Lethal weapons

Let us admit it. It is not the fault of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYR) that the millions of citizens of this country that commute between Islamabad and Rawalpindi or those who come from other areas have suffered excruciating pain and suffering for two weeks.

Yes, the religious outfit, which has been duly registered with the Election Commission after its surprise arrival and performance in the Lahore NA-120 by-election, has held a nuclear country’s capital hostage this long. It caused business losses worth billions. It besmeared our national image in the world. But they are not to be blamed. Their shenanigans – beating up commuters, attacking school buses and vans, smashing private cars, taking over public property, causing deaths by blocking roads to hospitals, inciting violence, abusing and threatening etc – are not really theirs either.

The group and its fantastic rise to the point where it could paralyse state and governance institutions is essentially an outcome of a system that has allowed (and in more than one instance engineered) weaponisation of street sentiment (WSS) in order to achieve short-term goals.

In the list of all the lethal weapons (robot killers, oxygen sucking bombs, resource-ravaging organisms, machine swarms knocking out thousands in one go) that the world has invented, or is in the process of inventing, our creation – Weaponised Street Sentiment with easy triggers – must be most the unique. Not the least because this weapon can create mass trouble without anyone being able to truly question its use. It is so also because unlike other weapons of mass impact, this one is created, tested, perfected at home and deployed against ourselves. There aren’t many examples from across the world that anyone can quote where a home-made lethality is used with such brutality against the home itself. But then we have always strived to be different and this is another example of how well we have done.

To be sure, long years of sweat and research have gone into producing WSS. The more recent testing ground (rather, firing range) was the Imran Khan-led and Tahirul Qadri-fed dharnas 1 and 2, and later on dharna 3. In the vast labs of D-Chowk, just in front of the parliament, and the presence of hundreds of cameras the various designs of this state-of-the-political-art masterpiece was put to use. The results were astounding. A few thousand people could occupy one road and create a mass impression of the imminent collapse of an elected government. The research also showed the weapon’s capacity to totally block parliament and make the formidable judiciary shrivel to a non-entity forced to plead with the protesters to at least allow the honourable judges to reach their chambers without additional inconvenience. The three tests also revealed that the government was inherently incapable of dealing with mass protests and was so weak in its knees that the mere thought of being accused of using excessive force made it cringe and crumble in fear of being taken apart by the media.

The dharna tests in Islamabad’s heartland – the smaller version was on display earlier when Mr Qadri brought his tribe to the city during the PPP government – also established without any doubt that the citizens of Islamabad, soft and rich, had no stomach for raising their voice against the abrogation and infringement of their rights. The results had another interesting conclusion: that once people are brought onto the streets and given a cause of sorts (rigging, corruption etc) they can perpetuate themselves in changing climatic conditions and, depending on how much local support is available, can be driven to the point of attacking government buildings etc.

In other words, mob rule could really rule. Inspired by the Model Town massacre, the dharna model testing also reinforced the lesson that, by sheer stupidity of law enforcers or through some dark mechanism, the possibility of a catastrophic event taking place becomes real.

But perhaps the most important lesson from the dharnas related to the damage they could cause to the target: the government. Made to look like it would fall at a touch, the whole arrogance of being ‘mandated’ could also appear like a joke. The weapon could throw everything out of gear and turn part of public sentiment against elected members so incapable, so impotent that they could do little other than to moralise and speak hollow words of taking action without being to even lift a finger. The idea of elected representatives – and with them the elected representation system – being bogus and farcical could be easily promoted when the weapon was in use.

With remarkable success having been proven through repeated cold tests in the lab of D-Chowk, the weapon is now ready to be used in various forms and categories. The TLYR model is different only in the nature of the payload it carries. It is loaded with religious sentiment rather than with a propagated desire to bring democratic revolution or make a ‘Naya Pakistan’. Every other part of the weapon has been the same as used in the previous tests in Islamabad. Because of the nature of the payload (finality of Prophethood) the TLYR model is particularly deadly. It can kill without mercy and claim great rewards for shooting the victim. It is technically protected against being challenged in a national debate because debate is impossible when there are a dozen self-issued fatwas already out there justifying murder.

More important, once deployed, the TLYR model then operates on the network available in the shape of nearby mosques and shrines – the main means by which the protesters sustained themselves for two weeks. The possibilities are immense of the TLYR model getting activated in every district in the country (in heartland Punjab at least) in case extreme action is taken. This was the primary concern that most government ministers spoke of while explaining their policy of inaction. “We don’t want to touch them because they will come out of every mosque in Punjab and that would be a nightmare”, said a federal minister when I asked him what made them wait for a court directive to move to break the siege. “The protesters were deployed very smartly and they relied on local political and other support to survive a dozen or more nights. Their food, medical requirements and shelter were all taken care of. It was an explosive situation. We frankly had no answer,” he candidly confessed.

This last quote sums up the real lethal potential of WSS. It can cause major injury to sitting governments, blunt any counter-charge, and ruthlessly justify destruction and debasement of core values that sustains democracy. What’s more, it can easily mutate from a tool to annihilate democracy to a participant in the democratic process. Whether the PTI-PAT combined dharnas, or the PAT’s solo flight or the recent TLYR deployment, the common factor in the use of WSS has been its threat of destruction while claiming to be totally constructive. These and others of similar variety are lethal political weapons of the present, the recent past and the future. You will see more modifications in their production as elections time nears. They will be deployed without fail – and repeatedly.

The only problem with the deployment and use of WSS is the blowback, the side-effects. Sometimes, more than the target (the government in this case), WSS ends up inflicting irreparable collateral damage on the country and the people. While the government and its ministers have survived with minor bruises, the real wounds WSS’s TLYR model deployment has inflicted is on the country’s image and on the lives of the people.

The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.

Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com

Twitter: @TalatHussain12