Ironically, the literal meaning of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan is ‘I am present Pakistan,’ and that perhaps is an apt descriptor of the reality staring Pakistan. This is also the name of the Islamic extremist party that had stunningly secured 2.2 million popular votes in the 2018 General Elections, even though it had emerged less than three years earlier on the violent premise of opposing any changes to Pakistan’s dark Blasphemy Laws.

Ideas besetting parties like the Tehreek-e-Labbaik ( TLP) were especially incubated in the revisionist era of General Zia-ulhaq’s 1980s and tactically misused by all political regimes since, irrespective of the nomenclature, and including the shadowy Generals. Over seven decades since M A Jinnah’s belatedly restorative attempt at secularising Pakistan by statements like, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed ~ that has nothing to do with the business of the state,” it is the likes of TLP, who now hold popular sway.

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Political poison of religious majoritarianism has consumed the sub-continent and masses are galvanised by religious fervour, supremacism, and assertion ~ the brutal phenomenon of ‘lynching’ is only natural. The horrific lynching of Priyantha Kumara, a Sri Lankan expatriate in Pakistan, over allegations of blasphemy, should surprise none as it is part of a growing culture of self-appointed custodians of religious propriety and necessity.

Unlike the earlier lynchings in Pakistan that involved its own citizenry (with a high proportion from the constitutionally excommunicated minorities like Ahmediyas and others), this incident involves a foreigner, and therefore the ramification and sovereign-awkwardness is multiplied for Prime Minister Imran Khan, who likes to talk about Naya Pakistan (New Pakistan).

Importantly, while Imran Khan posits and postures Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Muhammad Iqbal as his role models, his party sensing the mood of the nation had clearly taken a position to oppose any amendment or dilution to Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which deals with the contentious blasphemy laws. The regrettable admixture of religion and politics has been the bane of societal regression and offering meaningless condolences and other platitudes after every such incident serves no purpose as the slippery slope of identity-based politics only gets slipperier.

Perfunctory announcements from the Prime Minister, Chief of the Pakistani Army Staff etc., were meekly issued, a calculated attempt to delink the issue from the blasphemy context was ensured. Instead, a generic mob vigilantism angle was bandied. But too much water has flown under the bridge, and the echo-chambers of dog-whistlers who have provided the necessary succour to revanchist elements like the TLP were still at it.

The Defence Minister of Pakistan, Pervez Khattak, defended and contextualised, “When children…grow up, they become spirited and do things out of emotions” and added for shocking effect, “I would have also done these things out of emotions had I been there”! In hindsight, such a politico-societal morass was in the coming, for a few months back, Prime Minister Imran Khan himself had made common cause with the TLP by reassuring them that he shared the ‘same goals’ as the TLP (this when TLP had just been outlawed as a terrorist organisation, a fortnight earlier), when the body was protesting violently against the French ambassador and for boycott of French goods.

In the murky Russian-roulette of Pakistani politics, the relatively secular institution of the Pakistani Army itself is guilty of midwifing the terms of multiple peace ‘deals’ between the TLP and the Pakistani government. Forces like the TLP are invaluable levers for the Pakistani Army to keep up its sleeve and unsettle the civilian government, as and when it feels the same is getting comfortable enough to assert itself independently.

The ‘check-mate’ phenomenon of recklessly using religion and its ostensible guardians in the form of the clergy is the worst kept secret of the Pakistani establishment, be it for internal politics, or for across the borders in places like India or Afghanistan. Sadly, the genie of religio-extremism does not revert to its lamp once unleashed, and has a sure trajectory of injecting poison, hatred and uncontrollable polarisation that consumes its society and its progenitor.

The Frankensteinian monster of religio-terror was manifest in the sick visuals of the large crowd taking selfies, after barbarically killing and burning the Sri Lankan, with hapless policemen loitering around. Taliban Khan is an ill-earned moniker for Imran Khan who in his three years of so-called Naya Pakistan is guilty of courting the Afghan Taliban (especially the hardened Haqqani faction), capitulating repeatedly to the likes of Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) and even cutting ‘deals’ with Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP or Pakistan Taliban) who were responsible for the Peshawar terror attack on schoolchildren. Imran Khan has gone on to even suggest amnesty (if they become ‘normal citizens?) for TTP cadres who have killed thousands of Pakistanis.

It was left to the Pakistani Chief Justice, Gulzar Ahmed, to excoriate the Prime Minister, “You are in power. The government is also yours. What did you do? You brought those guilty to the negotiating table.” Obviously, the sentiment went unheeded, and Imran Khan continues to play the patented Pakistani gameof running with the hare and hunting with the hound.

The problem starts when the sensibilities of TLP, TTP or even Afghan Taliban starts getting normalised in Pakistani society, politics, and the governance agenda ~ lynchings then become collateral outcomes of the new normal. History across the ages instructs that any nation that yields space for any majoritarian or religio-ethnic assertion of any specific denomination will always fall prey to distractive passions that do truly little to uplift the real and socio-economic growth of the nation.

Yet, it is the loaded doublespeak, political acquiescence, and subtle pandering to echo-chambers (conveniently dubbed ‘fringe elements’) that sows and reaps electoral harvest, and all long-term consequences to society be damned. Also, it takes more than a person from beyond the traditional political feudatories, trajectories, or dynasties to be able to deliver Naya (new) anything ~Imran Khan is yet another example of no change from the past.

(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd) and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)