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Pakistan:
The Stark Realities
Romeet
Kaul Watt
The
article was first published by The
Frontier Post,
Peshawar, Pakistan. It analyses the post January 12 scenario that
was likely to emerge in Pakistan.
During
the American Revolution, when the work of the courts was disrupted,
a public-spirited citizen called Charles Lynch took charge of law
and order as an unofficial Justice of Peace in Bedford County,
Virginia. General Musharraf, the self-proclaimed Junta ruler of
Pakistan, in his post January 12 speech has assumed the role of
“Lynch Law” enforcer, set out to initiate remedial measures to
bring to order the Pakistani society, a task of gigantic and
Herculean proportions. For a State that has experienced 24 years of
military rule in 52 years of nationhood, the process of transition
from a radical Islamic State to a ‘progressive democratic
republic’ will not be an easy one.
The
law and order in Pakistan has been in the state of anarchy and
pandemonium, a problem that emerged and evolved out of the
Theo-fascist tendencies of the Pakistani rulers, who have over the
period of time experimented with various forms of governance,
largely at the expense of its own people. Says Pratap Mehta,
Professor at JNU, “Pakistan was, during much of the last two
decades, in the impossible situation that it could neither endure
its condition, nor the means of changing it. It tried everything to
no avail; authoritarian rule, democracy, religious fundamentalism
and military dictatorship.”
Pakistan,
unlike India doesn’t have equal dispensation of power amongst its
ethnic population, a factor that has been responsible for the
growing resentment among sections of society, who feels marginalized
in the day to affairs of the country. Mani Shankar Aiyer in his
book, Pakistan Papers, writes, “Pakistan after separation of East
Pakistan, may be geographically cohesive than the Pakistan of the
yore, but all the other fissiparous forces remain: language and
culture divide the Punjabi from the Sindhi; the Baluch from the
Pathan, and equally each of them from the other; the vexed question
of a unitary or a federal or a confederal constitution runs like a
rift valley through the polity of the country.”
The
ethnic and religious schism within Pakistan threatens the
cohesiveness (single religion), which has been the basis of the
formation of Pakistan. Says a former Indian diplomat, “the
votaries of Islamic Pakistan are pitted against those who say a
Pakistani may be a Muslim but a Muslim’s relations with God are no
concern of the state; worse, those who wand an Islamic state
bitterly fight each other about which school of Islam – the Wahabi
or the Brehelvi or the Deobandi -------. The Nationhood of Pakistan
remains as elusive a chimera as it ever was.”
The
social and political reach of the Theo-fascist forces in Pakistan
has scaled new heights with the aid of state sponsorship. Professor
K N Pandita, a known strategic analyst, believes that these forces
have ideologically integrated with their counterfoils in the Islamic
world and also with the strong Muslim Diaspora in the West. He says,
“Pakistan is wearing alternatively the mask of Democracy, martial
law administration or theocratic dispensation. She is a moderate
Islamic democracy to the West, a staunch Sunni-Wahabi pro-monarchy
theocracy to the Saudis, a progressive, liberal and scientific
Muslim state to the Central Asians, the only sympathetic fraternity
to the Indian Muslims, and the milk and honey flowing cherished
haven for the Kashmiri Muslims.” Pakistan seeks to identify itself
with West Asia and knowingly undermine the significance of the
subcontinent as a strategic entity.
Pakistan,
over the years has clearly demonstrated its inability to set itself
free from the quagmire of fundamentalist tendencies, a factor
responsible for the rise of militant activities in Pakistan.
Commenting on the sorry state of affairs in his country, a Pakistani
columnist in his article,
‘A
City Without Leadership’ in Nation says, “The ethnic and
religious schisms have still not been successfully exploited by
those interested in Pakistan’s destruction but they can be unless
we bind ourselves together and create conditions where terrorism can
never be nurtured let alone have places of sanctuary to operate from
only sound, mature governance that must equally exploit both the
carrot and the stick to create a conducive environment that will
allow the citizens of this city to breathe the Pakistani air with
freedom.”
A
State like Pakistan is characterized by an overriding concern with
domestic security threats and by insufficient political and societal
consensus to enable them to eliminate the large-scale use of force.
Nobel laureate V S Naipaul, in his book, Among the believers, throws
light on the dominant role of the army in the domestic affairs of
Pakistan. He observes, “In the new state only the armed forces
flourished. They were seen first as defenders, and possible
extenders, of the Islamic state. Then it became apparent that they
were the state’s only organized group. They become masters, a
country within a country. The armed forces were mainly of the
Northwest, with the cultural prejudices of the Northwest; in time
they found they forced the eastern wing of Pakistan into secession
as Bangladesh.”
We
must also recognize that Pakistan will accommodate itself to the
wishes of its external benefactors because it is too small and
unimportant to be truly non-aligned. Uncle Sam has played a
significant role in transforming Pakistan into a Radical Islamic
state, primarily to safeguard its interests in the region. Says Dr
Parvez Hoodbhoy of the Quide-Azam University, “The lack of scruple
and the pursuit of power by the United States combined fatally with
this tide in Muslim world in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan. Radical Islam went into overdrive as its superpower
ally and mentor funneled support to the mujahadeen.”
The
costs and the consequences of the American Imperialistic tendencies
has been articulated by Chalmers Johnson, a known critic of the
American foreign policy, in his critically acclaimed book, Blowback.
He observes, “The bombing of Afghanistan will certainly produce
unintended negative consequences throughout the Islamic and
underdeveloped worlds. Moderate Muslim governments, especially in
the Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan, will almost certainly face
growing internal dissent and may be overthrown. America has played
its role by funneling money through I S I, which has taken lead
since 1982 in recruiting the radical Muslims to come to Pakistan,
receive training, and fight on the Afghanistan side, in its fight
against the erstwhile USSR.”
Doubtless
India and Pakistan are separate geographical entities. But, then, is
it fair to undermine the legacy of their shared past and collective
memories? On the contrary, many in Indian, according to a senior
analyst, feel that the anti-Indianism is so much at the core of its
identity that it is difficult to imagine that anti-India sentiments
will not reassert itself in Pakistan after a while.
Many
in India believe that Pakistan would have to under a radical
transformation as a result of the war against terrorism. The reform
process initiated by General Parvez Musharraf, in the opinion of
many analysts, will require support from the Indian establishment,
something that is not forthcoming in the present scenario. The
former chief of the Intelligence Bureau, M K Narayanan says,
“Musharraf’s sleigh-of hand policies is seen as a manifest
attempt by a Muslim leader to posit a real challenge to the radical
political Islam, one that goes well beyond merely regulating mosques
and madrssas and the one that deserves to be fully backed.” The
Indian establishment has also to come in terms with the ground
realities; a senior strategic analyst says, “a weak and
self-doubting Pakistan is trouble for us and it is dangerous to
harbour the illusion that many in India share, that Pakistan can
somehow be broken up.”
General
Musharraf spent seven years of his childhood in Turkey – one of
the world’s most secularized Muslim countries and is known to have
learned to speak Turkish. So, it is not much of a surprise that the
General seeks to take leaf out of Kemal Ataturk’s book, in
separating the mosque and state. He has the additional advantage of
having the backing of Uncle Sam and the rest of the international
community. Musharraf has the distinction of being the first leader
of Pakistan who has followed the footsteps of the founder of
Pakistan.
However,
his critiques see him as the architect of Kargil, and the man who
rubbished the Lahore Declaration. Many in India believe that the
General has been clever enough to create fresh space for himself to
manoeure; an Indian rope-trick on India. However the General has
received accolades, especially from the International community, for
his decision to withdraw
state sponsorship of militant Islamists. However, many feel that
there is an urgent need of a stable political framework, something
that is unlikely to emerge if, through administrative manoeures,
the key segments
of Pakistani society continue to be excluded from the power
structure.
Husain
Haqqani, who has served both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif,
believes that the process of reforms in Pakistan is incomplete
without a process, which will ensure free judiciary, non-political
civil service or a non-interfering military.
In
his paper titled, Pakistan’s Madrassas: Ensuring a System of
Education not Jehad, P W Singer, foreign policy studies fellow at
Brookings Institute, says that any direct operation against the
schools themselves could undermine the military’s unity and hence,
its role as a bulwark of the secular Pakistani state. He further
observes: “even if Pakistani government was willing to make such
an aggressive step at this time of tension, any such direct move
against the schools could potentially backfire and hasten the
collapse of the Pakistani state.” Many will argue that the paper
has gone into a pessimistic over-drive but one thing is certain that
Pakistan has to be “purged of fundamentalism just as Gemany was
denazified and Japan was demilitarized.”
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