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Where sect takes precedence over everything else By Nasir Jamal
The problem of sectarianism is too complex for one doctrine – Marxist, nationalist, capitalist, et al – to solve. Sticking blindly to one school of thinking may be as risky as sticking to a sect. - AP/File photo LAHORE: Sectarian strife cuts much deeper into the southern region of Punjab than is publicly realised and officially acknowledged. Sectarian emotions run high, and are rising. The recent events — such as the suicide bombing at an Imambargah in Dera Ghazi Khan in February and partially successful attempts of armed Jaish-i-Mohammad and other Deobandi activists to grab Barelvi mosques and madressahs in Bahawalpur in early April — are only a few examples of the growing sectarian tensions in the region. Most people argue that sectarianism poses a great danger to the stability and peace of the area, a much bigger problem than the so-called Talibanisation of southern Punjab. ‘Sectarianism is a real threat here,’ a senior lawyer in Muzaffargarh, who didn’t want to be identified, tells Dawn. ‘It has the potential to destabilise the entire province, in fact the whole of the country,’ he says. This is an assessment shared by the police. ‘The sectarian threat has been there for a very long time, and it is no secret,’ says Bahawalpur Regional Police Officer Mushtaq Sukhera, who has been recently appointed in this post amid talk that the Punjab government is committed to dealing with the violent sectarian outfits with an iron hand. Also no secret, the people in the area would intervene, is the police lethargy, and more significantly, the police’s tendency to collude with a sectarian group of their liking. Syed Gulzar Naqvi, a Shia leader in Muzaffargarh, alleges that police officials who try to take action against the sect-based criminal elements are immediately changed. RPO Sukhera admits to the charge of laxity on the part of the police. ‘Police inaction and their tendency to try to maintain status quo with a view to preserving law and order even at the cost of settling the potentially explosive disputes (between the followers of rival sects) according to the law has been a major cause for the spread of sectarian violence,’ he says.
‘Police in the rural areas have lacked equipment, motivation and
clear-cut policy direction in the past,’ Sukhera continues. ‘It is
the job of the politicians to take decisions as to how to tackle a
problem. The sitting government, nevertheless, has mandated police
and administration to do everything and anything they deem necessary
to reverse the situation and curb the menace of sectarianism.’ Mostly, the menace of sectarianism in the past has manifested itself in the southern districts of Punjab, just like the rest of the country, in the form of armed clashes between the rival sects, target killings, occupation of one another’s mosques and madressahs, etc. In recent months, the increasing cooperation between sectarian groups and organisations based in South Punjab and Baitullah Mehsud’s Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has added a new dimension to this kind of violence: suicide bombings. Police cite suicide attacks on Shia gatherings in Dera Ghazi Khan on February 5 as well as a suicide bombing in Chakwal in north Punjab on April 5 this year as examples of this cooperation. Thousands of madressahs representing different schools of thought — Shia, Barelvi, Deobandi, etc — dotting the southern region of the province provide the cadre to the sectarian groups. ‘The madressahs are churning out militants for the sectarian and jihadi groups fighting in Afghanistan, Kashmir and now the tribal areas,’ says Zubaidul Islam Khan Sherwani, district secretary of the Pakistan People’s Party and president of the district bar association in Muzaffargarh. ‘These thrive on poverty and illiteracy because it is easier to indoctrinate a poor and illiterate person,’ he says as he recounts stories of recruitment by different groups for decades’ long jihad from his district. Obviously, the madressahs don’t agree with this viewpoint. ‘It has become fashionable to accuse the madressahs of producing militants and Taliban. That is like distorting the reality. Militants could also be the graduates of colleges and universities,’ argues Rizwan Ali, an official of a network of several Salfia madressahs in Dera Ghazi Khan set up by Hafiz Abdul Karim, a leader of Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith who almost defeated Farooq Leghari from his ancestral seat in last year’s general election on a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz ticket. But he acknowledges that the madressahs had been ‘used by some (agencies or sects?) to recruit cadre’ for organisations like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Jaish-i-Mohammad, both of whom represent the Deobandi school of thought. His statement indicates how sectarian affiliations of people dictate their definition of Taliban and militancy as they tend to see everything through the lens of their religious belief. In Muzaffargarh, for instance, a Shia leader’s comments would imply that all Pakhtuns/Afghans entering his hometown via Dera Ghazi Khan for work are militants and Taliban simply, first, because of their ethnic background, and two, due to their affiliation to the Deobandi school of thought. The forced occupation of two Barelvi mosques/madressahs, one in the Bahawalpur city and the other in a nearby village, by the Jaish activists in April provoked federal Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Kazmi to accuse Deobandi madressahs of producing Taliban and encouraging extremism. In a similar vein, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi declared in Multan a few weeks back that the Sunnis (Barelvis) would block the way of militancy in south Punjab. ‘The Jaish’s attempt to occupy the mosques of another sect as well as the ministerial statements reflect the deep-rooted religious intolerance,’ says a publicity shy police official in Bahawalpur who warned of a clash. ‘If the Jaish had done a wrong, the ministers were even more irresponsible,’ he says. The hardcore Deobandis, too, have a point of view. ‘If someone from our organisation(s) goes to the tribal areas or Swat, you (media) are very quick to label us all as Taliban and militant. What do you call the Shias who have gone to Hangu from this part of the country and triggered sectarian violence there? What about Barelvis who occupy our mosques and our madaris? Aren’t they Taliban or militants? To your eye, they aren’t,’ protests Rao Javed Iqbal, a Bahawalpur-based leader of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan. In so polarised a society, it will surely take more than an avowedly committed police, a few corrected politicians and a mix of indifferent and worried masses to pull south Punjab, or for that matter, Pakistan, to safety. At the outset, the formula of seeing everything through the old, maybe partially applicable, theories has to change. It is too complex for one doctrine – Marxist, nationalist, capitalist, et al – to solve. Sticking blindly to one school of thinking may be as risky as sticking to a sect. DAWN: Wednesday, 27 May, 2009 |
