Our violent past

Is there a peaceful future?

We Pakistanis are no stranger to violence as a nation. The division of India in 1947 that carved Pakistan as an independent state for the Muslims witnessed the worst kind of communal clashes. Nearly one million people were brutally massacred and thousands of women were abducted in a total breakdown of law and order, rioting or just from the hardships of migration. An estimated 14.5 million Muslim, Hindu and Sikh refugees crossed both sides of the new borders across the Punjab and Bengal (some in Khokhrapaar) during one of the largest population movements in recorded history.

All communities and religious sects co-existed in relative harmony and peace as our young ideological state faced the challenges of resettlement of refugees, and to get the state functioning. However, as early as the mid-1950s Sunni-Ahmadi clashes erupted. In our fragile and immature political structure, the politicians and religious groups discovered at the very early stage that the easiest and speediest route to accumulate power, wealth and popularity was by propagating hatred. Ahmadis were eventually declared Non-Muslim by the national assembly in 1974 and the first seed of discord was sown within our social structure on sectarian grounds.

General Ziaul Haq used religion to prop his military rule. He initiated an Islamisation process in the late seventies that disturbed the sectarian balance further. The dictator was influenced by the Salafi beliefs and patronised the followers of this doctrine. With substantial funds from domestic and foreign sources, religious seminaries mushroomed that transformed into their training and power bases. The historic minor ideological differences within various sects gradually grew into significant shia-sunni conflicts during the eighties leading to violence mainly in Karachi and southern Punjab. As many as 4,000 people were reported to be killed in Shia-Sunni fighting during 1987 to 2007.

The Soviet- Afghan war that lasted over nine years from 1979-1989 brought an influx of 3.5 million refugees into our country. Thousands of our young people from the tribal areas and elsewhere joined the Afghan fighters in what they termed as jihad against the infidels. Those who returned after the retreat of the Russian army were skilled fighters and considered themselves as perpetual jihadis ready to lay down their lives for a cause to serve Islam. They also maintained connections with their fellow fighters in Afghanistan.

As the sectarian race became competitive, unaccounted funds flowed to all sects. Countless religious organisations, majority belonging to the sunni faith, sprang up involved in dubious activities. Over three decades, their influence spread over three decades into the relatively impovrished areas of the country including the tribal belt. The seminaries provided free food, shelter and religious education to homeless or deprived children. The establishment treated these groups as assets, although they neither exercised any control over them nor they vigilantly monitored their activities and finances.

From 2000 onwards the anti-shia campaign showed a marked incline. Shias belonging to the Hazara community, including women and children, began to be targeted and killed in the Quetta area and also in the northern areas such as Gilgit-Baltistan, Chelas and Parachinar in addition to Karachi, Lahore, Mardan and elsewhere. Buses of pilgrims were intercepted in Balochistan, shias were identified and shot dead. All these attacks were owned by Al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Subsequent to the 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan by NATO forces, the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda found convenient sanctuaries in our tribal areas. The local people accepted them with open arms. Sections of our establishment and several political groups already had a soft corner for them. These fighters and their sympathisers infiltrated into the tribal area unchecked and unobtrusively. They inducted the local unemployed youth in the name of jihad and gradually developed into well organised and dedicated militias and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan was born. Most of these followed their own hard lines of Sunni Islam.

Miscellaneous dissident groups and various spy agencies of hostile countries with their own agendas made their bases in the tribal areas and Balochistan. Their subsidiaries were established deep inside the country. A variety of light and heavy arms were smuggled and an army of suicide bombers was prepared with the intention to kill people and destabilise Pakistan. A powerful state within our state was created right under our noses with an adequate supply chain, intelligence network and personnel. Our political and military strategists still failed to confront this monster and followed a policy of appeasement, despite the atrocities committed by them against our population and the state.

We failed to comprehend this fanaticism even when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the orders of the TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud. Or when Malala Yousufzai, a teen-aged girl was called out by name and targeted point blank in a school bus just because she raised a voice in support of educating females. Our political masters were too weak-kneed to develop a consensus to confront the perpetrators head-on. Many did not have the heart even to condemn them. The ordinary people lived in fear while the state plodded along at the mercy of the terrorists.

It was the brutal attack on 16 December, 2014, on an army school in Peshawar by seven armed Taliban men killing 142 people including 132 children that became a watershed moment for our country. Our policy makers finally woke up and came to grip with the horrors. The new army chief forced a political consensus and decided to intensify the joint military operation Zarb-e-Azb already prepared and launched against the various militant groups since June 2014. The comprehensive operation aims at flushing out all foreign and local militants holed up in North Waziristan, FATA and all other areas.

The moratorium on executions granted by the previous government was immediately withdrawn as a first step and military courts were set up for speedy trials and judgments. Deadly police encounters and joint efforts of all intelligence and law enforcement agencies have tracked down the militants and targeted them all over the country. The operation clean-up in Karachi has been given further political and military support. The COAS has warned foreign governments and intelligence agencies against trying to destabilize Pakistan by supporting terrorist and insurgents in Balochistan. The nation finally sees the light at the end of a dark tunnel. Now, it is time for the ordinary folk to join the efforts with a positive attitude and national pride.

We suffer from short memories and our attention span has a limited duration. We also have an inherent weakness for ignoring the issues that matter and focus on frivolous or non-issues instead. For many years, a few political parties and all religious organisations had vociferously supported the TTP and relentlessly blocked any attempt by the democratic governments to deal with them militarily. Yet, under orders of the chief, they reversed instantly and submissively voted unanimously for the military operation and other tough measures.

Ironically, the public has not deemed it fit to condemn these groups or hold them accountable for the loss of so many precious lives and the irreparable and disastrous repercussions to our social values, economy and our national prestige. It should be abundantly apparent that their shenanigans of dialogues were merely self-serving to gain political mileage. They did not serve the nation but have inflicted irreparable damage by their erroneous judgments.