JYOTI MALHOTRA
The Telegraph, July 2007
Islamabad’s Lal Masjid has been a favourite haunt of visiting journalists in recent years. You get the best quotable quotes from radicalised cleric-militants wielding AK-47 assault rifles, the women are shrouded in black from top to toe, which makes for great television pictures, and best of all, the mosque is in the heart of the beautifully-laid out Pakistani capital. Indian journalists don’t need to eat their heart out they can’t get visas for North or South Waziristan and other sundry tribal areas, made famous by fire-eating, tongue-lashing Taliban hoods whose views make the Middle Ages look like a Diwali party.
Moreover, Lal Masjid is a stone’s throw away from the ISI headquarters, just behind the Aabpara market. The day after `Operation Silence,’ Pervez Musharraf’s biggest gamble yet for the moderate soul of Pakistan, the Pakistani papers are full of the nexus between the Lal Masjid militants and the army headquarters in Rawalpindi (a seamless 25 km away from Islamabad).
They knew all along, the Pakistani press is saying, pointing an accusing finger at Musharraf’s establishment, so why didn’t they do anything about it before?
And yet, there is more than a sneaking admiration for the General’s decision to storm the mosque and brutally end the siege, even if a 100 or so people (88 militants and 12 security forces so far) have been killed in the bargain. Pakistan is still holding its breath, hoping no women or children have died. They know that if those corpses begin to emerge, then Musharraf can get ready to face a fate much worse than what can befall him with the death of Abdul Rashid Ghazi.
Point is, the people of Pakistan -- mostly devout and largely believing that there was no alternative to partition and the two-nation theory in 1947 – are frequently uncomfortable with fundamentalist brands of Islam. Since the born again ``Islamisation’’ of Zia ul-Haq in the mid-80s (beards in the army and no women in the Pakistan foreign service, since reversed), it’s all been downhill in one way. The truism that the triumvirate of ``Allah, Army and America’’ continues to run Pakistan is, well, true.
And yet Musharraf’s theory of ``enlightened moderation’’ appeals to the people precisely because of their desperation to become a ``normal state.’’ Holding innocent people hostage inside mosques blasphemes Islam. When Bhagwan Dass became Pakistan’s first Hindu acting chief justice, opening up a debate on whether a non-Muslim can head a major institution in an Islamic state, the Pakistani press savoured the story. The Iftekhar Chaudhury vs Musharraf case galvanised the country – on Chaudhury’s side. Raiding massage parlours and defying the writ of the state was roundly condemned as being against the rule of law.
It is this constituency that Musharraf is appealing to, that he has largely won over with his gung-ho, larger-than-life, commando-type action since he overthrew Nawaz Sharif nine years ago. Ironically, though, as the power of this liberal middle class expands under Musharraf, it is they who will go for his jugular if he refuses to take his enlightenment to its logical conclusion, that is, by holding free and fair elections.
The large breed of Pakistan-watchers in India largely believes that Musharraf mostly plays fast and loose with India. That is, he stands shoulder to shoulder with America (naturally, since Bush & Co pump about $3 billion annually into Pakistan) and goes after the ``hard Taliban’’ in the Northern Areas with a vengeance, with a little help of course from the 45,000-odd US troops on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border.
And yet, when it comes to taking action against the ``soft Taliban,’’ that is, representatives of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Toiba, etc, Musharraf turns all coy, only saying that Pakistan provides ``moral, political and diplomatic support to freedom-fighters’’ in Kashmir.
``Musharraf knows exactly what he is doing, earning points with the West as he supports the war against the Taliban, at the same time turning a blind eye against militancy in India,’’ analysts said.
They admitted that Pakistan for many years had been able to get away with the ``freedom-fighters’’ argument in Kashmir, precisely because of the Indian state’s human rights violations in the Valley.
And yet, on the eve of the Lal Masjid storming, Musharraf admitted that the Lashkar and the Jaish had infiltrated the mosque. Pakistan government sources, in the aftermath of the storming, said they were willing to give safe passage to chief militant-cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, but that the talks broke down when Ghazi insisted that ``foreign militants’’ inside the mosque also be given safe passage.
For the moment at least, it seems as if Musharraf’s great gamble on the Lal Masjid is paying off. George Bush himself, the morning after, has said, ``I like him, and I appreciate him.’’ Manmohan Singh, who wished him ``godspeed’’ last week in dealing with this latest crisis on the terrorism-enemy within, may be grateful the world now knows that Lashkar-Jaish terrorists had holed themselves up in the heart of the Pakistani capital.
To help transform Pakistan into a ``moderate’’ state, on the lines of what Jinnah had once dreamt of – who, by the way, has remade his entry in Pakistan’s school history books, courtesy Musharraf, having been banned during the Zia years – will of course take much more. Cauterising the Lal Masjid wound, along with the attendant blood and guts, can only be one part of that vision.
In the end, is Operation Lal Masjid more Operation Bluestar or Operation Black Thunder? Bluestar was Indira Gandhi’s undoing, while Black Thunder, which flushed the militants out of the Harmandir Sahab in 1988, must count among one of Rajiv Gandhi’s unqualified successes.
Always the commando, Musharraf’s reported negotiations with Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan and contest the forthcoming elections, could now complete his own transformation into a political player. If that happens, Musharraf would not only have planned his exit strategy himself. He would have decided to quit while he is on top.
ENDS
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