The Gandhi of Pakistan

We are creatures of extremes. My recent articles have provoked absurdly stern reactions. Extremist ideologues have accused me of apostasy and, therefore, ‘worthy of death’ as envisaged in their peculiar religion which does not even remotely resemble the commandments of Islam. Liberals are cut to the quick with last week’s article, ‘The head of Medusa’ (February 23), in which I had also faulted them for the spread of religion-motivated violence. But by far the most amusing response was that of a PML-N stalwart who is known to be close to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The man is not only blessed with the priceless virtue of originality but is also gifted with the ability to soar on the wings of imagination to giddy heights where the sordid tedium of mortal existence is replaced with imagined hope. He was unable to restrain himself and blurted incoherently: “Mian Sahib is the Gandhi of Pakistan. Like the mahatma, he is a man of peace and believes, as a poet once said, ‘the beauty that in all lives lies dormant may be brought to life.’ That is why he wants to give peace another chance and talk to the TTP. But war mongers like you will never understand this.”

I tried with only moderate success to keep a straight face. It was difficult to visualise ‘Mian Sahib’ attired like Gandhi in a loin cloth and, with stick in hand, trudging through the alleyways of poverty. I wondered whether the PML-N heavyweight was even aware that in a few months a storm, with potentially embarrassing political consequences for the prime minister, could be brewing.

On February 22 media reports surfaced that Paramount Pictures had decided to do a film starring Tina Fey on Kim Barker’s memoirs, ‘The Taliban Shuffle.’ The book, undoubtedly, is journalistic tripe and immediately after its publication in 2011 the author should have been sued for her scurrilous and unsubstantiated insinuations about the prime minister. But that is a problem for the Sartaj Aziz-Tariq Fatemi duo in consultation with the law ministry to sort out.

This looming crisis must not be allowed to divert attention from the overarching imperative of defeating terrorism. This is the single issue that stands in the way of building a strong, stable and prosperous Pakistan. It is a war that has to be won and there is no alternative other than to take bold and decisive measures without further delay.

But the tragedy of Pakistan is that its leaders live in a far away land of dreams that has no semblance to the real world. On February 16, when the villainous TTP commander, Omar Khalid Khorasani, boasted that 23 soldiers of the Frontier Corps who were captured in June 2010 had been beheaded, the government merely put its ill-advised peace initiative on hold instead of terminating the negotiations with the terrorist outfit as any self-respecting country would have done.

Despite this, an ‘informal meeting’ between the official and the Taliban negotiators is reported to have been held on February 23 in the presence of the interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. It is time for the leadership of the country to come clean and stop telling lies.

The hideous decapitation of the Pakistani soldiers, which is not the first incident of its kind, has had no impact on Chaudhry Nisar who actually had the gall to indulge in frivolity by inviting the TTP to a cricket match. He owes an unqualified apology to the nation for his callous insensitivity and, in particular to the families of the FC personnel whose loved ones were so cruelly put to death.

The minister surely could not have been unaware that two years back, as reported in the print media on March 21, 2012, the TTP released a video to jihadi forums in which the same Khorasani, who took such pride in slaughtering unarmed prisoners, vowed that his group would relentlessly persevere in its armed struggle till it achieved the four unalterable objectives of: (i) toppling the secular dispensation; (ii) replacing “the un-Islamic constitution” with the TTP’s concept of the Shariah; (iii) seizing control of Pakistan’s nuclear assets, and; (iv) “establishing a caliphate” without geographical boundaries.

The Bible says that a leopard never changes its spots (Jeremiah 13:23) and, in this sense, nor will the TTP ever alter its ambition of capturing political power. Successive governments have done little to curb its burgeoning influence since it was formally established in December 2007. The 13-odd peace deals that were concluded with the TTP have come to naught and it is ridiculously naive to expect that negotiations with the group will yield a fulsome harvest of peace.

Such an outcome is inconceivable unless the terrorist outfit and its affiliates renounce violence, disarm and pledge fealty to the constitution. This will only be possible if the ability of the TTP to pursue its violent agenda is neutralised. The implication is that the talks with the outlawed group which the government still hopes to revive will have to be preceded by an all out military offensive.

On Wednesday, the interior minister finally unveiled the contours of the National Internal Security Policy 2013-2018 from the floor of the National Assembly. This was his magnum opus which had taken several months to prepare. The long wait has cost the country dearly. According to one estimate, from June 5, 2013 to February 7 there were 863 terrorist incidents which resulted in 1,403 fatalities.

Though the 100-page policy document is yet to be circulated among parliamentarians, the following extract was quoted by one of the major newspapers: “Some 13,721 terror incidents were reported in Pakistan during 2001-13, which are marginally less than those in Iraq. From 2001 to 2005, there were 523 terror incidents in Pakistan, but the number rose to 13,198 during 2007 to November 2013…Some 48, 994 people were killed in the country, including 5,272 personnel of the law enforcement agencies, from 2001 to November 2013, with 17, 642 of them having been killed in just three years from 2011 to 2013.”

The comment that must be made here is that the findings of the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terror reveal that in 2012 the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan surpassed even Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore what the government must understand is that the core ingredient for a national security policy is the accuracy of data.

If the interior ministry now claims that 48,994 people have been killed since 2001, then Chaudhry Nisar must explain why he misinformed the Senate on August 27 last year when he stated that there had been only 12,795 terrorism-related fatalities since 2002. Even worse, two months later he revised his earlier statement and said that the actual number was 12,404.

Chaudhry Nisar’s three-part national security policy document is undoubtedly weighty insofar as the number of pages is concerned, but not in terms of its contents. One segment is secret and pertains to variable day-to-day tactical matters; the other two are described as strategic and operational. Thus one-third of what the new policy is all about will never be known.

It envisages the reinvigoration of the existing National Counter-Terrorism Authority which, according to reports, will include the three armed services chiefs; the creation of a rapid reaction force with access to airfields and helicopters starting with the federal capital and then extending to the provinces; and the formation of a joint intelligence directorate that will collate, streamline and analyse inputs from the civil and military intelligence agencies.

In addition, a security division will be established and entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing coordination among the 33 national security organisations, including the police and civil armed forces, whose cumulative strength exceeds 600,000 and is more than that of the Pakistan army.

The new internal security policy is built around military retaliation against terrorist attacks while keeping the doors of negotiations open should the TTP announce an unconditional cessation of hostilities. There is no mention of any pre-emptive strikes, which implies that the government will merely wait for a tragedy to happen and only then will it retaliate militarily.

The writer is the publisher of Criterion Quarterly.

Email: iftimurshed@gmail.com