PAKISTAN
TLP ban
Editorial
Editorial
Published October 25, 2025
DAWN
AFTER the federal cabinet approved the ban on the TLP a day earlier, the interior ministry published a notification on Friday saying that the state believed there were “reasonable grounds” to proscribe the hard-line outfit due to its connection with “terrorism”.
Going by the government’s signals, a formal ban had seemed imminent after TLP cadres clashed with the state in a deadly showdown last week. The immediate trigger was the administration’s refusal to let the outfit march on Islamabad in supposed solidarity with Gaza. This would be the second time the religiously inspired party has been banned. The last proscription in 2021 lasted only a few months, but this time the state appears intent on sustaining the ban. However, one should keep in mind that extremist parties and groups have been banned earlier too, but have re-emerged under new monikers.
PML-N leader and adviser to the PM Rana Sanaullah has said that the state had no issue with the TLP’s religious views and the ban was not designed to ‘eliminate’ the party. Rather, it was supposed to purge “anti-state and terrorist elements”. Going by this logic, if the aim is to target individuals who break the law, why does the state ban parties and groups?
Moreover, in the past, how many heads of militant groups, sectarian outfits and extremist parties have been tried for their crimes? The state’s history of banning groups — from the Musharraf era to date — does not inspire confidence, as outfits are proscribed on paper, but cases against their leaders and active cadres are not diligently pursued. There is also the genuine fear that the powers that be may apply the labels of ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ to ban political parties that have fallen afoul of the state.
In reality, the policy of banning groups is tragicomic. Nacta’s current list of proscribed organisations contains over 80 entries, with some going as far back as 2001. Most of the groups that populate this list ascribe to jihadi, sectarian or extremist ideologies, with a smattering of separatist and ethno-nationalist outfits. But the modus operandi of ‘banned’ groups is to restart work under new names after the ban. For example, Jamaatud Dawa, an incarnation of Lashkar-i-Taiba, has at least 10 aliases, most of which are banned. Moreover, sectarian outfit Sipah-i-Sahaba, which now operates under the ASWJ moniker, has worked under three different names, some banned, others not.
The point is that unless the leaders and members of extremist groups are prosecuted for their crimes — promoting terrorism, inciting violence, hate speech, etc — the state’s attempts to impose bans will not work. The state has banned TLP today, but until those associated with it who have broken the law are prosecuted, it may re-emerge tomorrow in an even more extreme form.
Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2025
DAWN
AFTER the federal cabinet approved the ban on the TLP a day earlier, the interior ministry published a notification on Friday saying that the state believed there were “reasonable grounds” to proscribe the hard-line outfit due to its connection with “terrorism”.
Going by the government’s signals, a formal ban had seemed imminent after TLP cadres clashed with the state in a deadly showdown last week. The immediate trigger was the administration’s refusal to let the outfit march on Islamabad in supposed solidarity with Gaza. This would be the second time the religiously inspired party has been banned. The last proscription in 2021 lasted only a few months, but this time the state appears intent on sustaining the ban. However, one should keep in mind that extremist parties and groups have been banned earlier too, but have re-emerged under new monikers.
PML-N leader and adviser to the PM Rana Sanaullah has said that the state had no issue with the TLP’s religious views and the ban was not designed to ‘eliminate’ the party. Rather, it was supposed to purge “anti-state and terrorist elements”. Going by this logic, if the aim is to target individuals who break the law, why does the state ban parties and groups?
Moreover, in the past, how many heads of militant groups, sectarian outfits and extremist parties have been tried for their crimes? The state’s history of banning groups — from the Musharraf era to date — does not inspire confidence, as outfits are proscribed on paper, but cases against their leaders and active cadres are not diligently pursued. There is also the genuine fear that the powers that be may apply the labels of ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ to ban political parties that have fallen afoul of the state.
In reality, the policy of banning groups is tragicomic. Nacta’s current list of proscribed organisations contains over 80 entries, with some going as far back as 2001. Most of the groups that populate this list ascribe to jihadi, sectarian or extremist ideologies, with a smattering of separatist and ethno-nationalist outfits. But the modus operandi of ‘banned’ groups is to restart work under new names after the ban. For example, Jamaatud Dawa, an incarnation of Lashkar-i-Taiba, has at least 10 aliases, most of which are banned. Moreover, sectarian outfit Sipah-i-Sahaba, which now operates under the ASWJ moniker, has worked under three different names, some banned, others not.
The point is that unless the leaders and members of extremist groups are prosecuted for their crimes — promoting terrorism, inciting violence, hate speech, etc — the state’s attempts to impose bans will not work. The state has banned TLP today, but until those associated with it who have broken the law are prosecuted, it may re-emerge tomorrow in an even more extreme form.
Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2025
Published October 25, 2025
DAWN
WE have been here before. Religious militants previously patronised by the state and valorised by the official intelligentsia are cut down to size in a ferocious high-profile operation. A vocal section of the educated classes, predominantly of liberal persuasion, applaud the state’s new-found resolve to ‘crush terrorism’.
The ‘popular’ backing for the crackdown gives the state carte blanche, but it soon becomes apparent that neither the ideological foundations nor the material bases of religious militancy have been weakened. Meanwhile, the proverbial counterterrorism card is increasingly deployed to clamp down on political opponents in particular, and progressive voices in general.
With the federal government having just notified a ban on the TLP for a second time, will things turn out any differently this time? To be sure, the existential challenge posed by religious militancy extends beyond the TLP, as the recent blowback vis-à-vis the Afghan Taliban — and their TTP protégés — lays bare.
The Pakhtun tribal districts have of course experienced the most military operations against ‘terrorists’. Time and again, lofty claims of success have been belied by the killing and maiming of innocents, and destruction of local people’s livelihoods. The end result has been alienation of the very people that should otherwise be the primary beneficiary of any initiative to establish genuine and lasting peace. Recent operations and drone strikes in Bajaur and Tirah are a rinse and repeat of what has been happening for 20 years.
What authorities call ‘collateral damage’ shows the short-sightedness of state policy. One can oppose the ideology of the TLP and its normalisation of mob lynching, whilst at the same time acknowledging that Barelvi militancy has deep social backing that will not be severed magically by the Muridke operation and subsequent criminalisation of the TLP leadership.
Will things be different after the TLP ban?
The government repeating ad nauseam that only three civilians were killed is out of sync with the widespread allegation — not limited only to TLP supporters — that many more died. Whichever version of the event one may believe, the point is that the lives lost in the operation will likely serve as a rallying call that further entrenches the insular Barelvi militant worldview, whether that takes the form of the TLP or something else in the future.
After all, militant ideologies are founded upon concrete material bases. Beyond the Noor Wali Mehsuds and Saad Rizvis of the world, many rank-and-file members of Islamist organisations are drawn towards militancy at least in part because they hail from socially depressed classes and castes. The violent assertion that they experience when they join the organisations is, seen thus, a reaction to the conditions of their existence.
Too often, the liberal commentariat sees the phenomenon of religiously inspired militancy like a light switch that was once turned on by the state, and can therefore be turned off in much the same way. The state has long weaponised religion and much would change if it stopped patronising militant groups for cynical reasons. But launching the odd operation against a ‘good’ Taliban or TLP that has gone ‘bad’ does not mean that the societal roots of militant ideologies have been emptied out. Bear in mind that retrogressive educational curricula and popular media discourses remain unreformed.
Liberal euphoria at the temporary ‘victories’ of the state should not distract from the fact that there is no substitute for the popularisation of a meaningful progressive political alternative that can channel the needs and desires of the mass of young people — primarily men but also women — who gravitate towards the militant right.
Does this mean that there should be no punitive action against religiously motivated militants who thrive on killing? Not at all. There can and must be consequences for those who weaponise religion to further their violent agenda — without resort to extra-legal mechanisms. By the same token, the strategic masterminds who cultivated the militant right should not be allowed to get away scot-free while shifting the burden of their entire enterprise onto the brutalised young men — and sometimes women — who become the foot soldiers of hate.
Ultimately, a comprehensive ‘operation’ to displace retrogressive ideologies from society will be completed regardless of the state’s expediency. Whenever this comes to pass it will be performed by pro-people left-progressives that take back the language of class and anti-imperialism from the right. The establishment cultivated the religious right at least in part to suppress the ideology and politics of the left. The latter must rebuild its own bases amongst working people for the tide of history to turn once again.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment