Till exactly six years ago, Mulla Fazlullah was enjoying complete immunity from law enforcing agencies of Pakistan while blatantly challenging the state writ and denouncing the constitutional fabric of governance in Swat. His prime propaganda tool, the FM radio service was being run under the noses of Pakistan’s armed forces and paramilitary forces. Operating from walking distance of military bases, Fazlullah’s FM radio helped him popularize his edicts of inter alia, enforcement of sharia, denouncing TV as the main source of sin, censuring polio drops as a Jewish conspiracy, slating female educations as un-Islamic etc.
After letting Fazlullah’s militant narrative get mainstream appeal, the Pakistani establishment went wary when he started crossing red lines. Challenging the state writ or attacking the soldiers was, it seems, not a big deal. The real deal lay in changing loyalties. Once thought to be a puppet, when Fazlullah appeared to be thinking for his own influence and interest, it changed the game. He had to be put on a leash. And henceforth we saw the sudden emergence of anti-Fazlullah murmurs in the media getting louder every day till the ‘consensus’ lay against him and in favor of an operation.
What a cute dame this ‘consensus’ is. She just emerges out of nowhere. And here she is, at it once again. Habits don’t die easy. Amidst years worth of storylines screaming “lets-give-peace-a-chance,” here’s the ‘consensus’ on the military operation once again. Suddenly there are many takers for the action-against-Taliban camp; an argument previously championed by the PPP-MQM-ANP trio.
So much so that the MQM mobilized tens of thousands in Karachi to buck up the armed forces for an operation on the Taliban. Almost simultaneously, in a U-turn like move, a leaderless rally in Lahore by the PTI also voiced similar support to the Pakistan Army against ‘those who understand only the language of the bullet.’ The difference: The Karachi rally was lead by London-based Altaf Hussain via telephone. The Lahore rally was not lead by its temporarily London-based leader via anything. How do these semantics matter? What matters is that consensus is here!
So now when Lady Consensus comes forth once more, let’s see how she will ‘see and conquer.’ Last time she came, there was military action (carpet bombing, that is to say), with ground forces entering the scene much later when militants either were eliminated, arrested or made to escape. Fazlullah was in the last category.
The popular conscience in those times was juddered through a myriad of stories regarding how Fazlullah’s Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) bombed girls’ schools, hanged people on Khooni Chowk of Swat city, lashed men and women for ‘immoral’ activities etc. The media narrative took an abrupt turn and, ‘They are just asking for shariah’ changed to, ‘No to their version of shariah!’ which turned into, ‘Fix Fazlullah’.
What followed was a military operation, arrests, killings, escapes and a few years down the road, safe havens for the very same militants. Welcome to Pakistan!
Come 2014 and we are right back there again. Changing narratives on the media with a sharp prick to the nation’s conscience through a Taliban video showing the beheading of 23 FC soldiers.
Logical sequence that may follow in the next few months (or weeks) goes something like this: indiscriminate bombing of compounds in North Waziristan, killings, influx of internally displaced people from that area, arrests, high profile escapes, entry of ground forces in the battered battle field to ‘secure’ and ‘detoxify’ the area, permanent presence for at least a couple of years, no-political-interference policy, no development, no control allowed for law enforcing agencies, militants subtly coming back, blame politicians for inefficiency, incompetency and inaction.
And the scene in five to six years: ceded North Waziristan once again.
Why is this consensus going to be short lived? Because it is meant to be so. While North Waziristan’s ‘assets’ are transported safely to Middle Eastern battlefields, the area is now inhabited by either renegade minions being used as bargaining chips by the good Taliban against the engineers of conflict, or they are un-needed liabilities after almost a decade.
Before American forces’ draw down later this year, it is important to fix the implements of the Afghan Taliban (the likely contenders of the post-2014 Afghan seat of power), and to devoid them of their most valued credit card: the Pakistani Taliban, most in danger of itching Pakistan.
The strategy however, misses the two important links in the chain. Talking of itching Pakistan, nothing has been and can be as effective as the Indian card. What if the Afghani Taliban have become more pragmatic than the Pakistani establishment thinks? What if they don’t need the likes of the TTP for getting their best bargain from Pakistan?
If nobody in the Pakistani establishment has taken seriously the unprecedented 2012 statement of the Afghan Taliban, they better heed it now. Through the website Voice of Jihad, the Afghan Taliban praised India for not falling to American designs and keeping their stance of non-interference in the Afghan war. While most Indian intelligentsia took it as a veiled warning to stay away, the Taliban are far more clear in their thought processes and expression. The business of veiled threats is not one they usually indulge in.
Moreover, the Khurasan battlefield doctrine, which we built using Pan-Islamism fuel gas, cannot be continued without putting Pakistan’s own existence in danger. Rubbishing the beheading tactic means rubbishing what you have infused in your own ranks with the hard work of decades. Wonder if anyone still remembers the ‘Quranic Concept of War’ by Brigadier S. K. Malik, with a foreword by the Commander In-Chief of Jihad Inc, General Zia ul Haq himself. The tactic of ‘instill terror in their hearts,’ was religiously adopted by the Pakistan Army in those days, giving army exercises and formations a violently religious tilt. It invoked Islamic camaraderie to deal with India – the non-Islamic threat – at all fronts.
Written in a language of basic Primer for global jihad, the text defines jihad as a permanent state of war as opposed to continuous fighting. Considering how deeply the state is still supporting if not patronizing the followers of the same doctrine, (whether political in the shape of Jamat-e-Islami or strategic in the shape of Lashkar-e-Taiba), it would be far fetched to believe that the state of Pakistan has changed its strategy of using the Jihad narrative.
The Jamat-e-Islami chief can still call the arch enemies (apparent) of the Pakistan Army and the killers of its soldiers “Shaheed” and get away with it. Select columnists, TV anchors and reporters get ‘briefed’ every few days and still scream of ‘our brothers’, ‘not our war’ and ‘no military solution,’ while the military drops bombs on North Waziristan. The beheading video (though this was not the first or the only one), will be used to create consensus, which will be engineered to evaporate at any given time depending upon what kind of offer is put on the table by the good Taliban and America.
The nightmare would be, if even after all this choreographed bloodshed, the takers of S. K. Malik’s argument shook hands with India at the end of the day. Then how would Lady Consensus smile?

The writer is an Islamabad based campaigner for human rights and works on parliamentary strengthening and democratic governance.

Email:marvi@marvisirmed.com

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