Fazl complains of being wrongly perceived as pro-Taliban

In spite of never agreeing to his ideological stance, I do consider JUI-F chief as one of most articulate politicians.

In spite of never agreeing to his ideological stance, I do consider Maulana Fazlur Rehman as one of the most articulate politicians of Pakistan who also savours an amazing comprehension of all tricks of the power game. It was his turn to speak in the national assembly Tuesday morning.

The day after Prime Minister’s speech that formally announced the launch of operation “Zarb-e-Azb,” no parliamentary reporter expected him to focus on budgetary proposals. We were rather more anxious to find out how this important leader of a religion-based political party felt about the said operation.

Maulana was obviously not feeling good about it. But while expressing his reservations, the head of a party that had cultivated deep roots and connections in all our tribal areas, especially North Waziristan, sounded deliberately restrained and cautious. Often, he explained things with a defeatist mindset as well.

He spoke for long to remind the world that his JUI-F belonged to a unique breed of religion-based parties, which always believed in playing politics with rules set by democratic traditions. It consistently opposed the idea of enforcing Shariah by using gun and through armed struggle. Multiple groups of zealots continue to feel too uncomfortable with such stance of highly respected and well-recognized Ulema assembled in the JUI-F and quite often tried to kill many of them.

In spite of this consistent history, Maulana complained with a hurt heart, the JUI-F was perceived as a “pro-Taliban” party, “simply for the reason that we strongly believe that you cannot establish the writ of the state and bring lasting peace within Pakistan by sheer use of the force by the security and law enforcing outfits.”

After asserting his pro-democracy credentials and history, Maulana switched to spinning a story. It wanted us to believe as if by initiating some calculated and unilateral actions, the praetorian elite had eventually created a situation where the elected politicians were left with no choice but to “own their doings.”

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he cunningly suggested, had done the similar kind of owning up through his speech in the national assembly on June 16. Prime Minister’s speech, he went on, has rather proved another time that elected civilians hardly had any command and control over policies that relate to Pakistan’s internal and external security.

Visibly hopeless he rather sounded while claiming with ominous tone that “perennial exposure” of elected politicians’ limits, when it comes to decide on matters of national security, always strengthened the narrative of those strident elements that dubbed democracy as “Kufr (unIslamic)” and strived to demolish it through violent means.

One would perhaps prefer endorsing the deductive logic of Maulana. Yet the question: how he plans to change the given? Sadly, Maulana had no answer to this question. Notwithstanding his strong reservations regarding the launch of “Zarb-e-Azb” his party remains an ally of the Nawaz government. One of its nominees, Akram Durrani, enjoys the status of a federal minister, without any portfolio. The shrewd mind of Maulana also expects a major share for his party from the power pie, if the PTI-led coalition seems faltering in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KPK). He also has heavy hopes in the same context regarding the ministerial positions in Balochistan. In short, Maulana Fazlur Rehman fully appreciates his ‘limits.” Why blame Nawaz Sharif, therefore, if he has decided to travel the same route as well?

Maulana could also not take off in the national assembly because right in the middle of his speech we began receiving frightening stories from Lahore. In this column, I have been reporting that the PML-N government was getting too serious to check the revolutionary launch of Allama Tahirul Qadri. Yet one never imagined what had happened in Lahore on Tuesday. The whole incident clearly suggests panicky overkill by managers under tremendous political stress.

Syed Khurshid Shah even went to the extent of loudly claiming: “By staging this gory incident in Lahore, Shahbaz Sharif, has rather hastened the fall of the PML-N government. The younger brother has played a sinister conspiratorial game against Nawaz Sharif.”

Javed Hashmi of the PTI took lead in igniting the opposition to walk out of the house in sympathy with fallen workers of Allama Qadri. The most vocal support he managed to extract from Dr Farooq Sattar of the MQM. The PPP legislators had to join the protest and no reporter was anymore interested to sit in the press gallery to watch the national assembly proceedings.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2014.