Battle lines appear to have been drawn between the rightist and the leftist forces of the country. Guess work and speculations are no more relevant in the equation. Now the divide has become so pronounced that hypocritical concealment ends up as a failed recipe.

During five years of PML-N administration in Punjab, headed by Shahbaz Sharif as the chief minister, the province, except for ethnic and sectarian violence, here and there, had been free of proclaimed TTP and Al Qaida terrorist attacks. The PML-N leadership had perhaps reached an understanding with the TTP that there had to prevail a virtual ceasefire between the TTP and Punjab government, or rather the PML-N. At number of occasions such conciliatory utterances by PML-N leaders, were pronounced, though in a slip of tongue fashion. But the conciliatory strategy is more openly advocated by repeatedly stating in favour of negotiations with the TTP and other banned outfits. Clamouring in favour of negotiations with the outfits, whose leadership is devoid of rationality, is an unreasonable demand to start with. But insisting on such a course is beyond comprehension, when such elaborate exercises of negotiations, including the set of negotiations with TTP leadership before the army operation was undertaken in Swat, have miserably failed in the past, on more than once. The trend only betrays the defeatist psyche of the political leadership, whose capacity to face tough situations demanding more than ordinary effort, has been liquidated.

With regard to the other rightist parties like Jamaat I Islam (JI), Jamiat e ulma e Islam (JUI-F), Tehrik e Insaf Pakistan (PTI) of Imran Khan and Difa E Pakistan etc, ambiguity, if any, clears off as the leaders of all these outfit have candidly expressed their avowed allegiance with all the terrorist organizations. None of their vanguard leadership has ever condemned the gruesome terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, police personnel and other security elements of the state. JUI-F joined the coalition government headed by the PPP after 2008 elections. The outfit comprehensively benefited while being in the government. Later the party faced some terrorist attacks on their rallies because of TTP’s disliking of their joining a party with leftist credentials. The Mualana conveniently chose to get out of the coalition and again paying lip service to the terrorist outfits.

The latest, unequivocal, proclamations by the TTP leadership that the election rallies of the leftist parties, like the PPP, the ANP and M QM will be attacked. The obvious aim of such a strategy is to sabotage the general elections. Although that collides with the interests of the rightist parties as well, but the leadership of these parties remains silent about it, for fear of annoying the extremists. That virtually implies that they want to eat a cake and also have one. The double edged weapon of TTP and Al Qaida is bound to inflict injury to all on the line, indiscriminately.

Despite reneging of Taliban from negotiations with government on more than one occasion, the leadership of the rightist parties, all the time, shamefully keeps harping on the theme of initiating negotiations with the militant groups.

So far the narrative has been covering the thought process of only the mundane elements, trading in politics. We now try to place on record the perceptions of the two most active institutions of the state, namely the higher judiciary and the eyes and ears of the nation, namely media.

First we take up the story of the custodians of justice and constitution of the federation, namely the higher judiciary. The activism of higher judiciary has been of an extraordinary during the last about four years. It has helped undoing so many injustices. It has also boldly pointed out so many wrongs being practiced in the society. But in some other areas it took some half measures in administering justice, due to certain expedient considerations. The Supreme Court of Pakistan earned an international fame due to the extraordinary frequency of the suo moto notices it took, including some insignificant administrative matters. It is generally perceived that the Supreme Court takes suo moto notice even on the drop of a hat. But, at the same time, it is rather enigmatic to note that the court meticulously stayed away from the events of terrorism that have shaken the very foundations of the state. Such a stance of the higher judiciary is so glaringly in line with the thought and acts of the rightist elements of the state, that it would rightly cause sleepless nights to the right thinking citizens of Pakistan.

It is equally upsetting to find the national media, inclusive of the state controlled electronic media’s apathy regarding militancy and terrorism. Although the English section of the print media keeps carrying the analytical stories by some of the analysts realistically, but that is not enough as there is a negligible percentage of English readership in the country. The real difference can be made by the Urdu print media, to some extent, generally and the electronic media to a great extent, particularly.

It is disgusting to note that the entire nation is caught up in inertia regarding terrorism. Even the leftist parties, despite identifying the threat in unequivocal terms, fail to recommend the right course for the eradication of the menace.

In the process, some golden opportunities have been missed to take on the militancy threat frontally and decisively. To mention only one opportunity that presented itself in the aftermath of assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai. Almost the entire nation was emotionally conditioned to approve even the extreme measures to eradicate terrorism from our land. But the people at the helm of affairs remained ambivalent, caught in the worst kind of inertia and missed the bus.

All stake holders have raised the spectre of a psychological barrier, without any rationale, that the common citizen of Pakistan is in alliance with the forces of militancy and terrorism. Although that is least the case but even if we suppose for a minute that that is the case, even then the national leaders are duty bound to come forward and reliantly pursue to correct the mistaken ideas of the people. Instead, all of us are closing our eyes to identify the malaise, hoping to circumvent it, but that will never succeed. This battle is to be fought in a decisive manner, sooner than later, before it is too late. Time is always at premium in such affairs. Every day’s delay is taking the spectre from strength to strength.

There was a time when the defence establishment’s thinking was at variance with the civilian establishment. The defence establishment had erroneously classified the terrorists in to good and bad militants.

But after the so called good as well as the bad militants have given a bloody nose to the army every now and then, the perception of the defence establishment has undergone a sea change. The security establishment, in fact, now eagerly awaits recovery of the civilian leadership from the inertia they are caught with, to initiate a united and deliberate offensive to root out the menace, once for all.

Let us hope the reality dawns on all the relevant quarters without further loss of the critical time any more.

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/40/