THE writ of the state in Swat has been demolished. When Operation Rah-i-Haq was launched by the Pakistan Army in 2007, the militants controlled only 25 per cent of the area. After a year of military operations involving approximately 20,000 troops, the Taliban diktat has, like ink spilt over blotting paper, spread to at least 75 per cent of the territory.

The government has been a passive bystander as Maulana Fazlullah has continued to perpetrate brutality on the people of Swat. As a consequence 80,000 girls no longer attend schools and 8,000 teachers are without employment because female education and emancipation are unacceptable to the false creed of the Taliban. The situation is further compounded by mass resignations, desertions and the exodus of security officials from this picturesque region which was once an idyllic tourist spot.

Terrified by the possibility of annihilation, some politicians from the area have not only suggested negotiations with the Taliban but have also called for the withdrawal of the army. Such appeasement can only further embolden the militants. Maulana Fazlullah and other clerics have already declared that they will continue to wage war against the state till an ‘Islamic emirate’ is established and Sharia is imposed as the law of the land.

The imposition of Sharia is easier said than done and is beyond the ken of these semi-literate extremist elements. Scores of learned ulema, subscribing to various schools of Islamic thought, were not even able to come forward with an agreed criteria for determining who is or is not a Muslim before the Munir Committee of 1953, leave aside such complex issues as the interpretation of Islamic law.

Of the Quran’s 6,247 verses only 100 deal with ritual practices, 70 with civil laws, 30 with penal laws and 20 with jurisprudence. For all other forms of legislation, the Quran only emphasises the need of being just. This, therefore, leaves ample scope for legislatures in Muslim countries to enact laws that conform to contemporary requirements and modernity. The logic behind this is that the needs of various societies, people and times influence the perception of what is just and what is not.

Contrary to what the militants claim, colonial-era laws in force in Pakistan do not militate against the canons of justice and, therefore, cannot be considered un-Islamic. In 1981 Gen Ziaul Haq created the Federal Sharia Court for the purpose of examining all prevalent laws in the country and determining if any of them violated the injunctions of Islam.

The court, accordingly, examined laws dating as far back as 1841 but could hardly find anything violative of Islamic tenets in them. Ironically the few provisions that were considered un-Islamic were the ones that had been enacted after 1947.

In the early 1980s, the federal government also attempted to bring the law of evidence in line with Islamic tenets. A revised draft of the law of evidence was sent to the four provinces for their views. The deposed Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday of the Supreme Court, whose historic judgment of July 20, 2007 reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, was one of the few asked to review the draft.

In a recent interview he highlighted his observations on the revised draft to the effect that there had been no substantive amendment to the laws except for the name and renumbering of the provisions. This futile exercise was undertaken because a few people close to President Ziaul Haq had convinced him that the Evidence Act of 1872 was un-Islamic. When they were asked to make the required revisions, they merely reproduced the provisions of the act verbatim, renumbered them and renamed it as the Qanoon-i-Shahadat Ordinance of 1984. This was intellectual dishonesty at its worst.

The imposition of draconian laws which the Taliban claim to be in accordance with Islamic tenets further reaffirms that their skewed interpretation of religious doctrine is far removed from a moderate reading of Islamic injunctions. Vandalism, banning of girl’s education and brutal suppression of any ideological opposition are alien to religious principles promoting tolerance, humanity and peace.

Interior Adviser Rehman Malik has declared in parliament that Swat will be reclaimed in a matter of days and that the militants will be flushed out of the area. General Ashfaq Kayani’s visit to Swat and the subsequent military operations indicate a commitment beyond empty rhetoric, which was the case in respect to Parachinar some months earlier. The pacification of Swat, however, will not be complete unless military action is followed through with the ideological defeat of the Taliban and their sympathisers amongst segments of the religious right in the country.

The writer is editor-in-chief of Criterion Quarterly.

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