Foggy Future

Not only did the the Objectives Resolution render Pakistan an apartheid state for its non-Muslim citizens, who have subsequently endured myriad campaigns of communal violence, it also set the state for the brutal sectarianism that has haunted Pakistan for decades. Pakistan is not like Iran, which is a Shia-majority state with a definitive clerical hierarchy. With one clear sect in predominance with a defined clerical hierarchy, Iran has an orderly way of arriving at a consensus of what rules Allah has set forth. In Pakistan, there are at least five major sectarian traditions (or maslaks): Deobandis, Jamaat-e-Islami, Ahl-e-Hadees, Barelvis and Shias (who in turn have numerous sub-divisions). Among them, there is neither a single sectarian tradition that has a dominant market share of believers and within each vying sect, there is no clerical hierarchy. In Pakistan, there is clerical anarchy and each maslak seeks to maximize its power at the expense of others. They maximize their power both through interacting with the Pakistani state as well as foreign powers, whether the wealthy Gulf State monarchies or Iran.

Because the deep state has selectively empowered specific maslaks over time for specific purposes in the pursuit of its foreign and domestic politics, some of these maslaks have grown more powerful than others. The Jamaat-e-Islami has always been an ideological ally of the deep state. It played an important role in cultivating Jamaat-e-Islami in Afghanistan, which in turn gave rise to many of the persons who would be important in the anti-Soviet jihad, begun by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1974 and later supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Jamaat-e-Islami also played an important role in brutalizing the Bengalis in East Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami continues to support the Hezbul Mujahideen, conducting terror attacks in Indian Kashmir. The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba/Jamaat ud Dawa which draws from a minority Ahl-e-Hadees interpretative tradition, had done yeoman’s work at home and abroad where it has killed at the behest of the deep state in Afghanistan and in India.

However, despite these important contributions to the deep state’s objectives, it were the Deobandis who became the clearest workhorses of the deep state. The Deobandis gave rise to the Afghan Taliban; numerous so-called “Kashmiri tanzeems” (despite their paucity of Kashmiri participation and dominance of Punjabis and Pashtuns) such as Harkul-ul-Jihad-Islami, Harkat-ul-Ansar, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Pakistani Taliban as well as myriad sectarian groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan which enjoyed legitimacy as a political party. While the state has explicitly supported many of these groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the “Kashmiri tanzeems,” it has taken a selected approach to the others. Sometimes anti-Shia pogroms have advanced the interests of the deep state while it has disrupted commercial interests. Some commanders of the Pakistan Taliban have been allies of the state while others are enemies. The problem with the Deobandis is their doctrine of takfir, or declaring some Muslims apostates which, in turn, renders the latter wajib-ul-qatal, which suggests that they not only merit death but that the person who kills them has rendered a meritorious service to the ummah.

This sectarian competition for power has directly been aided by the deep state and has been constitutionally created through the Objectives Resolution as different ulema compete for the unfettered right to say what Allah’s rules are and who should be the arbiter of those rules. Ironically, the very fundamentals of Pakistan’s ideology mean that no Pakistani will ever be safe.

Unfortunately, forging a new ideological basis that is inclusive and appropriate for the modern state of Pakistan will be impossible. After all, if Pakistan were to abandon the fundamentally othering Two Nation Theory, it will have no ideological claim to Kashmir for which Pakistan already has no legally defensible claim per the Indian Independence Act of 1947. If Pakistan’s deep state were to forego its instrumentalization of political Islam, how will it cultivate the petting zoo of Islamist militants to prosecute its policies at home or abroad? Most importantly, how will a demand for a new ideology take root in Pakistan when the deep state feeds its polity a pabulum of fictions and declares those demanding a new and inclusive ideology “enemies of the state”? But until Pakistanis stop taking the “green pill,” a future in which all Pakistanis are safe will remain elusive.