THE religio-political parties and those at the helm of madressahs’ affairs have always seen their interests being threatened whenever the government has decided to take some counterterrorism measures. They would mount pressure and eventually the government would surrender. The outcome has been that terrorism and religious extremism continue to thrive.

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is right when he says that terrorism has no religion. But should that imply that terrorism has an ethnicity, language or tribe? Certainly not.

The statements by religious leaders that confuse counterterrorism efforts with ‘intentions’ to undermine the religion serve no purpose other than protecting the vested interests of the religious elite. They strongly resist any effort to reform the madressah sector and curriculum of formal education institutions and to regulate religious charities. Also, they are not willing to relinquish control of mosques. They view most counterterrorism measures suspiciously and consider them as the state’s intervention in their realm.

The attitude of the religious elite indicates that they want the same status that the social, political and security elites enjoy in the country. The latter do not see any major threat to their class interests in including the religious elite in their club, but its cost is very high. The religious elite are still apologetic about the actions of religious extremists and try to justify them through externalisation of the problem and shifting the burden on other institutions. This attitude is irritating for other elites.

The madressahs are the constituency and source of strength and power for the religious elite. They know and privately admit that some madressahs contribute significantly to terrorism in each and every aspect, from recruitment to providing hideouts to terrorists. But the religious elite resist any action against madressahs. The reason is obvious: they think it will create resentment and build internal pressure on them.

The interests of the jihadist, religio-political and madressah elites have converged.

It is a difficult task for the religious elite to create a balance between the interests of their constituency and class. They cannot simply detach themselves from militant elements and denounce them, as the latter are deeply entrenched in the existing religious discourse. The violent actors view any balancing exercise by the religious elite suspiciously and have at times behaved violently against the latter for this.

In this context, the reactions of the JUI-F and Jamaat-i-Islami to the National Action Plan (NAP) merely reflect their self-assumed role of safeguarding the religious tradition. Nor are their statements based on facts as they also know that the state and security establishment practice zero tolerance against all nationalist/insurgent and separatist elements in Balochistan, despite the fact that the latter have not caused as much damage to the country as the religiously-motivated militants have.

In 2014 alone, Baloch militants carried out 303 small-to-medium scale terrorist attacks compared to 903 medium-to-large scale attacks launched by the Taliban and other militants with similar objectives, including some deadly attacks such as those on the Karachi airport, naval dockyard, Samungli airbase in Quetta, Wagah border, and the Army Public School in Peshawar.

On the legislative front, one of the primary purposes of the Fair Trial Act and the Protection of Pakistan Act were to provide cover to law-enforcement agencies engaged in countering the insurgency in Balochistan. It is interesting that some nationalists and separatists are willing to engage in a reconciliatory political process, but the state seems least interested in taking up such initiatives. On the other hand, even though the religious extremists and militants were not interested, the government invested all its political resources to create a channel to initiate a dialogue with them before the launch of Operation Zarb-i-Azb.

The religious leaders’ reactions to the NAP not only make the entire political resolve against the militants controversial, they also imply that the ideological and strategic impunity the terrorists have been enjoying since decades should not be challenged.

The militants’ apologists argue that it is not madressahs but the formal educational institutions that are breeding extremists and terrorist recruits. Yet they also resist reforms in curricula of public educational institutions.

And who has control over the students, teachers and employees’ unions in these institutions? Several religious parties, predominantly the JI, JUI, and different wings of banned organisations, practically control public-sector education in Pakistan. Most importantly, students that get involved in militancy and violence are initially recruited by subsidiary organisations of these religious parties and groups.

While it is understandable that the religio-political parties and madressahs are trying to protect their class interests, the state is also not clear about how to deal with the burden of its ‘strategic assets’, mainly the militant groups who were proscribed under international pressure. Here, the interests of the jihadist, religio-political and madressah elites converge and they are trying to weaken the resolve of the government, which is quite sporadic and needs some consistency.

It is ironic that the number of banned organisations continued expanding under successive governments, but no monitoring mechanism was evolved to keep a check on their activities. While governments proscribed many groups under external pressure, the process created an opportunity to bring these militant groups under control and to initiate a reintegration plan. That opportunity still exists.

The government still has time to evolve certain mechanisms to regulate banned groups. There is a need not only to include groups in the proscribed list, but to exclude their names from the list as well if it is proven that a group has quit militancy inside and outside the country. The government can initiate such a reintegration plan.

Under this plan, amnesty can be offered to those banned groups that agree to abide by the constitution of Pakistan and quit and denounce all kinds of violence and militant and criminal activities, including spreading hate speech. For this purpose, a special mechanism for their registration and monitoring can be evolved at the federal or provincial level.

The state has to address its dichotomies and at the same time, it should build pressure on the religious elite to correct their path.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn January 11th , 2014

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