The reluctance to confront groups, armed or peaceful, that act in the name of religion is a phenomenon common to most Islamic countries. Ethnologist Herman De Ley, formerly of the Centre for Islam in Europe, suggests that the legacy of colonial rule has led Muslim societies to associate secularism not with liberation, as Europeans usually do, but with foreign domination; by default, those opposed to secularism are linked with “piety.”

Hence, the terrorists operating in the NWFP, despite being visibly engaged in brutal acts of killing, maiming and brutalising Pakistani citizens, are held in esteem and given moral support by many Pakistanis who subscribe to the notion that their activities are in fact part of a battle against the US domination over Islamic lands and ultimately for the establishment of an Islamic state as it existed in the holy Prophet’s days.

Earlier, in 2007, the Lal Masjid terrorists imposing their version of Islam in the neighbourhood by force and opposing pro-American policies of General Musharraf were able to win support of some sections of the public, media and political leadership simply because they happened to be “pious”.

This ground swell of support encouraged terrorists to change their tactics from random attacks to capture of territory and adding the demand for “Islamic justice” to their ostensible anti-US agenda. This combination of piety and anti-Americanism enabled the terrorists, in less than eighteen months, to metamorphose, from a small group of hostage-takers inside a seminary to an organised militia holding hostage an entire administrative division and challenging the secular foundations of the state.

The promulgation of the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation at the behest of the Taliban, endorsed by Parliament, institutionalised submission to forces which are not only opposed to democracy but do not accept the writ of the Pakistani state. It would be prudent not to be misled into believing that the on-going military operation, which will only correct the internal security imbalance, can lead to a more rational approach in the debate concerning democratic, secular governance. There are several reasons for this.

First, the military operation partly arises from disputes over interpretation and implementation of the “Nizam-i-Adl” and not over the validity or correctness of the Regulation itself. So, the regulation stays. Second, promulgation of the Nizam-i-Adl has put, irrevocably, on the national political agenda the issue of the role of religion in matters of state, (it took the Europeans several centuries to shake off the dominance of the Church). Third, the earlier act of appeasement to armed militants has given impetus to other non-representative elements, and some nationalist-ethnic parties have resorted to violence for acceptance of demands. Others may do so soon for sectarian or non-democratic demands. Issues hitherto confined to Swat have become national-level problems.

More importantly, in the national political landscape, opposition to secularism and resistance to societal change are two sides of the same coin, with religious extremism providing a convenient cover to resistance against modern, scientific progress. In today’s Pakistan, societal change is viewed with equal disfavour by the militants (who believe change should conform to their tribal vision and lead to revival of an ancient state structure); by the religious parties (who believe change should only be according to the Sharia) and the powerful land-owning rural oligarchy, whose control of Pakistan’s politics and wealth and power are derived from the preservation of the status quo and denial of economic progress to average citizens.

The NWFP’s fast-developing social structure acts as magnet for the forces opposed to societal change. The number of successful small landowners outside the clutches of rentier landlords is growing.

Among the Pashtuns, a high percentage of urban dwellers in the cities of the NWFP now get exposed to the modern cultures of the major cities of Pakistan, especially Karachi. While transport business has enabled Pashtuns to absorb cross-cultural influences within Pakistan, more than two million Pashtuns, over the years, have had exposure to Arab and non-Muslim cultures from work experience in the Middle East. Lastly, the Russian and American invasions of Afghanistan, the influx of refugees and developmental activity by NGOs, all have exposed the NWFP rural dwellers to more social change in the past thirty years than what he has experienced in the previous three hundred.

Pakistan’s rural oligarchy is averse, like its religious elements, to submit to state laws and taxation and sustains its hold on power by exercise of justice, practised more efficiently than the state, through Jirgas, use of private militias to enforce control of personal freedoms and tribal loyalty, protection of archaic customs, arising from superstitions falsely identified with religion, discouragement of literacy and of modern, science-based education.

The brief interlude of administrative control exercised by the militants in Fata and Swat has demonstrated there is little difference between the tools of authority employed by the rural oligarchy and religious extremists. Both are founded on devaluation of state authority and in this they are supported by the mainstream religious parties, whose stated objective has always been, lest we forget, to deconstruct, albeit peacefully, the secular constitutional make-up of the Pakistani state.

All these forces come together in Swat where, as elsewhere in the NWFP, the issues of social change and secular governance are further interlinked with ethnic-based provincialism. This last factor, it should be remembered, was as much behind Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghan imbroglio as the misplaced doctrine of “strategic depth.” Pakistan’s Pashtuns extended whole-hearted support to the Mujahideen against the Russians and to the Afghan Taliban against the US/NATO on the basis of ethnic affiliation.

The big loser in the Swat crisis has been the Awami National party (ANP), a secular party of high ideals although with a support base that does not extend much beyond ethnic Pashtuns. The party’s inability, in or out of power, to effectively protect the Pashtuns away from obscurantist influences has resulted in the ANP losing space to the militants. Now the ethnic controversy over relocation of internally displaced persons will create a sense of isolation among the Pashtuns, alienating them from the two major provinces.

Like the NWFP, Pakistan itself is in the process of a social change and one should expect that the reactionary forces will fully make use of their amassed stock of religious obscurantism, sectarianism and ethnicity to obstruct the process.

For the military operation in Swat to yield long-term dividends, it is necessary for parties such as the ANP and the PPP, the key political players in the NWFP, to remain steadfast in upholding their secular principles so that the militants can be defeated both militarily and ideologically.