by Magad Lipan in Boston*

The credibility of Imran Khan government has hit another boulder after signing (on October 31) an undisclosed agreement with the banned Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) after thousands of its activists thronged the streets, causing casualties.

Things could get worse for Khan with this development occurring within days of his reluctantly approving the appointment of the army’s intelligence chief after prevaricating for three weeks. He favoured continuation of Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed as Director General, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), when the army, treating it as its internal matter, transferred him to another post. Khan lost the much-debated turf war.

Both developments are being widely viewed as ‘surrender’ to and ‘appeasement’ of the religious extremists as well as the all-powerful military. All civilian governments in Pakistan depend almost entirely on the goodwill of the army, as also the ability to keep the influential religious conservatives on the right side.

While the army expectedly stayed in the background, Rehman, appearing at the announcement of the agreement, said the details of the pact would be announced “at an appropriate time.” He said “positive results” would be apparent in a week or 10 days.

The government’s performance was in sharp contrast with the tough talk by its ministers and in particular, the National Security Advisor, Moeed Yusuf, who threatened tough measures against the TLP that he said, had crossed the “red line” and had ‘exhausted’ the government’s patience.

While the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser participated in the talks, the government fielded several of its ministers, including Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Opposition parties stayed away from TLP street show which was clearly an unruly agitation. They said the Imran government was ‘soft’ towards the religious extremists, while being harsh with protests made to highlight political and economic issues and those that affected neglected regions.

Protesters are still on the streets, except that they have cleared the Grand Trunk Road, ready to converge on Islamabad, the national capital, if TLP chief, Shaad Husain Rizvi is not released on detention (as on Nov 5).

Members of the civil society, media and other sections have roundly condemned the government for what they see as ‘capitulation’.

Among them was legal adviser for the International Commission of Jurists, Reema Omer, termed the deal as “unfortunate” and “hardly surprising”.  She said nothing about the government’s press conference to announce the agreement reached with the TLP “inspired confidence, least of all the ‘secret agreement'”.  

The impasse with the TLP was resolved after the Army Chief, Gen. Bajwa, met an influential cleric, Mufti Muneebur Rehman, who played the mediator. Put simply, the army helped manage the crisis.

The October show was the third major effort by the TLP to upstage the government of the day. When it challenged Prime Minister Khaqqan Abbasi’s government by laying a siege of the national capital, the government appealed to the army for help by deploying troops, but the army ‘advised’ the government to “hold talks.”

The current agitation has snowballed after the government had been making assurances and buying time on the TLP’s demand that have diplomatic implications. It wants expulsion of the French ambassador in Islamabad because his government has taken tough measures against the Islamists.

All governments in Pakistan in the last four decades have nurtured ‘good’ Islamist groups as state ‘assets’, while fighting those going out of control. The ‘assets’ are used to cause trouble in neighbouring India, Afghanistan and Iran. Some of the groups reach secret understanding with mainstream parties and campaign for them during elections.

Analysts say that the less-known TLP that belongs to the Barelvi sect of Islam has taken to agitation and violence to be counted after being ignored by the government that deals with the Islamists of the Deobandi sect to which the Al Qaida leaders also belong.

Pointing to the role the Pakistani state has played, security analyst Muhammed Ameer Rana writes (Dawn October 31, 2021): “If we go deeper, we can see the TLP is an anti-Al Qaeda and anti-TTP project gone wrong. One might have thought within the establishment about their political utility much in the same way that they used militant and religious groups in the past. But the TLP proved a costly project, which has brought more embarrassment and harm than advantages.”

Avers academic Umair Javed, “Years of using the same rhetoric, paying fealty to the same goals, and exploiting the same anti-minority fault lines will produce an outcome where a movement can stand up and assert itself as the true representative of this cause.” (Dawn, Nov 1, 2021)  

No surprise militant groups in Pakistan regularly go out of control and challenge their creators and benefactors!

—-*The writer is a Boston based management consultant abd blogger, who frequents Asia and the Far East