ONCE again, extremist organisations are filling a vacuum created by the government’s torpor and lack of planning. This has been seen before in times of crisis, including natural disasters such as the earthquake in 2005, the floods in recent years, as well as the military operation in Swat in 2009, when internally displaced people were given succour by ‘charities’ run by extremist organisations. This time it is the IDP crisis unfolding in the wake of the military operation in North Waziristan that has once again seen such groups leap into the fray. A report in Dawn on Friday detailed a visit to relief camps run by the Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation — the Jamaatud Dawa’s latest iteration — and supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar, the firebrand cleric who heads Jaish-e-Mohammad, which is banned both internationally and in Pakistan. The report quoted the FIF camp’s chief organiser lauding the army’s “cooperative” attitude towards them. At the same time, local NGOs are being asked to apply for no-objection certificates to set up relief camps.

The extremist threat to Pakistan is a deep-rooted one precisely because groups espousing dangerously obscurantist ideologies have been allowed to weave themselves into the warp and weft of society. They have been encouraged to fly the banner of patriotism while those with a secular approach have been marginalised and regarded with suspicion by the powers that be. The disastrous fallout from this attempt at social engineering is one reason the military finds itself fighting a battle in the mountains of North Waziristan today. However, to effect long-term reversal of Pakistan’s slide into radicalisation, every strain of extremism will have to be painstakingly excised from the body politic. Moreover, until the establishment severs its ties with ‘favoured’ militants, the country cannot truly change its trajectory. In times such as these, such groups must be denied the space to act as saviours of vulnerable people in terms of material assistance, while along the way making inroads into their minds in the guise of saving their souls.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2014