faults, understood the secularist tradition meant anything but modernity and progress to the Pakistani masses who remain impoverished both financially and spiritually under the jackboot of corrupt and predatory secular elites.Since his death Pakistan has vacillated, attempting to firewall secularism and religiosity, insulate the Punjabi (and Sindhi) heartland from the radical ideologies it fomented in the tribal areas and Azad Kashmir, and arrogate control over radical Islamist groups.
Secular Pakistan is in retreat today on all fronts as militant Islam makes unprecedented gains. The recent assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, over his call to reform Pakistan’s bigoted Zia-era blasphemy laws, is the most dramatic example. In its wake, Islamic political parties, including the Jamaat-Islami (JI) and the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islami (JUI), have barely managed to conceal their glee. Never having gained mainstream acceptance, today they find growing resonance on the street for their conservative platforms, affording them considerable political momentum. Support and solidarity has come not just from the usual base in the tribal agencies and the rural poor, but from unusual and worrying quarters including lawyers and teachers unions and influential Barelvi scholars who until recently were considered the antidote to the Deobandis. As worrying, in the latest of a growing trend, the specter of radicalized security forces has re-emerged. The assassin, a member of an elite police unit was able to empty an entire magazine into the governor without a single shot fired by his colleagues, a worrying indicator of the potential stability for the praetorian foundations of Pakistan.
In contrast, mainstream secular political parties have been found lacking; disorganized, rife with intra-factional feuds and wholly bereft of courage, all too often they have chosen appeasement over principle. Similarly, all but the bravest of liberal Pakistanis have found themselves excluded from the street, fearful of violent reprisals by suicide bombers or counter-protesters seemingly outside the control of security forces. Such a situation has not been restricted to the aftermath of the assassination. For many years now secular Pashtun political parties in the tribal agencies, such as the ANP, have found themselves viciously undermined by army machinations while being targeted by both religious radicals and other secularists, such as the MQM, who prize ethno-political considerations over the long-term stability of the state.
A dangerous convergence of violent militant groups risks metastasizing domestic terrorism, a bleak prospect for a country already identified as the global epicenter of terrorism. Traditionally militant groups in the Af-Pak region delineated themselves in terms of targeting scopes. Some focused on domestic sectarian issues, others regionally in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and a few others focused on the global jihad. Despite ideological similarities and some operational overlap, they remained firewalled from each other. Today, catalyzed by the war in neighboring Afghanistan and the Pakistani state’s perceived complicity, particularly after the storming of the Lal Masjid in 2007, various old-guard outfits have begun to splinter in favor of newer and more radicalized groups. The emergence of the al-Qaeda allied TTP has been the most obvious facet of this phenomenon. A potent localized force, the TTP has fused takfiri ideology with ethnic grievances and provided a structure for disaffected militants of all stripes who identify the Pakistani government as apostates. Alone, the TTP has little reach into the Punjab. For that it requires the assistance of more sophisticated ‘Punjabi Taliban’ groups which represent the real intellectual capital of South Asian militancy. They include groups formerly exclusively focused on Kashmir or domestic sectarian agendas and include the LeJ, the SSP, the JeM, HuJI to name but a few. Boasting extensive madrassa networks across the Punjab, and in many cases having unrivalled technological and operational expertise courtesy of former ISI support, they have been implicated in virtually every major terrorist attack in Pakistan’s settled areas recently, including the formerly inconceivable storming of Army GHQ in Rawalpindi.
It is this convergence that offers the most worrying internal security threat for Pakistan. Traditionally, most Punjabi-based militant groups worked in tandem with state strategy. Extensive employment in Kashmir fomented a strong working relationship with the intelligence agencies, notably the ISI, which exerted considerable influence. In recent years, many militant groups have moved to cast off all affiliations with those connected to the government. Former operational commander of the HUJI Ilyas Kashmiri, renowned for loyal service in Kashmir, is now presumed to be the military head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The ISI itself has found itself in militant crosshairs, various installations attacked and 74 personnel killed in 2009. Just as startling was the saga of known militant sympathizers Colonel Imam and Khalid Khawaja. Despite established jihadi credentials and long associations with militant groups, both men were captured, and killed in captivity by splinter militant factions who decried their associations with the Pakistani government and military. Even a personal appeal by Mullah Omar, the amir-ul-Momineen of the Afghan jihad, was unable to secure their release, a startling indicator of the extent to which traditional militant elites have lost ground.
Friendly militant syndicates such as the Quetta Shura Taliban, the largest militant network operating in Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, perhaps the most operationally capable of all militant outfits, or the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, are also not immune to radicalizing trends. The LeT is known to be growing increasingly close to al-Qaeda, unsurprising given their shared ideological inclinations, and its firewall from wider militant trends is far from assured. Various studies on the QST have similarly shown that in large part local network commanders are known to resent, but grudgingly accept, Pakistani influence. Similarly it does not seem implausible to imagine that the Haqqanis, now under a withering U.S. drone campaign, are likely to grow ever less charitable towards their Pakistani patrons as the American noose tightens and suspicions of ISI double-dealing arise.
Outright jihadist militancy is only the cloak for Pakistan’s true problems. No matter their growth, jihadist columns will never march down Islamabad nor control the formal nuclear levers. Far more insidious is the radicalization of society that facilitates their rise and threatens the very identity that educated Pakistanis so dearly cherish. The dysfunctional state capacity that alienates minorities is to blame as is the archaic belief that Pakistani security agencies can accurately delineate ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. Today Zia must be laughing from his grave, for now more than ever, Pakistan is teetering on the abyss of radicalization. If Jinnah’s tradition is to survive, Pakistan would be well advised to recognize the magnitude of the threat it faces and take commensurate action.
Varun Vira specializes in world conflicts and has written for Joint Forces Quarterly (April 2011), the Naval Postgraduate School’s Culture and Conflict Review (Winter 2010), Foreign Policy Journal and Global Dialogue. He is currently pursuing a Masters in International Affairs at the George Washington University.
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The Battle for the Heart of Pakistan
February 27, 2011
Pakistan is a nation of contradictions, a country created by a staunch secularist on the foundation of Islam, and so it is hardly surprising that the battle between secularity and religiosity is one that has been waged since its inception. Secularism, however, has never been antithetical to religion. Most Pakistani secularists are also proud Muslims who merely reject religious hegemony over matters of state. They start at a distinct disadvantage. Islam is central to Pakistani identity. It is the very glue holding the state together, offering Pakistanis a tool to transcend their complex ethnic and communal divides, a prism with which to unite and frame resistance to India, and a potent strategic weapon to advance the regional security ambitions. Today, secularist dysfunction has pushed religious identity to the forefront. In the tribal agencies, Pashtun irredentism has fused with radical Islam to create an all-out insurrection the Army is ill equipped to handle. The Punjabi heartland too, once insulated from radical ideologies, is no longer firewalled from militant Islam, as state control over the militant faucet slips and radical ideologies increasingly enter the mainstream discourse.
Historically, the secularist tradition has withstood the many turbulent tides of Pakistani politics. In the late 1970s, General Zia, bracketed by the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Indians in Kashmir, sought to fuse Wahabbist dollars and Deobandi ideology in an attempt to institutionalize a more militant Islamist culture. But even his large-scale attempt to Islamize society fell short, not least because the majority of Pakistani powerbrokers have historically also been the country’s secularist guardians. The whiskey-drinking generals of Rawalpindi and the neo-bourgeois of Lahore and Islamabad may dabble with the Islamists to battle each other for control of the center, but the austerity of radical Islam holds little appeal outside strategic value in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Zia, for all his faults, understood the secularist tradition meant anything but modernity and progress to the Pakistani masses who remain impoverished both financially and spiritually under the jackboot of corrupt and predatory secular elites.Since his death Pakistan has vacillated, attempting to firewall secularism and religiosity, insulate the Punjabi (and Sindhi) heartland from the radical ideologies it fomented in the tribal areas and Azad Kashmir, and arrogate control over radical Islamist groups.
Secular Pakistan is in retreat today on all fronts as militant Islam makes unprecedented gains. The recent assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, over his call to reform Pakistan’s bigoted Zia-era blasphemy laws, is the most dramatic example. In its wake, Islamic political parties, including the Jamaat-Islami (JI) and the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islami (JUI), have barely managed to conceal their glee. Never having gained mainstream acceptance, today they find growing resonance on the street for their conservative platforms, affording them considerable political momentum. Support and solidarity has come not just from the usual base in the tribal agencies and the rural poor, but from unusual and worrying quarters including lawyers and teachers unions and influential Barelvi scholars who until recently were considered the antidote to the Deobandis. As worrying, in the latest of a growing trend, the specter of radicalized security forces has re-emerged. The assassin, a member of an elite police unit was able to empty an entire magazine into the governor without a single shot fired by his colleagues, a worrying indicator of the potential stability for the praetorian foundations of Pakistan.
In contrast, mainstream secular political parties have been found lacking; disorganized, rife with intra-factional feuds and wholly bereft of courage, all too often they have chosen appeasement over principle. Similarly, all but the bravest of liberal Pakistanis have found themselves excluded from the street, fearful of violent reprisals by suicide bombers or counter-protesters seemingly outside the control of security forces. Such a situation has not been restricted to the aftermath of the assassination. For many years now secular Pashtun political parties in the tribal agencies, such as the ANP, have found themselves viciously undermined by army machinations while being targeted by both religious radicals and other secularists, such as the MQM, who prize ethno-political considerations over the long-term stability of the state.
A dangerous convergence of violent militant groups risks metastasizing domestic terrorism, a bleak prospect for a country already identified as the global epicenter of terrorism. Traditionally militant groups in the Af-Pak region delineated themselves in terms of targeting scopes. Some focused on domestic sectarian issues, others regionally in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and a few others focused on the global jihad. Despite ideological similarities and some operational overlap, they remained firewalled from each other. Today, catalyzed by the war in neighboring Afghanistan and the Pakistani state’s perceived complicity, particularly after the storming of the Lal Masjid in 2007, various old-guard outfits have begun to splinter in favor of newer and more radicalized groups. The emergence of the al-Qaeda allied TTP has been the most obvious facet of this phenomenon. A potent localized force, the TTP has fused takfiri ideology with ethnic grievances and provided a structure for disaffected militants of all stripes who identify the Pakistani government as apostates. Alone, the TTP has little reach into the Punjab. For that it requires the assistance of more sophisticated ‘Punjabi Taliban’ groups which represent the real intellectual capital of South Asian militancy. They include groups formerly exclusively focused on Kashmir or domestic sectarian agendas and include the LeJ, the SSP, the JeM, HuJI to name but a few. Boasting extensive madrassa networks across the Punjab, and in many cases having unrivalled technological and operational expertise courtesy of former ISI support, they have been implicated in virtually every major terrorist attack in Pakistan’s settled areas recently, including the formerly inconceivable storming of Army GHQ in Rawalpindi.
It is this convergence that offers the most worrying internal security threat for Pakistan. Traditionally, most Punjabi-based militant groups worked in tandem with state strategy. Extensive employment in Kashmir fomented a strong working relationship with the intelligence agencies, notably the ISI, which exerted considerable influence. In recent years, many militant groups have moved to cast off all affiliations with those connected to the government. Former operational commander of the HUJI Ilyas Kashmiri, renowned for loyal service in Kashmir, is now presumed to be the military head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The ISI itself has found itself in militant crosshairs, various installations attacked and 74 personnel killed in 2009. Just as startling was the saga of known militant sympathizers Colonel Imam and Khalid Khawaja. Despite established jihadi credentials and long associations with militant groups, both men were captured, and killed in captivity by splinter militant factions who decried their associations with the Pakistani government and military. Even a personal appeal by Mullah Omar, the amir-ul-Momineen of the Afghan jihad, was unable to secure their release, a startling indicator of the extent to which traditional militant elites have lost ground.
Friendly militant syndicates such as the Quetta Shura Taliban, the largest militant network operating in Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, perhaps the most operationally capable of all militant outfits, or the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, are also not immune to radicalizing trends. The LeT is known to be growing increasingly close to al-Qaeda, unsurprising given their shared ideological inclinations, and its firewall from wider militant trends is far from assured. Various studies on the QST have similarly shown that in large part local network commanders are known to resent, but grudgingly accept, Pakistani influence. Similarly it does not seem implausible to imagine that the Haqqanis, now under a withering U.S. drone campaign, are likely to grow ever less charitable towards their Pakistani patrons as the American noose tightens and suspicions of ISI double-dealing arise.
Outright jihadist militancy is only the cloak for Pakistan’s true problems. No matter their growth, jihadist columns will never march down Islamabad nor control the formal nuclear levers. Far more insidious is the radicalization of society that facilitates their rise and threatens the very identity that educated Pakistanis so dearly cherish. The dysfunctional state capacity that alienates minorities is to blame as is the archaic belief that Pakistani security agencies can accurately delineate ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. Today Zia must be laughing from his grave, for now more than ever, Pakistan is teetering on the abyss of radicalization. If Jinnah’s tradition is to survive, Pakistan would be well advised to recognize the magnitude of the threat it faces and take commensurate action.
Varun Vira specializes in world conflicts and has written for Joint Forces Quarterly (April 2011), the Naval Postgraduate School’s Culture and Conflict Review (Winter 2010), Foreign Policy Journal and Global Dialogue. He is currently pursuing a Masters in International Affairs at the George Washington University.
