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.
Rethinking extremism, moderation, modernity
The writer holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne and is the author of Development, Poverty and Power in Pakistan, available from Routledge
We live in a world beset by false dichotomies which seek to readily label communities and even countries as being secular, moderate or extremists. Yet, a closer examination often reveals that such tidy labels often do not match realities on the ground.
In the post-911 context, for example, there has been increasing international anxiety about the threat of extremism in a nuclear-armed Pakistan. This concern has led to recurrent speculations about the nature and functioning of ‘non-moderate’ Islamic groups within the country. Yet, efforts made to define and differentiate between these groups remain problematic.