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THE ferocity of the suicide bombing that led to a bloodbath in a Shia mosque in Peshawar last Friday is mind-numbing with the images that appeared on social media in the aftermath, hauntingly fresh and an ever-present reminder of the massacre.
If many, many miles away those watching the images suffered trauma, the pain, grief, anguish and even the rage of those who lost loved ones, a father, a brother, a son, a child, and a friend would be unimaginable, indescribable. What words will encapsulate their desperate loss.
The bombing and the ease with which the attacker accessed the mosque after shooting the two policemen assigned to guard it was yet another stark indicator of the many ticking bombs around us and the fuses that have been lit either by mindless decisions or mere omissions.
We didn’t do much in terms of consolidating the National Action Plan that was agreed with consensus in parliament as also the security forces to mark the end to years of folly, the molly-coddling of the extremists and backing or ignoring their toxic ideology.
The Peshawar carnage was yet another reminder of the many ticking bombs around us.
Instead, the government embarked on utterly useless exercises such as spending time, energy and resources on the Single National Curriculum and that security policy that one critic rightly suggested could have been written by an undergrad for a first-term paper.
Also, since its inception, the hybrid regime, as its supporters in the media called it, focused its efforts on going after opposition of any kind from elected political leaders and opposition party heads to dissenting bloggers and social media users. How the mainstream media was dealt with is no secret.
This exercise of raw hybrid power may not have delivered anything in terms of economic stability or improving law and order but continued till the autumn of last year when a rupture happened over a transfer and fresh posting in a security agency.
We found out via dribs and drabs as it was not widely reported then. I recall writing about the situation as I saw it in these columns on Oct 10, 2022. Chosen here are a few paragraphs here from that day.
“From the ‘same page’ bliss to a right royal mess is quite a spectacular journey in such a short span of time and one that is definitely not in the gift of lesser mortals like you and I; it takes the chosen few with their hands on our destiny tiller to create a crisis like the one we are not supposed to have noticed.
“Notwithstanding professional, political, personal or spiritual compulsions or a mix of these for the decision and the differing points of view on it, what cannot be explained away is the rather sorry breakdown in the communication between those at the helm of the Islamic Republic.
“In any case, nothing’s been burned to the ground. Not yet at least. But, given the past experience of similar situations, a fuse may have been lit, a chain reaction triggered that could draw blood over the next 12 months.”
Today, we are about five months on from there.
If you read these lines on Sunday morning, over the following two days, I suspect the combined opposition, will have announced its game plan in terms of the timing of requisitioning a session of the National Assembly and tabling its motion of no-confidence.
The prime minister has already indicated that he plans to stand his ground and fight back hard. In a numbers game, it is not very clear what he can retaliate with in case he loses the support of the majority in the National Assembly.
However, there can be many a delaying tactic and other measures deployed, given that the National Assembly speaker is a diehard Imran Khan loyalist and that a loyal friend of a high-up in the PM’s Office is running an increasingly proactive civilian intelligence unit.
If the institution of the military and its security services have indeed become ‘neutral’, as many opposition leaders publicly say, even if they privately nurture doubts about it, then it would be interesting to see how those striving to oust the PM will blunt the civilian intel agency weapon.
Over the coming two days, it will also become clear if a section of the PTI itself has been weaned off the party and is now willing to pay the floor-crossing price: lose their seats after admittedly a months-long disqualification process if they vote against their party leader, the prime minister.
If this estrangement becomes public and final, it may also go a long way in helping government allies such as the PML-Q, MQM and others to make up their minds, as they have so far preferred to sit on the fence.
After the no-confidence move is settled, and regardless of who emerges the winner, it will be important for the ones in charge to reach out to the other side in order to evolve a consensus on two major issues — the economy and the renewed rise of terrorism.
These will remain inextricably linked to the country’s foreign policy too but all parties can’t be expected to mirror each other in all policy areas and risk losing their distinct identity. But surely wriggle room can be found in the greater interest of the suffering multitudes.
The ideal route has to be a fresh, credible national election. One which is seen as free and fair because key state institutions such as the military and the judiciary are demonstrably neutral and impartial in the conduct of the electoral exercise and in accepting the results with an open mind.
Only continued adherence to their assigned constitutional role and meaningful power in the hands of the truly elected leadership can navigate a safe passage out of the hurricane enveloping us. Nothing else can work.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2022
