THE debate on extremism often gets muddled when it comes to the issue of narrative. A segment of Pakistani society believes that there is a need for developing counter narratives to defeat extremist ideologies and forces in the country. Nonetheless, extremists claim they are the custodians of the mainstream narrative in the country which the state has compromised under external obligations and compulsions.

The state is struggling to wrest back control not only of its territories but also its religion-based narrative of nationalist identity that it lost to the militants. This grand religious-ideological narrative has remained an essential component of the strategic doctrine, foreign policy and the socio-political structures of the Pakistani state.

It appears that the Pakistani state is concerned about the extremist interpretation of this grand narrative — the extremists define and explain it in a purist and exclusive perspective — and wants to make it moderate and accommodative. A former head of the ISI, while describing the chemistry of the country’s grand narrative at a seminar in Islamabad, focused on its three basic elements ie democracy, jihad and nuclear deterrence. Extremists and the state, including the political leadership, have divergent views on democracy.

The Taliban and their affiliate extremist groups are against the concept of democracy itself, but others have different interpretations of democracy. For religious-political parties, democracy is all about electoral politics which they believe provides space to accommodate different sects and ethnic groups that exist in the country. Political parties possessed of a moderate, secular outlook including the PPP, the Awami National Party, and the nationalist parties of Sindh and Balochistan have divergent views not only on the concept of democracy but also regarding the other two components of the grand narrative.

These parties are still the prime target of the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s affiliate terrorist groups such as Jundullah. A faction of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has clearly stated that the ceasefire announced by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan does not apply to these political parties not only because of their divergent views but also due to their accommodative attitude towards the militants’ rival religious sects.

Interestingly, these parties have reservations about the peace process with the Taliban but when in power themselves, they did little to challenge the extremist narrative. Their accommodative behaviour further caused their political space to shrink, and eventually the Taliban did not even allow them to run their electoral campaigns freely.

The government and their ideological allies including Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf have no major differences with the Taliban except over the latter’s use of violence as a strategic choice to achieve party objectives. The government and its allies use the militants’ use of violence as a countering argument and tend to build a narrative of victimhood.

Government officials, opinion leaders and even analysts do not hesitate to exaggerate the figures of terrorism victims, and they add to it as randomly as they wish. According to many of them, the number of those killed in terrorist attacks has crossed the figure of 55,000. Once, a former interior minister increased terrorism-related fatalities from 22,000 to 25,000 within a week.

Interestingly, the media and opinion leaders not only take these figures seriously but also use them to increase the weight of their argument. But the fact is, nobody wants to believe in official figures. According to independent sources, casualties among terrorists constitute about 30pc of these figures.

However, the actual statistics of the victims of terrorism would be still quite high even without being exaggerated. Indeed, the state must consider the lives of all its citizens equal and should own the responsibility to protect them. The narrative of victimhood not only exposes the flaws in the government’s threat perception but also creates an impression that state institutions are weak.

State institutions do not face such weaknesses in their counter-insurgency campaign in Balochistan. The reason is clear. They see the Baloch insurgency purely from a security perspective, and no narratives or ideological hitches are involved.

No doubt, the extremists are the beneficiaries of the confusion over the grand narrative and they are expanding their support bases across the country. The expansion in their support base translates into more human, financial, and logistic resources for the militants.

The recent incidents of communal violence in interior Sindh provide an opportunity to study how the extremist forces exploit the existing gaps and confusion in state narratives. Discussing the pattern of the hate discourse in the country, security analyst Ehsan Mehmood Khan in his book Human Security in Pakistan has pointed out that the communities conceive communal violence in ideological and political perspectives, but that in many cases the clergy’s economic stakes play a critical role in developing a tendency for communal tensions.

Pro-extremist economic interests grow with the passage of time and gradually they enter politics, and the grand narrative, which the state believes in, becomes a tool in their hands.

Obviously, it’s always difficult for the state to restructure its vision and to create new narratives because this demands a complete transformation of the social contract of society. And there are no signs that the state wants to readjust its vision. This can be seen in the way a wave of extremism has begun in interior Sindh.

The option left to the state is to stop the exploitation of its grand narrative but the question is how can this be done? In this context, are talks a rational choice?

The writer is a security analyst.