Fundamentalist on helm

The situation in Pakistan has become alarming. Earlier, terrorists were troubled the establishments but now they have opened a new front. They have decided to join the mainstream of Pakistan's politics through electoral politics, which are threat to Peace and stability, not only for Pakistan but also for South Asia and the whole world. The fury in Faizabad has shown that the fundamentalist forces that had developed in the General Zia era are eager to regain dominion.

Faizabad sit-in: anarchist prevail

In the case of Faizabad we all saw that, how the fundamentalists did bowed down the government on their knees and compelled them to compromise on the conditions. On that occasion Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal said in pitiful manner that “the agreement that ended the Faizabad sit-in had not been desirable, but the government had been left with little choice in the matter.” They have compelled the government to accept such demands which are very embarrassing for the government elected by the people in a country.

Their main demands are : remove Federal Law Minister Zahid Hamid from his position immediately, the report prepared by Raja Zafarul Haq-led committee will be made public within 30 days and whoever is named in the report for being responsible for the change in the election oath will be acted against under the law, all protesters arrested between November 6 until the end of the sit-in from across the country will be released within one to three days according to legal requirements, the cases registered against them and the house arrests imposed on them will be ended and An inquiry board will be established to probe and decide what action to take against the government and administration officials over the operation conducted by security forces against protesters.

The deal negotiated between the state, both civilian and military facets of it, and the Faizabad protesters is a devastating blow to the legitimacy and moral standing of the government and all state institutions. Whether a decision made out of desperation or fear, the upshot is that the state has accepted that mobs and zealots have a right to issue religious edicts that can endanger lives and upend public order.

 New wave of religious fundamentalist in electoral politics

It’s not a new phenomenon in Pakistan that fanatics coming to the political scene. Even before the creation of Pakistan there was Jamat-e- Islami established in 1941. And after Pakistan came into existence several new political parties established by groups who have religious fervor also created. Regime of General Zia provided the boost for their proliferation. There are outnumber religious political parties and many of them have allegiance with dreadful terrorist organisation which are the part of Pakistan’s not only political but social

First measure signal seen in recent times in by-election in NA-120 which was vacant by the dismissal of Nawaz Sharif in Panama papers issue. 

Former first lady Begum Kulsoom Nawaz won the election for NA-120 on September 17 by defeating Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) Dr Yasmin Rashid with a clear margin of 14,188 votes. The astonishing fact is that, votes the two ‘independent’ candidates got (12,952) on behalf of two un-registered extremist right-wing parties – banned Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Milli Muslim League with its ‘Hero’ Hafiz Saeed’s portrait on its posters (5,822 votes) and Labbaik Ya Rasul Allah party with ‘Shaheed’ Mumtaz Qadri’s banners (7,130 votes) – are almost equal to the minus-swing. The third-place finish of Azhar Husain Rizvi, an independent candidate backed by Labbaik Ya Rasulallah, a coalition of Islamist groups. He won 6pc of the vote campaigning on a platform of support for strict blasphemy laws. His campaign posters praised executed killer Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard who assassinated former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer for suggesting the laws might be reviewed. After his execution, Qadri was hailed by some religious sects as a martyr for Islam.

Yaqoob Sheikh, who was himself designated a terrorist by the United States in 2012, captured nearly 5pc of the vote. Sheikh was an independent candidate, though he was backed by the newly formed Milli Muslim League (MML) that is loyal to Hafiz Saeed. The MML — a political version of Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) — represents the Ahle Hadith school of thought.

This by-election also saw revival of the use of places of worship for politicking as the candidates backed by the MML and LBY made mosques as their “base camps” for their electioneering. The last time mosques prominently used for political movements in this part of the country was during the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government when the nine-party Pakistan National Alliance had after allegations of rigging in the 1977 general elections launched a Nizam-i-Mustafa movement against the then PPP government.

Khadim Hussain Rizvi-led LYR, which belongs to the Barelvi school of thought, fully took advantage of 100-plus mosques in the area for Azhar Husain’s campaign. Allama Rizvi used harsh language against the ruling PML-N for hanging Mumtaz Qadri. The Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan of Qari Zawwar Bahadur as well as the Sunni Ittehad Council — both former allies of the N-League — also extended their support to Azhar.

The MML made Masjid Al-Qadisia, the JuD headquarters which also happens to be situated in the very constituency, as its main election office. It also made use of other mosques of the Ahle Hadith school of thought, around 40 in number, in the area for seeking votes for Yaqoob Sheikh, who bagged 5,822 votes to stand fourth. The MML’s campaign seemed well financed and organised as in the words of an observer it was matching banner-to-banner, polling camp-to-polling camp with the PML-N and the PTI. In comparison, the Labbaik seemed devoid of resources. It didn’t have women workforce to mobilise its sympathisers among the fair sex, otherwise its tally might have improved further.

And the exact same occurrence was repeated in NA-4, Peshawar's bye-elections where on October 26, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf managed to retain its national assembly seat in Peshawar, trouncing the resurgent Awami National Party, the centre-ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and even the family of the late lawmaker Gulzar Khan, whose death necessitated the by-election.

NA-4 is just one constituency, out of a total of 35 general seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Yet, the results were significant as they provide an early indication of the likely voting trends in the province for next national polls. In the past, the NA-4 has been an ANP stronghold. In the recent by-election, the PTI candidate, Arbab Amir Ayub, obtained 45,734 votes, beating out Khushdil Khan of the ANP by 20,859 votes. Despite the landslide, the PTI share of votes has dropped by 9,400 since 2013.

Foremost religious fundamentalist party JI’s dismal performance, receiving only 7,668 votes, has made it a less attractive proposition for the PTI to enter into an electoral alliance with it. As was the case in the NA-120 Lahore by-election, the mainstreaming of the radical Islamic groups continued in the NA-4 Peshawar by-polls. Both the Milli Muslim League, and the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan fielded their candidates in the Peshawar by-election. The latter campaigned vigorously in NA-4 Peshawar in the name of Mumtaz Qadri, and polled an impressive 9,935 votes to take fifth place ahead of the JI.

Revival of the Olds?

It’s usual that   discomfort and unease growing more and more between old stalwarts of religious fundamentalism and sectarianism.  So these parties now assume that they need to be organized for their survival and retain their power of collective bargaining. So it is time to return the unity of the old days.

And moving forward in this direction decided to revive the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.  Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq on November 9 stated that the constituent parties have in principle agreed to revive the defunct six-party religio-political alliance Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA). President of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Maulana Fazlur Reh-man, Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan chief Pir Ijaz Hashmi and leaders of three other constituent parties were present on the occasion.

Muttahida Majlis–e–Amal  a political alliance consisting of ultra–conservative, Islamist, religious, and far-right parties of Pakistan that opposed President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Maulana Naeem Siddiqui (the founder of Tehreek e Islami) proposed such an alliance of all the religious parties. Qazi Husssain Ahmad endeavored for it and due his efforts it was formed in 2002 in a direct opposition to the policies led by President Pervez Musharraf to support for the United States' war in Afghanistan, the alliance more densely consolidated its position during the nationwide general elections held in 2002.   Formed in 2002, the MMA ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2002 to 2007 before it became dormant after developing internal rifts. In 2008 and 2013 polls, MMA constituents could not win much support. The JUI-F tried to revive it before the 2013 polls but then JI emir Syed Munawwar Hasan did not oblige.

Pakistan, on the one hand, is talking about moving forward on path of prosperity and development while on the other hand it’s also true that it has not been able to get out of the clutches of medieval social and political concepts even today. It is impossible to achieve peace and prosperity in the environment of hatred and disgust. Pakistan is nation where a large portion of population forcibly ousted from the Islam by constitutional means just because their certain believes are not considered as “appropriate” by a certain ideological framework. This retrogressive approach of lynching of the ethnical and religious minorities by legal and constitutional means in the name of democracy and endeavor to fulfill the “General Will”, will lead Pakistan towards disintegration.