The politics of the Jamaat

The incumbent ameer of the Jamaat-e-Islami Syed Munawar Hasan’s statement declaring Hakeemullah Mehsud and those being killed by the Americans, through drones or else, as martyrs has deeply hurt the families and friends of the 40,000 odd citizens and soldiers killed by terrorist outfits over the past decade. To add insult to injury, he further declared that soldiers fallen in the fight against terrorism are not martyrs. This issue is being profusely debated across Pakistani media.
After the ISPR statement condemning the statement, a wedge seems to have developed between the current Jamaat leadership and the military commanders. One must remember that Hasan is not the first right-wing politician or cleric to come up with such a statement. Since public memory is short everywhere – but more so in Pakistan – it will be useful to remind readers that Maulana Abdul Aziz, the reinstated imam of Lal Masjid in Islamabad and the elder brother of Maulana Rasheed Ghazi, said some years ago that no one belonging to the Pakistan Army could be given an Islamic burial if they died fighting the Taliban.
I always maintain that the likes of these gentlemen are at least clear on what they stand for. They have been ideologically pro-Afghan Taliban since much before now (after the Jamaat in a way jettisoned Gulbadeen Hekmatyar in Afghanistan sometime after the withdrawal of the Soviets) and pro Al-Qaeda and pro-the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban after 9/11. As Munawar Hasan puts it, “We share the same ideology. The difference is in the tactics that we employ.” For instance, Jamaat supporters have provided refuge and shelter to many international and Pakistani terrorists. So there is no murkiness in their stance. They may sometime retreat from their position in order to participate in political power.
The confusion perpetuates as the honourable interior minister asks us from the assembly floor not to indulge in the damaging debate of declaring who is a martyr and who is not. Bravo! Imran Khan compares his policy towards the TTP with a peace campaign run in both India and Pakistan by two media organisations including the one I write for. Strange! When one says that a basic sense of history and a better understanding of context are needed at the higher level in their party, all PTI friends jump at one’s throat. Dealing with insurgents within a country and comparing it to the relationship between two states with a shared history but strained relations for six decades is comparing apples and oranges.
However, what amused me more than the anguish caused by Munawar Hasan’s remarks is the statement of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s shura (executive committee) asking the army not to interfere in politics or democratic issues. Liaquat Baloch, the party’s secretary general, said that they would like to draw the government’s attention to this matter as the military’s intervention in politics is not acceptable. This warrants some reference to the Jamaat’s political history and its traditional relationship with the military establishment, particularly when the military takes over the country. If the Jamaat has finally started to believe in democracy, that is a huge progress indeed.
The PPP and the PML-N learnt it the hard way. The National Awami Party (the party that preceded the ANP) and some other parties were clear on running the country as a democratic federation from the onset. So was the Awami League before Pakistan was dismembered and West Pakistan became Pakistan. The Jamaat’s history, until recently, tells us a different story altogether. I can bet my bottom dollar even today that if, God forbid, there is a coup d'état in Pakistan and the chief martial law administrator announces that he will follow an orthodox Islamist ideology and transform Pakistan into a complete theocracy, the Jamaat-e-Islami will become its first ally. Creating a conservative and exclusionary state and society is more important to the Jamaat-e-Islami than the will of the people.
Rather than getting into the details of the Jamaat’s views on Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the creation of Pakistan, it’s confusing role during the independence movement and even rejecting Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madni’s position on living with non-Muslims in the light of the Charter of Madina within India, what is more relevant for us now is the party’s role in agitating against democratically elected governments, becoming a part of political conspiracies to either legitimise military rule, manipulate elections or subvert a representative government. For want of a political space that they did not sufficiently have, rather than creating a theological debate and using peaceful means to argue over their view of ex-communicating Ahmadis, Maulana Maudoodi decided to incite hatred and caused violent riots in 1953.
Soon after, they agitated against the government to get their demands accepted in the 1956 constitution, much against Quaid-e-Azam’s view of Pakistan and more in line with Maudoodi’s view of a country he initially rejected and then jumped on to the bandwagon and tried to become the custodian of its ideology according to his abstract notions of Islam. When Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy was in power for a brief stint, the Jamaat rallied the clerics and ran a movement for creating separate voting systems for different religious communities.
It must be acknowledged that the Jamaat supported Fatima Jinnah’s presidential campaign against Gen Ayub Khan – essentially because Ayub was indifferent to them. He had no sympathy for the Jamaat until the 1965 war. Maudoodi, who declared the 1948 war in Kashmir as un-Islamic, which was fought when there was a political government in Pakistan, termed the 1965 war waged under a military dictator as jihad. From that time onward, they allied themselves with the military in every possible way. When the West Pakistani establishment led by the military refused to accept the mandate of the 1970 elections in united Pakistan, the Jamaat’s militant outfits served as militia against the East Pakistanis. What is happening in Bangladesh today, with the old Jamaat leadership being charged and sentenced for high treason and the ban on party activities, is a consequence of what happened in 1971.
In what remained of Pakistan, the Jamaat continued agitating against the political government and settled only once the military took over in 1977. The party joined Gen Zia’s cabinet. The general was to shed them after a few years for he had even bigger objectives to pursue in the name of faith but the Jamaat leadership enjoyed a close relationship with the regime. At the behest of the Zia-led military, the Jamaat again organised militias to fight in Afghanistan. Although the party asked the dictator to hold elections, it did not participate in the Movement for Restoration of Democracy. The Jamaat also established its hold on many institutions of higher learning using coercion and violence during that period.
As soon as democracy was restored, the Jamaat again decided to participate fully in IJI – an alliance put together and financed by military intelligence agencies to ensure the PPP’s defeat in the 1990 polls. The Jamaat continued with furthering its conservative religious agenda during the 1990s until Gen Musharraf came to power. Although, they started questioning him after 9/11, they led the process of forging a right-wing political alliance, the MMA, in 2002 and helped Musharraf passed the 17th Amendment, legitimising the most undemocratic and unconstitutional Legal Framework Order he had promulgated. The dividend was the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for five years in which the Jamaat had a big share. Also, they fully participated in the local government elections in 2001 under Musharraf and ruled the district government of our primate city for four years.
It is ironic that when the Jamaat in Pakistan calls the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt its fraternal party, it forgets that the Brotherhood, whether we agree with them or not, was struggling and offering sacrifices against dictatorships. The Jamaat, on the other hand – out of expediency and lust for political power – was serving as the stooge of Pakistani dictators. Today, the Jamaat seems to be troubled by the fact that if the Pakistani military establishment finds no utility in it anymore, its politics will gradually end. The party never anchored itself in the struggle for people’s rights, its concocted version of faith hindering it from understanding what the world is about in the present century.
The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.
Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com