- Long-term solution?
While much of the local press, and indeed wider public, has appreciated action taken against TLP in the ‘better late than never’ spirit, it is time for the government to, finally, look at this particular problem from a long-term perspective. One reason religiously motivated outfits are able to hold society, as well as government, hostage is the inherent harm their supporters are known to inflict upon people and society in the garb of religion. You don’t need to go any further than former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal, who took a bullet from just one such fanatic who thought it was his religious duty to strike down the government official.
Another reason is the behind-the-scenes support they enjoy from the so called establishment. Pakistanis have had the misfortune of having religious, ethnic and political organisations imposed on them from the people that supposedly run the country. And even as some of them did the country and the religion little favour, to put it mildly, there was little realisation at the decision-making level. Indeed, TLP came to the fore just as the National Action Plan (NAP) called for a fresh, powerful narrative that would counter the brainwashing that our country has been treated to for decades. Some rightly wondered if this was the narrative that the nation was supposed to embrace in the aftermath of the APS tragedy.
With a new government in power – one that values truth, justice, democracy and all that – there is once again the hope that these negative trends of the past will be left where they belong; in the past. Yet even though the PTI administration started off very softly against TTP’s blatant violence and treason on part of its leadership, it has pulled itself together lately and initiated anti-terrorism proceedings. But it must go at least two steps further, and make sure the trend of leveraging religion for very earthly gains is stopped. Then it must do the even more difficult job of distancing any establishment or behind the scenes players from the day to day affairs of running the state.