Drawing a Line

There is a difference between a peaceful protest and a violent public outcry. In the name of anti-France rallies, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) created havoc on a national scale and now has officially been declared a terror outfit. Whatever was witnessed, especially in Lahore, was a sheer mockery of the state’s claims of tackling terrorism and curbing extremist narratives in the name of Islam. The worst part of the TLP protest was the organization’s ability of employing coercive tactics and resorting to violent means to bring the state to its knees. It turned out to be a good opportunity for others holding lop-sided religious views to vent their feelings. It never occurred to any of them that in staging the protests and beating up their own law-enforcers, the net sufferer was Pakistan, its government and its people and not France or any other country. This time, the TLP could not be disowned or shrugged off as a bunch of non-state actors, challenging the sway of the powers that be. It seemed some quarters love nurturing such extremist elements, probably for the purpose of future political engineering. It is a pity that these very extremist elements are discarded and punished once they start sprouting the seeds of liability. The case of the TLP may even seem an exception as it was officially banned in the very initial years of its birth and especially when it had been the favourite of the kingmakers. What the TLP did brought a bad name to Pakistan. To make matters worse, the baseless international misgivings were blown out of proportion by a well-orchestrated Indian propaganda machine that leaves no stone unturned to malign Pakistan internationally. The EU DisinfoLab Report is the most recent example. Among these prevailing challenges, the homegrown anarchy that keeps rearing its ugly head every now and then might have done well to achieve the sinister objectives of the movers and shakers. Both the short and long-term costs of such political maneuverings are too high.

Strange as it may seem, the TLP phenomenon did not appear all of a sudden as it reflected the state’s ambivalent attitude towards its religious organizations that are unstintingly welcomed to hold the entire nation hostage by violent demonstrations, long marches and prolonged sit-ins. Now all steps must be taken to draw a permanent line between the religious exploiters on the one hand and the state on the other, since both can never function together. The right to follow a religion is a birthright of every human being and cannot be forfeited or infringed by the state. However, the freedom of religion must be confined to an individual capacity and no religious group, despite being in the majority, should be allowed to have a say in matters specifically related to state governance. After all, the parliament cannot be held to ransom by those who believe in promoting discomfort and creating unrest to get their demands fulfilled. To establish the writ of the law and to ensure the smooth functioning of the state , a clear-cut line must be drawn, moving the practice of religion away from state affairs. In the end, these are self-inflicted wounds and not a foreign-backed conspiracy that bleeds us again and again.

Syed Jawaid Iqbal
President & Editor in Chief