PAKISTAN’S FUTURE IMPERILLED: an analysis
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
Pakistan - An Overview: Pakistan’s military President General
Pervez Musharraf termed the post-September 11, 2001 developments as the
most critical in Pakistan’s history. The tragic irony was that it
was the fallout of Islamic Jehadi terrorism attacks in the United States
that was critically affecting the Islamic nation conceived as a homeland
for the Indian Muslims. The tragedy was that out of the 40 million
Muslims in India at the time of partition only 8 million elected to
migrate to Pakistan. The experiment thus failed at its initiation.
Pre-September 11, 2001 United States political and strategic analysts
along with those from the Western world were terming Pakistan as a
"failed state" or "failing state". Some even
viewed it as a "rogue state" with nuclear weapon capable of
falling into the hands of Islamic Jehadis. A state is viewed as a
failed state when its political democratic processes, economic progress
and social cohesion disintegrate. Pakistan is in such throes.
Pakistan’s democratic experiments have constantly been waylaid and
overturned by Pakistan Army’s military rulers. General Musharraf
himself did so on October 12, 2001 and is now its self-styled
President. Pakistan’s economy on September 11, 2001 was in
tatters. The costs of creating the Taliban in Afghanistan and
payment of Taliban Administration salaries (see Ahmed Rashid "Taliban"
IB Tarus Publishers, New York p183); waging of proxy war in India’s
Jammu and Kashmir State through Islamic Jehadi mercenaries and the costs
of clandestine development of the nuclear bomb had rendered Pakistan
insolvent. Pakistan’s economic insolvency was a self-inflicted
injury and not a consequence of external causes.
Pakistan Army’s flirtations with Islamic fundamentalists both in
General Zia’s times and now under General Musharraf have broken down the
cohesion of the social fabric of Pakistan. On September 11, 2001
Pakistan presented a picture of a nation divided on sectarian grounds and
violence and increasingly being dominated by Islamic fundamentalists; its
economy failed and its social fabric torn.
Pakistan and Iqbal’s Prophecy: The poet Iqbal is nationally
revered in Pakistan after Mohammed Ali Jinnah, (its founder), as the one
who breathed life to the concept of Pakistan. Years before Pakistan
was founded, Iqbal had written a poem in which he addressed the then India
in dooms day terms. Iqbal’s prophecy of doom can today be
tragically and realistically applied after adaptation to Pakistan.
The Urdu version and the English translationare given herewith
"O, fikar kar bande
Mussibat aane wali hain
Teri barbadiyon ke
mashware hain
aasmanon mein,
Na samjhoge to mitt jaoge
Pakistan walon,
Tumhari daastan tak na
hogi daastanon mein."
-Iqbal
"Oh people of Pakistan, you should introspect as there are
prophecies of doom in the skies. If you do not understand these
signals and take remedial steps, your story will not exist in the stories
of mankind."
The portents of Pakistan’s prophecy of doom and which imperil its
future are many. Some of the more salient ones are analysed below.
Pakistan - A Polarised Nation: Pakistan today exists as a failed
state, polarised or divided on religious, ethnic, economic and social
grounds. The glue of Islam has not been able to hold it
together. Unlike other Arab or Islamic nations, unipolarity does not
exist in any field to provide a semblance of unity. The Pakistan
Army which claimed to have held the nation together so far is itself
polarised today.
Pakistan, despite its Islamic theocratic constitution is sharply
divided on religious grounds. Sectarian violence between the
majority Sunni and the numerically inferior Shias is an everyday
occurrence leading to loss of lives. The Ahmediyas are persecuted
and the Christians harassed on grounds of blasphemy. Post September
11, 2001, Christians in Pakistan stand massacred in church services by
Islamic terrorists. Post September 11, Islamic fundamentalism is
expected to become stronger and will add to Pakistan’s polarisation.
Pakistan has made no serious efforts to find solutions for its ethnic
divide in the last 53 years. Punjabi dominance is resented by Sind,
Baluchistan and the Pakthun (Pathans of Afghan origin) majority province
of NWFP. The current crisis in Afghanistan could fray Pakistan in
the western border provinces of Baluchistan and NWFP.
Economically and socially Pakistan stands polarised between a minuscule
highly rich segment with feudal mind sets and a vast majority deprived of
both economic and social mobility. The Islamic precept of equality
is invisible here. The masses below poverty line and lower middle
class, both adding up to about 65% provide a natural constituency for the
Islamic fundamentalists.
Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism: The rise of Islamic fundamentalism
in Pakistan can be attributed to three reasons: (1) Poor economic
conditions (2) Use as a political weapon (3) Fear of the Islamic "madrassas".
Pakistan’s economy subsists on foreign aid. No economic or
industrial advancement has taken place. The vast majority of
Pakistanis face economic and social uncertainties. This becomes a
fertile ground for flourishing of Islamic fundamentalism.
The Pakistan Army in particular and the limited and fractured polity
have both exploited Islamic fundamentalism as a political weapon to
further their interests. From 1970s the Pakistan Army had
consciously co-opted the Islamic fundamentalists as their "natural
allies" to discredit and oppose Pakistan’s political parties.
In this process the Army has been taken over by a Islamic fundamentalist
military hierarchy.
The Islamic "madrassas" have come to be feared by the
Pakistani establishment irrespective of its hues. These madrassas
are Islamic religious schools which propagate Islamic fundamentalism as
was found in the seventh century. The Afghan Mujahideen and the
Taliban were the products of these madrassas and so are the Islamic Jehadi
mercenaries sent by Pakistan’s ISI ( intelligence agency) into India for
terrorism and sabotage. These madrassas were given patronage by
every regime since General Zia and Islamic fundamentalism is the product.
Post September Islamic fundamentalism is likely to intensify and
threaten the existing political mechanisms.
The Culture of Terrorism: The culture of medieval terrorism has
become an all pervasive phenomenon in Pakistan today. This has
largely been promoted by successive Pakistan Government’s permissive
attitudes of using Islamic Jehadi terrorism as an instrument of state
policy particularly against India. Gen. Musharraf is on record
saying so. Even Islam is used to justify terrorism as the decision
that Islam imposes on its enemy. (See the "Quranic Concept of
War" by Brig. S.K.Malik of the Pakistan Army). The domestic fall-out
in Pakistan of its external sponsorship of the state sponsored terrorism
is that this culture of terrorism is now being used both in the political
fields and sectarian strife.
Post September 11, this culture of terrorism can obtain a boost both
domestically and against India. Domestically, Pakistan today is in
danger of another military coup or even a civil war as a result of
Musharraf’s grudging support of USA’s counter-terrorism
operations. In both these given situations, Pakistan itself could
become a victim of terrorism launched by fundamentalist forces against the
establishment.
Systemic Breakdown within Pakistan: The political institutions and
mechanisms in Pakistan stand destroyed. The Army is allergic to
democratic processes and any road map to return of democracy in 2002 will
not be the democracy in the liberalist sense but one of guided democracy
as dictated by the Pakistan Army.
The independence of the judiciary in Pakistan stands seriously muzzled,
once again by the Army. The Supreme Court stands packed with pliant
justices who give judgements not as per constitutional provisions but by a
perverse interpretation of those which suit the Army Generals.
The educational system at the formative levels is devoid of modern
liberalist and scientific educational schools of learning. Islamic
madrassas dominate Pakistan’s society run by Mullahs who reject
liberalism in any form as un-Islamic.
The disorder that is likely to follow in Pakistan as a spin off of post
September 11 policies is likely to throw Pakistan’s systemic structures
into further disintegration. This is likely to reinforce and
compound the existing systemic break down within the country.
United States Resuscitation of Pakistan- How long? Post September
11, the United States has announced economic and financial packages to
bail out the failing state of Pakistan. The moot question is- How
long the American resuscitation of Pakistan would last?
By all objective analyses, what emerges is that Pakistan’s
resuscitation would be limited, time wise, to the military engagement in
Afghanistan. Pakistan’s strategic utility to the United States in
this regard stands seriously questioned and analysed in my earlier papers
on this web site. United States has many other countries as
strategic alternatives for its Afghanistan related operations.
The United States was goaded by Pakistan’s spin doctors into
believing that a vast silent majority of Pakistan’s educated class was
with General Musharraf and his expedient policy of assisting the United
States. In the third week of American operations this silent
majority has visibly become vocal and anti-US as seen in the TV. It
will be prudent to analyse how long can the United States resuscitate
Pakistan, a nation which is virulently emerging as an anti-United States
country?
Prognosis: The prognosis for Pakistan is very basic and simple, but
something which all Pakistanis may find it difficult to digest. It
is a strange spectacle that even Pakistan’s strategic analysts with
ample exposure to western liberalism and liberalist principles are equally
obsessed with rigid mind sets as those of Islamic fundamentalists when it
comes to facing the basic challenges which have impelled their country to
a higher state of militarisation and whose consequences imperil its
future. These are:
* Implacable hostility to India
* Obsession with Kashmir
* Non-acceptance of South Asian asymmetry
* Misplaced faith in the support of external pressures.
The implacable hostility to India is not a post 1947 phenomenon.
Deep historical reasons of thousand years of Muslim sovereignty over India
is at the root. The four wars launched by Pakistan against India,
the decade old proxy war in Kashmir and ISI terrorism and sabotage right
down to South India and the North East are manifestations of this deep
rooted impulse. India can do very little here. Pakistan has to
find ways and seek solutions to overcome this hostility. One way is
to prevent the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. The Hindu atavistic
fear of the Muslim is no longer a reality.
Kashmir was never a dispute once the Instrument of Accession was signed
in 1947. On Pakistan’s premise, then the entire accession of over
500 Princely states to India are open to question. Pakistan’s
obsession with Kashmir is not based on religious grounds. It has
traditionally looked down on its Bengali Muslims once (Bangladesh now)and
looks down on Kashmiris too despite its official rhetoric. It does
not believe in "self determination". If it did, it would
have conceded "Greater Pakhtoonistan" to the Pakthuns residing
in NWFP. Even the Taliban challenges Pakistan on this.
Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir is fundamentally strategic. Kashmir
offers India the shortest military access to Islamabad. To give
strategic depth to the vital Rawalpindi-Islamabad-Kahuta area, Pakistan
must have Kashmir. Religious overtones are only a cover.
Pakistan has gone economically bankrupt trying in the last 53 years to
achieve political, military and strategic symmetry with India. India’s
asymmetry in South Asia in all fields is a geographical and historical
reality. Pursuing this aim, Pakistan stood partitioned in
1971. It did not succeed in its military aims in all the four wars
against India and its present confidence of nuclear symmetry with India is
unrealistic. Pakistan would have been an economically sound nation
today, if it had realised the futility of such aims.
Pakistan’s "failed state" status today can also be laid
heavily on the doorsteps of intrusive external powers in South Asia,
namely the United States and China. Both, in the last 53 years have
resorted to military build up of Pakistan as a strategic counter weight to
India without much success. Pakistan as a nation has to recognise
this reality, that neither United States nor China have stood by it when
as per its perceptions it needed them. In the process, sadly for
Pakistan, its will for developing self-reliance stood robbed by its
external dependence and diversion of scarce resources of its frail economy
to militarisation and nuclear weaponisation.
Conclusion: Pakistan’s future today, therefore, stands seriously
imperilled. Pakistanis patriotic and loyal to the nation of Pakistan
and not to Pan-Islamic and Islamic fundamentalists causes need to take
notice of the portents that spell doom. Pakistan’s acceptance of
its asymmetry within South Asia and giving up its Kashmir obsession would
not jeopardise Pakistan strategically and nor would its national interests
be compromised. India and Indians in general have no grand designs
to break-up or integrate Pakistan into India. The costs would be too
heavy for India economically and in terms of demographic
composition. This factor itself should induce confidence in Pakistan
that India logically could have no such designs on Pakistan.
India’s comparative progress with Pakistan in the last 53 years,
should illustrate that the processes of democracy and democratic
institutions, despite India’s multi-plurality and multi-ethnicity have
ensured the emergence of a politically mature and economically sound
state. Pakistanis serious about their nation need to ponder on the
economic costs of Pakistan’s militarisation, waging proxy war against
India and sponsorship of Islamic Jehadi terrorism.
Pakistan’s future stands imperilled today by the intrusive
participation of United States and China. United States periodically
and China constantly since 1962, have used Pakistan to achieve their own
strategic ends. Pakistan’s self reliance in the process was
bled. United States and China should lay-off South Asia and permit a
natural equilibrium emerge. South Asian problems can best be solved
within South Asia by South Asian themselves.
The Islamic world has hardly contributed much to the emergence of
Pakistan as a "bastion of Islam". Pakistan’s friends in
the Islamic world, who propagate pan-Islamism have only drawn back
Pakistan into medievalistic models of Islam prevalent in their
countries. The Pakistan of 1950s and 1960s would be hardly
recognisable today to its founders.
Pakistan post-September 11 needs deep introspection as to how to avert
an imperilled future. It needs men and women of vision not General
Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto. The policies and politics of Islamic
fundamentalism, pan-Islamism and Islamic Jehad would not retrieve Pakistan’s
imperilled future. These would only draw Pakistan into
Talibanisation and an abyss of irretrievable failure as a nation state.
If Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s dreams of Pakistan are not to go in vain
then finally, the poet Iqbal’s English version of his poem stated in the
beginning bears repetition
"Oh people of Pakistan, you should introspect as there are
prophecies of doom in the skies. If you do not understand these
signals and take remedial steps, your story will not exists in the stories
of mankind."
(Dr. Subhash Kapila is an International Relations and
Strategic Affairs analyst. He can be reached on e-mail for
discussion at esdecom@vsnl.com)
