The brazen trading of votes and money surrounding the recent round of Senate elections deserves a dispassionate debate. It has not only exposed the ruling elite’s selfish propensity to buy a seat in the Upper House but also kicked up a critically important question: is the Senate meant to protect smaller provinces from the so-called “tyranny of the majority” as argued by James Madison, the fourth president of the United States (1809–17), or is it a debating club largely for the kith and kin of the ruling elite and their affluent friends who can throw money bags at their voters? Let us see what motivated the founding fathers of the United States to suggest a bicameral legislature. They, including Madison, envisioned the Senate to be a wise stabilising force, elected not by mass electors, but selected by state legislators. Senators would be more knowledgeable and more deliberate, as was the assumption. The Upper House was designed to shield minority federating units/provinces from the oppression of the majority. Bicameral legislatures are linked primarily to their federal political structure and are supposed to ensure that smaller states within a federation or union are not overshadowed by larger states, which may have more representation in the other House of the legislature. It is also supposed to guard against an encroaching centre. Contrast this with the Senate of Pakistan. The motive behind the creation of the Senate was also to give equal representation to all the four federating units since the membership of the National Assembly was based on the population of each province. Equal provincial membership in the Upper House, thought the authors of the 1973 Constitution, would offset the provincial inequality in the National Assembly. Where is that spirit? Has the Senate acted as a pivot of wisdom? Has it protected the rights of Balochistan? Have its members and the mainstream political parties upheld their constitutional obligations? Well, by indulging in buying...

Much has transpired in Pakistani society since the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, ten weeks ago. The brazen assault that left 152 dead, mostly children, demonstrated once again the appalling penchant for violence among extremist groups in Pakistan and provided a rationale to galvanize a divided, irresolute, and discordant nation. With the exception of a few extreme right-wing organizations and political parties, the civil military leadership, the political establishment, its bureaucracy, as well as the general public all agreed on the need to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan. For that end, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif laid out a 20-point agenda, titled the National Action Plan (NAP), in a televised address on December 24, 2015. The plan detailed steps the government would take to systematically eradicate violent extremists and their ideology through a combination of concerted military campaigns along with sweeping, punitive legislation. So began a paradigm shift in Pakistan, with the civil-military leadership ostensibly united in their discourse with a public now willing to disavow terrorism once and for all. In perhaps the most surprising sign of a monumental change in focus and ideology among the uppermost echelons of power in Pakistan, private funding of extremist activities from Saudi Arabia—a state most in Pakistan turn a blind eye to—was recently called into question by the foreign office. Additional steps to deter funding for terror include the registration of millions of mobile phone SIM cards, systematically documenting known financial supporters of terror, tracking the highly nomadic and geographically dispersed Afghan refugee population, and curbing online presence of terror networks. “There shall be no distinction between good and bad Taliban,” said the prime minister before the All Parties Conference shortly after the massacre, referring to a major change in a decades-old policy of providing tacit state benefaction to certain terrorist...

Much has transpired in Pakistani society since the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, ten weeks ago. The brazen assault that left 152 dead, mostly children, demonstrated once again the appalling penchant for violence among extremist groups in Pakistan and provided a rationale to galvanize a divided, irresolute, and discordant nation. With the exception of a few extreme right-wing organizations and political parties, the civil military leadership, the political establishment, its bureaucracy, as well as the general public all agreed on the need to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan. For that end, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif laid out a 20-point agenda, titled the National Action Plan (NAP), in a televised address on December 24, 2015. The plan detailed steps the government would take to systematically eradicate violent extremists and their ideology through a combination of concerted military campaigns along with sweeping, punitive legislation. So began a paradigm shift in Pakistan, with the civil-military leadership ostensibly united in their discourse with a public now willing to disavow terrorism once and for all. In perhaps the most surprising sign of a monumental change in focus and ideology among the uppermost echelons of power in Pakistan, private funding of extremist activities from Saudi Arabia—a state most in Pakistan turn a blind eye to—was recently called into question by the foreign office. Additional steps to deter funding for terror include the registration of millions of mobile phone SIM cards, systematically documenting known financial supporters of terror, tracking the highly nomadic and geographically dispersed Afghan refugee population, and curbing online presence of terror networks. “There shall be no distinction between good and bad Taliban,” said the prime minister before the All Parties Conference shortly after the massacre, referring to a major change in a decades-old policy of providing tacit state benefaction to certain terrorist...

Much has transpired in Pakistani society since the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, ten weeks ago. The brazen assault that left 152 dead, mostly children, demonstrated once again the appalling penchant for violence among extremist groups in Pakistan and provided a rationale to galvanize a divided, irresolute, and discordant nation. With the exception of a few extreme right-wing organizations and political parties, the civil military leadership, the political establishment, its bureaucracy, as well as the general public all agreed on the need to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan. For that end, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif laid out a 20-point agenda, titled the National Action Plan (NAP), in a televised address on December 24, 2015. The plan detailed steps the government would take to systematically eradicate violent extremists and their ideology through a combination of concerted military campaigns along with sweeping, punitive legislation. So began a paradigm shift in Pakistan, with the civil-military leadership ostensibly united in their discourse with a public now willing to disavow terrorism once and for all. In perhaps the most surprising sign of a monumental change in focus and ideology among the uppermost echelons of power in Pakistan, private funding of extremist activities from Saudi Arabia—a state most in Pakistan turn a blind eye to—was recently called into question by the foreign office. Additional steps to deter funding for terror include the registration of millions of mobile phone SIM cards, systematically documenting known financial supporters of terror, tracking the highly nomadic and geographically dispersed Afghan refugee population, and curbing online presence of terror networks. “There shall be no distinction between good and bad Taliban,” said the prime minister before the All Parties Conference shortly after the massacre, referring to a major change in a decades-old policy of providing tacit state benefaction to certain terrorist...

In the first six weeks of 2015 alone, there have been 104 deaths as a direct result of sectarian violence. The most devastating of these attacks was on an imambargah in the Lakhi Dar areas of Shikarpur district in Sindh, on January 20, 2015, which left 61 dead and another 50 injured. Smaller attacks, such as the one on the Chittian Hattian imambargah in Rawalpindi on January 9, 2015 resulted in 8 deaths, and 25 injuries, whereas another imambargah in Peshawar was bombed on February 13, 2015, killing 24 and injuring another 50. Isolated incidents in Orakzai Agency, Rawalpindi and Karachi have contributed to this sudden surge in sectarian violence. As may be evident from the graph on this page, sectarian violence seemed to be on the decline in Pakistan in the latter half of the year, with November and December seeing the lowest respective number of sectarian violence related deaths. This spiked sharply in January 2015, which is also a 32% increase from the same month in the previous year. This is especially troubling because in 2014, sectarian violence claimed the lives of 440 victims over the course of 52 weeks, while in 2015, the numbers, comparatively, are substantially higher. It is also worth noting that in 2014, 51% of all sectarian killings were against Shias, with the remaining targets were Sunnis (32%) and other minorities. The scale of violence has climbed drastically in 2015, and the Shia community continues to be the primary target Taha Siddiqui, an investigative journalist focusing on terrorism, minority rights and politics in Pakistan, believes this is because the state response has traditionally been weak against sectarian violence. “The state will not feel the same level of public or media pressure as it does when the media gets attacked. So in a way the Pakistani Taliban can carry on with such calibrated attacks and stay relevant while also avoid state crackdown.” “The public is being engineered to believe the Iranians are trying to overthrow the...

As expected, Indian Foreign Secretary Subramanyam Jaishankar and his host Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhary discussed “all issues, including India’s alleged involvement in Balochistan and Fata, the investigation of Samjhota Express incident and the simmering ceasefire violations across the LoC.” If taken on the face value, Chaudhry’s post-meeting interaction with the media implies that that both chief diplomats exchanged their respective complaints against each other, and promised to maintain contacts. “It was decided to reflect on these issues, and then determine on how to proceed further,” national newspapers quoted Chaudhry as saying. Both, he said, reaffirmed their commitment to eradicate terrorism, and that they should work towards promotion of greater people-to-people contact and eradication of terrorism. “I conveyed that Pakistan attached great importance to Saarc… It is an important vehicle to increase regional cooperation.” On this leg of “Saarc yaatra”, Jaishankar also brought a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, following up on the phone talk the two prime ministers had two days before the India-Pakistan cricket world cup match. Viewed in the context of talks cancellation and the ensuing shelling and firing along the Working Boundary and the Line of Control, Jaishankar’s visit was clearly an attempt to “extinguish the fire” that had engulfed both countries since August last year. Cloaked in the “Saarc yaatra”, this endeavor to resume contacts after months of belligerence and brinkmanship reflected a departure – within weeks – from “give u a damn” posturing to “why not talk peace with neighbours” overtures. Secondly, the resumption of contacts reflected the Indian pragmatism in the context of the unfolding regional situation, particularly with regard to Afghanistan. Obama’s phone calls to Modi and Sharif may have brought about the turnaround Thirdly, the reversal in the Indian attitude towards Pakistan also underscores the...

In Pakistan, the term ‘ruling elite’ is nearly synonymous with impunity in words and actions. Our elite do not pay taxes but blatantly flaunt their wealth to appear kind-hearted. They advocate the rule of law but themselves flout the law for personal motives. Coincidentally, a number of lawmakers are often found either directly involved, or operating through a nexus, with organised crime. Wasi Zafar, former law minister under General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, slapped a waiter at a restaurant in Islamabad. He behaved in the same manner at the VIP lounge of the Islamabad Airport with an official of the Civil Aviation Authority. Last year in July, a parliamentarian from the ruling party, Rana Shoaib Idrees, along with 40 armed accomplices, raided a police station in Faisalabad and took away four people who had been accused of complicity in a murder. In fact, one of them, Rana Zulfiqar, carried a bounty of Rs100,000 on him. They also beat some police officials, including Sub-Inspector Riyasat Ali, and vandalised the station — all actions caught on CCTV cameras. Anjum Aqeel, who is a member and a financier of the PML-N, did more or less the same when his goons attacked a police station in a bid to enable him to flee from the police. He had been arrested in connection with a fraud case. A couple of days later, several newspapers carried pictures of Aqeel raising the victory sign outside Adiala Jail. What was the victory sign about? Was he pretending to be innocent after admitting before the apex Court that he was involved in a Rs6 billion fraud? Or was he conveying to his supporters that soon his colleagues in parliament would collude to lessen the burden of crime on him. All this represents a malaise, i.e., abuse of power and authority with impunity. This also reflects another bitter fact of life: the existence of a nexus between politics, organised crime and the bureaucracy. An incident on February 21 highlighted the helplessness of the people at large. A residential...

CRSS Research Associate Dr. Farhan Zahid outlines the rise of a new kind of militant in Pakistan, and the causes and effects of splintering terror groups. THE Peshawar school massacre points to the surfacing of a new generation of Islamist militants in Pakistan. The country, in the last 13 years, has suffered more than 13,721 terrorist incidents (as per the National Counter Terrorism Authority) which left 56,156 dead and more than 200,000 critically wounded. Yet by far, the Peshawar school bloodbath left the deepest scar on the hearts of Pakistanis. The gloves are now off. Pakistan’s plethora of Islamist terrorist groups can broadly be classified under two broad categories: the ‘old’ groups; and the new and nascent outfits. The old groups were established during the Afghan war (1979-89). Almost all of them are the products of Operation Cyclone — the biggest-ever covert operation in the history of the American CIA — and remained involved against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The Punjab-based Afghan Mujahideen-turned-Kashmiri Islamist groups such as Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM), and Harkatul Jihad-i-Islami (HuJI), as well as sectarian outfits such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), known for its anti-Shia activities, can be placed under this category. Other groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Harkatul Mujahideen al-Alami broke off from HuM, the 313 Brigade came out of HuJI, and Al Qanun and Al Mansur came out of the largely anti-India and hitherto ‘peaceful’ Lashkar-e-Taiba after the commencement of the ‘global war on terror’. The splintering has continued within these breakaway groups also; for example, numerous splinter groups have split from LJ during the last 10 years, making the law-enforcement agencies’ job even more difficult. The younger generation of jihadis is more ruthless. The case of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is unique. Unlike its predecessor urban-based jihadi organisations (HuM, HuJI, JeM and LJ), the TTP was formed in the tribal areas of...