A major development it certainly is. Hakeemullah Mehsud, chief of the Pakistani Taliban, has died in a US drone attack. Reports said that four missiles were fired into the compound of Hakeemullah’s house near Miranshah in North Waziristan. The attack came when a shura of the Taliban commanders was under way on Friday evening. There were other casualties.

So what happens now? The timing of this exceptionally fruitful drone attack, of course, is ominous. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that a three-member team of independent facilitators was all set to go to North Waziristan with the government’s formal offer for talks. Hence, he felt that the drone attack was an attempt to sabotage the peace talks.

Apparently, he is serious in his interpretation of the timing of the drone attack. There are others, Imran Khan included, who have expressed the same opinion. Ah, but the merry-go-round of the peace talks has been spinning for weeks and the Americans were pursuing their prime target for years. If an opportunity struck, what would be more important for them, causing a disruption in Pakistan’s domestic politics or gaining a victory that they had waited for so anxiously?

We should try and be rational about these things, though it is our inability to be so that has brought us to a situation that is catastrophic in many ways. Just look at what the Taliban have done to us in recent years, with the sectarian terrorists in tow. The figures are mind-boggling. Our armed forces have suffered gravely. And the Taliban have brazenly been accepting responsibility for heinous attacks in which innocent citizens lost their lives. They have cut throats and brutalised bodies.

Yet, we have considerable sympathy for the Taliban even within some of our mainstream parties. The weird logic presented by the Taliban apologists totally ignores the professed mission of the Taliban: to overthrow the existing constitutional dispensation and enforce Shariah in the light of their own narrow vision.

All that fuss created about drone attacks has further subverted the potential for a reasoned discourse on the consequences of religious extremism and militancy. Interestingly, the figures of civilian casualties in drone attacks quoted by the interior minister himself were so low that the opposition in the Senate on Wednesday created a pandemonium.

Be that as it may – and international human rights groups have raised their voices against drone attacks, quoting much higher civilian casualties – the point that should not be ignored is that the drones belong in a corner of the entire picture that is splashed with the blood of Pakistani citizens.

Besides, the drone attacks that are manifestly a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty are restricted to North Waziristan where the militants are located. If North Waziristan is part of Pakistan’s territory, the government must exercise its writ on it – and that will effectively stop drone attacks. However, it is the measure of the power that the Taliban wield that it is their writ that is enforced in North Waziristan. Not only that, the Taliban have infiltrated major cities and have a strong presence in Karachi.

In the immediate context, we have to contend with the possible repercussions of the killing of the chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan with a number of his close associates. One report published on Saturday said that a faction of the Taliban had asked people living near Miranshah to move their families to safe areas by Friday. Shopkeepers were directed to shift their expensive goods to other areas. Something is bound to happen. There should be no doubt about the Taliban’s capacity to mount major attacks and we will have to wait and see how they execute their revenge.

On their part, the rulers have to be ready for any emergency. At the same time, they need to review the entire situation and be willing for the right initiatives when things begin to settle down. The prospects for talks seem to have diminished. Much will depend on whether the TTP is weakened and is splintered by Hakeemullah’s death.

Some observers believe that the loss suffered by the TTP would be a gain for the government of Pakistan. After all, a vicious adversary has been taken out. Any hopes that the talks would bring lasting peace were illusory from the outset, if you were to look at it realistically. Ask Imran Khan and he will tell you that cancer cannot be cured with an aspirin. (But don’t, please, broach the subject of the Taliban with him.)

We cannot be sure about what the army is thinking about all this but the chief has said that it has the capacity to win the war against the militants. This is what is in the offing, whether the short-sighted can see it or not. We have arrived at a moment when all the derelictions of the past – and the Taliban are the offspring of our own ruling ideas – have to be ironed out. A strategic retreat, in a sense, from how religion has been invested in politics and policies is in order.

This, of course, will not be easy. Such a paradigm shift may even not come and we will have to bear the consequences. But Hakeemullah’s killing and the consequent damage to the TTP should provide us an opportunity to make a fresh assessment of where we are headed. Ideally, this review of the national situation should not be restricted to security issues and the challenge posed by the Taliban. The war that is in the offing is to be fought on every front, such as governance and social justice and emancipation of women and the promotion of knowledge and creativity.

I concluded, earlier this week, a four-day visit to Gilgit-Baltistan as a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s fact finding mission. Other members of the team were Roland Desouza, Hussain Naqi and Najamuddin, with Israruddin as our GB coordinator. It was a journey of discovery for me and I was hoping to be able to look at the state of the nation in the mirror of GB. There is so much to report and there is a sense of urgency about it but, out of the blue, Hakeemullah has intervened.

Well, we must all respond to this reminder of a conflict that extends, in a metaphorical sense, to all facets of our national existence. It does not matter so much that the TTP has been in a war against the US. At least the US has its drones. But what do we have against suicide bombing? In addition, how do we overcome the Taliban mindset that has infected our body politic? Think about it.

The writer is a staff member.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail. com

http://e.thenews.com.pk/11-3-2013/page7.asp