Are they just lending a hand, or also playing politics as usual?
Religious parties have traditionally played a leading role in disaster management. Their volunteers were prominent in bringing relief to the needy after the ’05 earthquake and floods in recent years. But as they help with the Tharparkar famine, there are concerns that the government is leveraging them not only to hide its own incompetence, but also to portray a soft image of the religious-right as a calculated part of its controversial ‘counter-narrative’ to militancy.
A number of factors justify these concerns. One, the scale of the tragedy exposed the government’s inability to both prevent and handle such disasters. And having more hands, especially such, helps hide its shortcomings and infuse religious fervour in the relief effort, which usually sits well with people. Two, the prime minister’s peace initiative has drawn criticism for over-accommodating the religious lobby, even militant factions. By highlighting their welfare credentials, the government is feeding its own counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, which revolves around allowing more mainstream space to the lobby instead of restricting its influence.
Three, this legitimisation of non-state actors, especially recognised enemies of the state, triggered a media frenzy, allowing them deeper penetration into civil society at a time when a bulk of the population still does not appreciate the fine line between religious orthodoxy and militancy. Again, their relief effort will blunt criticism from secular circles and help tilt the larger narrative in favour of the government’s position. And four, the situation is complicated by allegations that the official machinery deliberately allows religious outfits a leading role, often by facilitating them more than other, more secular charitable organisations.
Social contagion
“This accommodation leads to a vicious cycle”, said Dr Khadim Hussain, an Islamabad based analyst and managing director of the Bacha Khan Educational Foundation. “These organisations expose state institutions as ineffective when it comes to catering to people, and then use their position of strength to strike against the state itself”.
Firstly, local district level bureaucracies have long been incompetent, and needed all the help they could get. Secondly, security services are usually stretched, and need time to mobilise, and religious organisations, with official help, are able to respond more quickly. And thirdly, the central government, especially the interior ministry, caught in logjams of its own, is able to win crucial brownie points.
Dr Hussain believes the government actively facilitates religious organisations to assume the lead role in crisis situations, and does not extend the same help to NGOs and secular organisations.
“I can speak from personal experience from Swat, Noshera and Charsadda floods, and also from the ’05 earthquake”, he said, adding that “it is clear that the government always promotes religious groups in such situations”.
This, he says, is leading to “social contagion”, with the government itself promoting forces that are eroding its authority. Initially, the arrangement arose from three levels of failure in the official machinery.
Firstly, local district level bureaucracies have long been incompetent, and needed all the help they could get. Secondly, security services are usually stretched, and need time to mobilise, and religious organisations, with official help, are able to respond more quickly. And thirdly, the central government, especially the interior ministry, caught in logjams of its own, is able to win crucial brownie points.
“But continuing with this arrangement now is dangerous”, added Dr Hussain. “These heroics win these organisations more adherents, more donations, and more volunteers. And we all know where they are used now. This must stop immediately”.
Eating into the state
There are also concerns that the official narrative will now incorporate this softer side of religious outfits and extend the argument to the controversial madressa reform issue.
“This is a very disturbing phenomenon”, said Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, analyst, writer, and author of the controversial bestseller Military Inc.
“You will now see them appreciated as major welfare organisations, and the establishment will also put a positive spin on other prominent features of theirs, like the madressas, highlighting benefits they bring to a deprived society”.
The army must also take the lead role because it is the institution most invested in by the state. And instead of propping up non-state actors to meet state crises, the government should empower relevant disaster management arms of the civil bureaucracy.
This helps keep these elements active and relevant. And as the government uses them to justify its own conservative leaning, they are also kept operational, ready for future strategic, especially military, use. But giving them increased influence at a time when religious circles are backing anti-state insurgents, and calling for Taliban/al Qaeda like shari’a across the country, is seen as a self-defeating strategy by secular groups, amounting to a steady surrender of the state.
“These groups appear during crises because they are allowed to. The argument that non-conventional means must be resorted to when the civil machinery breaks down is flawed. It is the army’s primary responsibility, according to the constitution, to respond to national disasters and emergencies. And the military is fully capable of dealing with such situations’, said Dr Siddiqa.
The army must also take the lead role because it is the institution most invested in by the state. And instead of propping up non-state actors to meet state crises, the government should empower relevant disaster management arms of the civil bureaucracy.
“But the way the government is propping up the far right in spite of its risks, and how the media is giving it continued primetime space, it seems they are facilitating hardliners eat into the power of the state”, she added.
Ironically, this behind-the-scenes maneuvering is being played out amidst the suffering of Thar’s innocent victims, who would struggle to make sense of the insurgency, much less understand how they are being exploited. The government is already guilty of allowing hundreds of children to die of hunger, even as its warehouses overflowed with rotting grain. In not being able to provide quick remedy, it lost even more credibility. But if allegations that it is using this opportunity to play politics in another extremely sensitive area prove true, it will be responsible for creating a crisis in which its preferred religious lobby will play a leading role, but not one of crisis management.
“The way this government is acting, it seems bent upon chopping off its own feet, and the whole country will suffer for it”, concluded Dr Hussain.
