Happy New Year?

This, they say traditionally, is the turn-of-the-year season to be jolly. But even a cursory glance at the afflictions that ail Pakistan will lead inevitably and logically to the conclusion that there is precious little to be happy about.

While the never-ending saga of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) versus the government swamps the media, there are perhaps deeper issues that are even more troubling. Let us survey some of these briefly.

Terrorism has us in its grip once again, particularly in the western border provinces. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is exhibiting a resurgence perhaps beyond even what it could manage in the past.

Not only are attacks being carried out on an enhanced scale (mostly on the security forces this time round), they are deadlier in their effect. Now even cross-border infiltration and attacks are the order of the day, with reportedly Afghan Taliban help.

This latter is the new factor that has upset the applecart. After the Afghan Taliban came to power in 2021 in the wake of the ignominious US retreat, not only are the TTP’s safe havens on Afghan soil even more secure, the new Afghan rulers appear to have opened for the TTP the doors to their warehouses stocking tons of abandoned US weapons.

Hence the increased deadliness of the TTP attacks. Pakistan is now paying for the ill-conceived support for the fanatical Afghan Taliban in the illusory hope that theirs would be a friendly regime when in power.

The Afghan Taliban on the other hand, have cocked a snook at their erstwhile ‘friend’ Pakistan and plumped instead for support to their ideological brothers, the TTP. Imran Khan was in power in 2021, and invited the TTP back. Faiz Hameed is supposed to have managed the whole gambit.

Now that this generosity towards the fanatics has turned sour, the PTI is desperately trying to shift the blame onto General Bajwa. It is doubtful if many will swallow this ‘u-turn’ without demur. Clearly, the dye is now cast in favour of a determined campaign of eliminating the TTP once and for all.

While the establishment appears to have succeeded in browbeating the mainstream media into eliminating the distinction between the religious fundamentalist terrorist extremism of the TTP and the nationalist insurgency in Balochistan, both having by now been lumped indiscriminately into the ‘terrorist’ basket, the blurring of the difference has not helped. The Balochistan nationalist insurgency is not terrorism, it is a political guerrilla war.

Unfortunately, our national security state refused to countenance political negotiations with the Baloch insurgents innumerable times, resulting in the insurgency tipping over into the demand for independence. This is not a good portent for Pakistan.

Sympathies or otherwise with the Baloch cause and its long-standing grievances notwithstanding, the national security state has managed a self-fulfilling prophecy by relying on force alone (including disappearing thousands of people belonging to the troubled province).

The Baloch insurgents may not be in a position to win against the powerful Pakistan armed forces in the foreseeable future, but the canker that is Balochistan will continue to suppurate and may even burst at some unexpected and unforeseeable turn of events.

Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his fellow madrassa boards maulvis seem to have got their way through a compromise on the registration issue that has been in the news for some time.

The five older seminary boards and the new (10?) ones have now been allowed to choose who to be registered with, the Directorate General of Religious Education (DGRE) or the relevant deputy commissioner’s office. Everybody is therefore happy. But the niggling question remains: is the state and its institutions now in a position to ensure religious extremism does not form part of any madrassa’s curriculum? That is the central concern. Only time will tell if we have gone past this particular post.

Kurram Agency’s land and sectarian disputes continue, often violently, with road blockages that have starved the people of the Agency of badly needed food, medicine and warmth in the middle of a crackingly cold winter. Sympathetic sit-ins in support of the people of Kurram, particularly Parachinar, are being held all over the country.

In Karachi, they have disrupted the traffic of the metropolis to the point where the Sindh Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government and citizens are now crying themselves hoarse that the protests should, in all fairness, be held in KP, not Sindh. There are signs of a breakthrough in the jirgas confabulations for a solution to this complicated conflict, but better not to hold your breath on this one.

The ruling coalition too is showing signs of strain, if the PPP’s plethora of complaints of not being taken on board and involved in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N’s) decision making are to be believed.

The proposal of taking out six new canals from the already depleted waters of the Indus has roused the ire of all shades of opinion in Sindh, which sees this as a life-and-death issue.

South of Kotri, the Indus bed is a dry, sandy stretch used by children for playing cricket at least 10 months of the year. Any new canals threaten to turn Sindh into a desert unable to sustain its agriculture and other economic activities. The federation is once more under strain as a result.

Last but not least, the cheery news is that having arm-twisted the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) into either accepting a termination of contract or a radical reduction in tariffs (and profits) on a take and pay basis, the establishment intends to extend its economic muscle into corporate agriculture (in Sindh and Punjab) and any other field in which it is not already heavily invested. Of course all this is bound to boost the confidence of local and foreign investors. Only, again, don’t hold your breath (even if the AQI demands it).

Happy New Year?

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024