The Pakistan Policy Symposium

February 2019

How to Handle Pakistan’s New Hardliners

Niloufer Siddiqui

Last year, Pathways to Change – Pakistan Policy Symposium, a two-day event jointly organized by the Wilson Center and INDUS, convened expert scholars, academics, and practitioners from the United States and Pakistan to explore Pakistan’s recent achievements in economic, political, and foreign affairs as well as its opportunities to address current and future challenges. Speakers and panelists focused on identifying practical, innovative, and above all actionable policy solutions. The following series of policy briefs, which draw on discussions from the symposium, will be of interest to the academic and scholarly communities; diaspora audiences; business and policy circles; and any general audiences interested in Pakistan, U.S.- Pakistan relations, or international relations on the whole. How to Handle Pakistan’s New Hardliners

The 2018 Pakistani general elections League (MML), the political front of saw the emergence of two new hardline the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)—a banned religious political parties that quickly terrorist group thought by New Delhi and captured the attention of domestic and Washington to have carried out the 2008 foreign observers of the country alike. Mumbai attacks. Despite claims that the groups are unrelated, images of LeT leader The first party, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Hafiz Saeed appeared on much of the Pakistan (TLP), earned widespread attention election material used by the MML. when it brought the country to a standstill in November 2017 over an alleged change The elections also saw the continued made to an election law that the party and participation of an older extremist, anti-Shia its supporters perceived as benefitting political party, the Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaat the ostracized Ahmadi sect. The TLP (ASWJ), whose influence has continued to belongs to the sub-school of Islamic grow over the last few years, despite clear thought, which follows syncretic practices, linkages to a militant group called Lashkar-e- emphasizes personal devotion to the Jhangvi. prophet , and has long been The emergence and increasing importance considered the more moderate of Islamic of these parties signifies a qualitative sects. change in the type of Islamist political party However, the party has overtly violent that is now contesting elections in Pakistan. origins. It was formed to express support Unlike the long-standing mainstream for Mumtaz Qadri, who in 2011 killed Islamist parties, such as the Jamaat-e- , the governor of Punjab Islami (JI) and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI), province, for defending the rights of the ASWJ, MML, and TLP can be more a woman accused of blasphemy. In accurately described as armed groups May 2018, a man claiming to be a TLP with political wings, or as violent political member shot and wounded the then- movements. Indeed, as Pakistan’s leading Pakistani interior minister, accusing him English-language newspaper puts of blasphemy. Since the 2018 elections, in it, “There is a clear difference between which the TLP surprised many observers religio-political parties that engage with the by receiving the fifth-highest vote share processes of parliamentary democracy, in the country, the party has threatened and those that hold it in contempt and will and staged protests on a number of ultimately undermine it.” occasions. Most notably, in October and This distinction is important. Scholars have November 2018, the TLP held violent proposed that the inclusion of Islamist protests after the Supreme Court acquitted parties in the political and democratic a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who had process may moderate their goals and spent eight years on death row on charges tactics, and could lead them to put down of blasphemy. A video statement released their arms—a theory referred to as the by the party said unequivocally that if Asia inclusion-moderation hypothesis. It is far Bibi were pardoned, “there will be terrible from certain, however, whether this theory consequences against the government and applies to all types of Islamist parties. the judiciary.” While the inclusion-moderation hypothesis The second new hardline party to contest is likely to fit for certain Islamist parties the 2018 elections was the Milli Muslim and under certain electoral conditions—

2 Niloufer Siddiqui How to Handle Pakistan’s New Hardliners

such as important episodes in Indonesia as the breakdown of traditional power and Tunisia—it is much less likely to be structures, particularly in rural parts of the applicable to these more hardline parties in country. Parties used to ally with landed the Pakistani electoral system. elites or heads of kinship networks for purposes of vote gain. Today they turn to This is, in part, because such parties local sectarian clerics for valuable vote have little incentive to moderate. Rather, banks. As such, these extremist actors now they are able to use violence or the function as prized electoral intermediaries threat of violence to push forward their for many mainstream parties, providing policy and ideological agendas from voters with necessary material support and outside of the legislative system, making patronage. their presence—or lack thereof—in the legislative bodies less significant. This If the Pakistani state wants to control the has been the case, for example, with the problem of radicalization in society, it must state’s frequent capitulation to the TLP’s confront its own role in supporting these demands as a result of the latter’s anti- actors for short-term political gain. By blasphemy protests. Indeed, the agreement capitulating to their demands, permitting that the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf airtime to their anti-minority rhetoric in the party signed with the TLP following the public sphere, or providing them space to October-November 2018 protests has been contest elections alongside mainstream likened by some opposition members to a democratic actors, the state is acquiescing surrender. to their extremist nature without any evidence that these parties are moderating. Relatedly, the continued support such Mainstream political parties must also parties receive from relevant stakeholders work to strengthen their own organizational in Pakistani politics also removes another structures and reduce their dependence incentive to put down arms. For its part, the on local-level electoral allies, particularly in military is thought to have played an extra- cases where these allies espouse extremist constitutional arbitrator role in navigating ideologies. the TLP’s protests. A widely circulated video in November 2017, for example, showed a member of an army-controlled paramilitary force distributing money to protestors. Niloufer Siddiqui is assistant professor of Similarly, considerable evidence exists political science at the University at Albany- to suggest that members of mainstream State University of New York. political parties—regardless of their own ideology—have allied with members of hardline religious parties such as the ASWJ for electoral expedience. These alliances have taken the form of seat adjustments or campaign appearances with members of banned groups. Parties like the ASWJ and TLP are filling gaps left by the absence or organizational weakness of mainstream parties as well

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