ANALYSIS: The powerful and overpowered of the PPP —Farhat Taj
By--Farhat Taj
The PPP is losing space to the religious fanatics and silencing with its
own hands all the sane and principled voices within the ranks of the
party. Shortsighted and insensitive people are running the show in the
party
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has arguably been the
most popular federalist party of Pakistan. The party has been binding
Pakistanis across the ethnic and religious divide with the federation of
Pakistan. It has secular credentials and has been backing minorities’
rights. In short, it has been an asset for the federation of Pakistan
and the hope of millions of oppressed people in Pakistan. This was the
PPP of the past.
The party’s current stint in power is anything
but everything the PPP has been known for — moderation and people’s
democratic rights. There is a lot that can demonstrate that the PPP,
under the current leadership, has drifted far away from the cherished
goals the party has stood and sacrificed for. Take, for example, the
overpowered people of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the
issues surrounding the assassination of Salmaan Taseer, former governor
of Punjab.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto visited areas across FATA and
established a popular tribal support base for the PPP. He announced
major developmental schemes for the area that could never materialise
due to his removal from power by General Zia soon afterwards. It seems
that late Benazir Bhutto was fully aware of the ISI-controlled drama of
terrorism in FATA and the threats it poses to the world. She knew how
important it was to stop the ISI from using the tribal areas as
strategic space against Afghanistan. Therefore, she had filed a case in
the Supreme Court of Pakistan for the extension of Pakistan’s Political
Parties Act to FATA.
What has the present PPP government done to
eliminate the ISI’s unquestionable control over FATA? Only lip service.
In August 2009, President Zardari announced the implementation of the
Political Parties Act in FATA. The announcement was never followed by an
official notification. It is clear that the ISI has no intention to
give up FATA as a strategic region. What else could be the reason behind
the lack of official notification of the president’s order? The
president has no courage to tell the people of Pakistan that the
military establishment is the hurdle to end the legal isolation of FATA.
The party, it seems, is afraid that it will lose power if it tells the
truth. Power, it seems, is more important for this government than the
sufferings of the people of FATA.
On the other hand, the PPP is
openly abandoning powerful people within its own ranks for taking a
principled stance against the forces of religious fanaticism. Unlike the
overpowered people of FATA, late Salmaan Taseer was the powerful
governor of Punjab and an important member of the PPP. He gave his life
for supporting a poor Christian woman entrapped in a dubious blasphemy
case. The PPP, which is supposed to be a supporter of the minorities’
rights, extended him no support. He was left vulnerable to attacks by
religious fanatics, who took his life. The party succumbed to religious
fanaticism and abandoned one of its own members who had taken a
principled stance on this issue.
Another PPP member, Sherry
Rehman, who was prepared to table a bill to amend the country’s
blasphemy laws in the National Assembly, has been silenced and made to
give up the plan by the party. Reportedly, the minorities’ minister,
Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, has had fatwas issued against him calling
for his assassination. The minister has been participating in public
debates over the blasphemy laws and has been highlighting legal flaws in
the laws. There is no sign the PPP would publicly stand by the minister
for fear of losing power under pressure from the right-wing lobby. It
looks as though clinging to power is more important for the party than
protecting minorities.
The PPP is losing space to the religious
fanatics and silencing with its own hands all the sane and principled
voices within the ranks of the party. Shortsighted and insensitive
people are running the show in the party. Rehman Malik, the interior
minister, even had the audacity to declare in the backdrop of Taseer’s
assassination that he would kill with his own hands anyone found to be
involved in blasphemy. Moreover, in FATA no one takes the interior
minister seriously. Everyone knows he means nothing in the ISI scheme of
things for FATA. Yet he would never desist from giving statements on
FATA. The more he sounds firm in his statements on FATA, the more
ridiculous he appears. He looks more like an entertainer and less of an
interior minister to the FATA tribesmen.
The other irresponsible
voice in the PPP is that of Fauzia Wahab. She has been issuing
insensitive statements regarding the Swat IDPs crisis. For example, she
said that, like Afghan refugees, the people of Swat could not be allowed
to spread across Pakistan. The shortsighted PPP spokesperson did not
care to think that, unlike the Afghan refugees, the Swat IDPs were
citizens of Pakistan and had the right to go wherever they like in
Pakistan.
It seems the current group leading the PPP believes
that it can survive in power by appeasing the religious right-wingers.
Thus the party is giving up its traditional moderate, secular and
progressive role to accommodate the ever-demanding religious
right-wingers. This is dangerous, especially in places like FATA where
the state of Pakistan has lost legitimacy due to the ISI’s use of the
area for strategic games through religious forces at the cost of the
tribesmen’s blood. A moderate, progressive and pro-tribal people stance
of the PPP could have saved the deteriorating state legitimacy in the
area. Moreover, it could have affirmed the oppressed people like the
religious minorities’ hopes in the PPP and by extension in the state.
The current situation characterised by the rising power of the religious
Right is not sustainable over a long period of time. It may ultimately
lead to the break up of the state. Should that happen, the PPP would
also be responsible for giving up it secular credentials in the face of
the growing tide of the religious Right, which added to the people’s
lack of confidence in the state.
The writer is a PhD Research Fellow with the University of Oslo and currently writing a book, Taliban and Anti-Taliban
In : Farhat Taj
Notes