Tehreek-e-Labbaik, Pakistan
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Introduction
Sushant Sareen, Nov 10, 2021: The Times of India
Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) — Pakistan’s largest religious political party, the third-largest political party in Punjab and fifth-largest in the country by virtue of votes — is like an active volcano. Every once in a while, usually once and sometimes twice a year, it erupts onto the streets of the country, causing mayhem. Then it settles down, either as a result of a surrender by the state, or a crackdown.
But like every active volcano, the calm that returns is only on the surface. It hides the lava that is bubbling below, a toxic mix of politics, ideology, religiosity, sociology, political economy, which the TLP appears to have harnessed and weaponised to great effect. The result is that in just four years — the TLP was registered as a political party in July 2017 — and after about half a dozen eruptions, the Sunni Barelvi political party has come to occupy a pivotal position on the political firmament of Pakistan.
Confrontation and surrender
The latest eruption started in the third week of October on Eid-Milad-un-Nabi, the Prophet’s birthday. In what came as a surprise to the authorities, the TLP staged a massive demonstration in Lahore, demanding the release of its arrested leader, the 26-year-old Saad Rizvi. He has been in preventive detention since April when a massive confrontation took place between TLP activists and the Pakistani authorities in Lahore.
TLP was listed as a proscribed organisation under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) and hundreds of its cadres were placed under the fourth schedule of the ATA. At the sit-in in Lahore, the TLP leadership announced a ‘Long March’ to Islamabad. The purpose of the march changed from demanding the release of Rizvi to ‘upholding the honour of the Prophet’ and implementing the agreement of severing all links with France. If the authorities thought they would be able to pre-empt the TLP march by arresting its activists, they had another thought coming.
The authorities had clearly underestimated the strength of TLP and the zeal of its activists who bulldozed all the barriers placed along the route of the March. The government was at sixes and sevens. In complete panic, almost as if an army of holy warriors was all set to storm the capital city of the Islamic Republic, the government handed over law and order in Punjab to the Pakistan Army officer paramilitary force — Pakistan Rangers.
But the Army was chary of using force against the TLP. It is one thing to use force against the Baloch and Pashtuns, quite another to use force against Punjabis and that too the GT Road Punjabis. Instead, the military establishment used its enormous influence and equities to convince the government to throw in the towel and give in to virtually all of TLP demands — release of their incarcerated activists, take out TLP from the list of proscribed organisations, remove the names of TLP activists from the fourth schedule, unfreeze their accounts — in exchange for certain assurances from the TLP such as it will desist from similar protests in future and will not misuse religion for its politics.
The humiliating surrender — the terms of the agreement have been kept secret by the government — has emboldened and empowered the TLP to a dangerous level. Worse, it has shown the Pakistani state as weak, vacillating, and wimpish, which can be brought to its knees by any highly charged mob committed to its cause. This is not an image and impression that the Pakistani state, or more appropriately the ‘deep state’, can afford to let gain currency.
Genie is out
The fact is also that the deep state and military establishment, along with the incumbent regime of Imran Khan, has had a complicated relationship with TLP. The party is believed to have been midwifed by the military establishment to cut into the conservative vote bank of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League. This was part of the political engineering plan to get Imran Khan into power.
But over the years, the TLP has grown much bigger than the original purpose for which it was conceived, so big that it now spooks not just the government but also the military establishment. Twice in the past — in December 2018 after TLP indulged in widespread rioting, called upon the soldiery to rebel, and hurled threats against Supreme Court judges who acquitted a Christian women accused of blasphemy, and then in April last after pitched battles with the police in Lahore — the government and the ‘establishment’ have tried to bottle up the genie, but failed.
This was in part because they eased the pressure as they found utility in not only keeping the TLP in play for their own political objectives, but it was also because the TLP has shown remarkable resilience in the face of engineered splits, incarceration of leaders and cadres, and hostile propaganda (including alleging that they were funded by India).
The current eruption — the Namoos-e-Risalat march — is a massive show of force by the TLP. This march took place despite the fact that the TLP chief Saad Rizvi and thousands of TLP activists were either in jail or had severe restrictions placed on their movement. The ability of the TLP to marshal thousands of highly charged cadres to take on the might of the Pakistani state is not just impressive but also frightening.
Clearly, the TLP is now a force to reckon with, not just in terms of its street power, but also in terms of its electoral strength. It might not yet be in a position to win elections, but it can certainly swing elections in one or the other direction. This is why even the two biggest parties — the ruling PTI and the opposition PMLN — are making overtures to TLP.
A higher purpose
An electoral tie-up with the Barelvi party is being seen as a ticket to victory at the hustings. Such is the obsequiousness of the political class towards the TLP that after the clashes in April, prayers were held in the National Assembly for the dead TLP workers, but none for the policemen who died during the clashes. Even the Pakistan Army is chary of using force against TLP, lest it transforms into a militant, jihadist organisation, one that will be operating not in some obscure corner of the country but in the heartland — Punjab.The power of the TLP comes not just from the way it has weaponised the issue of blasphemy against the Prophet, the finality of Prophethood and the promise of Nizam-e-Mustafa, the Barelvi conception of an Islamic state. Alongside these issues, it’s geographical spread — all across Punjab, and in large areas of Sindh, especially Karachi — coupled with the social base it attracts — the common man and the underclass of society, which is treated like dirt by the state and the power brokers — that makes it such a potent organisation.
While the TLP doesn’t have an armed militant wing, its cadres' zealotry and commitment to the cause more than makes up for not having guns. These are not your everyday jihadist; they are your everyday plumber, carpenter, petty shopkeeper, electrician, labourer, small and marginal farmer or farm labour. The TLP not only gives them a higher purpose than the drudgery of their daily lives, it also empowers them against the tyranny of the petty bureaucracy and law enforcement agencies.
With the TLP metastasising into what many in the power structure of Pakistan see as a real threat, it is quite possible, even inevitable, that another effort will be made to cut the party to size. When (before or after the next general elections) and how (co-option, coercion, corruption, or old-fashioned splitting into factions) this will happen remains to be seen. But what is clear is that if this threat is not snuffed out, or at least significantly whittled down, it could end up upending the existing power structure, something that neither the political class nor the deep state will permit, not without a fight anyway.
The writer is senior fellow, Observer Research Foundation
