Pakistan needs to defeat the PTM in narrative battle

 

Pakistan needs to defeat the PTM in narrative battle

Jan Achakzai 

Pakistani state has been very soft on PTM–a group labeled as a local rights group–tolerating  its narrative which blames the Army for wild allegations from false flag operations (ie APS Attack in Peshwar), to bringing in terrorism to FATA and to endorsing the claims of irredentist dreams of greater Afghanistan. 

It allowed the PTM to informally participate in elections without being registered as a political group; the Army did not rig elections in FATA despite blames of opposition–the proof that two MNAs from the  PTM made it to Parliament in 2018 elections. 

Why does the state have serious issues w/ the PTM?  here  are the reasons: 

1) The PTM brings to life  two dead Ideologies: one romanticizes  Afghanistan at the cost of Pakistani territory of KP & Balochistan's Pashtun belt; the other  envisions Pashtun exclusionary/regressive political chauvinism. 

2) Slogans: abuse (name calling) of Army  leadership; causing a  wedge between forces & people which no state in the world can absorb.  

3) The  PTM’s narrative fits in the bill: one to deepen ethnic fault-lines; eulogising “Centrifugal” mindset, metaphor, poetry & music; and second, to channelize anger into something big. 

4) Paradoxically, platform is used as ruse by various state and non state actors: India, Kabul, ethnic, dissent politicos, left leaning  civil society, anti-Pakistan Afghan diaspora, propaganda media like VOA, BBC, Dewa etc & their websites to whip security forces as under an agenda, some call it “subversion”. Systematic use of social media–never seen before–suggesting sophisticated capabilities (Eg, only intel agencies can have) put together. 

Threat Perception: 

5-a) Platform is a magnet 4 likes of TTP 2 camouflage which negatively impinges on security; woo agenda-driven NGOs/ embassies; attracts hostile agencies to recruit moles; and lure dubious financing; 

Implications: 

5-b) Organised grievance-fed narrative can end up in massive discontent;

5-c) can potentially transit from passive militancy into active militancy by unemployed brainwashed hardline core generation of Waziristan’s former warring tribesmen spreading from erstwhile FATA to Karachi; 

7) The PTM has inspired use of extreme language by pitching impressionable Pashtun youth against the state—way beyond the pale of freedom of speech: like TLP which invited the ire of security institutions when it called for mutiny within their rank. 

All of the above or most of it  is being done under the garb of projecting legitimate demands.

State’s reaction: 

8-a) the state occasionally  show some muscle by registering FIRs & police action if the PTM workers occupy roads/streets and interrupt the normal life of people like the TLP. 

8-b) State discourages abuse, attempts to amend anti-army narrative; check the platform being used as vehicle by hostile agencies to corner forces & not to undermine morale of forces fighting WOR; 

8-c) helps prevents social & economic grievances turning into full blown rebellious sentiments of minority youth;

8-d) check being used as leverage by hostile intend; 

8-e) prevent extrapolating merged districts of KP’s situation w/ Indian occupied Kashmir when celebrating 5th Feb as Pashtun solidarity day not Kashmir solidarity day. 

8-f) help stop melting away benefits of various anti-terror operations including goodwill capital. 

Bottom line: PTM is a challenge to the state though not a major challenge; state’s policy gradually shifting from patronising to soft containment of the PTM and  if it turns more militant with potential to turn to violence, will invoke hard containment posture. 

 

All those sympathising with Pashtuns’ welfare & PTM’s demand should help moderate extremists inclinations of PTM (methods, narrative, Ideological tendencies, vested agenda of other forces & regional countries) and  not let hijack and  use it as pawn in greater wars of geo-politics against the state of Pakistan.