COMMENT: What hope for Pakistan?

By S.P.SETH

Pakistan’s vulnerability is not so much from terrorism and militancy but from its failure, since its birth in 1947, to give the country a positive identity. It was created because the Muslim League, the party that led the movement for a separate state, felt that Muslims would not be secure in an independent India with its majority Hindu population. Conceived negatively as a counter to independent India, it sought its identity by regarding India as a hostile, if not an enemy state.

What followed thereafter is well known. Much of Pakistan’s budget and energy were directed toward building up its armed forces and creating political and military alliances to counter a perceived Indian threat.

Not surprisingly, the armed forces and its generals also became the political masters of the country. The interests of the army and the nation became synonymous. With the generals hogging the limelight and pushing army’s interests to the fore, nothing was done to build up the nation in any sustainable way in terms of institution-building, economic, social and educational advancement.

And since India was the identifiable enemy, the militias and Jihadi groups that sprung up during the Afghani struggle against the Soviet Union, were turned on India in the Kashmir region. The Pakistani army and its intelligence services believed that since these militias were its own creation, it would always be able to direct and control them.

But that is not what happened. When Pakistan came under pressure from the US to eradicate terrorists operating both in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan, Islamabad found that the monster of terrorism they had created was now getting ready to devour the army and the Pakistani state.

Not until very recently, important elements in the armed forces were still hesitant to completely abandon the militias and the Talibans. They argued that the United States would soon be worn out in Afghanistan, unable to carry out its mission. In that case, it would be forced out of Afghanistan. And give Pakistan an opportunity to revive their old links with the militants for use against India and the frail state of Afghanistan.

In other words, even in the midst of worst militant violence, Pakistan’s army remained hesitant to go all out against its terrorist outfits. India still remained the enemy that might have to be dealt with.

There is some realization now that the militant Islamic forces that the armed forces spawned once have turned into a horrible monster. Hence, the military’s operations to clear them out of Swat valley and elsewhere in the tribal region.

But it is all happening too little too late. Such haphazard military operations, causing so much suffering and pain for the civilian population, tends to only compound the problem.