#dnaEdit: Terror carnage

The terror attack on the Army School in Peshawar has shaken the people in a country who have come to accept jihadi violence with stoicism. It is the death of 84 students and 20 others which has touched a raw nerve among the people. Disconsolate parents of the dead children and the shock felt by the kin of the survivors bring home the tragic truth that Pakistan, caught in the vortex of violence, will not be able to bear the deaths, injuries and bruises any longer. Until now, the battle was fought between the armed militants and Pakistan’s security forces. Now, hapless civilians are being sucked into it. The attack on the school and holding young students as hostage takes the war into the heart of Pakistani society. 

There is a sense of desperation all round. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the counterpart of the  Afghanistan Taliban, have declared a war on the Pakistan State. They are based on this side of Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and they belong to tribal areas of North and South Waziristan. The TTP has owned responsibility for the attack, and it has cited it as an act of vengeance for the army operations in North Waziristan. It is perhaps for this reason that the TTP has targeted the Army Public School. The calculation seems to have been that they are targeting the children of soldiers. 

The attack in Peshawar shows that jihadis are fighting in their own territory. Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is the region of the Pashtoon tribe. Most of the Taliban in Pakistan and in Afghanistan are recruited from among the Pashtoon. Pakistan is a divided polity in many ways. There is a rift between the army and the political establishment, and there is the deep suspicion that it is the army that calls the shots. In the last one year and more, the army did not have much of a choice but to eliminate the jihadis in the tribal region, because of American pressure. This has exacerbated an already explosive situation.

It is tempting to argue that Pakistan is a failed State and that it is being swallowed by the monster — jihadi terrorists — it had created on its western borders during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan back in the 1980s. But it does not seem to be the truth. The army and the political class, whatever their differences and weaknesses, have managed to hold the TTP at bay and they are on the verge of victory against the jihadis. The attack in Peshawar on Tuesday is clearly an act of despair on the part of the jihadis. In India, too, there have been desperate acts by the Khalistanis in Punjab in the 1980s and in the 1990s, and by the militants in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s. The Indian State has prevailed, and so will Pakistan. But the price for the survival of the State is paid through the lives of ordinary soldiers, civilians and children.

It is also necessary not to see the Pakistan’s jihadi terrorists as part of global jihadi terror because this is a localised contest between the tribal groups in the south-west of Pakistan and the national government. Jihad lends to the tribal militants the ideological framework they need to remain a united fighting force. Islamabad has adopted the right policy in wanting to integrate the people of the south-west with the rest of the country and isolate the militants. What is needed now is to stay the course.