Between November 24 and 26, 2024, the government security forces, and Law enforcement agencies used firearms against PTI protests. There is now little doubt that the protestors were also carrying firearms, and they fired back. The big question that comes to mind is whether we are now entering a period marked by political violence which is coming on the heels of another 11 years marked by terrorism and militancy. This period, which started in 2007 after a military operation to clear Islamabad’s Lal Masjid of miscreants and terrorists, was marked by hundreds of suicide attacks on targets ranging from military installations, civilians, religious minorities, and foreign diplomats. The Pakistani military and state used their full firepower to chase the organisations, leaders, and fighters of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other militant organisations out of Afghanistan—many of them took refuge in border towns and cities of Afghanistan, which was still under a US military-backed government in Kabul. Taliban violence was met with the full and ruthless power of the state. And rightly so—they were aiming at overthrowing the system, disrupting civic life, and challenging and defeating the state's monopoly on violence within the territory of Pakistan. TTP didn’t believe in the constitution, parliament, courts, and other public institutions. They are and have been collaborating with foreign and international terror organisations including Al-Qaida, Afghan Taliban, and ISIS. They don’t have any sense or idea about public interests. They in their terror campaign targeted five kinds of targets including military installations, personnel and leaders, police officials, diplomats, religious minorities, tribal peace leaders, and political and religious leaders allied with the government and military.
Pakistan state was ruthless in response. A vast majority of Pakistanis supported the military's campaign against TTP and other militant organisations after horrifying terror attacks on military personnel and civilians, targets across Pakistan. The military press releases that announced the killings of Taliban fighters were not met with remorse among the public—Here I am not talking about the lunatic fringe. My understanding is that the Pakistani public, though it is not generally familiar with the idea of the state’s monopoly on violence, adhered and embraced to this concept in their response to military operations from 2007 and 2018, when they didn’t object to military’s decisions to go after TTP and other militant organisations in Pak-Afghan border areas. At least we didn’t see any political manifestation of any kind of objection to military operations in our political discourse.
This 11-year period of civil war-like situation in Northwestern Pakistan was a period of great uncertainty. The world was expressing doubts about the Pakistani state’s continued viability—they even expressed doubts about our ability to handle and secure our nuclear weapons capability and installations when the Taliban, in the opinion of world leaders, were knocking at the gates of Islamabad. The atmosphere of insecurity, uncertainty, and fear all collectively created an environment that justified extremely violent and military responses to the challenge TTP posed to the Pakistani state. However, all of it was different from the PTI protests on November 24, 25, and 26, 2024 in Islamabad. I would go a step further about how all the Taliban violence was different from what we witnessed on May 9 attacks on military installations on May 9, 2023. The first difference relates to the different nature, organisational structure, aims, and objectives of TTP and PTI. TTP is a terror organisation. It is now public knowledge that TTP was formed with the financial and organisational backing of Al-Qaeda and Arab Afghan fighters based in the Pak-Afghan border areas. It had in the past hobnobbed with ISIS and other international terror organisations based in the region to attack the Pakistani military.
State authorities will suddenly find themselves in an alien territory of hostile public opinion, if they equate political activism, even if it is violent, with military-grade terrorism
These attacks were not a spontaneous political outpouring of emotions of the Pakistan public. TTP attacks on foreign diplomats, military installations, personnel, and government buildings were well-planned, military-grade, attacks that could have knocked down the state’s capacity to function. PTI, on the other hand, is a political organisation with no history of using violence as a political tool. Its cadre may have acquired the strength to resist law enforcement agencies through the street power of trained organisational structure. But that does not qualify it to be dubbed as a militant organisation. Political organisations all around the world use violent tactics to resist state authorities. PTI’s international connections are in the important world capitals and with the political elites in those capitals, which not long ago were the allies of the Pakistani state and military. Finally, PTI’s political protest had political objectives—the release of Imran Khan from prison, the rollback of the 26th Constitutional amendment, and the reversal of electoral rigging that allegedly took place in the Feb 2024 parliamentary elections.
Why equating PTI protests with terrorism and militancy would be wrong and counter-productive? This is not my argument that what PTI did on May 9 November 24, 25, and 26 was praiseworthy or ideal political activity. But equating the spontaneous outpouring of political emotions or social resentment—even if they were stage-managed by someone from behind the scenes—could not be equated with military-grade terrorism or militancy. Remember state authorities will suddenly find themselves in an alien territory of hostile public opinion, if they equate political activism, even if it is violent, with military-grade terrorism. Political violence or violent political activism is bad, but it is not terrorism or militancy. Terrorists and militants want to destroy the state structure, political activists put forward demands before the same state structure, it does not matter that these demands might be extremely unrealistic.
Pakistan’s ruling party did a great disservice to the cause of counter-terrorism and counter-militancy by portraying PTI protests as terrorism/militancy of some kind. It was alleged that PTI protestors were carrying firearms, and they used these firearms against security forces. There is some visual evidence that the PTI protestors were carrying firearms. But this was not unexpected primarily because the majority of the protestors hailed from the heavily weaponised society of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Out of this majority, only a few people were carrying arms, according to reports. Around the world states can control riots and violent protests in the shape of riot police. There could be hardly any doubt in the fact that the majority of the people in the November 24 protests were PTI’s trained and hardcore activists, who were following PTI leaders’ instructions to be aggressive in their protests. But treating them like Taliban or any other armed and motivated terrorists would mean that the state has failed in its duties towards society. Using firearms against primarily a political protest the state has announced war against its own society. Some sane elements within the state structure need to draw a distinction between military-grade terrorism and militancy of the Taliban and violent protests of PTI. That it is wrong of the PTI to launch a violent political protest is a morally justified position. But equating PTI protests with the Taliban’s campaign to overthrow the system would be a technical mistake that would have horrendous strategic and political implications for the counter-terrorism campaign that the military and state authorities are conducting in the Northwest and Southwest of the country.
The problem is our political discourse is of a pathetically low standard and we as a political community don’t engage in any kind of serious debate or research to ascertain and practice the clear distinction between military-grade terrorism/militancy and violent political protest
PTI’s protest at the political level means that your political system is not based on political consensus and that major political forces in the country do not agree on the rules of the games on how to run the system. But no one here is talking about overthrowing the system. PTI’s demands are normal and routine stuff in a democratic political system. They want their leader released from prison, they want a constitutional amendment rolled back, which a vast public opinion in the country considers against the norms of the constitution and they want redressal of the electoral complaint, which is normal. Nothing radical and revolutionary in these demands. PTI leaders are frustrated with the system, they have shown no signs that they want to overthrow the system. Their media and social media campaigns are not sensitive to the fact that they are dealing with the state machinery that has just prevailed in a civil war-like situation and that doesn’t seem to possess the intellectual capacity to conceptualise the difference between political violence and military-grade terrorism. PTI’s social media campaign is much to be blamed for its image as a party that believes in radical solutions away from the status quo-oriented state machinery. At a more serious level what PTI leaders are demanding, with no exception, is perfectly routine and normal political demands. PMLN PPP and other political parties had in the past put forward similar demands in their political protest campaigns.
The problem is our political discourse is of a pathetically low standard and we as a political community don’t engage in any kind of serious debate or research to ascertain and practice the clear distinction between military-grade terrorism/militancy and violent political protest. Our political system is increasingly showing authoritarian tendencies in dealing with political dissent and protest. The main reason for this is that the state machinery has failed to distinguish between forces that carry out military-grade terrorism/militancy and the uncouth political forces—Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gandapur comes to mind--which want to replace the government of one political party with the government of another political party. Vying for power is normal in a parliamentary democracy especially when the difference in the strength of parliamentary parties in the national assembly is very thin. Our state machinery needs to conceptualise this difference, and its leaders should try to diffuse this concept into the rank and file of their forces. Using firearms against political protests, no matter how violent they might turn, is an extremely dangerous exercise, which could have a corrosive impact on the delicate relations that exist between Pakistan society and the state machinery. Your space for committing mistakes is extremely small.