Change or stasis?

The phrase ‘when the going gets tough the toughs get going’ has been attributed to Joseph Kennedy, father of John F Kennedy, and it seems appropriate to apply it in the current situation post to the Lahore bombing on March 27. The death toll now stands at 73, with more of the over 200 injured feared to lose their lives. There have been a series of meetings between the civil and military leaderships and the outcome appears to be that the military has decided to take the initiative, with what degree of civilian cooperation, being at best uncertain. The prime minister addressed the nation on the evening of March 28 in a speech that is best described as anodyne, more a collation of platitudes strung with cliches than anything of a spine-stiffening nature. He did not mention the proposed military operation — nor was there a direct mention of the sit-in by religious activists before parliament in Islamabad.



It now appears that the chief of army staff has ordered what are described as “intelligence-based operations” against terrorists in Punjab. These are to be conducted by the military and paramilitary forces alone, not in conjunction with civilian law and order agencies. Some operations have already taken place in Multan, Faisalabad and Muzaffargarh.

If these actions are part of an agreed strategy jointly formulated between the civil and military powers, then it is a significant shift. The PML-N government has been very ‘hands off’ with the groups in its own back garden despite compelling evidence from a range of sources that there is a nest of vipers in south Punjab. The reasons for this are complex but closely linked to political alliances and accommodations and unvoiced agreements with religious groupings that are home to a large slice of the PML-N vote bank. The atrocity in Lahore finally stripped away the fig-leaf of denial that was the favoured government position for the last three years. The scales of power are always finely balanced in Pakistan. It appears that the toughs have drawn a line under the ‘leniency’ paradigm so beloved of the government — and things could, for some, get very tough indeed in the near future.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th,  2016.

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