Pakistan: Asking for moon

If these are the TTP\'s demands for peace, the outlawed militant outfit is really asking for nothing short of the moon. It is demanding overall fundamental change in the nation\'s prevalent political, financial, educational and judicial systems. The democratic order it wants to be thrown out lock, stock and barrel and replaced by what it calls Islamic system. It expects its decisive say in the country\'s foreign affairs. Not just that. It wants all its native and foreign prisoners released and quashing of criminal cases against its people. And on a platter, the militants want the control of the tribal areas under the cover of a demand for the army\'s withdrawal from these regions and handing over the charge of their security to what they call local forces, that in plain language means levies and khasadars. What else the demands to this effect could aim at if not this? Fabulously-funded as they are and well-stocked with deadly weapons supplies as they are, could a khasadar or a levies personnel, at best armed with an obsolete gun, face up to a charging horde of the banned outfit or its equally-lethally-equipped bloodletting cohorts. And yet the prime minister says that the talks with the outlawed outfit are moving in the right direction. Is it, really? Indeed, by every reckoning, the government is now in a bind of its own making and has at the same time pushed the nation into a downright unenviable predicament. With these demands and their leaking, the outlawed outfit has arguably played its cards very cleverly. Of course, its demand like end to the US drone incursions in our territory goes in tune with the widespread public outcry and anger over this American adventurism. But the other demands are patently aimed at particular segments of the polity and are potentially going to strike a responsive chord among the targeted sections of public. Unmistakably, its demands for reorientation of the country\'s political, financial, judicial and educational systems are intended to further deepen its appeal to the polity\'s conservative sections and spawn and expand it beyond as well. But quite lethal are its canny demands for recompense of drone attacks\' as well as military operations\' victims and removal of security check-posts. With a corrupt, apathetic and unresponsive political administration in place to administer the tribal region all though these past several years, there is a very fertile ground for these demands to appeal to the tribal people massively and generate positive feelings for the militants to the state\'s utter grief. So indifferent has been the political administration throughout to local residents\' distresses and miseries caused by anti-militancy security operations in the region that a public feeling of anger and animus against the state has perceptibly bred over there. Never has this administration been seen acting feelingly and humanely to aid the distressed populace afflicted by the operations by way of collateral damage or displacement internally. What to speak of being proactive to come to the aid of the distressed and put some balm on their wound with some help in reconstructing their devastated lives, this lackadaisical mandarinate has bothered not ever to look after the internally displaced any tenderly. It stayed lukewarm and apathetic even when the courts took compassionate notice of the tribal IDPs\' doleful plight in refugee camps of the settled areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and intervened to order relief and succour for them. It always has been more intent on washing its hands of these woebegone tribal people than helping and aiding them out. The security check-posts have caused no little resentment among the region\'s natives, either. They generally complain sourly of impolite and crude behaviour of the security staff there. No lesser they bemoan of being put to inordinate waiting at the posts, which they also complain have no shelter and essential facilities for the waiting public. More worrisomely, a public accusation is galore all over the region for sometime that security people take away valuable household goods during search operations. And truthfully or untruthfully, accusations of innocent residents being shot dead in search operations are gaining currency increasingly. In short, the growing public anti-state antipathy in the tribal region can neither be ignored nor underestimated. Rather, it has be taken fully into account in all earnestness and the impact of the banned outfit\'s demands on the public mind in the region has to be realised in all its ramifications. For, it has the dire implications for the ultimate security and stability of the state. Indeed, the evidently unthoughtful talks foray of the government with the outlawed outfit is palpably working as a big catalyst for other violent groups and other gangs operating in the country, giving potent fillip to their vile activities. The insurgents in Balochistan have visibly become more active over these days, killing people, blowing up gas pipelines, blasting off rail tracks and attacking murderously security personnel, their posts and convoys with increasing frequency. Other fissiparous elements in the country\'s other parts will arguably take heart from the weakness of the state that the government has put on display with this talks move and conclude they, too, can exact from the government what they want at gunpoint. Verily, the government has put the nation in a quagmire it would not come out without being bruised hurtfully.