Pakistan in perpetual crisis

S P SETH

Pakistan is in a state of perpetual crisis. Its political theatre has the appearance of a long running drama that seems familiar, almost going back to the country’s birth. There is the usual manufactured rage of its lead political characters, promising to put the country on its rightful course if only they were given a chance to govern. And each time they make a mess of it, starting the same game all over again. In the late-fifties, the army chipped in to rescue the country from the sordid game of politicians. Many people felt a sense of relief, believing that the army would fix up things and put the country on its forward trajectory. But, lo and behold, it didn’t take long for the generals to become adept at the political game themselves, including making money, lots of it, from this new political lottery. Since then everyone, who is anyone, in Pakistan has his/her finger in the cookie jar to make the most of it. Therefore, when everyone is compromised, almost everyone, the easiest way is to become self-righteous and attack others for political thuggery and all that goes with it.

There was a change for the worse, if one can imagine it, towards the late-seventies when the then military chief, Zia ul-Haq, staged a coup against then- Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and subsequently managed to secure his judicial execution. The military, which till then had been known to usurp power and rule by decree, now seemed also to have the power of life and death over the country’s highest elected leader, if they so wished. In other words, the supremacy of military over civilian order was so brazenly established that military rule directly, or behind the scenes, is now a sad fact of life in Pakistan. Another thing happened under Zia, which was even more pernicious. He gave the country a turn to religious conservatism and orthodoxy, which further legitimized and even entrenched the role of Islamic politics. It is true that electorally religious parties were not as significant but their significance and influence socially and culturally became quite pervasive.

And this was happening even as Pakistan, under Zia, became increasingly enmeshed in the Cold War politics of the eighties centred on Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. Pakistan became the frontline state for the US-led western bloc, which used religion (Islam) to prop up the Mujahidin in a crusade against god-less communist invaders from the Soviet Union. With money and weapons pouring in from the US, as well as from Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan performing a coordinating role of sorts, the Soviet army was bogged down and then finally withdrew, even as the Soviet Union was crumbling. But in the meantime, Afghanistan’s feuding groups of Islamic militants turned on each other until the Pakistan-supported Taliban prevailed and the new, still truncated Afghanistan, became Islamabad’s strategic backyard, or so it was thought. But it was still too early to be complacent, as Taliban sheltered al Qaeda and its leadership that had incubated during the Mujahidin struggle against the Soviet forces. And they were to make or break history with the al Qaeda-inspired 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Zia’s stewardship of Pakistan changed the internal dynamics of Pakistan’s politics and society by making religion and religious politics much more relevant. The role of the Mujahidin crusade against the Soviet army, and the rise of Taliban in Afghanistan with Pakistan’s support, led to the rise of militant Islam of which the Pakistani version of Taliban was most telling, with disastrous results. And with the army involved deeply in sponsoring and promoting different militant groups, it became part of the violent culture that spawned Pakistan, as well as the target of those it opposed. The army had obviously reckoned that different militant groups it had sponsored would follow its writ. And some did but others, like the Taliban in Pakistan, wanted to play their own game, which brought them into violent confrontation with the army currently being played out in North Waziristan. While the current government sought to open up peace negotiations with the Taliban leadership, even as the army was militarily engaged against them, the military leadership was not amused. And this created tensions between the Nawaz Sharif Government and the army high command. Coincidentally or by design, the opposition started to get cozy with the army and started a mass movement to bring down the government, accusing it of having rigged the 2013 elections. The army chief found himself in the middle of it all as a mediator but, eventually, decided to hold back for the time being at least. As things stand, a military coup cannot be ruled out, which will further complicate things.

Going back a little, when the Taliban-sheltered al Qaeda became the ideological centre of a global Islamic militancy and brought on the wrath of the United States on Afghanistan after 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US soil, Pakistan’s then-dictator, Pervez Musharraf, found himself aligned, willingly or unwillingly, in the US’ war on terror. Despite this, the top leadership of the Taliban still found refuge in Pakistan from where they are still operating. In other words, while Pakistan was a US ally in the war on terror, it had not altogether ditched the Taliban. Which led to US accusation of Islamabad playing both sides. Therefore, US-Pakistan relationship was marked by deep suspicion and distrust. And after the US commando attack killed Osama bin Laden sheltering in Abbottabad, the relationship virtually reached a breaking point. Though things have improved somewhat, but the US’ drone strikes continue to plague their relations.

The upshot of all this is that the US drone strikes, and Washington possibly leaning on the army against a military take over, has made Imran Khan even more shrill than usual. Whatever the result of the current political impasse with the opposition on the warpath to bring down the Sharif government, Pakistan’s situation would remain dire. According to Anatol Lieven (writing in a recent issue of the British magazine, Prospect), who recently visited Pakistan and has access to high levels of government and military brass, “… Pakistan today, as so often in the past, presents a Janus-faced appearance. On the one hand, Pakistan is not northern Iraq [where ISIS is now entrenched]. As my experience in South Waziristan and the military offensive in North Waziristan demonstrate, the Islamist insurgency which has caused such terrible losses and raised such fears in the west is not about to overthrow the state.”  Elaborating, he wrote, “On the other hand, the political elites do not appear capable of the unity, the vision, or the resolution necessary to carry out the reforms that Pakistan needs if it is to survive in the long term.” It is not a pretty picture, but the Pakistani governing establishment surely know it because they have created the mess in the first place.

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Pakistan: where did it all go wrong?

S P SETH

Will they or will they not? I am referring here to reports, now and then, about a peace dialogue between the Pakistan Government and the Pakistani Taliban.  Its very formulation appears to put Tehreek-e-Taliban of Pakistan (TTP) and the Pakistani state on a virtual equal footing. It seems to invest TTP with the power to declare or not declare ceasefire(s) as between two state entities. In other words, even without any recognized territorial sovereignty, TTP has seemingly acquired the attributes of a state within a state in Pakistan. This might seem legal nit picking. But it is important in the scheme of things because this is how people progressively start to see TTP as a normal political structure rather than a terrorist organization; so much so that the Pakistani state is keen to sup with it thus conferring on it a legitimacy that has evaded it so far. In any case, TTP is not really interested in any kind of peace dialogue when it is still engaged in the game of killing people, even if it might be blamed on this or that militant group(s).  Both images cannot be right at the same time.

Besides the country’s civilian government, there is another actor/institution that is most concerned with the TTP’s dangerous antics and activities. And this is the country’s armed forces. It is true that the military is part of the state and its government but, as we know, it has considerable autonomy and the task of dealing with the TTP’s terrorism that has been viciously trained at its personnel and institutions. While it might not like the state to confer legitimacy on TTP by seeking a dialogue with it while it is killing soldiers, it still remains the only properly trained and disciplined force that is able to prevent TTP from wrecking the state. Therefore, the Pakistani state still exists because the army stands between it and the TTP.

How did it all come to this? For this it might be necessary to delve into contemporary history. And the most important starting point is the creation of Pakistan to provide security and equality for its predominantly Muslim population. In essence, it was a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims who wanted to be part of it.  A new state, however, failed to create a state of mind to go with it. India’s natural bigness and its perceived hostility to the new state of Pakistan simply transformed internal divisions of a united India into external enmity between two states. It wasn’t always like that historically because during the Mughal period a political, social and cultural  system had evolved that, for the most part, worked quite effectively. It was only during the British period that the politics of division was fostered and encouraged to prolong the colonial rule.

And the politics of division worked so effectively that its viral effect continued to be felt even after India’s partition into two independent states. The Islamic state of Pakistan still felt insecure vis-à-vis its bigger neighbour, needing external political and military support. It so happened that a Cold War was raging at the time between the US and Soviet-led power blocs. The United States was keen to enlist India on its side but during his very first state visit to the US, Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru showed aversion to bloc politics. And against the backdrop of deteriorating India-Pakistan relations, Pakistan became a US ally with a view to strengthen its position against India.

The religion (Islam), in a broad sense, was the glue that bound Pakistan. A predominantly Hindu-populated India was seen as a threat to its security. Therefore, much of its national energies were directed to meet this perceived threat. Which is not to suggest that there weren’t elements in India hostile to Pakistan’s existence. However, because of India’s religious, cultural and regional diversity, it was not possible to make Pakistan the central issue in the country’s policies all the time. Even when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading the coalition government at the centre, it didn’t have the electoral luxury of promoting and/or imposing Hindutva on different regions and communities because of the imperative of keeping the coalition together. With an estimated 140 million Muslims in India and their electoral weight, as well as the need to accommodate the heterogeneity of ethnicity and regional differences, it is very difficult for even the BJP to go haywire, though it does happen at times.

 This idea of an unbridgeable chasm between the Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent was largely a British creation to prolong colonial rule. It might be recalled that the 1857 mutiny (regarded by some as the first war of independence) saw remarkable unity of purpose among the Indian soldiers. With the British Crown taking over India’s administration from the East India Company in 1858, the Muslims were the first to feel the wrath as the failed mutiny was intended to restore the dethroned Mughal (Muslim) ruler. Several decades later, starting early in the 20^th century, when the nationalist movement got going, the British played their cleverest card of dividing the country’s two major communities to perpetuate their rule. Which eventually resulted in the partition of the subcontinent, with the new state of Pakistan.

Ever since, virtually all of Pakistan’s energies in domestic and international affairs have been expended and subsumed in preparing the country to meet a perceived Indian threat to its security. It has resulted in a distortion of Pakistan’s priorities in nation building for the country’s development, such as creating a positive national ethos to harness people’s energies, creating employment opportunities, building and strengthening national institutions to create a culture of stability. Ever since its creation, Pakistan has seemed like a country in crisis, often to meet a perceived Indian threat. The result has been a culture of militancy with the old Hindu-Muslim internal divide resurrected externally. Both the civilian government, as and when it existed, and the military were preoccupied with the Indian ‘threat’.

And when the Soviet troops were forced to withdraw from Afghanistan, there were enough mujahidin and militants to turn against India in the Kashmir region, with ISI and relevant outfits involved in it. The terrorist attack in Mumbai was, by many accounts, one of the recent examples.

 What I am trying to point out here is three-fold, First is that a preoccupation with a perceived Indian threat simply skewed project Pakistan and continues to do it even today, even though the greater threat to the Pakistani state is from within from the militants and terrorists it trained and encouraged as a force multiplier against India. The second is that these very extremists and terrorists, who were supposed to protect Pakistan from an Indian ‘threat’, have turned on the Pakistani state itself, and its military. Third, the Pakistani state is now seeking to legitimize these very elements, like the TTP, by appearing so keen to start a dialogue with them. What will be the framework of this dialogue and what it will achieve, if it starts and gets anywhere, is still a mystery?

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au