Pakistan is a step closer to its manifest destiny. But India doesn't need to worry
It will also remove the rose-tinted glasses with which a section of Indians look at Pakistan
Around the world there is great interest, and some concern, over the participation of the Islamist terror groups and extremist sectarian parties in the general elections in Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities defend the entry of the jihadists in the political sphere on the grounds that they are mainstreaming the fanatics to moderate them and wean them away from militancy and terrorism. Of course, this is true only in theory because if the rhetoric at the hustings of the fanatics is anything to go by, far from the jihadists being mainstreamed, the mainstream is being jihadised.
Emerging trend
Does India need to worry about the emerging trend in Pakistani politics?
Not really.
In many ways, the entry of the fanatics won’t significantly change the seven-decade-old paradigm of Pakistan in relation to India. Cut through the claptrap, and it is clear that regardless of whether India deals with ISI or its "plural" ISIS, the fundamental “inimicalness” of the Pakistani state towards India will remain the same.
If anything, Pakistan achieving its manifest destiny of becoming the Islamic State it has longed to become, will be good for India because not only will it show Pakistan’s real face to rest of the world, it will also remove the rose-tinted glasses with which a section of Indians look at Pakistan.
With the Hafiz Saeeds or Khadim Rizvis calling the shots in Islamabad, Delhi will hopefully no longer get fooled or lulled by the forked tongue of the “civil society” of Pakistan and will know exactly what and who they are dealing with.
More than Indians, it is Pakistani elite which needs to be concerned over the deep inroads made by the Islamist groups in Pakistani politics.
The sort of hypocrisy the Pakistani elite has been indulging in — living it up behind high walls but spouting Islamist bombast in public — will become more difficult. For the rest of the people, they will adjust to the Islamists.
Most Pakistanis have no real problem with what the jihadists stand for; their problem is with the manner in which the Islamists seek to impose and implement their world view. In other words, most Pakistanis are okay with the madness of the radicals, not so much with their methods. And this is also true of almost all political parties which are merrily, even proudly, going ahead and making local-level adjustments with the most radical and reactionary jihadist parties.
The announcement by Asad Umar, the man tipped to be the next finance minister of Pakistan, that a notorious terrorist, Fazlur Rehman Khalil of Harkat-ul-Ansar/Harkat-ul-Mujahideen fame, had joined Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf is a prime example of the trajectory which Pakistani politics is following.
But it isn’t only PTI.
Almost all other parties have struck Faustian bargains with one or the other radical Islamist parties.
Leaders and candidates have been virtually prostrating themselves before the leaders of the extremist Sunni party Ahle-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat (ASWJ), the new avatar of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, seeking their support in their constituencies, especially in Punjab and Karachi.
Similar has been the case with Lashkar-e-Taiba’s political wing, Milli Muslim League (MML) and the extremist Barelvi Muslim party, Tehrik-e-LabbaikPakistan (TLP) which has incidentally put up more candidates than the PPP in the Punjab Assembly elections.
The political muscle-flexing by the radical Islamists, coupled with the way established parties are sucking up to them, has more or less normalised the entry of terrorists into the political arena. There are a few carping sounds from the endangered species of Pakistani liberals (a tiny fringe group more visible on social media than on the street) but otherwise there is quiet acquiescence to the entry of jihadists in electoral politics.
Pervading fear
A big reason for this is of course fear. Everyone is scared of these groups, including the judges who are quick to book politicians for contempt but are terrified of taking on the extremists who openly hurl the vilest abuses on them.
The fear among the politicians is palpable. Despite the fact the TLP isn’t known to have a jihadist cadre like the MML, its workers have hurled a shoe at former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, smeared the face of former foreign minister Khawaja Asif with ink, and shot former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal.
The MML and the ASWJ are capable of far worse.
No one, therefore, wants to get on the wrong side of any of these groups. While none of the radical parties are likely to win more than a handful of seats, it will be interesting to see the number of votes they garner, individually as well as collectively. But in many ways, even the votes they get won’t be the correct metric to judge the tectonic shift their entry into the electoral arena has effected in Pakistani politics. Even with only a token representation and minimum number of votes, their street power enabled them to exercise a virtual veto over any progressive or sensible step that any government wanted to take.
Street power
But now in addition to street power, they have been given political legitimacy. This means that instead of measuring their political importance in terms of the electoral performance, it needs to be measured in terms of their emergence as power brokers and players, and the long-term impact of this on the political scene in Pakistan.
Apart from the normal quid pro quo that is part and parcel of politics, the established parties will also have to put up with the reactionary demands and the bullying of these parties on a range of issues. If anything, these elections could well see Pakistan coming a step closer to its manifest destiny and starting the process of transition from being an imperfect Islamic Republic to becoming a pristine Islamic State (the pun is entirely intended).
(Courtesy of Mail Today)