APPEASEMENT, sympathy, fear, complicity, connivance — whatever the name, the game the PML-N has played in Punjab on the sectarian front is a dangerous, depressingly expedient one. The recent Muharram violence in Rawalpindi followed by the day-time assassination of an ASWJ leader in Lahore on Friday are just the visible spikes in simmering sectarian tensions in the province. And, now that it is ruling Punjab for the sixth year in a row with another four to come, much of the blame must be laid at the door of the PML-N. The party publicly denies that it has any links to or tolerance for violent extremist organisations in its Punjab base, but privately admits that the links that do exist are a political and security necessity.

Given the expansive infrastructure of hate that centres around the mosque, madressah and social welfare network of some extremist organisations, the latter’s electoral and political influence have grown formidably over the years. The PML-N, like many other parties that have made similar Faustian bargains in the province, would like to pretend that it is only doing what is necessary to survive in a political climate that has been shaped for decades now by forces outside the politicians’ control. But that argument ignores two key points. First, as unquestionably the largest political force in the province, the PML-N in Punjab has unique responsibilities. If the politics of the province has been skewed over the years and extremism encouraged, it is the politicians who must lead from the front and offer a different — tolerant and inclusive — narrative and back it up with action. Forever lamenting the past while all too willingly adjusting to present-day distortions is not leadership; it’s the pusillanimous politics of defeat.

Second, allowing the embers of sectarian hatred to quietly glow out of sight in the hope that it will be enough to prevent an outright conflagration is precisely the myopic approach that has led the country into the downward spiral of violence and religious strife. The PML-N in Punjab today echoes the security establishment of decades past in its attempt to collude with the radical fringe for patently regressive reasons. Just as the security establishment has learned, at great cost to the country, that the monster of extremism eventually turns on its creators, so the PML-N may learn, at great cost to Punjab and beyond, that sidling up to and fawning over extremist groups only erodes the space for all other politics, including the PML-N’s own. It’s not too late to learn from history.