‘Creating Anarchy in the Country’: The TLP’s New Challenges Under Saad Hussain Rizvi

‘Creating Anarchy in the Country’: The TLP’s New Challenges Under Saad Hussain Rizvi

Saad Hussain Rizvi is the emir, or chairman, of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a right-wing politico-religious party, which Pakistani authorities banned in April under the country’s anti-terrorism laws. In November 2020, Saad Rizvi succeeded his father Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi in the post. Khadim Rizvi was a firebrand cleric, who founded the TLP in 2015 mainly to defend the country’s blasphemy laws. Khadim Rizvi was an anti-blasphemy activist and campaigned for and organized the TLP around that central issue (The News, November 21, 2020).

Background

Before rising to become the TLP’s emir, the 26-year-old Saad Rizvi served as the party’s deputy secretary general. Saad studied at his father’s Abuzar Ghaffari madrassa, where he was the student of Islamist jurisprudence and the Quran. Mainstream media in Pakistan had not given prominent coverage to TLP leader Khadim Rizvi’s speeches and events, in which he criticized the leadership of various political parties and news organizations in Pakistan. Saad notably oversaw the party’s expansion on social media, increasing its presence online to propagate the speeches of his father Khadim Rizvi. Saad Rizvi taught the students of the madrassas how to use Twitter and considered the microblogging site an important platform for projecting the TLP’s message (Samaa tv, April 12).

Following His Father’s Legacy

Allama Rizvi died on November 19, 2020. He had reportedly been ill and was experiencing difficulty breathing along with a fever beginning the day before his death. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Lahore for his funeral. Thousands of his followers vowed to carry forward Rizvi’s mission under his son and successor Saad Rizvi. The TLP’s Shura (advisory body) elected Saad Rizvi as the party’s chief immediately after his father’s death. Saad Rizvi had been regularly seen at his father’s sit-ins in Islamabad and other areas of the country, where he protested any proposal to change the country’s blasphemy law. Days before his death, Khadim Rizvi held a protest demanding the closure of the French embassy and the expulsion of France’s ambassador from Pakistan (Dawn , November 21, 2020).

To end the TLP’s mass protests in November, the Pakistani government reached an agreement with Allama Khadim Rizvi on November 16, just a few days before his death. Under the agreement, the government promised to reach a decision by February 16 in parliament on deporting the French ambassador, cutting ties with France and boycotting French goods. The government also agreed to not appoint a new ambassador to Paris and to release all of the TLP supporters who were arrested during the November demonstrations. These two components of the agreement were immediately carried out. The deadline was extended to April 20 following a request from the government, which was accepted by the TLP. However, Saad Rizvi and the party were preparing to launch nationwide protests if this deadline was not met (Quora TV, April 12).

“Creating Anarchy in the Country”

Before the TLP could begin these protests, police preemptively arrested Saad Rizvi on April 12. He had released a video message that day calling on TLP supporters to mobilize and prepare to demonstrate, which immediately prompted his arrest (ThePrint.in, April 20). The mass protests supporting the anti-blasphemy laws squarely placed Saad within his father’s legacy. The demonstrations that resulted from his arrest caused a notable breakdown of law and order in most of Pakistan’s major cities. Normal life and business activities were brought to a grinding halt, as major roads and highways were blocked by TLP supporters (Dawn, April 12).

According to a senior police official, Saad Rivzi was detained as a “preemptive measure” to “maintain law and order,” following his call for new marches to force the expulsion of the French ambassador in protest over the French magazine Charlie Hebdo’s publication of blasphemous caricatures last September (Dawn, April 12). The TLP’s success in blocking roads and damaging public property across the country was widely viewed as embarrassing for the Pakistani government. Several policemen were killed, abducted and brutally beaten by TLP protesters during the violent demonstrations. Eleven police officers were taken hostage and over 580 were injured (ThePrint.in, April 20). Three TLP workers were also killed in clashes with the police during a countrywide crackdown on the activists (Dawn, April 18).

In response to the mass protests, on April 15, the government, led by Prime Minister Imran Khan, banned the TLP under its anti-terrorism laws. The government declared that it had “reasonable grounds to believe that the [TLP] is engaged in terrorism…” and that the party was “involved in creating anarchy in the country…” (Dawn, April 15). The move came after the country’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) and other security organizations designated the TLP as a terrorist organization (The News, April 16). After imposing the ban, the government expressed plans to disband the TLP, filing a suit in the country’s top court for the dissolution of the Islamist party (Express Tribune , April 19).

On April 17, Pakistani authorities placed Saad Rizvi on the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). This action froze all of Rizvi’s assets. His national identity card has been blocked and he is no longer able to conduct any bank transactions or sell or purchase any property. The government’s notification asked him to turn in his original passport to the police ( Geo TV April 17, 2021).

The demonstrations ended after the Pakistani government again accepted the group’s key demands, including submitting for debate in parliament a resolution calling for the expulsion of the French envoy and the release of Saad Rizvi (Dawn, April 20; Dawn, April 20). Rizvi, upon release, announced an end to the protests across the country (Express Tribune , April 20). Islamabad, however, refused to lift the ban on the TLP.

The government actually tried to tackle the new TLP’s leadership with force but its strategy backfired and the government had to accept the TLP’s demands. For Saad Rizvi, it is an uphill battle to replace his father or copy the unique style of Allama Rizvi.

Just a few months after taking over the TLP leadership, Saad is confronting enormous challenges, including the TLP’s survival after being declared a proscribed organization.

Barelvi School of Islamic Thought

The TLP belongs to the Barelvi school of Islamic thought, a Sunni Sufi revivalist movement within Hanafi Islam, though it follows an extremist interpretation. The party emerged in the 2018 elections as the most committed and militant of the Barelvi politico-religious parties and fielded candidates all over the country. Before the emergence of the TLP, only two parties represented the Barelvis—Sunni Tehreek (ST) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP). With his charisma, aggressive style and fiery speeches, Allama Rizvi quickly attracted people from all sections of society. He aggressively protested perceived disrespect to the Prophet of Islam committed on numerous occasions, notably following the October 2018 acquittal of Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian who was charged with blasphemy and freed, sparking massive protests. (Samaa tv April 12).

Conclusion

For Saad Rizvi, the challenge on the political front is even bigger, as he has to prepare for the next elections and mobilize the Barelvi vote all over the country. In the 2018 election, the TLP received 2.2 million votes, the fifth largest number. Despite substantial support at the polls, no TLP candidates won a seat in the National Assembly. It emerged as Pakistan’s third largest party, with 1.9 million votes in Punjab alone, the country’s largest province (The News , July 30, 2018). However, the mayhem unleashed on Pakistani roads and streets by party activists in April damaged the TLP’s image at home and abroad.

People in Pakistan are currently struggling to earn a living amid skyrocketing commodity prices and mounting poverty levels in the cash-strapped country. Economic opportunities are limited to begin with, and the actions of TLP protestors or those from other political or religious parties have often temporarily shut down the major cities, further damaging business. The violent protests are bound to erode popular support for the TLP in the 2023 elections.

“Blasphemy will never be tolerated,” said Saad Rizvi in his first address as emir of TLP (Urdu Point, November 21, 2020).

Blasphemy has long been a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan. Under the law, showing disrespect to the prophet of Islam or desecrating the Quran is a capital offence punishable by death. As demonstrated in the recent protests and the 2018 election, the TLP has millions of supporters and, despite the death of its founder Khadim Rizvi, it continues to demonstrate considerable street power and mobility in its cause of defending blasphemy laws. Saad Rizvi and his party’s actions in April shutdown many of the major cities in the country, providing the TLP emir a platform to continue his father’s legacy. Whether or not that will maintain, contract or expand the popular support for the TLP’s cause is now up to Saad Rizvi.