Maulana Fazlur Rehman is the quintessential opportunist of Pakistani politics. His opportunism fits ideally with the pragmatism of Pakistan’s part modernist, part-Islamist state machinery, which changes colors like a chameleon according to the situation. Fazl is trained in the politics of Deobandi tradition, which in its original form was deeply pragmatic as it took birth during the British colonial era and the colonial regime in British India was known for its liberal attitude towards allowing every religious denomination to flourish without much restrictions.
So undoubtedly influenced by British liberal traditions in the matters of religions and politics, the forefathers of Deobandi political traditions joined hands with the secular Congress party in the anti-colonial struggle. Fazl followed the footsteps of his predecessors and was a partner of Benazir Bhutto in 1990s, when more traditionalist elements of Pakistan clergy were shouting slogans on the top of their lungs against female political leadership as “haram.”
But the Maulana has particular advantage in dealing with Taliban and other militant elements in Pakistan and Afghanistan—he is presiding over a large network of Deobandi seminaries in Pakistan society where most of Afghan Taliban leaders studied as part of their educational careers in Dars-e-Nizami, a common medium of education in Pakistani conservative madrassas.
In the academic literature, it still remains a mystery how the Deobandi revivalist tradition—which was born in the Uttar Pradesh province of British India, a land far away from Afghanistan and Pak-Afghan border areas - spread and merged with the Pashtun culture in the north west of Pakistan. What is more clearly known is the fact that the US backed military government of General Zia-ul-Haq used the Deobandi religious tradition as a greenhouse for constructing a Jihadi network in their struggle against Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Fazl, although, leads the political trend in Deobandi tradition, but nevertheless the organizational structure he presides over is at the heart of the militancy problem in Pakistani society.
At the grassroot level, there exists no clearly demarcated line between the members of Fazl’s Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the Pak-Afghan border areas. Fazl’s hobnobbing with the power corridors in Islamabad has made him the specific target of suicide bombings at a time when Pakistani military launched military operations against TTP in the Pak-Afghan border areas.
At the grassroot level, there exists no clearly demarcated line between the members of Fazl’s Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the Pak-Afghan border areas. Fazl’s hobnobbing with the power corridors in Islamabad has made him the specific target of suicide bombings at a time when Pakistani military launched military operations against TTP in the Pak-Afghan border areas. So, this much is clear that Fazl is on the wrong side of Pakistani Taliban - no matter how sumptuously he is welcomed in Kabul by the Afghan Taliban leaders. This, however, was not always the situation—not long ago, Fazl’s JUI used to facilitate contact between the military regime of General Pervez Musharraf and TTP in the erstwhile tribal areas and some of the agreements between Pakistani Taliban and military government were mediated by JUI local leadership back in those days.
For the past few weeks, Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban have engaged in intense political negotiations amidst a growing wave of terrorism in the Pak-Afghan border areas. In a latest terror attack, five policemen guarding the polio vaccination team were killed in a bomb explosion in the Bajaur district of Pak-Afghan border areas. The Pakistan government is conducting a polio vaccination campaign in parts of the country. Taliban oppose polio vaccination on religious grounds. A senior level Afghan Taliban delegation is visiting Islamabad in order to hold talks with Pakistan civil and military officials to ease tensions between the two countries. A session of formal talks between the Taliban side led by Mullah Shirin Akhund and Pakistani military and intelligence officials was held in Rawalpindi. Fazl, who was in Kabul at about the same time, held talks with Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Hassan Akhund. Maulana Fazl is said to have told the Taliban prime minister that Pakistan doesn’t want to weaken relations with the Taliban government.
After the meeting, the Taliban spokesman, in a statement, said that the Taliban doesn’t want to harm Pakistan. The Afghan prime minister said that the Taliban government won’t allow anyone to pose a threat to Pakistan. The main bone of contention between the Taliban government and Islamabad is the presence of Pakistani Taliban fighters in Afghan border towns and cities from where they launch attacks on Pakistan security forces across the border. Pakistan wants the Taliban to take action against the Pakistan Taliban. The Taliban regime is reluctant so far. Pakistan's own diplomats have visited Kabul since August 2021 but hardly secured change of stance in Taliban position vis-à-vis TTP. Experts believe Kabul-Islamabad relations are at a breaking point, and they might actually break down if the violence on Pakistan territory does not cease. The Pakistan government is particularly concerned about Taliban led violence during parliamentary elections which are scheduled to be held on 8 February 2024.
The diplomatic problem that Pakistani interaction with Afghan Taliban poses could be described in following terms: diplomatically and militarily speaking, Pakistan’s problems with Afghan Taliban are twofold. Firstly, the Pakistani officialdom is concerned that the TTP fighters hiding on the Afghan side of the border towns and cities could and have been launching attacks on Pakistani security forces. This is a problem related to border management. Secondly, the same TTP could possibly launch terror attacks in Pakistani cities and urban centers and especially during the election season. So, it is a larger problem of terrorism and militancy, which is receiving backing from the Afghan Taliban. This is particularly problematic when the Taliban intelligence chief, the dreaded interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani is hosting TTP leadership in Afghanistan.
Fazl was briefed by the Pakistani Foreign Office before his departure for Kabul. He was accompanied by Pakistani diplomats to Afghanistan. But then the Pakistani Foreign Office disowned him as an official emissary.
By the way, Fazl also met Haqqani during his stay in Afghanistan. Now the problem is that the language and idioms used by Pakistani diplomats in explaining these problems is not entirely comprehensible to Afghan leaders, whose basic training is in theology and not in diplomacy. Fazl knows the idioms and language that the Afghan Taliban leadership understands, but has he succeeded in presenting the Pakistani diplomatic and military viewpoints with the force that is the requirement and need of the hour? Difficult to say at the moment.
Fazl was briefed by the Pakistani Foreign Office before his departure for Kabul. He was accompanied by Pakistani diplomats to Afghanistan. But then the Pakistani Foreign Office disowned him as an official emissary. Besides, the official assertions of Afghan Taliban leadership clearly indicate that they don’t see terrorism and militancy from the TTP as the main irritant in Pak-Afghan relations. In their view, the main irritant is how Pakistan police is treating Afghan refugees who are now being forced to go back to their country. Interestingly, Fazl agreed with the Afghan Taliban leadership that Afghans are being mistreated in Pakistan.
Fazl is a religious leader who has hardly a clue about modern diplomacy and military requirements of statecraft. At the same time, managing borders and developing a capacity to deal with terror and militant groups is hardly the forte of Afghan Taliban leaders. The question is not simply whether the Afghan Taliban has the intentions to go after the Pakistani Taliban. It is equally important to determine whether the Afghan Taliban has the capacity and technical know-how to control the militants hiding on their land.
A cursory look at their history will indicate that they simply don’t have any such capacity. They have failed to rise above the status of a ragtag militia at the organizational level. And they are bent upon destroying the organizational military capacity built and left behind by the American forces. There is, however, a silver lining in this: Fazl is unlike those Islamist fundamentalists who are the product of the post-1967 Arab-Israel war in Muslim societies, and who always demonstrate rigidity in their political attitudes. Two questions will be relevant to our situation in this regard: whether the Afghan Taliban leadership will prove to be as pragmatist as Fazl has demonstrated himself to be? Secondly, how will the Afghan Taliban be able to secure for themselves the military capacity to deal with terrorism and militancy, and to rise as a modern state in the process? The fact that their intentions have been in doubt and will remain in doubt will continue to prove to be a problem.