Islamic Emirate of Pakistan

In her essay lsquoIslamisation of Jinnahrsquo Newsline Pakistan February 2014 Ayesha Siddiqa described Pakistan as lsquoa hybridtheocracy in which there are limited visible spaces where Islamic Sharia is formally implemented along with a depleted number of liberals and liberal space but with a larger space in which religious laws and norms are implemented informallyrdquoThe creed of violence has taken over and fear is the key No wonder Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is hesitant about launching military operations into FATAIn Pakistani society ldquothe religious right has strengthened considerably where reason and rationality is not worth claiming even by the educated lest someone doubts their faith those that do not subscribe to the majority faith are shunned and looked down upon and where the propensity for violence has increased manifoldrdquo Siddiqa is one of Pakistanrsquos foremost analysts and her views need to be taken seriously There are others too but perhaps increasingly they belong to a shrinking and maybe frightened groupIn my chapter lsquoThe Talibanisation of Pakistan and The Growth of Jihadi Culturersquo National Security Review 2009 I had quoted from Pervez Hoodbhoyrsquos article lsquoThe Saudiisation of Pakistanrsquo where he said ldquoPakistanrsquos selfinflicted suffering comes from an education system that like Saudi Arabiarsquos provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadistsrdquo Today Western scholars like Stephen Tankel speak of the Pakistanisation of AlQaeda and Michael Kugelman has written wondering ldquoCould Pakistan become a Sharia staterdquo Two distinct hubs operate in Pakistan mdash the Afghanistan hub which comprises Mullah Omarrsquos Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan the Quetta Shura of Taliban Haqqani Network Tehrik Taliban Pakistan Gulbuddin Hikmetyarrsquos HizbeIslami and AlQaeda They operate in and from Afghanistan Khyber PakhtunKhwa FATA and Balochistan extending up to Karachi which is the largest Pakhtun city in the worldThe other hub is in Punjab which has essentially been Indiaspecific and consists of LashkareTayyiba or Jamatut Dawa mdash LeT JaisheMohammedJeM HarkatulMujahedeen the Sunni sectarian SipahaeSahaba SSP also known as LashkareJhangvi and Ahle Wal Sunnat Jamaat The sectarian militant groups are used as rapid deployment forces for periodically eliminating Shias and other minoritiesThere is an ideological unity among all these Afghan and Punjab groups and this includes the AlQaeda There has been considerable speculation that AlQaeda may have been behind the attacks on Pakistanrsquos nuclear facilities in 2007 and 2008 had helped the massive jail breaks in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan and had cooperated with Haqqani Networks in the attack on the CIA camp in KhostMeanwhile JuD leaders promise a nuclear umbrella to all Muslim countries There have been reports of TTP militants volunteering for jihad in Syria And significantly AlQaedarsquos media section increasingly produces video tapes that are in Urdu Pakistan is clearly AlQaedarsquos emerging base helped along by its other affiliates like the LeT and JeMRecently persons unhappily familiar to Indians like Mast Gul of CharareSharif infamy Masood Azhar of JaisheMohammed and the Kashmiri terrorist Mushtaq Zargar have resurfaced Obviously something is afoot Terrorist groups mdash the LeT JeM and SSPLeJ now have a permanent presence in Pakistani society and could acquire influence in the way Hamas and Hizbollah have done in Gaza and Lebanon as was pointed out by Tufail Ahmed in his article lsquoThe Next Decade of Jihadism in Pakistanrsquo June 2013The creed of violence has taken over and fear is the key No wonder Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is hesitant about launching military operations into FATA Interestingly the TTP has continued to bomb and kill in Peshawar and Karachi behead 23 Pakistani soldiers as revenge and offer a ceasefireMeanwhile Pakistan media has been giving prime time coverage to TTP negotiators also described as stakeholders either out of conviction or fear Naturally this coverage has helped the TTP reach Pakistani homes and talk about their 15 demands which will be difficult for the government to accept or refuse The debate is not so much about Sharia law but how much Sharia law is goodOnce again commenting on what the future could look like Ayesha Siddiqa said that if the talks succeeded Pakistan may actually metamorphose from a hybrid theocracy to a complete theocracy because the Taliban good or bad want implementation of the Sharia Thus all would depend on how far Pakistanrsquos military and civilian leadership want to go to accommodate Taliban demands or prefer to wage war against TTP and those who have been Pakistan Armyrsquos strategic assets in Afghanistan and IndiaAn operation into FATA in March has been planned but the Taliban have enough time to hide and live to fight another day Or is it too late and are we looking at an Islamic Emirate of PakistanThe writer is a former chief of Research and Analysis Wing RAW