An example of victory against an insurgency which everyone is quoting these days is of Sri Lanka where in May soldiers walked into the last enclave held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.  Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tigers, was killed. Does violence work? Is force the answer to insurgencies? It is this question which is answered below.

First, it is the nature of the insurgency which should be considered. If a group of people is asking for autonomy or even a separate territory, there should be no suppression of the demand by force. This view may not go down well with the nationalists. But my view is that the boundaries of the nation-state are not sacrosanct and, therefore, autonomy or independence is better than military action once everything else has been tried. Honouring this principle I support the partition of India, the emergence of Bangladesh and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people to join Pakistan or India or remain independent.

It is in deference to this principle that I have always believed that the Tamils in Sri Lanka had a point. Their grievances were genuine and if it was autonomy — or even partition — they really desired then so be it. But the government used repression and intransigence so that the moderates were pushed out and a monster of iniquity, Prabhakaran, took over. This man’s cruelty knew no bounds. He killed the moderate Tamils. He made suicide bombing a trademark of the Tigers. In the end, he left the government with no choice but to kill him and countless civilians. If only successive governments in Sri Lanka had ensured justice for the Tamils, things would not have come to this pass.

Let us now consider ideological insurgencies. The most well-known have been inspired by communism and political Islam. In the former category, cases in Latin America and Asia come to mind. In South Asia, the Communist Party of Nepal is an example of success. Another success story is that of Vietnam where the US could not win.

There are parallels between insurgent movements even when their ideologies and causes are different. The Tamil Tigers became very violent. They alienated even the Tamils. In Peru the Shining Path fought the government from the 1980s until 1992. They condemned ‘bourgeois democracy’ and denounced human rights just as Al Qaeda and the Taliban do. Like the Tamil Tigers and the Shining Path, the Islamic militants are also brutal. The Shining Path slit throats, strangulated people, and stoned and burnt them alive. The Taliban have done most of these things in Pakistan too.

Wherever such a movement starts there are terrible human rights abuses by all parties. In Sri Lanka critics of the government and the Tigers were silenced; in Peru the 2003 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports 69,280 dead of whom about 54 per cent were killed by the Shining Path, one-third by the military and the rest by small guerilla groups or rogue killers. In Pakistan people are caught up in the crossfire between the Taliban and the army or killed by US drones. The Taliban brooked no opposition wherever they were in power, although the government has allowed the democratic right to dissent.

Yet another parallel is that the common people are initially sympathetic to the insurgents because they express old grievances against an unjust regime and social order. However, if the insurgents prove ruthless the people start detesting, even killing, them. In Peru the peasants killed Shining Path guerillas in the 1990s. In Pakistan we see tribal lashkars seeking to destroy the militants in many places.

Both communist and Islamic insurgencies take shape because people are attracted to certain ideologies especially in countries where the ruling elite is unjust and corrupt. In both Latin America and the Muslim world the rich ruling elite is seen as a stooge of the US. These elites are perceived to be without legitimacy which can only come through democracy and good governance. Pakistan has more democracy than other Muslim countries but a flawed system of governance. The ruling elite is elected, but is seen as corrupt, selfish and alienated from the masses.

And yet, the government is lucky that the people are now supporting the army to eliminate the Taliban. They would have done so earlier had they not been confused by those who misled them into supporting the ‘good Taliban’ (those fighting the Americans) but not the bad ones (the ones attacking the army). The fact is that militant ideology espoused by various Islamic militant groups all over the world believes in making people live their lives in accordance with their version of the Sharia. Like communist groups they seek to change lifestyles and views and will use force to do so.

Negotiations hardly work with the more hardcore of militant leaders of religious groups. They believe their ideas are sacrosanct. They do not fear death; they fear life. They do not want compromise; they want victory or death. This makes short and swift military action necessary against them. But even military action tends to get prolonged as in Latin America and Sri Lanka. That is the problem.

However, once military victory is achieved good governance follows. In the Philippines, for instance, Air Force Major General Edward Lansdale prevented the Huk Bulahap communist insurgency from overthrowing the government. But, Lansdale did not use only force. He created economic development and provided land to former guerillas. He also arranged training for them so that they became economically better off. Since communist movements are fed by poverty, the movement lost its popular appeal and was defeated.

In our case the state has to open the minds of Pakistanis to humanist, pluralist values. This requires changes in textbooks which create militancy in the name of Islam. More wholesome entertainment — games, sports, literary evenings, poetry, music, theatre, humour, storytelling, fairs — is also required. We have reduced the space for these at our peril. If we do not give fun and laughter a place in our lives we will be haunted by hatred, violence and depression. In short, we have to change the orientation of society from militant chauvinism and political Islam to an affirmation of life with all its pleasures. Unless we do this we will not be able to defeat the Taliban.