Punjab’s Faustian bargain breaks

You can only scratch the Taliban’s back so long

Punjab made a Faustian bargain with the Taliban in 2010. The last spate of bombings in Punjab’s capital stretched across 2009. This included the R A Bazaar blast in March 2009 (40 dead), the Moon Market blast in December 2009 (75 dead) and Data Darbar in June 2010 (five dead). Instead of facing the threat head on, the self-proclaimed Khadim-i-Aala  was memorably referred to as the “ostrich of Punjab” for “hiding his head in the sand”.

Where the provincial governments of Pakistan’s three other provinces had no qualms “fighting the Taliban threat” without success, the Khadim-i-Aala chose a different strategy. In January 2010, Shabbaz took to national television to address the Pakistani Taliban and asked them “to refrain from any terrorist attacks in Punjab”.

Later, at a gathering at the Jamia Naeemia in Garhi Shahu, whose former head Sarfaraz Naeemi was killed in a suicide bombing on June 12, 2009, Sharif continued to say, “The PML-N has refused to accept external dictation and stood strong before [General Pervez] Musharraf. If this is the stance of Taliban, then they should not carry out terrorism in Punjab.”

The statements were taken by more experienced observers as reminiscent of the 1997 government of the Sharifs when they attempted a constitutional amendment aimed at declaring Nawaz Sharif the ‘Ameerul Momineen’ and pointed to the close links that the PML-N had developed with the Taliban in the Zia era which continued through the 1990s when the Taliban government in Afghanistan was viewed as a favourable ally by the PML-N.

But Shahbaz’s strategy in his public statements was not based on a one-sided agreement. The logic offered to the Taliban was, “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” The PML-N government’s promise was not to touch the extremist groups which use Punjab as a base, and in return it would get a ‘safe’ Punjab. Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi strongholds in both Southern and Central Punjab were left untouched as the Awami National Party (ANP) continued to let the military and other security agencies attack Taliban strongholds in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and suffer the loss of hundreds of party workers and dozens of leaders.

Shahbaz Sharif’s offer was met with three years of calm. So as Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar burned, the citizens of Lahore could sleep well in the knowledge that their Khadim-e-Aala had kept the ghost of the Taliban at bay.

Despite the massive securitisation of the city, Lahore has felt invincible throughout the war with the Taliban. In part because of the way extremist groups have become something like Punjab’s abusive lover.

The PML-N government has been known to fund extremist groups, including the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and the Tehreek-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwat, and fight elections alongside the Shia hating Ahl-e-Sunnah wal Jammat, whose leader Ahmed Ludhianvi contesting election for MNA in his Jhelum hometown only recently stated that he “did not want the votes of Shias”. The head of the LeJ Malik Ishaq remains under police protection in Bahawalpur from where he is both given a stipend from the government and allowed to address press conferences calling for Pakistan to be declared a “Sunni state”.

Hidden behind the Sunni state garb of course is the idea that only the Deobandi school of thought can remain dominant – which is why the TTP was targeting shrines, including the Data Darbar and Sakhi Sarwar, to weed out the Barelvi school of thought next. The terrorism in the Punjab has always come from within – a product of the beasts its ruling party has cultivated to secure its vision of State-hood.

This is why the younger Sharif still has no qualms calling on the Taliban to treat Punjab ‘separately’ and drawing on links between the Taliban and themselves. Of course both have retained the same chief patron for a long time: Saudi Arabia. And if nothing else is left to unify them, the Saudi connection always comes in handy.

By ensuring that the Deobandi madrassas and training centres, , including one in Muridke in the outskirts of Lahore, that provide a recruiting base for the Taliban remain untouched, the Punjab government had hoped that its bargain with Satan would keep their beloved Punjab untouched. The same is the reason why its Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan has refused to name either the Taliban or the LeJ as being behind any attack and continued to tow the ‘peace talks’ line.

And so the silence remained until Nawaz Sharif’s constituency in Lahore was bombed. A bomb went off in the hustling, bustling Old Anarkali food street and took five dead with it. The hallmarks were all of earlier attacks on the city’s marketplaces by the Taliban.

But as one could remember from the response to the Moon Market attack: Lahore is a city that does not believe the Taliban could attack it. Widespread theories were circulated in the gossiping circles that the attack was “orchestrated by Blackwater”, and got then newspaper editor and now Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf hawk Shireen Mazari in a tiff with the US Consulate for publishing such accusations as fact.

The theory was bought by the chattering classes despite the Taliban claiming the attack. The theory gained more credence when the Shahbaz Sharif appeal to the Taliban was heard.

Similarly, the police response to this recent attack has been to anonymously claim that the attackers were from Balochistan. In terms of arrests, they have picked up more Afghan and Pakhtun food street workers than members of banned extremist organisations.

The Khadim-e-Aala has issued directives from China asking “law-enforcement agencies to utilise all resources to track down the assailants”.

But whom are they chasing? Both Lahore and the Punjab government are still not clear. Unfortunately, while the silly statements by the Punjab chief minister could be taken as “representing his constituency” in the last government, a similar policy this term around shall be taken with much more venom in the other provinces, since the PML-N now makes the federal government.

The “Punjab first” sloganeering and attitudes of the Sharifs can no longer work if they are to restore people’s confidence in the federation.

While the Anarkali attack may dispel notions that the Taliban only attack the other three provinces, it is the attitude of the PML-N towards the war with the Taliban that is the critical problem.

On the one side, it is parties either based in the Punjab (PML-N, PTI) or traditionally close to the Taliban (JUI-F, JI) that are driving forward the “peace talks with the Taliban” agenda. On the other side, the Taliban appear to have the provincial capitals of all four provinces now in a hostage situation.

The choices in front of the PML-N government are difficult – however, the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif shall be well advised not to take the “hide your head in the sand” solution preferred by his younger brother. It is not a bargain in which you can ever succeed.

The writer is the general secretary (Lahore) of the Awami Workers Party. He is a journalist and a researcher. Contact: [email protected]