No armed wings, please

Even when a politician in Pakistan says something that seems wholly unobjectionable, it is always best to try and tease out their motives for what they are saying and judge them by their intentions, not their words. PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif’s contention that political parties that have militant wings should be banned is on the surface, something everyone should support. Political parties in the country have used violence far too often as a strategic tool and the results have been less than salutary, as shown by the Supreme Court’s judgement on the Karachi violence. But Mr Sharif’s words reek of opportunism. The PML-N’s student wing, the Muslim Students Federation, has often enforced its authority on campus by resorting to violence. Many prominent figures in the party have also expressed support for militant outfits like the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and even maintained links with banned Punjabi groups. If the ban Sharif proposes is to be fairly enforced, then it would have to include his own party.

Just because the PML-N is also morally compromised in this regard, however, does not mean that the problem of political parties maintaining armed wings should be ignored. Rather, it should be acknowledged that every party with a significant following in the country has guns and thugs at its disposal. Since banning all these parties is not feasible, another solution must be sought. Ideally, law-enforcement agencies would be able to crackdown on militant wings within political parties but the police, too, tends to be affiliated to one political party or the other.

To the extent that a solution to this problem is possible, some hope is offered by the Supreme Court suo motu notice on the Karachi violence. By identifying the political parties that were responsible for the killings — which, as it turns out, was nearly all of them — the court has given the police cover to act against militant wings. Ideally, of course, the political parties on their own should purge their ranks of all such elements. The practise of political parties backing up their power with private armies is so well-entrenched that even a powerful Supreme Court may not be able to take them on. But placing our hope in the court is far more realistic than just banning the parties outright.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2011.