TLP Targets For Coming Elections
By Samuel Baid
Tehrik-e-Labbaik, Pakistan (TLP) seems to have made anti-Ahmadiyya campaign in Punjab as its election campaign this year end.
The TLP is the re-christened name of Tehrik Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYRA), an organization of Barelvi fanatics who rose from the grave of Mumtaz Qadri, who had been executed for killing Governor of Punjab Salmaan Taseer in January 2011 for demanding amendment in blasphemy laws.
The rechristening of the TLYRA came ahead of the 2018 general elections in the wake of rumours that the Army wanted to mainstream Islamist groups as political parties. It was here that the TLYRA decided to take part in elections as the TLP. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) registered it as a political party in 2017. In the following general elections in 2018, the TLP fielded about 750 candidates but won two seats in Sindh. However, it emerged as the fifth largest political party in Pakistan signaling success of the Pakistan Army’s strategy to mainstream Islamist groups as political parties.
The Army had helped TLP’s parent body, the TLYRA, in many ways to emerge as terror for the government. It gave financial help to the participants of the TYLRA’s dharna that kept road communication between Islamabad and Rawalpindi blocked for many days. The Islamabad High Court sternly told the government to use its police force to get this dharna dispersed. But to the chagrin of the court, the government succumbed to the Army’s intervention to impose a compromise with the TYLRA. The government as a result had to withdraw cases against dharna participants; pay for the damage they had caused and remove the Law Minister who changed the electoral law which did not differentiate between Muslims and Ahmadiyyas in its column of religion of election forms. TYLRA did not want the identities of Muslims and Ahmadiyya to be submerged. That showed its hate for Ahmadiyyas.
As said earlier, the TYLRA had roots in Barelvi philosophy. But Barelvi chief Shah Ahmed Noorani believed in non violence. He had opposed the gun culture being promoted among the Pakistani youth to fight the America’s war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Barelvis were among those Islamic groups in united India who opposed creation of Pakistan. But once Pakistan was created they shifted to the new country and joined against Ahmadiyyas who, they said, could not call themselves Muslims in a country created in the name of Islam. Former Chief Justice of Pakistan Muhammad Munir, who held the inquiry into anti-Ahmadiyya riots in Punjab in 1953, does not say in his Book from “Jinnah to Zia” (Lahore 1979) if Barelvis took any part in the riots. We used to get the image of Barelvis as pacifists.
As said above, Barelvi Chief Shah Ahmed Noorani had opposed arming of young people to fight America’s war in Afghanistan. Gen. Ziaul Haq, who was benefitting from this war, became hostile to anyone who opposed this. He was friendly to those who helped in war efforts. Thus Deobandis of Maulana Fazul ur Rehman who produced thousands of young people from his ISI-funded madarsas to fight in Afghanistan freely attacked Barelvi’s mosques and captured them.
Barelvi youths were thus radicalized to protect their mosques. They set up Sunni Tehrik in 1990 and became Sunni sectarian militant outfit. Mumtaz Qadri, who had killed Punjab’s governor for demanding amendment to the Blasphemy laws, was a member of the Sunni Tehrik.
The success of its dharna in protest against the Law Minister’s change in the election form must have convinced the TLYRA that anti-Ahmadiyya plank could be the most vote catching strategy in elections. Perhaps it was because of this that it decided to fight the July 2018 general elections in the name of TLP- and it did well.
The TLP has started a campaign against Ahmadiyyas in Jhelum (Punjab). It has threatened to destroy places of worship of Ahmadiyyas if the police do not destroy them by the end of current month. The police at once came into action and pulled down the minarets of a newly built place of worship of Ahmadiyyas. The TLP said the minarets made the structure look like a mosque – which is illegal, according to rules laid down by Gen. Ziaul Haq. These rules said Ahmadiyyas must not show by word or signs that they are Muslims.
If an epitaph on the gravestone of a dead Ahmadiyya suggests he was a Muslim it is blasphemy. Therefore, fanatics like the TLP break such graves. They also do not allow Ahmadiyyas to celebrate Eid. At the time of just- ended Eid-ul-Zuha, sacrificial animals were snatched away from Ahmadiyya faith folks.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.