From elections in Karachi’s NA 246 to the conflict in Yemen followed by Saudi orders to Pakistan for sending troops, to the Chinese President’s visit with an anticipated investment of $46 billion, Pakistanis have been worried about so many different issues of immense importance. Those who shape Pakistani media, who in turn frame the national debates, had probably given up on the continued rhetoric about counter-terrorism on which a fancy National Action Plan (NAP) was once developed.
Back to 24th December, 2014, when the NAP originated in the aftermath of the attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School on December 16. A faction of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan later claimed responsibility for the attack. The gore and bloodshed of children pricked the conscience of Pakistan and the entire nation stood together against terrorism. Well, sort of. The nation rose up with rage to see those who planned the attack, dead. When the government decided to lift the moratorium, we rejoiced. When the military issued death warrants of terrorists who had been earlier convicted of attacks on the army’s installations and former army chief, we cheered.
The pictures of the hanging bodies of the first two executed prisoners went viral on social media. We felt a kind of relief seeing militants being executed. The death of terrorists somewhat comforted our grief while we mourned our kids bathed in blood by the comrades of those executed. Our ire got satiated seeing the killing and slaughter around us.
Today is the 126th day since the Peshawar attack. Like the 126-day long dharna last year at the end of which the participants were still passionate but had exhausted their vigor and energy, our post-attack anger has met the same end. It might still be there underneath our human urge to move on. But it has certainly lost that urgency and intensity with which we were impatient to see the blood in response to blood. The wounds Peshawar gave us appear to have been healed by time, as happens with most human grief.
A blessing in disguise it must be. Now that the blood lust is diminishing and we are coming out of the trauma, there might be a slightly lesser clouded collective judgment about how to fight terrorism. The NAP appears to have come out of a reflex action rather than a rational debate. A debate that doesn’t lose sight of the full picture of our past policies that we adopted in order to achieve certain goals at the regional level.
For example, during those adrenaline-high moments post-December 16, we suddenly started saying so many things that we might not have said had we not been that traumatized. We started saying we would seriously proscribe the proscribed organisations. We said that the sectarian militant organisations that we had been nourishing for so long for reasons best known to the authors of the policy, would now go. We said there would not be any distinction between terrorists. Meaning thereby, there would be no good or bad militants. Meaning thereby, we have been making that distinction before. Meaning thereby, we were doing it to pursue some objectives. Meaning thereby, we have given up those objectives.
Now when the gloom is diluted and wounds are on the way to healing, we can think with balance and with a sense of history and context. Probably that is one reason why the government (i.e., NACTA) has removed three points that we thought earlier were very important. The reason that most of our otherwise noisy political parties are not saying anything on this removal is probably that now every one can see the ‘logic’ of earlier policies that we trashed in fits of rage after the Peshawar attack. Political parties got so carried away that they were unable to keep their past and present positions in sync.
One political party for example, has been screaming since a decade that all terrorism was because America attacked Afghanistan, and that the people blowing themselves up in Pakistan’s mosques and bazars were not really terrorists but fighting for their country to be freed from the shackles of evil America. This party and their allies have been calling for a dialogue with the Taliban instead of starting a military operation against them. During the week between December 16 and 24 when NAP was being deliberated upon, all these parties lost their memory and so did the military establishment.
During that collective emotional crisis, it was time and again declared that all militants would be equally dealt with and that there wouldn’t be any distinction between terrorists. Except that no one realized such a policy revision would mean there won’t be any assets anymore. These were the assets, which we had built over the decades for steering various geo-political goals and for competing with and sorting the neighbors. We haven’t changed our neighbors. There is still a monstrous India in the east. In the west we still have an Afghanistan albeit much friendlier. However, one would still prefer a marionette to a friend. And then, we still have an Indian Occupied Kashmir that we still have to sort. Iran is there with its ambitions. So are our Middle Eastern ties with longstanding ‘friends’ who prefer to behave like masters.
Imagine, there won’t be any Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat to fight the case on roads whenever a previously well-behaved TV channel goes rogue. There won’t be a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi whenever Baloch attention is to be diverted from the separatist insurgency or the Gulf is to be placated or a message has to be sent to Iran. There won’t be a Hafiz Saeed to throw naked threats towards enemy India whenever needed. Saeed for starters, is former head of a proscribed terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayyeba purified now as a leading social worker under the label of Jamaat-ud Dawa. There won’t be any leading figures from Afghan Taliban to be used with Americans or Afghans for strategically lucrative quid pro quo. Shucks, what a mess!
What now? Easy. Remove unnecessary clauses from the NAP. Why are madrassahs necessary to be reformed? They just animalize kids of the poor, in case left unchecked and without monitoring of what is taught there. Why would they need to be regulated or registered? The crop of radical, ignorant, impressionable and battle-ready kids is harvested successfully every few years. This crop could be so finely used to come out on roads whenever needed. There would be potential foot soldiers in this crop that could be used in so many battles that could be conveniently put on the shoulders of the ‘tribals’ of the North West. And then, there would be generous money that would keep coming in from Gulfi friends in case we keep the status quo. Why should the Madrassas be even touched? Remove the problematic clause from NAP.
This is merely the beginning. The cycle of repentance, retraction, correction and penance over this ill-conceived NAP has just begun. There are going to be many steps on this ladder going downwards. NAP has to be countered in case we want to achieve the goals that we made for ourselves decades ago.