Islamabad diary
The Barelvis were never into this sort of thing. They were known more for shrines, urs – the festivals which occur around shrines – the reading of naats (songs in praise of the Holy Prophet) and the distribution of halwa, the sweet concoction without which subcontinental Islam would not be what it is. The maulvi without his halwa is like the priest without his share of baptismal wine.
The danda-bardar or stick-wielding Islam was more a hallmark of Deobandi outfits, especially the Jamaat-e-Islami which introduced the danda, and when the occasion demanded the knuckle-duster, into the maelstrom of national politics.
The JI was also heavily into literature, its founding father, Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi, a literary figure and prolific author in his own right. But in the final analysis its contribution in the field of Islamic martial arts will probably outweigh the excellence of its literary endeavours.
With the Afghan ‘jihad’ came a fundamental transformation, the danda relegated to the museum of discarded ideas and its place taken by a glorification of the faith through the barrel of a Kalashnikov. Deobandi outfits were the foot-soldiers of this ‘jihad’ and as it progressed there came to the fore Takfiri elements – the Taliban allied to Al-Qaeda – which established their sovereignty, their own Islamic emirate, in the rugged terrain of first South and then North Waziristan.
The Barelvis were no part of that movement. The various waves of ‘jihad’ swept past them and they kept to their green turbans and their shrines…even as they looked with profound dismay at what the Taliban and the Takfiris were doing – blowing up shrines and denouncing as apostates, and therefore worthy of death, all those not subscribing to their narrow version of the faith. Barelvi Islam was not for them. Every shrine was a fillip to their rage.
The majority of Pakistanis subscribe to the Barelvi denomination of Islam which is why Barelvis lay claim to representing the Sawad-e-Azam, literally the bigger part. But a dispiriting fact intervened. While the Barelvis had the numbers, the Deobandis – represented in such parties as the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Fazal and Sami, and various ‘jihadi’ outfits – had the muscle and the bigger profile. The Sawad-e-Azam caused no earthquakes, made no one tremble.
True, that cleric of many a stormy season, Professor Allama Tahirul Qadri, is a Barelvi and he was the moving spirit behind the August 1914 sit-ins which came near to toppling the ‘heavy mandate’. His trained and spirited cadres proved themselves more than a match for the Punjab and Islamabad police forces. But the Professor, in a loose alliance with Imran Khan, led a solo charge. The Sawad-e-Azam, the Barelvi hordes, remained aloof, not responding to his call to arms.
The Barelvi agitation over the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri – the constable who in a fit of misguided fervour assassinated governor Salmaan Taseer on whose guard duty he was deputed – may have changed this. At his funeral there was a huge turnout and, as we have seen, on the occasion of his chehlum, 40th day of mourning, the charged assembly traversed on foot a distance of about 14 kms from Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi to the centre of Islamabad and occupied D Chowk in front of Parliament House.
For three days and nights the crowd sat there, listening to provocative speeches, and only dispersed after talks with government ministers and the conclusion of a verbal agreement. This the leaders of the agitation sold to their followers as a great victory. Everyone danced with joy even if the government had yielded on nothing of substance.
But the government has been embarrassed and made to look weak and dithering, while the interior minister has cut a sorry figure. With his fondness for addressing the media he presented himself as the man dealing with the crisis. But the final talks were conducted by other ministers, including someone with whom the interior minister is said to be not on talking terms, the finance minister.
Such are the ways of this government. The finance minister and the interior minister don’t talk to each other. The cabinet hasn’t met for a long time. Ministers have a hard time meeting the prime minister. There is more democracy in the army command than there is in the government. The corps commanders meet regularly and they discuss things and take what by and large are collective decisions. The PM keeps to himself and is comfortable only with his inner coterie.
Then we ask the question why civil-military relations aren’t any better and why the army takes the lead when it comes to major decisions. Before civil-military relations can be put on a more even keel there has to be better performance from the political side.
Anyway, even if the Barelvis have gone home with nothing substantive in their hands they have been empowered if not radicalised – which may be too strong a word – by this exercise. They have done this time what the Deobandis have done all along: raised the flag of agitation and come away with something that to gullible followers can be sold as a triumph. The memory of this experience will remain alive, serving as a rallying cause for the Barelvi faithful. The leaders in the forefront of the agitation will see their standing enhanced.
The only win for the government is that the sit-in ended peacefully without the use of force. But it has also been exposed. There was no planning, no Plan A, no Plan B. It was caught flat-footed. A rag-tag band of protesters stormed into Islamabad, smashing all obstacles and the government could do nothing. The interior minister has been reduced to saying that no public meeting of any sort will be allowed in D Chowk in future – a clear case of slamming the stable doors after everything is gone.
The government was caught by a double whammy – the Lahore blast and the Islamabad sit-in. It would have helped if it was seen to be in control…on top of events. But that wasn’t so and to compound matters there has again opened a breach between the army and the central government – the army command proclaiming the start of a Punjab operation against terrorism and the government barely able to hide its discomfort at the prospect of the army taking matters into its hands and doing things on its own.
The trouble stems from a more fundamental failure. The Nawaz Sharif government won’t do things by itself, because it lacks the capacity or the will, and is not happy with the army assuming leadership in the war against terrorism.
So long as the army and its subordinate wings – Rangers, FC, ISI, MI – are active in Fata, Karachi and Balochistan it is all right by the federal government. But the moment such a thing as the Lahore blast happens and the army, its patience at an end, turns its attention to Punjab, the house of Raiwind starts getting uneasy – no doubt because of the fear that one thing will lead to another and erode its political position in its home fortress of Punjab.
The Nawazites are unhappy with the army and would gladly put an end to Lt-Gen Bajwa’s tweets which announce army decisions and thus would be a source of great irritation. The army has its own complaints about civilian capacity.
Not a happy state of affairs but that’s where we are right now.
Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com
