General Pervez Musharraf candidly told a bristling convocation of bearded notables in the NWFP recently that the Talibanisation of Pakistan is not desirable because it is not in the country’s interest. Correct. He said that beards and shalwar-kameez and even the veil did not denote greater piety than shirts and trousers and natural modesty. True. He suggested that Islam is not an intolerant religion and advised that there should be no coercion in its prescriptions. Wonderful. Governance, he explained, is more about providing health and shelter and jobs and education and security to the people and less about ramming a narrow, suffocating and punitive moral code down their throats. Right. But at no time has he ever said what he might be compelled to do if the MMA doesn’t toe the modern and moderate line.
General Musharraf, it may be recalled, had dared say the same sort of things before a gathering of neo-con lawyers in Lahore a day earlier. His theme is: “We need a pluralistic, modern and progressive vision of Islam to guide us in the footsteps of our founders”. No sane and sensible person can disagree with him. But many people do wonder why it has taken him so long to call a spade a spade.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s dismissive comment is interesting: “Musharraf is preparing the ground for his forthcoming trip to the United States”. The suggestion here is that while General Musharraf remains keen on a political alliance with the MMA in order to resolve the LFO issue in his favour, he has recently taken to drumming up his liberal and anti-MMA credentials in order to please the mullah-hating neo-con regime in Washington. In other words, that he is a two-timer to his jackboots.
The reality, however, may be more complex. In his personal demeanour, General Musharraf remains a modern, moderate and sincere man with the anti-mullah sensibilities of a majority of similarly inclined Pakistanis. But when his memorable statement about emulating Kamal Ataturk, followed by the cute picture of Dot and Buddy under each arm, became the bete noire of the mullahs three years ago, he was advised by the “agencies” to treat discretion as the better part of valour. Much the same sort of advice was given to him when his natural human instincts led him to order a review of the discriminatory blasphemy law. On both occasions, the “agencies” did not wish to jeopardise the dividends from the historical military-mullah alliance, externally in pursuit of “national security” goals in Afghanistan and India and internally in maintaining political hegemony over civil society. Later, however, when sectarianism reared its ugly head, the intellectual confusion in the man became manifest – he wanted to separate the anti-people fanatics (sectarians) from the pro-state ones (jihadis) and go after the former while defending the latter.
In pursuit of this neat compartmentalisation, he asked Mullah Umar not to provide sanctuaries to the sectarian extremists and hand them over to Pakistan. But this attempted “dialogue” didn’t get far – at the time, Mullah Umar and the Deoband-inspired Taliban were actually busy carrying out their own brand of sectarianism against the besieged Shiite Hazara of Afghanistan. The “agencies” were not fully on board either because some of the jihadis and Afghan mujahideen came from the very sources that were fanning sectarianism in the country.
Then came 9/11. When the Taliban spurned his advice to ditch OBL and reform themselves, he weighed in with the Americans against them. When the “agencies” resisted this about-turn, he changed their leadership. When the mullahs roared their disapproval, he put their leaders behind bars. He even went so far as to condemn certain acts of “terrorism” against civilian targets by the jihadis in Indian-held Kashmir. For a moment, it seemed that he had crossed the Rubicon and decided to strike at the very roots of mullah power and Talibanisation.
But once again that was not to be. Misplaced political necessity stayed his personal instinct. The general elections were at hand and the PPP and PML-N had to be stopped in their tracks. Thus the MMA was given a free hand to fill the political vacuum. But this effectively blackballed the development of the political consensus based on a relatively liberal worldview that he advocated. Worse, the “moderate” parties that he had banished were now compelled to join hands with the MMA and challenge his legitimacy as both president and army chief.
Meanwhile, the contradictions in his approach to party politics at home and his liberal worldview have been exacerbated by the demands of the international community whose economic and political support is important to him. The world wants the MMA out. But General Musharraf is compelled to keep it in for personal and jihadi reasons. The world wants to see a restoration of democracy under General Musharraf’s umbrella. But the MMA is both anti-democratic and anti-Musharraf. The longer General Musharraf prevaricates, the greater his personal and the country’s problems. It is time for him to resolve the contradictions in his approach and steer the country unequivocally in the direction of the progressive Pakistan he constantly talks about. For starters, he could make sincere efforts to build peace with India and the PPP/PMLN on a “live and let live basis”.