The root of Pakistan’s problems: A Viewpoint

By S.P.SETH

For some years now Pakistan has been getting a lot of international attention but for the wrong reasons. It is fighting the Taliban but without being sure of its strategic rationale. Hence, it’s on off deals with the militants, while still keeping up the military pressure, have not borne fruit.

The lack of strategic clarity is at the root of lots of Pakistan’s problems. Pakistan is a country with great potential. But this potential has been squandered by its leadership, sadly lacking in a coherent vision or blueprint for the country. In other words, Pakistan has been badly served by its leaders.

Because its political leadership failed to develop self-sustaining constitutional processes (a working democracy), it enabled the country’s military leadership to subvert an imperfect political system.

Not only that. The army generals even acted like they were the country’s saviors. Indeed, when the political rot reached its stinking worst (with large scale corruption and a political culture of impunity), the people of Pakistan did believe, at times, that the generals were their best bet.

But, by God, the generals proved as self-aggrandizing as the politicians they overthrew or co-opted. In other words, Pakistan went on in circles, with its establishment (political as well as military) forsaking the country’s good for their own gratification.

And the process continues. Some commentators believe that the proposed devolution of political power to the Prime Minister in cabinet might herald a change.

But this is deceptive. The dominance of the army in the country’s political culture, whether directly running the country or in the background, is too much a fact of life in Pakistan

In the midst of all this, it is the people of Pakistan that are paying a high price, with increasing poverty, high unemployment, loss of social cohesion and so on. The allocation of financial resources, both budgetary and in terms of foreign aid (largely from the United States), were disproportionately diverted to the army and even lined the pockets of those entrusted with national good.

No wonder that the Taliban has become the recruiting ground for many Pakistanis, who have lost faith in the country’s leadership and what is left of its governing system.

Two basic requirements for any credible governance are the physical and economic security of people at a minimal level. And on both of these counts, Pakistan is under terrible strain. In some areas, like the tribal belt and parts of NWFP, militants seem to operate at will. Even Lahore is now prone to random attacks.

The military obviously reacts to such violence with its own operations. Which tends to only compound the situation. The military operations in Swat, and now in the tribal belt, are a colossal tragedy in terms of displacement of civilian population and civilian casualties, whether through US drone operations or the army’s action.

And the result of these on-off operational activities is that more and more people are losing confidence in the state’s capacity to deal with the militants. There seems to be a growing sense of helplessness among people caught in the middle.

The dominance of the army in Pakistan’s national affairs, since almost independence, has had the effect of narrowing the country’s national perspective. As Ahmed Rashid wrote in the New York Review of Books last year, “The army has always defined Pakistan’s national security goals. Currently it has two strategic interests: first, it seeks to ensure that a balance of terror and power is maintained with respect to India, and the jihadis are seen as part of this strategy.”

Rashid goes on, “ Second, the army supports the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against US withdrawal from Afghanistan and also against Indian influence in Kabul, which has grown considerably.”

Indeed, a perceived threat from India has been a constant. Which has had the effect of elevating the army’s role in national affairs, and distorting and skewing the country’s national priorities.

The national security thus came to be seen largely as a function of the army and its weaponry. But a country’s national security is much more than military hardware. For a country to feel secure and confident, it needs a secure economic base with a blueprint for the future.

This has been sorely lacking, thus making Pakistan subordinate to the strategic objectives of external powers, principally the United States. Since the fifties, it has been tied up, willingly or unwillingly, with the US strategy in our part of the world, first, against the Soviet Union and now as part of the US war against the Taliban/terrorism.

But it is important to note that, by and large, Pakistan joined the Western alliance system for its own strategic reasons. Which is to secure political, military and economic assistance from the United States to strength its position against a perceived security threat from India.

But it didn’t quite work like that. It never does in a dependency situation. In the bargain, though, it compromised its sovereignty to the policy dictates of the United States.

This dependence on the United States also distorted its internal polity. The often-heard cliché that there are three dominant elements in Pakistan’s polity: Allah (religion), military and the United States (its order varying according to prevailing situation), might be an over-simplification. But, like all cliché, this too has some truth to it.

For instance, the execution of Prime Minister Bhutto in the seventies, most likely, would have created a strong reaction from the United States. But General Zia-ul Haq was becoming an important US ally in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And in some fundamental ways Pakistan’s polity took a turn toward an extreme version of Islam, which is haunting the country to this day.

There is a need for a complete re-think of Pakistan’s national ethos, with more emphasis on the needs of people rather than the self-aggrandizement of its leaders. If people can be galvanized into a national movement to re-define the country’s charter, Pakistan will be a reckonable country.

It will also channel people’s energies into a constructive enterprise, as against the mayhem being inflicted by the extremists and militants.

It is a tall order. But without a new beginning, Pakistan is likely to keep going in circles until it has no way to reclaim its national identity.

Note: This article was first published in Daily Times, 28 April, 2010