TLP’s Protest Was Never Peaceful – OpEd
It was not just a political move but it was a move that was to protect the peace of the nation, its people and its law of law. Since the years TLP has been a religious movement that safeguards the purity of faith yet its actions have repeatedly contradicted their speech.
The party demonstrations have not been peaceful very frequently. What initially starts as a protest may easily turn into violence in the streets throwing stones at policemen, road blocks, setting the place ablaze and innocent citizens who are not involved in the protest being caught in the middle of it. When the government resolved to criminalize the group, it was not about putting an end to a particular ideology but rather a means of reintroducing sanity in a country that the government can hardly tolerate to be subjected to more instability.
Pakistan had its quota of demonstrations and political movements that were spirited but TLP took the agitation score above dissent and anarchy. They quickly turn uncontrollable because of emotional and religious oratory, which causes their protests. We have been seeing in one city after other ambulances in the gridlock as a result of the TLP activists blocking the roads. The police officers have been injured, businesses have been destroyed and there has been damage to the public property that cannot be repaired. The situation is not new: demands are raised, threats are issued and when the state is trying to pick up the law, it becomes a time of violence. It turns out to be a process with its traces on people and organizations. When protest has been converted to destruction then the purpose of protest is a far-fetched issue.
The leadership of TLP has never been founded on convincing people, it was founded on intimidation. Instead of constructive discussions, they have terrorized the government by using religion to mobilize the masses and isolate them. Their speeches are normally inflammatory and not reflective. They also survive on anger; they are parasites that feed on the emotions of the common people who may not always know what is at stake politically. It is not leadership but manipulation. Leadership is not a parting quality: it heals. And TLP failed that examination on several occasions.
The critics of the ban who view it as the attack on the freedom of speech do not see the entire picture. It is a narrow boundary between raising a voice in a protest and initiating a riot, and TLP came too close to it on multiple occasions. The government was not determined to prohibit them due to silencing their voice as the government had determined to halt their terror in the streets. Peaceful protest is a right that is democratic, but that is a duty. The freedom of protest is curtailed to that of safety in the populace. The nation under the law cannot permit the authorities over the law to show the state of peace. Allowing TLP to operate would have been tantamount to making mob power a form of legal political expression.
Instant violence is not the only impact of the protests by TLP. Each episode demeans individuals in the authority of the state to ensure things are in order. The citizens begin to see the law enforcement as being weak and the rule of law as a contract. Such a perception is risky. The fact that groups like TLP are legalized to intimidate the government in the streets is bound to encourage other groups to do the same. The state is delegitimized and put to a conditional basis. The prohibition on TLP was, however, not a matter of security, but matter of principle too. Again, it was proved that Pakistan is not a mob ruled country.
It is also held that by banning groups we are not destroying their ideology. It is so, but it does not make them avoid using violence as a political tool. The government was very clear in its message that disobedience was not to be taken past the boundary of the law. Violence, threats and anarchy will be humorously denied. It is impossible to establish a state in anarchy; you can observe that something was taking place with the activities of TLP. Their struggle was not a political speech, but a bullying in the name of a just cause.
The fact that it can be applied to manipulate religious feeling is of special interest to TLP. Religion in Pakistan is quite personal and when political leaders indulge in such a liaison affair and engage in it carelessly, the consequences are disastrous. The violence of the TLP rhetoric developed often as a defence of the faith and turned the religious belief into the political weapon. Not only is it irresponsible, but it is dangerous as well. It diverts the ordinary people and radicalizes them in the process of piety. The state had the moral responsibility to step in to ensure that such manipulation did not have irreparable effects.
There was also some symbolism in the prohibition. It not only sent a message to TLP but to all those organizations that believe that violence is an alternative to reason. The more the protest, the less argument the TLP proved that many times. The democratic regime does not have tires being burned and highways blocked but having power leaking out of reason, representation and reform. The move to outlaw the organization was serving as a reminder of the fact that democracy is not a license to kill.
The emptiness of the agenda of TLP was also exemplified by the fact that the political base of it was extremely farfetched. Even though it was sounding on the streets, it was not that lethal when it comes to electoral performance. This was not related to its own power in the streets and its power in the city, making its actions even more complicated. It was more of a pressure group rather than a movement that had the popular following. The minority was not able to compel the majority to accept their terms by the government through fear.
Of course, it is not an easy task to prohibit a group. It is dangerous, driving members inside the ground, or martyrdom narratives. Notwithstanding it was a more severe thing to leave them alone. The government chose to do the lesser of the two evils. The move does not prohibit discourse regarding extremism, but it sets a threshold on what to do in the life of the masses. Violence is not a good way of expressing oneself and the TLP protests proved that there is no doubt related to it.
Pakistan has had the history of such extremism and this has shown how more and more violence only leads to more violence out of the tolerance of the violent politics. By prohibiting TLP, the government enhanced the principle of institutions of solving grievance rather than intimidation. Learning is that disorder is what is required to guarantee peace and progress and not anarchy. When TLP is outlawed, it is not an oppression of dissent, but a bid to defend the soul of nation against anarchy in the form of religion.
This was essentially a quandary of anarchy and duty. State has chosen to become responsible. The violence of TLP undermined peace signifying that mayhem cannot be the solution to grievance. After all, this was not a political or religious decision but a decision of all Pakistani people to live safely, move and believe that its government will not be on the mercy of the mob. That is the actual national security and communal security. The ban of TLP completed that.
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