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WHETHER the prime minister was subdued or (as was not the case) animated when he announced the start of the military operations in the North Waziristan Agency is immaterial; whether he had the ownership thrust upon him or took the initiative himself also doesn’t matter.
What does count is the huge responsibility that has now come to rest on his shoulders. Not just the prime minister’s but on every single element of his huge political machine or the PML-N party if you will. Equally, the PPP, ANP and MQM can enthusiastically endorse the operations and the PTI reluctantly — none of them can afford to stay aloof now.
The operation in North Waziristan, to my mind, is but a tiny piece of the jigsaw which has to fall into place in a much, much larger puzzle, a seemingly insurmountable challenge that represents the fight against militancy, and the radicalisation that fuels it, in the country.
One can run out of breath counting the contributing factors and have yet barely scratched the surface. But we have to list some key ones in order to address these. First and foremost is really the need to gauge the pulse of the people and ensure a public buy-in into the measures that have been initiated.
Mobilising political workers can ensure that prayer leaders are more amenable to talking of peace and amity.
How do we do that? Admittedly, it isn’t easy but it isn’t rocket science either. Even if most of the major political parties in the country, representing the bulk of the voting public, have conspired to thwart the staging of local elections all is not lost.
There aren’t any local councillors at the grass-roots level. However, we do have over 1,000 public representatives elected to different houses including the provincial assemblies. The budgets have been presented and likely to be approved without much ado.
As soon as that happens would the parties consider a consensus adjournment of all houses, particularly if there isn’t a pressing legislative agenda waiting to be taken up, and one isn’t aware of any, in order to facilitate the return of all elected members to their constituencies?
These members can then launch themselves into a mass contact effort, explaining to their constituents the significance of the existential fight the country is facing today and to hammer home the message that losing this battle isn’t an option.
Political workers, led by their elected leaders, would then need to spread out to every single street, nook and cranny in the country to mobilise public opinion. It is of paramount importance, and I must admit I don’t know how it would be done, to win over as many prayer leaders as possible in the country too.
If a large enough mobilisation of political workers is carried out, I suspect, some of these prayer leaders would be more amenable to pleas that they carry a message of peace and amity in their interactions formal and informal with those under their influence.
And the law must take its course in the case of those who refuse to see sense and remain committed to infecting society with hate ideologies and push people towards the path of radicalisation, militancy, murder and mayhem.
This is just one way for political parties, which tirelessly and rightly chant the ‘democracy is great’ mantra, to show their commitment to preserving the democratic order and saving it from collapse at the hands of armed militants who solely rely on hate ideology and brutal violence to further their goals.
The central as well as the provincial governments will hopefully concentrate on beefing up the intelligence and operational capacity of the police force as only this force can deal with challenges to the established authority by armed hordes in the urban centres in the long term. It isn’t the army’s job which can continue to offer backup.
It is incumbent on the civilian leadership to ensure that criminal distractions such as the one created by the Punjab police assault on Dr Tahirul Qadri’s Minhajul Quran headquarters in Lahore, which resulted in tragic and wholly unnecessary loss of life, never happen again.
While many may have reservations about what makes the religious scholar tick, his political agenda, even his likely backers, it must be clear that his is a voice against militancy and intolerance. He may be irritating at worst, but doesn’t pose the existential threat the TTP does. That’s where the focus should remain.
The fight against extremism is going to be a long-drawn-out affair, testing everyone’s nerves and resolve. Even then the government must remain focused on making incremental efforts at improving the security situation, steadily working on getting the economy growing, creating jobs, side by side with moving towards a halfway decent health and education provision system.
Whosoever you ask in the street says their main issue is provision of justice. A reform of the justice system is long overdue. Heroic and proactive members of the superior judiciary can take more and more interest in the common person’s cases but will never compensate for a largely dysfunctional system at the lower levels.
This, hopefully, will be tackled on a war footing. Once steps are under way to tie all loose ends at home, the government will need to move to stem the flow of foreign funds, regardless of their origin, to militants or organisations that support the extremist cause.
During a discussion with a friend, who rarely minces his words, on the current state of play, I happened to share this wish list. His response: “Then you woke up.” This indeed seemed the case on reading Ismail Khan’s painful report in yesterday’s edition of Dawn on how the North Waziristan IDPs have been attended to so far.
Hopefully, the criticism in such reports is quickly taken on board and the situation rectified. No point being pessimistic and looking at the scenario if such reports are ignored.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2014
