On the wrong side of history

Munawar Hasan, the JI and its extremist agenda

Jamaat-e-Islami has finally come to Munawar Hassan’s rescue. It has refused to disown its chief’s double assertion: Hakimullah Mehsud was a martyr while the issue of the martyrdom of soldiers fighting Pakistan’s war against terrorism remains in question. Instead of being on the defensive, the JI has sought an apology from the army for what the party considers ‘overstepping its constitutional limits by directly addressing a political party.’ This coming from a party that has acted hands in glove with successive military rulers over a major part of this nation’s history is nothing short of a joke.

The letter sent to the PM aims at requesting him to discipline the army for not following the ‘policies set by elected representatives of the people.’ Did Jamaat-e-Islami join Ziaul Haq’s cabinet because the dictator was following the policies formulated by the elected representatives? It should be amply clear now that the controversial stand taken Munawar by Hassan was not his personal opinion as was being given out earlier but a policy stand of the JI.

The JI decision followed by the letter to the PM were aimed at providing political support to militant outfits who have killed upward of 40,0000 civilians and servicemen over the last few years, attacked mosques, imambargahs and churches, demolished hundreds of schools, destroyed the livelihood of the people and derailed the national economy.

The Jamaat defends Mehsud, says Paracha, because the TTP chief was fighting against the US. During the Afghan war circa 1980 to 1989, when the JI workers fought at the American behest in Afghanistan, the party leadership was not shy of doing the US’ bidding. Did those its cadres killed too were martyrs then?

The claim that Hakimullah was eliminated simply because he wanted to enter into dialogue with Pakistan is factually incorrect. The TTP chief’s death had nothing to do with Pakistan. The US put a $5 million bounty on Hakimullah’s head soon after he was found to be the mastermind behind the killing of seven CIA agents in December 2009 in Khost, the deadliest strike against the Agency in a quarter century.

Hakimullah was subsequently targeted in January 2010, within 72 hours after the release of a confessional video of Jordanian doctor Khalil Abu-Mulal al Balawi. There was a report of Hakimullah’s being killed in a drone attack which was corroborated by the then interior minister Rehman Malik also. Hakimullah sustained severe injuries but survived and for nearly three years kept a low profile.

It is for two reasons that the Jamaat taken a stand that is bound to make it unpopular in the country. First, to ingratiate itself with the militants in the hope that they would spare the party in KP and FATA – instead helping it reach to the corridors of power through violent means. This also indicates that the Jamaat has lost hope in ever coming to power through elections. Second, it is intended to pacify the admirers of the TTP within the Jamaat’s ranks as well as activists in its student wing, the IJT.

Munawwar Hasan’s views have naturally drawn accolades from the TTP while they have elicited resentment from the common people. The views come as no surprise for those who know the party’s history.

The JI is only one step behind the militants ensconced in the mountains. The party shares their ideals and methods, like the establishment of an Islamic state that enforced Sharia and waged jihad against the non-Muslims. The party has never categorically rejected employment of violent means for the achievement of its ends. The Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba activists nurtured on the writings of Maudoodi and the novels of Nasim Hijazi look at the jihadi outfits with awe and respect. Through sheer use of force the Jamiat has tried to replicate the Waziristan experiment in the campuses of the educational institutions under their control. They idealize the militants whom they believe are doing what their own leadership only preaches but does not practice.

This explains why the JI and IJ T activists have frequently provided shelter to Al Qaeda terrorists. This also explains the raison d’être behind the split in the party in 1995 which gave birth to the new group Tehrik-e-Islami.

Eyebrows were raised when an Al Qaeda operative was arrested from the hostel room of an IJT activist in the Punjab University. As reported in The News on August 11, pictures of Aafia Siddiqui and other Al Qaeda luminaries were recovered from the room. An activist of IJT was also arrested in connection with the affair.

Another report appearing in the Express Tribune exactly one month later on September 11 told about the arrest of six members of Al Qaeda’s suicide squad, their local handler and two of their technical collaborators. According to the report, “Investigators have also unearthed a workshop where members of the squad would test out their instruments of death and destruction. While their handler resided in the Punjab University hostel, the remaining members lived in different urban areas in Lahore.”

A month later the identity of the man arrested from the hostel room of the IJT leader was finally established. A report appearing in The News on October 10 revealed, the man was “the mastermind of a suicide attack on the embassy of Denmark in Islamabad” in 2008. Further that “the suspect was arrested from the Punjab University hostel where a student Ahmed Sajjad Rathore was boarding” and “on the basis of information gathered from this fighter, 17 others have been arrested and the network of this group has been busted.”

And where was Khalid Sheikh Muhamad, the mastermind of 9/11 with a head money of $25 million, arrested from? It was 18-A Nisar Road in the Westridge district of Rawalpindi and the house was owned by a Jamaat-e-Islami leader.

In 1995 citing irreconcilable ideological differences a section of the youth formed a breakaway faction calling itself Tehreek-e-Islami (TI), and 16 members of Jamaat’s Majlis-e-Shoora, including provincial nazima Amira Ehsan, erstwhile JI MNA, joined the new faction. The TI was formed because it was supposed to be more radical than the JI, which had begun to be perceived as very mild and pro status-quo in its approach towards the development of the “true” Islamic state.

Whatever the compulsions of the Jamaat, its stance will earn it no kudos. The people from all sections of society are fed up with the militants. The common man heaved a sigh of relief over Hakimllah’s death. The Jamaat is on the wrong side of history.

It is now for the army leadership to consider if it is wise to motivate the soldiers through religion-based slogans. With the army jawans shouting Allah-o Akbar and the militants doing the same from the other side of the battle line, it is bound to confuse the man in uniform. An appeal to patriotism in some of the most moving and popular war songs of the 1965 war suggests a way out. While it is as difficult to put a new idea into a general’s head as it is to take out an old one, the situation requires that the army give it a thought.

Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad is a political analyst and a former academic.