In the predawn hours of a recent October morning, more than 10,000 riot police and paramilitary troops swept through the streets of a small city on the outskirts of Lahore, seeking to end a cycle of violence and capitulation that had dictated the tempo of Pakistan’s democracy for years. Their target? Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), a hardline Islamist movement that repeatedly paralysed major cities with its deadly protests, forced ministers into humiliating retreats and wielded the country’s...