JI headed towards further isolation
A major reason behind Jamaat-e-Islami’s failure to capture popular imagination during its 72-year history is its disregard for the masses’ aspirations. Coming into existence a year after the historic Lahore Resolution when the Muslims all over undivided India were fighting for Pakistan, the party rejected the idea and ridiculed the All India Muslim League leadership for being unaware of the teachings of Islam. This was bound to create a wedge between the highly-motivated but moderate Muslim masses and the JI.
Maudoodi was arrested in Oct 1948 under orders issued by the first prime minister of the country when he declared that the tribal invasion of Kashmir was not a jihad. The Jamaat posed as the party of the Swaliheen, or those on the right path, indirectly downgrading the common Muslims. Thus during Maudoodi’s lifetime the organization remained a cadre party comprising a few hundred full members and a few thousand sympathizers. During the 1971 elections the party met with debacle in the West Pakistan while it was decimated in East Pakistan where its militant wings Al Shams and Al Badar supported the brutal military operation against the freedom seeking Bengalis.
The JI’s ratings fell like stone when it collaborated with Gen Zia after the coup in 1977 and joined his cabinet. When journalists were whipped, Zia’s information minister was Mahmood Azam Farooqi, a JI leader. It goes to Maudoodi’s credit though that he had argued that only a state can declare jihad and no individual or group was authorized to wage a private jihad of its own. It is ironical therefore that Munawar Hassan should declare Hakimullah Mehsud, an outlaw with head money on him, a martyr. Once again Jamaat-e-Islami is on the wrong side of history. The people are fed up with the terrorist attacks and want an urgent end to these. With the militants under Fazlullah declaring war against the state there is need for a unified reaction. What JI is doing is to create dissensions and fissures in an already polarized society which can only help the terrorists. There is a need on the part of the army to reconsider its policy of using religion as a source of motivation for the troops. With the terrorists resorting to similar war cries the common soldier is bound to be confused. During the 1965 conflict the most popular war songs relied on patriotism as a potent source of motivation. It is time patriotism takes the central place in the thinking of the army.