Azmat Abbas
The phenomenal rise of Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) and its success in converting its street support into votes has reinvigorated the Barelvi political aspirations in Pakistan. What started as a protest movement in 2016 has morphed into a religio-political party in less than a decade and continues to attract more and more supporters following cyclic stand-offs with the state. The Hanafi Barelvi sect originated in Bareilly – now in Indian province of Uttar Pradesh — in the 19th century as a countermovement to the rise of the orthodox teaching of the Hanafi Deobandi movement that started at the Darul Uloom Deoband in Utter Pradesh a few decades earlier. For most of its existence, Barelvi Islam was viewed as a moderate Sufi belief system that promoted interfaith harmony, challenged the orthodox beliefs promoted by Deobandi and Wahabi/Salafi Islam, and offered a soft image of the Muslim believers. Not anymore. TLP has successfully mainstreamed religious violence in Pakistani politics, leaving no room for debate, academic or public, on Pakistan’s religious laws — especially the controversial blasphemy legislation.
TLP first surfaced following the 2016 hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, a police constable who had assassinated the then Governor of Punjab — Salmaan Taseer – five years earlier. Qadri, a member of the governor’s security staff, was upset with Governor Taseer for terming the country’s blasphemy legislation as “black laws” and supporting the release of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman who was on death row on blasphemy charges. The Supreme Court of Pakistan overturned the decision in 2018, and Bibi left Pakistan amidst a national lockdown prompted by TLP’s violent protests to prevent her from leaving the country. During protests against Bibi’s acquittal, the state apparatus failed to enforce the writ of the law, resulting in emboldening the TLP leader Afzal Qadri to call for the death of the three Supreme Court judges who ruled to acquit Aasia Bibi and overthrow Pakistan’s military leadership. Surprisingly, in a country where criticizing the military is not tolerated, Qadri got away with a public apology for his statements and dissociation from the TLP.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the charismatic TLP founding chief, was born on May 22, 1966, in Punjab’s northeastern district of Attock as Khadim Hussain Awan. He took the suffix “Rizvi” to express allegiance to Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi. Rizvi memorized the Quran by heart at a madrassah in Jehlum and later completed religious studies (Dars-e-Nizami) at Jamia Nizamia Lahore before joining the Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Department in 1993. During his time at the Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Department, he led Friday prayers at Pir Makki Masjid on Ravi Road in Lahore for nearly 18 years. Rizvi was an eloquent speaker with command over Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic and Persian. A turning point in Rizvi’s life was the dismissal from the Auqaf Department in 2011 for eulogizing Mumtaz Qadri. Once free from the disciplinary constraints of government employment, he pursued his religious agenda far more aggressively. In little time the wheelchair-bound cleric with a flowing white beard and a penchant for foul language during religious sermons and public rallies started drawing large crowds and became the self-assigned defender of the finality and honor of Prophet Muhammad. His sermons filled with profanities particularly appeal to Barelvi community’s lower-middle-class youth.
The public support for Mumtaz Qadri and vocal criticism of other Muslims, especially the followers of Deobandi Islam terming them blasphemers, helped Rizvi in climbing the popularity ladder within Barelvi circles in a short span of time. By 2015, he announced the founding of Tehrik Labaik Ya Rasool Allah which was later renamed Tehreek Labaik Pakistan. The group gained strength within the Sunni organizations with an aggressive demand for the release of Mumtaz Qadri and a violent response to his hanging in 2016 by virtually shutting down the entire country. A few years later, when the group launched massive protests in the wake of Aasia Bibi’s acquittal, the state bent over backwards to appease the TLP by stopping Bibi from leaving Pakistan and placing her on the exit-control list.
TLP leadership soon realized the need for a political voice and made its political ambitions public by fielding a candidate in a by-election in Lahore in September 2017, where a national assembly seat had fallen vacant following the disqualification of former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif. The group was not registered as a political party at the time. However, its unofficial candidate secured the third position, bagging more votes than the combined votes cast in support of Pakistan People’s Party and Jamat-e-Islami candidates.
By the time the country went to polls in 2018, the TLP had been registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan and fielded more than 250 candidates — both for national and provincial assemblies. Though it failed to secure a seat to the National Assembly, it managed to win two seats to the provincial assembly of Sindh and emerged as the third largest party in Punjab. More importantly, the TLP candidates secured third place in at least 62 National Assembly electoral constituencies in Punjab, leading other religious parties by wide margins and displaying an impressive show as a religious-political party contesting its first-ever election.
The success of TLP is attributed to several factors, and none more important than the privileged treatment its supporters receive from the Pakistani military. The TLP activists have caused more damage to public and private properties in the past few years than any other organization. TLP has used all forms of protests — from staging a sit-in outside the parliament for weeks to protest revision of election nomination papers to the violent response to Aasia Bibi’s acquittal by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to the protests demanding the expulsion of the French ambassador in the wake of the caricature controversy in its short life. The government bowed to the TLP demands. The government also tried to browbeat the TLP towards the end of 2021 by placing it on the list of proscribed organizations, only to withdraw the decision, restore its legal status, release its leaders and workers. After submitting to the TLP demands, the ruling PTI even hinted at making an alliance with TLP in the 2023 elections. TLP chief Hafiz Saad Rizvi has claimed in an interview in December 2021 that in the next general elections, “no opposition [party] will be able to function and no [winning] party will be able to make government without the support of the TLP.”
The journey from “Tehreek-e-Rihai-e-Mumtaz Qadri” (the movement to free Mumtaz Qadri) to the foundation of Tehreek Labaik Pakistan has not been without challenges. The organization has braced defections, who included some of its founding members, the death of its founding leader Khadim Rizvi in November 2020, which led to a tussle for the office of party chief, the arrest and detention of its workers and leaders, the government’s decision to place it on the list of banned organizations, still the organization seems to have come out stronger with every challenge. TLP has emerged as the leading religious organization that defends the finality of Prophet Muhammad and the blasphemy laws in Pakistan – a status previously enjoyed by Deobandi Tehreek Khatme Nabuwat. It is not just the religious organizations that now take a cue from TLP when it comes to blasphemy issues, political parties, including the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, also follow TLP when it comes to religious issues. In his recent speech at the United Nations, Prime Minister Imran Khan demanded the world to uphold the honor of Prophet Muhammad, in order to take the status of the chief defender of Prophet Mohammad’s honor for his audience at home.The way the TLP has manipulated religion in its effort for a larger political role has resulted in pushing the state in the background. Students have killed their teachers for stopping them from attending TLP meetings and a son murdered his father after being inspired by TLP leaders’ speeches for not attending the mosque regularly. The registration of cases under blasphemy laws has gone up. In 2021, more than 100 cases were registered under blasphemy laws. Another new and more dangerous trend is the registration of cases against politicians under blasphemy laws. This is aimed at making politicians submit to TLP demands.
One of the primary reasons for the spread of the TLP ideology of violence is the impunity that successive governments have granted to its workers. The TLP leadership has successfully negotiated freedom after the cyclic violent events that resulted in the loss of life and property at a massive scale. In the most recent instance, in Oct 2021, the scenes of TLP workers destroying property and beating policemen to death were broadcast across social media. However, the civil and military establishment entered into an agreement with the organization, released its leaders and workers from custody. No one was charged for the death of at least eight policemen, a decision that has contributed to demoralizing the civil security forces. The fallout of this came within weeks on December 3, 2020, when hundreds of factory workers in Sialkot lynched a Sri Lankan manager on a false charge of blasphemy. They burnt his body while chanting the TLP slogan “Labaik Ya Rasool Allah” as the police looked on. It can be argued that the responsibility for the killing lies not only on the shoulders of the mob but the state that has conceded ground to such ideologies.
Today, TLP is far more organized as its ranks are swelling. It is seen as a bigger threat than the Deobandi militant and sectarian groups. Neither government nor the military seems to have a plan or political will to rein in the TLP threat. Pakistan needs to urgently separate state from mosque. But the state policies have been bringing the state and religion even closer. The state appears to be submitting to Islamists and jihadists. Unless the state reasserts itself, Pakistan may go the Afghan way – in a more violent way.
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