Pakistan today gives the impression of being a nation at war with itself not only in FATA but in the rest of the country. Muharram was commemorated under the protection of the gun and prohibitory orders. Hundreds of ulema - Shia and Sunni - were barred entry into several districts for fear that they would incite sectarian hatred in the days preceding Muharram.
Cities and towns were declared no go areas. As many as 30,000 places in 28 districts of the Punjab were declared sensitive and 58 ulema were banned from Attock district.
This, in a country which proclaims itself to be the home of all Muslims of the sub- continent, is a reflection of the state of affairs prevailing there.
Even otherwise, a strong Sunni hurricane is sweeping through Pakistan.
Originating in its current phase from FATA, it has spread outwards into NWFP and has reached Punjab and parts of Balochistan and even Karachi. The year that has gone by has been the most violent in Balochistan with more than 250 incidents.
Senator Sanaullah Baloch has alleged that the Pak Army is allowing the Taliban to settle in the province. Three Baloch groups fighting for Baloch rights have called off the ceasefire.
FATA
An estimated half million Pushtoon refugees have moved out of FATA and NWFP to safer havens in other parts of Pakistan. Refugees bring their own problems of demographic and social pressures; they become centres of rage and extremism, crime and extortion.
For years Pakistan followed the principle of conducting jihad first in Afghanistan and then in Kashmir by splitting the jihadis to control the jihad. The result is that today we have a situation where the jihadis seem uncontrollable. A competitive jihad has set in with different groups operating together, or independently.
As Jessica Stern described them, " A kind of ' victimisation Olympics' often takes hold, with each side demonstrating through statistics or photographs or refugee flows that it is the aggrieved party and in need of international assistance, including in the form of terrorist volunteers." There is a confused picture in the FATA and NWFP with the Pakistani Taliban seemingly in greater control not only in FATA but also parts of NWFP, with other groups like the Jaish- e- Mohammed also operating there.
Interestingly, FATA went out of control when Gen Kiyani headed the ISI. Soon after the Mumbai attacks the present ISI chief, Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, described Baitullah Mehsud, the Tehrik- e- Taliban leader whom the Pakistan Army was supposedly battling, as a true patriot.
It is quite apparent that the Pakistan Army has a problem handling the situation there with its Pushtoon elements reluctant to fight fellow Pushtoons. There were large scale desertions from the Frontier Corps in 2007 when they refused to fight fellow Pushtoons in Waziristan.
A far worse situation could develop in the Punjab where groups like the Lashkar- e- Taiba operate not only as a force that is willing to fight India in Kashmir but also as a desirable and a necessary social alternative.
The LeT today fills a void in the country by providing schooling and health facilities that the state is unable to do. This wide acceptability among the middle class and the working class would make it extremely difficult for the essentially Punjabi Army to take on the jihadis in the Punjab.
Punjab
Any attempt by the authorities to curb its activities would be resisted. At the same time for the Army, the LeT remains the most effective and friendly ally in pursuing its policy objectives in India.
In addition the present economic crisis in Pakistan reduces investment opportunities in the social sector of the country. The $ 7 billion IMF dole has come with conditions that demand reduction in subsidies for the social sector.
The burgeoning population, especially the youth (over 50 per cent of the population will be below 18 in the next few years), will then get attracted to the facilities offered by the LeT and the Jamaat- e- Islami.
The education curriculum in many of the Dawa schools includes subjects like computer science, mathematics and English. It is not a jihadi curriculum and the students are from the middle class who will then form the backbone of the bureaucracy, politics and the military.
Even today the recruitment source for the Army and the various jihadi groups operating from Punjab is the same. There is thus a much bigger cohesion of the mindsets of the jihadis and the Army. Just as in the NWFP, the Pakistan Army is going to find it extremely difficult to control the jihad in the Punjab should it get out of hand.
This has immediate and long term implications for us. For one, we have not listened carefully and long enough to what the Pak Army's surrogates have been saying in different words at different places.
The message is - we will defeat you, we will annihilate you, because you are evil and you are not our God's men. Soon after the September 11 attacks, Fazlur Rahman Khalili, the Harkat ul Mujahedeen chief, told a press conference that "Osama's mission is our mission. It is a mission of the whole Islamic world." This sentiment is all pervasive. The jihadis want caliphates in India and the Army wants a revenge for 1971.
The important message is not that this will happen but that the mindset remains and the medium of the message is Mumbai.
Mumbai happened for two basic reasons: The mindset that prevails in Pakistan and insists that India must be bled, and the other, that it can be bled. The mastermind knew how we would react and gambled on this. For them it was a win- win situation either way.
India
Since the menace that has emerged has taken a new dimension there is need to counter it. Not doing anything is no longer an option. It is good to be reasonable and perhaps reasonable to be good but the adversary does not understand this. He sees this as a sign of weakness. Our friends, such as we have, will help us up to a point and that too only if we are willing to do something ourselves.
Merely because the US has begun to understand the magnitude and the source of the problem does not mean that we can beguile ourselves into assuming that they will fight our battles.
The threat has to be countered in every possible way. Continuing to show restraint may be in keeping with our self- image of an emerging global power but magnanimity follows respect and fear that a state induces.
The terrorist must know that he can be hurt. More than that, his controllers must know that they too can be hurt. Since organisations like the LeT draw their financial sustenance to a great extent from outside Pakistan, there has to be a global campaign to stop this.
Material and financial aid to Pakistan must be made conditional to an effective and verifiable winding down of the jihad apparatus. Equipping the Pakistan Army with weaponry only emboldens it further in its intransigence towards India. This has been a skewed policy that has been followed for decades and is largely responsible for the repeated adventurism by that country.
Pakistan has to be saved from itself and cleansed of the terrorist groups.
No single country can do this alone and unless checked in time collectively this danger will assume graver proportions.
Source : Mail Today , 9th January 2009
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