Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

The Siege Within
December 2004, formally declared that he was not doffing his military
uniform, breaking a public pledge that he had made exactly a year
earlier. ‘My stepping down from the post of army chief at this critical
juncture would be dangerous for the country,’ he asserted in a televised
address to the nation. Musharraf defended his decision, saying that
he was a marked man and that the situation had changed since he
made his promise. He claimed that the ‘renaissance’ he led would be
in serious jeopardy if he retired from the army. 21
The renaissance, however, in terms of tackling extremism, did not
amount to much. The military’s reluctance to make a clean break with
its traditional allies among radical Islamist groups, coupled with the
suppression of liberal political parties, left the country hostage to
extremist elements. Blinded by the demands of regime survival, the
military continued to patronize the religious right to counter its secular
and democratic opposition. Half-hearted measures, largely taken
under international pressure, totally lacked conviction. Musharraf’s
so-called vision of ‘enlightened moderation’ might have brought a
marked improvement in the country’s cultural atmosphere and won
him applause from the West, but that was where it ended. On most
key issues, he had backtracked under pressure from his own rightwing
allies and the mullahs. The much-touted education reforms
had long been stalled after top ruling party leaders and the MMA
strongly opposed changes in the school curriculum which inculcated
retrogressive ideology.
In December 2004, Parliament passed a bill mandating a stiffer
penalty in all cases where men killed female relatives on suspicion
of having illicit relations. But the legislation was so diluted as to be
ineffectual. The new rules did not outlaw the practice of the killer
being able to buy his freedom by paying compensation to the
victim’s relatives. They also allowed the victim’s family to pardon the
perpetrators. Since the killer was often a close family member himself,
he would invariably get amnesty. Human rights groups contended that,
because of loopholes in the laws, crime against women had risen.
In 2005, the government acquiesced to the demand of Islamic
radicals to include people’s religious affiliations in their passports. The
new passport not only identified the religion of every Pakistani, but
also his or her sect. Religious minorities feared the passport would
widen the sectarian divides that had plagued the country. Senior
government officials rejected the argument that Musharraf coddled
extremists, maintaining that the pace of reform was determined by the
1