IT is a welcome though belated decision, the details of which should nevertheless be closely examined. Giving the Punjab Rangers a frontline role in the fight against militancy may be one of the most consequential decisions the government of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has taken. Certainly, the decision, the details of which have yet to be hammered out or publicly revealed, has a federal dimension: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to have been urged by the military leadership to have PML-N representatives in the provincial apex committee agree to an expanded role for the Rangers in Punjab. Therein lies the problem with civilian decision-making. Ever since the military leadership publicly demanded that the army-led Punjab Rangers be given sweeping counterterrorism powers early last year, there was a whiff of inevitability about the decision to eventually do so because the civilian leadership did not — and is not — serious about building civilian-led counterterrorism capabilities. The assault on the Chotoo gang last April woefully exposed the police’s planning and execution, and two major bombings in Lahore within a year — on Easter Sunday in 2016 and the Mall attack last week — have shown a province that has not been meaningfully secured.

So while the decision to empower the Punjab Rangers is the right one, much will depend on how the provincial government defines the extent of the Rangers’ new powers and for what duration. The welcome scenario is apparent — precisely defined powers focusing on religious militancy and for a fixed duration. Whether the government will be able to achieve that depends on how the two sides approach the issue. For the PML-N, the key must be an acknowledgement that the province it rules is slowly being poisoned by a vast infrastructure of militancy and extremism. For desperately political reasons, the PML-N has remained stubbornly blind to the greatest threat to the stability and security of Punjab. The Sharif brothers and their key advisers need to accept that Punjab — like the rest of Pakistan — is in a state of war, a long, complex war against an enemy that is both shadowy and brazen. On the military’s part, there needs to be recognition that some civilian concerns are legitimate and that the seemingly perpetual mission of the Rangers in Sindh has deepened political anxieties. Precisely defined, firmly time-bound Rangers’ powers in Punjab are both possible and necessary.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2017