Talking with a Troubled State:
Indo– Pak relations
Since partition Pakistan’s foreign policy
has been pegged on implacable hostility towards India using
Kashmir as a convenient issue. The history of Indo-Pak relations does
not inspire the feeling that the relations between the two would get any
closer even if the Kashmir issue is settled to the complete satisfaction
of the Pakistanis (Read merger of Kashmir with Pakistan). New issues like
status of Muslims in India would be used by Pakistan to keep the pot
boiling. The Amir of Markaz Dawat al – Irshad , Prof Hafiz Mohammed
Saeed, was not far wrong when he was quoted by the Pakistani paper Nation
(Nov 4) of having said that the Lashkar Tayyaba the militant wing of the
Markaz would not rest after freeing Kashmir but would go ahead to
help the Muslims of India to save them from the cruelties being
perpetrated on them by the Hindus. In other words, Kashmir is only the
gateway and India is the real target. Dawat’s involvement in
terrorist acts in Kashmir is well known and based on evidence collected by
the U.S..
Meaningful negotiation with Pakistan would remain
a mirage till the very nature of that society and its psyche changes.
Feudalism is still prevalent widely where the elite keeps the dispossessed
in a state of religious stupor equating India with Hinduism. The golden
opportunity that rose in the last decade or so to establish a civilian
democracy was frittered away with both the civilian PM’s facing serious
allegations of amassing wealth during office, with millions stashed in
Swiss bank s and palatial houses in foreign locales. The Accountability
Bureau of Pakistan has said that it has unearthed Rs.235.71 million worth
of assets belonging to Benazir Bhutto and Rs.5021 million belonging to
Asif Zardari, her husband. The couple had apparently paid an incredibly
low tax equivalent to $680. The present P.M’s industrial group is
reported by the Pakistani press to have grown from a paltry $5.4 million
when he first took office in 1991 to $217 million to day.
The country is facing dire economic and social
problems. On Oct 15 the Paris based Geopolitical Drug watch (OGD) labelled
Pakistan as a Narco state where drug traffickers, politicians, senior
officials and members of the military are entangled in an intricate web of
illegal narcotics related activities. It averred that it had proof that
narcotics play a critical geo - strategic role in Pakistan’s foreign
policy and domestic affairs, ”frequently serving to aggravate regional
and ethnic conflicts”. According to it, many of the country’s most
powerful people are known to be deeply involved in the production,
transformation and trafficking of narcotics. Various Pakistani
intelligence services, in particular Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)
continue to use drug money to finance the work of fundamentalist
organisations. It also cautioned that the economic sanctions could make
recourse to drug money more tempting than ever. The first world drug
report launched by United Nations Drug Control Programme pointed out that
the trend of domestic opiate consumption is significantly higher in
Pakistan than the domestic cultivation and production. According to it the
no. of drug and heroin addicts in the country number 3.7 million, which is
reported to be the highest in the developing world. Bernard Frahi
the UN international Drug control Program representative in Pakistan said
on July 23 that Pakistan was the top heroin consuming country in the
world. About 54 % of the drug users fall in 26 - 30 years group.
Added to this is the availability of illegal arms
in plenty providing the necessary input for debilitating social conflicts.
Darra Adamkhel in North West Frontier Province, according to the
provincial Govt. itself, is Asia’s biggest arms market. They had asked
the federal govt. to suggest a package for upgrading this industry and
regularising it! The bulk of arms according to an official go to Sindh
where a fratricidal conflict between the Sindhis and the Mohajirs (muslim
migrants from India) is raging. The federal govt. finds it convenient to
blame it all on India or its intelligence agency! They are unwilling to
face the fact that the situation is a direct consequence of enjoying the
status of a front line state under the Americans during the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan.
The civil service in Pakistan, an arm of the
govt. which could have played a crucial role towards stability in the
society when the political situation is unstable, is itself a target of
criticism of indolence and corruption. The World Bank in its report of
Sept. 1998 on civil service reforms in Pakistan has highlighted rampant
politicisation, wide spread corruption, over centralised organisational
structure, lack of accountability and inter service rivalries as the main
flaws.
The legislatures also leave a lot to be desired
in the quality of their members. The World Bank pointed out that an
analysis of the Pakistan’s Central Board of Revenues indicated that out
of legislators elected in 1993, 66 senators, 73 members of the National
assembly and 80 members of the provincial legislatures did not file a tax
return or did not pay any tax.
The statistics of social development presents a
dismal picture. The Economic survey for 1997- 98 mentions that in 1992-93
22.3% had income below poverty level a 5%rise from 1987-88. Sultan
Mehmood senior fellow at National Inst. of population studies) mentioned
in a recent meeting that thirty seven million people (out of a population
of 130 million) live below the poverty line. 40% of rural population have
no electircity, 47% of the rural population is without safe drinking water
whereas 80 % of the rural populace is without sanitation facilities.
On the financial sector the picture is bleak. The
govt. informed the senate on Dec 18 that the bad loans of banks and
development financing institutions had mounted to a colossal Rs.153
billion in June 1998.
Pakistani economy which was in no great
shape ever saw a deep decline after its nuclear blasts in May
1998.Sancitons imposed have resulted in the over all economic growth
declining to 3 % in 1999 from 5.3 % in 1998. (IMF report). The
inflation is expected to cross double-digit mark and reach 10.7 % in 1999.
The combined external and internal debt stood at more than 95% of the
national output.
Pakistan’s ability so far to adopt the “
parity with India which is the only foe “ foreign policy was pegged on
the availability of U.S support to a so called front line state during the
cold war days. With the fall of the Berlin wall and withdrawal of the
Soviets from Afghanistan and the cataclysmic collapse of the Soviet Union.
Pakistan’s utility as a front line state is over. Hence the corrupt and
feudalistic civilian dispensation has lost the support of the U.S.and has
further alienated the U.S by openly defying the latter’s
non-proliferation agenda. The result has been crippling sanctions and fast
deteriorating economy. Nawaz Sharief ‘s visit to the U.S. brought home
this bitter truth. The Americans told the visiting P.M that “additional
and concrete steps “are needed before sanctions can be removed. In other
words roll back nuclear program and get Afghanistan to hand over Osama Bin
Laden the most wanted man in the U.S. for the U.S. embassy bombings in
Africa.
Placed in such desperate situation, the regime is
resorting to imposing a Quranic regime little realising that it would only
strengthen the Mullahs with obscure notions. The Americans seem to have
realised this danger and tried to bolster Nawaz Sharief's otherwise
dwindling credibility by returning some of the money Pakistan paid for the
undelivered F-16s and promise of returning the rest through sale of
commodities. Pakistan meekly accepted this even without the interest due,
after proclaiming for months that they will go to the court.
Pakistan thus still clings to the belief that the U.S. still remains its
only saviour in its disputes with India and hence nothing should be done
to antagonise them further after the nuclear bravado.
Notwithstanding their championing the cause of
the Muslims in India, Pakistani society itself is riven today with
sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shias. The emigrants from India
called Mohajirs, who went to Pakistan with hopes of living securely in an
Islamic nation, are today targets of discrimination and attack. The
Mohajirs who held on to Pakistani Islamic ideology and hence believed in
equal citizenship with the locals, changed after the mid 80s and demanded
being accepted as the fifth nationality. The Sindhis on their part started
talking of Sindhi nationality and even separatism. The conflict with the
Mohajirs has been rendering Karachi, one of the key commercial centres of
Pakistan ,asunder. The Muttahida Quami movement (MQM) representing the
over 22 million Mohajirs alleges genocide and has sought the attention of
the U. N. Secy. Gen. towards the gross human rights violation
against them which include arbitrary arrests, torture, deaths in custody,
and extra judicial executions of the MQM members ( The military courts
established in Karachi are now given powers to impose life imprisonment or
death.)
The dismal picture of Pakistan’s polity
has a direct bearing on India’s security. An unstable Pakistan
unable to solve its internal problems finds it easy to escape into
conflicts with India on one issue or the other. Talking to this troubled
state in this condition would lead India no where. It would be necessary
for U.S. and other countries who can influence Pakistan to persuade the
latter to put conflict issues with India like Kashmir in the back burner (
a suggestion which had earlier come from the Chinese leaders) and
concentrate on economic and social problems facing the country , ideally
in partnership with India. When the two countries have developed enough to
provide a decent standard of living to its citizens , both would be
better placed to find solutions to problems between
them. Too much would be at stake then to go to war . A look at post
world war history of Western Europe should be a pointer in
this direction.
S.GOPAL
21-01-99
(Shri. Gopal is a former Special
Secretary of the Cabinet Secretariat.)
