After a decade of “enforced peace” on the campuses of Punjab province, tensions are running high again. On January 19th, two students were shot dead at a university campus in Multan. A day later, a bomb exploded in Dyal Singh College in Lahore, injuring 25 students and burning down a library containing thousands of rare books and manuscripts. A couple of weeks ago, factional disputes in the MAO college in Lahore led to the death of one student. Are these stray, insignificant incidents or portents of more trouble to come?
The recent tension on the campuses of Punjab is related to the onset of a power struggle between armed and violent student mafias: — the Muslim Student’s Federation (MSF) which is the student wing of the opposition Muslim League, the Islami Jamiat Talba (IJT) which is the student wing of the Jamaat i Islami and the Peoples Students Federation (PSF) which is allied to the ruling Peoples Party. The MSF and IJT are thought to be behind the incidents in Lahore and Multan respectively because both student bodies are in the throes of being ousted from power on the campuses of the province by the PSF.
This struggle for power is related to the direction provincial politics has taken in recent times. Until last September, one faction of the MSF was backed by the Punjab chief minister Manzoor Wattoo. (This is the same faction which is alleged to have fired upon opposition leader Nawaz Sharif during a by-election in Lahore two years ago.) Another faction of the MSF answers to the calling of Mr Sharif. Both groups have been at daggers drawn since the split in the Muslim League led to the creation of the PML (Junejo) group in 1993.
The installation of Mr Arif Nakai as Punjab’s chief minister, has, however, led to a decline in the fortunes of the pro-Wattoo MSF group. Since Mr Nakai is more loyal than the Queen, he has withdrawn official patronage to the pro-Junejo MSF group and shifted it toward the PSF. Similarly, since Mr Nakai is less well disposed towards the Jamaat i Islami than his wily predecessor, the IJT is smarting from the loss of official indulgence.
The campus struggle has manifested itself now because the opposition Muslim League is thought to be gearing up for prolonged street agitation against prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s government next month. Since the students have historically formed the vanguard of all anti-government struggles, the PPP has acted in the hope of neutralising the campuses by installing the PSF in power before the agitation is launched.
But the MSF and IJT factions are rife with criminal elements and thugs who have built up muscle in the last decade or so while the Muslim League, in alliance with various Islamic parties, was in power in one form or another in Punjab. All are bristling with weapons and won’t give in to the PSF without a fight. The PSF, which is a goon brigade in its own right, has thrown the gauntlet because Islamabad is right behind it.
With the students getting into the act, the law and order situation in the Punjab could easily get worse. This is all we need. Karachi continues to be plagued by terrorism. Sectarian reprisals are rife in Punjab. Bomb blasts in Islamabad, Peshawar and elsewhere apart, the daily death toll taken by common dacoits, kidnappers and revenge-seeking assassins continues to mount.
Unfortunately, the government doesn’t have a clue about what to do. Sometimes the accusing finger points to India or Afghanistan, sometimes it is groups allied to local or foreign fundamentalist parties. In Karachi, it is always the MQM even though the State continues to notch up a record number of extra-judicial killings.
From time to time, of course, we are duly informed that state and government functionaries have held a meeting “to review the law and order situation” and “stringent measures are on the anvil”. In the meanwhile, things are getting out of hand.
The fact is that the government has neither the will nor the ability to deliver. The police and bureaucracy, which are supposed to be at the service of the state, have become handmaidens to governments in power. Equally, our public representatives now owe their allegiance and loyalty only to themselves rather than to the public which elected them. Under the circumstances, the state has been compelled to absolve itself of any duty or responsibility to the people.
This rapid breakdown of the social contract between the rulers and the ruled has led to a rapid “privatisation” of everyday life outside the ambit of the law. The manifestations of this are all around us — private vendettas, private mafias, private taxes, private security agencies, private encroachments, even private road-breakers in residential colonies. Our major interaction with the state takes place only when we are compelled to pay exorbitant public power rates!
This is a dismal situation which casts the state and political system in a funereal light. It raises the do-or-die question: Will the political system serve to revive the state or will the state be forced to wither away before the onslaught of the charlatans?