The Saga of No Peace But Shariah

After the retire­ment of Iftikhar Muham­mad Chaud­hary, tele­vi­sion chan­nels were short of break­ing news and were des­per­ate­ly in search to break the news. The view­ers too were sick and tired of bland news rou­tine. The fragili­ty of the news had a small recess but the prayers of the news break­ers were heard and the prime time of all the news chan­nels is now over­whelm­ing­ly occu­pied with the news of Tehreek-e-Tal­iban Pak­istan (TTP) and their Shari­ah. From the per­spec­tive of news hun­gry TV chan­nels, TTP deserves a stand­ing ova­tion for pro­vid­ing news every now and then.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment backed by all wing polit­i­cal par­ties, is once again in inti­mate rela­tion with TTP for beg­ging peace. Under the garb of nego­ti­a­tions, TTP is tak­ing turns and twists play­ing Tom and Jer­ry with the state.
The love saga of peace talks shows the state on a weak­er side. TTP, despite an unflinch­ing record of heinous crimes, takes the lead in mak­ing demands while the gov­ern­ment stands bewitched with a con­fused impres­sion.

The nego­ti­a­tions hav­ing no legit­i­mate foun­da­tion are ulti­mate­ly going to meet the same fate that it used to in past. The talks that are sup­posed to bring peace are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly cou­pled with bombs blasts from TTP, implic­it­ly show­ing their non-seri­ous­ness and volatile atti­tude.
Let’s exam­ine whether the gov­ern­ment is jus­ti­fied in talk­ing peace with TTP; it sure­ly is not. The lofty ideals such as rule of law and suprema­cy of the Con­sti­tu­tion have been kept in cof­fer which is glued with the tag “Keep it away from the reach of TTP and their sym­pa­thiz­ers”.
The Con­sti­tu­tion of Pak­istan being supreme law declares pri­vate armies func­tion­ing as a mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion to be ille­gal. TTP’s use of ille­gal force for occu­py­ing ter­ri­to­ry of Pak­istan is equiv­a­lent to func­tion­ing as mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion, hence falling with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al def­i­n­i­tion of unlaw­ful mili­tia.

Numer­ous pro­vi­sions of Anti-Ter­ror­ism Act, 1997 (ATA) and amend­ments made there­in, specif­i­cal­ly declare TTP and its con­nect­ing fac­tions, either direct­ly or indi­rect­ly, as pro­scribed orga­ni­za­tions.
Thus, gov­ern­ment has been try­ing to hold peace talks with an orga­ni­za­tion which has been express­ly declared out­lawed.

The com­mit­tee formed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to nego­ti­ate peace with TTP also lacks the legal back­ing for the rea­son it does not have the man­date to deter­mine modal­i­ties to for­give and for­get the mass killings car­ried out by TTP. Only the fam­i­lies of the deceased have right to par­don the killer; not a four mem­bers com­mit­tee con­sti­tut­ed for achiev­ing per­son­al and polit­i­cal gains.

And the face­less com­mit­tee struc­tured by TTP hith­er­to a group of like­mind­ed peo­ple them­selves hav­ing extrem­ist opin­ions with par­tic­u­lar sect based reli­gious affil­i­a­tion. Non-inclu­sion of any actu­al TTP mem­ber in their com­mit­tee sig­nals that TTP does not give a damn to what gov­ern­ment calls peace. TTP must have laughed out loud for play­ing tricks with their and gov­ern­ment formed com­mit­tees.

The demeanor of gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives while talk­ing of TTP is such as if TTP is above sus­pi­cion and has not done any­thing to the detri­ment of Pak­istan. This indi­cates a swift endorse­ment of the TTP nar­ra­tive; a nar­ra­tive that gives no impor­tance to laws of the land, the killing of hun­dreds of thou­sands inno­cent peo­ple in the name of cru­sade against infi­dels, and sup­pres­sion of tra­di­tion­al cul­ture for spread­ing fear among the mass­es.

The hide and seek between TTP and the gov­ern­ment is like­ly to con­tin­ue for good long time but as starter TTP has tabled their prime demand that is to impose their brand of Shari­ah in Pak­istan as con­di­tion prece­dent. TTP itself con­tra­dicts the very demand of Shari­ah since it had threat­ened the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan not to exe­cute their com­man­ders who had been award­ed death penal­ty in mur­der cas­es. Doesn’t Shari­ah prin­ci­ple require the pun­ish­ment of eye for an eye? They want to imple­ment Shari­ah on the whole of Pak­istan but not on their own men found guilty of killing inno­cent civil­ians.
The Shari­ah has been a part and par­cel of the legal scheme of Pak­istan since the Con­sti­tu­tion incor­po­rates Islam as the state reli­gion. The Con­sti­tu­tion declares that no law shall be enact­ed against the injunc­tions of Islam. It also ensures strict obser­vance of prin­ci­ples enun­ci­at­ed by Islam. The pol­i­cy guide­lines con­tained in the con­sti­tu­tion direct the state to elim­i­nate Riba (inter­est) and ask the Mus­lims to lead Islam­ic way of life.

Apart from con­sti­tu­tion, Pak­istan Penal Code is filled with pun­ish­ments that are sug­gest­ed by Islam includ­ing Qisas (equal retal­i­a­tion for mur­der), Diy­at (par­don by the heirs of deceased in lieu of amount men­tioned in the law) and a lengthy list of count­less kinds of pun­ish­ments relat­ed to bod­i­ly harm.

Through not accord­ing to Islam but part of TTP envi­sioned Shari­ah is already imposed in Pak­istan in the shape of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry laws such as Hudood and blas­phe­my laws. That makes TTP’s demand of impos­ing Shari­ah infruc­tu­ous. The Shari­ah that TTP wants is based on com­pul­sion which is absolute­ly against the spir­it of Quran and Sun­nah and the prin­ci­ples of Islam­ic jurispru­dence.

Peace talks shall not be engrossed with TTP wish­es and whims only. The state being stronger than TTP must show its strength, let’s say by demand­ing the TTP to pay diy­at amount for every sin­gle Pak­istani they killed as a pre­con­di­tion. In order to give legit­i­ma­cy to the talks, amend­ments in the Con­sti­tu­tion as well oth­er laws includ­ing ATA are required — which is nei­ther pos­si­ble nor prac­ti­ca­ble. There­fore, in case of fail­ure of nego­ti­a­tions, most favor­able option would be to launch full-fledged action sub­ject to block­ade of escape routes of TTP i.e. through Afghan bor­der.