The attack on the school run
by Pak Army is neither a watershed event nor a culmination point in the long turbulent
narrative of the nation which was born as a ransom against the coercive threat
issued by Muslim league. The direct action plan of 1946 is still having an equal
and opposite reaction. The Radcliff wrath (or award as many may call it) was an
embodiment of political bully which set a precedence of violent blackmail in
the subcontinent.
Jinnah and league wanted a
homeland for Muslims of Indian subcontinent. Muslims! Was there any in British
India at that moment of time? There were
proud Pathans; mauled Mughals; paranoid Punjabis; skeptical Sindhis; burdened Bengalis;
belligerent Baloch spatially scattered in geographic continuum of the subcontinent.
To add more to this there were elite Ashrafs who wanted Pakistan as insurance
for their feudal privileges and they casted a charm of “ khudi” to intoxicate the majority Alafs as means to their
ends.
Jinnah got his Pakistan which
was stitched together with intrigue, stratagem, force and the illusion of the two
nation theory. At the outset, the Faqir of Ipi challenged the fabric
of this theory and the Babbra slaughter shred it apart. (The Babrra massacre occurred on
12th of August, 1948 in the Charsadda District of the North-West Frontier
Province (now Khyber Pukhtunkhwa) of Pakistan, when unarmed workers of the
Khudai Khidmatgar movement were fired upon by the provincial government on the
orders of the then Chief Minister Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan.It is claimed that
around 400 people were killed in the massacre and many injured). The
tide which ebbed with Ayub Khans takeover of the nation, surged again with
Julfiqar ali Bhutto’s convulsive reaction to the loss of East Pakistan.
The extensions of cold war
across Durand line acted as “red bull” for political Islam. It not only exposed
the moderate Barelvi – Sufi Islam of subcontinent to fundamentalist Whabi- Salafi
influence but also made Pak Army vulnerable to the religious subversion. At
least on paper it was transformed by Zia from a nationalist army to a kaumi
lashkar on “Jihad- fi- Sabillah.”The honeymoon got over with the rude
aftershock of 9/11. Friends became foes and foxes devoured the carrions. The epicenter
of this upheaval was Peshawar.
US military actions in
Afghanistan fizzled due to porous borders and Pak subterfuge. Safe heavens
mushroomed across the Durand lines, some by connivance and some by carelessness
of Pakistani establishment. In any way the Pakistani writ diluted as it percolated
to the frontier region where the border guarding Frontier Corps had adapted a ‘let
live,’ posture. The Mujhids (read Taliban) feint compliance as long as their
rear was secured. Between 2001 and 2006 several skirmishes took place between
foreign fighters of Taliban and Pak Army as Musharraf decided to side with Uncle
Sam which his friends in Taliban construed as betrayal. Then the momentum changed with an air strike
on a Madrassa at Chenagai in Bajur Agency on 30 Oct 2006 followed by the siege of
Lal Masjid. The collateral damage was
massive led the once brother in arms on a direct collusion course. During
subsequent years, several operations to include Rah – e - Hq, Rah- e- Rast,
Rah- e- Nijat, Op Zalzala, Al- Mizan, Sufed Koh, Brekhnar, Rah-e- Shadat were launched
to contain the plague without any firm results. The balance of power kept on shifting
between the belligerents. These operations have always been costly in terms of
human misery, be it in terms of internal displacement or in terms of collateral
loss of life and property. The agony, the pathos, the losses are feeding the
fire continuously.
TTP is the Bad Taliban,
which fought a ‘reactionary war in self defense’ with Pakistan Army, while the
Haqqanis are the Good Taliban which is Pak establishment’s strategic hedge against
US. Then there are seemingly insignificant players such as Jundallah who keep nibbling
the spoils in between.
This is a Just War to control
the combined economy of Southern Distribution Network of NATO worth US$ 1.2
billion, drug trade worth US $ 1 billion and Afghan Transit trade worth US $ 5
Billion as major heads. (Total: US $ 7.2 Billion per annum). Well such are the
stakes and Peshawar is the centre of gravity. Who controls Peshawar gets the lion’s
share of this loot.
There is a continuous conflict
in Jinnah Paradise. The pious Muslims of the subcontinent, who believed in the
vision of Jinnah and Iqbal are flabbergasted. There are no Muslims in the Muslim
homeland of south west Asia. There are Shias, the Salfi- Hanifi- Whabi Shias and
the Dobandi Shia who constantly bicker sometimes violently that they represent the
true form of Islam, and then there are Barelivi Shias, who as per their Wahabi
and Deobandi brothers have been corrupted by Sufism and idolatry. There are
Sunnis, who are looked down upon by the Shias as outcasts. There are Noorbash Quazibakh,
Hazaras, Bohras who are misguided believers of the book. And at last there are Ahmedias
who as per state of Pakistan are not Muslims but Kafirs. This is Pakistan of
today, in conflict with its existence, in disagreement with its history and in
disregard with its future.
There is constant violence, mayhem,
bloodshed all in name of Allah often approved by the society which lacks discretion
of faith and courage of conviction. Society, who is constantly building dogmatic
walls all around itself and cursing the resulting darkness, blissfully ignoring
the impending doom.
The people of Pakistan have
been cheated by those who sold them the dream of pious homeland. The nation has
been misguided by an intoxicating mix of Indophobia and religion. As the nation
develops tolerance to a threshold, the dose is increased. The side effects of
this therapy have become profound in present context. Several malignant growths
have occurred in Pakistan and by each passing day it is becoming difficult to
control the cancer.
Peshawar is just a symptom
of the fact that the cancer has started devouring the body. The shortest cure
of a calculated dosed of chemotherapy will have paroxysmal side effects.
Actually Pakistan state has
run out of options; unless, a revolution occurs in Pakistan. A revolution which
is similar to that in Turkey under Attaturk Mustafa Kamal, which eradicates the
religious anomalies and guides Pakistan on a path of faith.
Order emerges from chaos; at
least we can hope so.
