The incendiary exploits of two brothers Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Maulana Abdul Aziz who manage the Lal Masjid (LM), the Jamia Faridia (JF) and the Jamia Hafsa Madrassah (JHM) for women in Islamabad – which are guarded by AK-47 toting talibs – have raised the hackles of civil society organizations and the media. They openly support Osama bin Laden, espouse extremist versions of Islam and are ready to wage jihad for the enforcement of shariah in Pakistan. Equally significantly, however, the administration’s kid-gloved response has provoked serious questions about its role in “handling” the matter.
The LM-JHM complex has become the self-avowed epicenter of religious militancy in Islamabad. In August 2004, police discovered a couple of rockets in the trunk of a car belonging to one of the brothers, compelling Islamabad’s Inspector General of Police to order his arrest. But the order was withdrawn and the IGP was transferred after the religious affairs minister, Ejaz ul Haq, dissuaded the government from digging deeper into the matter. In 2005, several Al-Qaeda terrorists with connections to the LM-JHM complex were arrested. But no further investigations were launched into its operations and objectives. Two months ago, head-to-toe niqab clad women students of JHM brandishing batons “seized” a children’s library adjacent to the LM to protest the demolition of some illegally built mosques and madrassahs by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in Islamabad. Nothing has been done to date to “free” the wretched library. Once again, Ejaz ul Haq has bailed out the brothers by written assurances that the government will reconstruct the demolished mosques and no illegal mosques will be demolished without their approval.
Last week, hooded vigilantes of the “vice and virtue” department of the JHM closed down an alleged brothel in Rawalpindi and kidnapped three women. The administration detained four teachers of the JHM but the “girls” hit back by kidnapping two policemen. Worse, the JHM has threatened to close down video and music shops in the twin cities, echoing similar demands by the Taliban of FATA and NWFP in recent months. But the government is still wringing its hands in feigned despair.
On each occasion, the administration’s response has seemed inexplicable. The LM-JHM complex was not carefully combed for weapons caches and its activities were never seriously monitored. Indeed, when the brothers decided to encroach on land belonging to the ministry of education next to the children’s library in 1999 to build the JHM in 2002, there wasn’t a squeak out of the ministry, CDA or the Deputy Commissioner. In 2004 the interior ministry was brought into the loop. But the minister shrugged off responsibility by arguing that the madrassah had been there for a long time and couldn’t possibly have been built in three years. Each department has passed the buck to the other. Their argument is deceptively simple: the mullahs are a hornets’ nest; it is best not to stir it. But this argument doesn’t wash.
On the one hand, the military under General Pervez Musharraf seems to have come round to the idea of securing a strategic alliance with the USA as well as peace with India so that the economy can be enabled to take off into self-sustained growth boosted by large doses of foreign investment and capital inflows. This necessitates a ditching of the jihad and a rolling back of the extremist anti-Hindu religious sentiment that sustains it in civil society. Hence the need for “enlightened moderation”. On the other hand, General Musharraf is not yet personally ready to share power with mainstream and moderate political parties, let alone hand power to civilians. This means that he cannot fully roll back political Islam because it would mean irrevocably antagonizing the MMA which is a potential partner. Indeed, the JUI still seems to be an element of his domestic and foreign policy requirement to balance against the resurgent PPP while retaining an organic link with the Pakhtun Taliban assets for Afghanistan. For all these reasons, the Musharraf regime is soft on madrassah reform, soft on the JUI and soft on the Taliban. Indeed, some of General Musharraf’s advisors seem happy with regular manifestations of extremism. They think these serve to mould opinion that it is not democracy but religious extremism that is the fundamental issue at stake for which a secular military man like General Musharraf is needed. In the current political situation, the eruption of fanaticism in Islamabad also serves the purpose of diverting attention from the crisis of constitutional legitimacy sparked by the sacking of the chief justice of Pakistan.
But this thinking is wrong for several reasons. First, no one believes that the government is helpless or incapacitated against religious extremists. Time and again, the state has wielded an effective stick when it has been “necessary”. Second, most people have come to accept that it is only by democratizing Pakistan and enlarging the national consensus for enlightened moderation that religious extremism can be tackled. In other words, democracy and mainstreamism are the solutions to extremism, not obstacles in its path. Third, time is running out for General Musharraf. He should stop shadow-boxing and make the right decisions and alliances quickly.