Across the past quarter century, religio-political actors have converted devotional authority into leverage over the state. Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), the successor to Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, have refined a playbook that mixes mass mobilisation with sectarian vetoes. When mainstream parties trade long-term state capacity for short-term calm, three outcomes follow: the rule of law erodes, economic costs rise, and Pakistan’s international standing suffers. The result is not collapse, but institutional stagnation.
TLP specialises in sit-ins and road blockades framed around blasphemy or the Ahmadi question. In November 2017, the Faizabad blockade forced the law minister’s resignation and ended in an agreement facilitated by intermediaries, including state agencies, as later noted by the Supreme Court in its Faizabad judgment of 6 February 2019. In 2021, the pattern repeated: a ban under the Anti-Terrorism Act on 15 April after lethal clashes, followed by de-proscription on 8 November after another agreement. In 2024, TLP again mobilised: on 23 February it led protests targeting the Chief Justice after an Ahmadi bail order; on 22 August the Supreme Court revised language in a related ruling and protests were called off.
JUI-F operates in Parliament while maintaining connections across the Afghan frontier. On 12 January 2024, party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman confirmed a meeting in Kandahar with Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada. A day earlier, Islamabad had publicly stated it was not interested in talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. This split-screen messaging diluted Pakistan’s leverage with Kabul and created ambiguity at home. It did not provide protection: Islamic State Khorasan Province bombed a JUI-F rally in Bajaur on 30 July 2023, killing scores.
Despite a violent sectarian pedigree documented by independent researchers, ASWJ’s leadership secured administrative relief ahead of the 2018 election. On 27–29 June 2018, Punjab authorities removed ASWJ chief Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi from the Fourth Schedule watch list, easing restrictions on movement and finance. Normalising a proscribed ecosystem into campaigning weakens deterrence and gives sectarian actors proximity to power.
The domestic consequences are evident. Pakistan suffered 521 terrorist attacks in 2024, with 852 deaths and 358 security or law enforcement personnel killed, a sharp year-on-year rise, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies report published on 1 January 2025. The permissive environment that tolerates coercive street politics is the same environment in which the TTP, ISKP and Baloch insurgent factions expand. Mob violence tied to blasphemy allegations undermines policing and judicial authority: on 20 June 2024 a mob stormed Madyan police station in Swat and killed a detainee; on 25 May 2024 a separate mob attack in Sargodha led to the death of 72-year-old Nazir Masih on 3 June. The National Commission for Human Rights recorded an increase from 11 blasphemy-related incarcerations in 2020 to 767 by mid-2024, with Punjab carrying most cases.
Pakistan’s higher courts have sought to draw boundaries. On 31 August 2005 the Supreme Court struck down core parts of the NWFP Hisba project aimed at state-led moral policing, warning that coercing religious observance exceeded constitutional limits and that only prayer and zakat obligations could be enforced by the state. Yet sustained agitation around blasphemy shows how quickly those boundaries blur once mobs are appeased and ministers resign to end sieges.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government allocated public grants in 2016 and 2018 to Darul Uloom Haqqania, defended as mainstreaming a hardline seminary widely dubbed internationally the “University of Jihad”
The economic costs are also documented. Protest lockdowns and internet disruptions carry measurable losses. Independent trackers placed Pakistan at or near the top of global shutdown losses in 2024. A widely cited Top10VPN estimate put losses at about 1.62 billion dollars, with the largest hit linked to the extended block on X; these are modelled figures using NetBlocks COST methodology. A separate ITIF analysis, also model-based, estimated 2024 losses at about 892 million dollars and cited daily loss estimates of roughly 53 million dollars for a full national shutdown and around 4 million dollars for application-specific blocks. Pakistan’s software exporters separately warned in August 2024 that firewall-linked disruptions could cost up to 300 million dollars.
The external repercussions are visible in market access and reputation. On 29 April 2021, the European Parliament warned that misuse of blasphemy laws and mob violence could imperil GSP+ trade preferences that underpin key exports. The 2025 assessment by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom again urged heightened scrutiny because of impunity for vigilante violence and anti-Ahmadi enforcement. Buyers and banks read these signals as risks.
Each time crowds demand an ambassador’s expulsion or an apex court revises language under pressure, interlocutors in Brussels, Paris and Washington register that coercive religious mobilisation can override institutions. That undermines progress on trade, investment and security simultaneously.
Mainstream parties have enabled this veto. The immediate trigger for Faizabad was a drafting error in the Elections Act. The government restored the Khatam-e-Nabuwwat declaration, then conceded the law minister’s resignation under siege and concluded an accord. Several PML-N legislators resigned at Khatam-e-Nabuwwat events that winter. Short-term survival encouraged others to adopt similar tactics.
PTI’s record is mixed. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government allocated public grants in 2016 and 2018 to Darul Uloom Haqqania, defended as mainstreaming a hardline seminary widely dubbed internationally the “University of Jihad”. Federally, PTI banned TLP on 15 April 2021 and de-proscribed it on 8 November 2021 after a deal. The combination of seminary funding and reversible proscription weakened deterrence, even as the state moved toward FATF compliance.
PPP’s choices also had consequences. In April 2009 the PPP-led centre enacted the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation for Malakand to pacify Swat through Sharia-labelled courts; militants soon expanded and the army returned. In February 2011, PPP MP Sherry Rehman withdrew efforts to rationalise blasphemy law procedures after her party declined to back reform amid threats. Conciliation presented as accommodation did not stabilise the frontier and signalled that reform on faith issues was politically off limits.
Today sectarian competition has made some Muslims a threat to other Muslims, while minorities face sustained intimidation that pushes them to the margins of civic life
The dynamic is straightforward. When sit-ins and threats secure resignations or textual edits from apex courts, constitutional decision-making is replaced by a street veto. The Faizabad judgment warned against this outcome; repeated deals entrenched it. Blasphemy mobs now raid police stations and attack detainees, which makes prosecutors and judges see personal risk in straightforward case management. Due process withers and religion is misused as a political instrument rather than advanced through moral persuasion. Sectarian rhetoric then creates space for groups that strike Shia, police and political rallies.
The 2024 totals, the concentration of violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, and the Bajaur bombing of a JUI-F rally show that blowback does not respect party lines. Lockdowns and shutdowns further damage exports and services and unsettle clients already attentive to FATF compliance and connectivity reliability. Investors translate frequent politically triggered shutdowns into a governance discount. When governments and courts appear to yield under pressure and vigilante impunity persists, the case for trade preferences and favourable risk ratings weakens. The reputational damage to Islam’s public image is collateral: a faith presented in the public sphere as linked to force rather than to justice and restraint.
The remedies are not anti-religion; they are pro-law. Apply Faizabad without exception: no secret accords under duress, no negotiators outside civilian chains of command, and visible prosecution of organisers of violent blockades. Enforce anti-lynching protocols: immediate protective custody, site control, fast-tracking of ringleaders in special courts and penalties for false accusation; publish conviction statistics to restore deterrence.
Close the revolving door by ensuring that if an entity is proscribed, its aliases and fronts cannot contest elections or strike seat adjustments; Fourth Schedule removals should pass a transparent test tied to de-radicalisation metrics, not electoral timing. Stop seminary subsidy politics by redirecting public money to accredited, audited religious education within national curricula and oversight. Protect export credibility by aligning domestic responses to religio-political agitation with the compliance narrative presented to Brussels and Paris. A country cannot ask for GSP+ while signalling that crowds can set policy.
The state of Pakistan must think and act. It should take practical measures to protect Islam from those who instrumentalise it and uphold the state’s responsibility to reflect Islam’s core teachings of justice, honesty, restraint and the sanctity of life. That duty sits alongside a constitutional obligation to guarantee freedom of worship for Muslims and for citizens of other faiths. Pakistan was created as a democratic state with a Muslim majority, not as a marketplace for coercion. Today sectarian competition has made some Muslims a threat to other Muslims, while minorities face sustained intimidation that pushes them to the margins of civic life. A reset is overdue: protect belief by protecting the law, end the rewards for coercion, and rebuild a republic where every citizen can worship freely and live without fear.