May 04, 2021
The Tehrik Labaik Pakistan (TLP), in a very short time, has emerged as one of the strongest neo-fundamentalist, radical organisations. To become politically successful, the TLP needs to expand beyond its one-point agenda limited to blasphemy issues to include other socio-economic issues. The politics of the TLP variety, however, relies more on emotion rather than rationality. The half-hearted ban imposed on the TLP by the Pakistan government in the wake of the violence committed by the organisation in April 2021, it seems, is based more on immediate law and order priorities rather than on constraining its toxic, religion-based politics. The ban will not defang the religious radicalism that forms the TLPs core strength.