A fresh narrative

More of the same?

The foreign office spokesperson was at pains to reject claims that Jamaat ud Dawaa (JuD) and Haqqani Network had been targeted under US pressure. Islamabad insists that these steps, including freezing the funds of JuD and putting travel restrictions on its chief Hafiz Saeed, have been taken in the ubiquitous national interest and to fulfill UN obligations.

But the timing of the move against specific brand of jihadists is ominous. The ban came just before US President Barak Obama was about to embark on a sojourn to New Delhi for the second time in his tenure to attend India’s Republic Day celebrations and just after Secretary of State John Kerry, during his recent visit to Pakistan, had demanded that such organisations needed to be proscribed by Islamabad.

Some media reports fuelled by hemming and hawing by some government ministers suggest that there is still confusion about whether JuD has actually closed shop in Pakistan. The foreign office says that it is the job of the interior ministry to walk the talk against such outfits. But Interior Minister Ch Nisar Ali Khan remains non-committal and Minister for Science and Technology Rana Tanveer still believes that there is no reason to ban JuD, as it had not broken any Pakistani law.

This is the kind of confusion worst confounded and double talk at the highest level that is largely responsible for the world still doubting Pakistan’s motives to combat all kinds of terrorists. The prime minister and military spokesman have been lately reiterating that there is no such thing as good or bad Taliban. All Taliban are bad and the state is moving decisively against them, they contend.

But skepticism persists about these claims. Had it not been so, President Obama would not have snubbed Pakistan by not visiting Islamabad despite being in the neighbourhood, or not receiving the Pakistani prime minister in Washington.

At the end of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s summit with the US president in Washington last September, a joint communiqué specifically mentioned the so-called India specific groups that needed to be proscribed by Pakistan. If Islamabad had not moved against them now, India would certainly have riled up a storm during Obama’s visit.

Not that this will deter Narendra Modi from raking up the bogey of cross border terrorism. And judging from the US president’s State of the Union address, New Delhi will get a sympathetic hearing. In this context Pakistan’s move to ban such outfits is well timed.

Notwithstanding Washington and New Delhi’s wish list, proscribing and combating terrorist of all hues and colours has become a matter of survival for Pakistan. Many such groups have demanded protection on the plea that they are India specific and engaged in ‘jihad-e-Kashmir’.

But patronising such groups to further short term foreign policy and security gains in the past has been counter-productive and led us nowhere. As such, instead of furthering the Kashmir cause, today we have to contend with a hardliner belligerent BJP government in New Delhi poised to annex Occupied Kashmir.

India offering its vast markets and potential seems like an attractive strategic prospect, especially as a bulwark against rising China. In this context Pakistan is seen as the enfant terrible of the region.

Being a nuclear power, strategically located and having a professional and an efficient army to boot, Islamabad can claim its due share in the comity of nations. The ISPR (Inter Services Public Relations) chief Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa rightly snubbed a CNN reporter in a recent interview that the Pakistani military had been more successful in combating terrorists than the US or ISAF forces in the region.

On the eve of Obama’s visit to New Delhi, US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes has assured Islamabad that ties with India are not at the expense of Pakistan. Washington has urged for years now that relations with the two belligerent neighbours of the subcontinent was not a zero sum game. Nonetheless, it is Washington bowing to Indian sensibilities that it should not club with Pakistan while dealing with New Delhi.

Obsolete narratives and paradigms in vogue since the Afghan jihad will have to be discarded sooner rather than later. Pakistan remained a hotbed of terrorists of all brands for long. And after being in a state of denial it is being belatedly acknowledged that the menace of ISIS (Islamic State) is also raising its head from within.

Thankfully the military under General Raheel Sharif is well aware of the existential danger to the state. After decades of benign neglect a rare kind of consensus is emerging on security issues.

But is it enough to combat currents and crosscurrents unleashed by successive military strongmen since the late General Zia-ul-Haq blatantly used the name of Islam to perpetuate himself? Civilian leaders since then have been either too weak or timid participants in jihadi politics.

The so-called religious lobby, nurtured unabated for decades, consider themselves a force to reckon with. Top religious leaders from almost all schools of thought are angry and think that Nawaz Sharif has surrendered to ‘the global secular forces’ by bracketing terrorism with religion, while PML-N’s so called ally in the Parliament, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, has threatened to fill jails if raids against madaris are not stopped.

The government is being forced to embark on a fresh narrative. But at the same time it is becoming amply clear that the battle lines are being clearly drawn. Unfortunately the PML-N government is still confused and tentative about its goals.

Considering the religious lobby has been the ruling party’s bedrock since its inception to some extent, it is understandable. The PML-N and for that matter multifarious Muslim League groups have traditionally espoused right wing religious politics rather than Jinnah’s vision, destroying Pakistan’s real ethos in the process. Resultantly, at times the ruling party’s vision has not been at much variance from that of the Jamaat-e-Islami.

But now, by dint of circumstances, it is constrained to alter its traditional ideological moorings. A clear-headed military chief has had no qualms in reinventing the military’s role against religious terrorism, showing the way to the civilian leadership.

The military, perhaps after the damaging six years of General Kayani, realises that it is its job description to combat external and internal existential threats to the state. It is neither America’s war nor India’s. It is our war against the hydra headed monster devouring us slowly but surely, is the new narrative.

In this context Mian Nawaz Sharif and his team need to reinvent themselves and take a few lessons about Pakistan’s future ideological moorings in the light of teachings of its founding fathers.