This essay begins with quotations from essentially non-Indian sources to buttress the arguments that follow and assert that these arguments do not reflect a preconceived notion about Pakistan but depict a stark reality that many perceptive Pakistanis also see today. And they worry about the future of their country. We too should be concerned about the fate of a neighbour who has been consistently hostile to India, has been internationally delinquent and in the process has become economically weak, with a weak middle class a polity in disarray and now has a highly Islamised Army in control not only of the country but also the nuclear button. The mosaic of quotations from Pakistani, American and British authors will indicate the problems that confront Pakistan and its neighbours.
"If the British Commonwealth and the USA are to be in a position to defend their vital interests in the Middle East, then the best and most stable area from which to conduct this defence is from Pakistan territory. Pakistan is the keystone of the strategic arch of the wide and vulnerable waters of the Indian Ocean." Cited by Narendra Singh Sarila in his book 'The Untold Story of India's Partition' from an unsigned British memorandum dated May 19 1948 – 'The Strategic and Political Importance of Pakistan in the Event of a War with the USSR'. (These were from Mountbatten Papers, Hartley Library, Southampton).
Commenting on Pakistan's early days, Owen Bennett Jones in his book "Pakistan-Eye of the Storm " (2002) said "Even if the vast majority of Pakistan's first generation of politicians were firmly in the modernist camp it is significant that they tried to avoid a direct confrontation with the Islamic radicals. Faced with growing challenges from Baloch, Sindhi, Pukhtoon and Bengali nationalists, even the most secular leaders found it was expedient to appeal to Islam so as to foster a sense of Pakistani unity. In doing so, the politicians established a trend which has been a feature of Pakistani politics ever since." "The fate of Pakistan will affect the entire world. Will Pakistan's military continue to use the mullahs to achieve its short term political and military goals? Will the sectarian killers – created by the ISI – get involved in sectarian crimes in other countries, for example in Iraq, further destabilising the country? Will terrorists continue to see Pakistan as a hospitable place of refuge? If Pakistan is to be saved from a Taliban-like future, and the rest of the world saved from future Dr Khans, it will have to make accommodations with India on Kashmir and stop flirting with the mullahs. It will have to spend less of its national income on defence and more on educating its youth. It will require that a true democracy take hold. But none of this will happen, Abbas warns, without the assistance of the United States. After all, the U. S. government helped to design and fund the strategy of employing violent Islamist cadres to serve as "volunteer" fighters in a war that seemed critically important at that time, but left those cadres to their own devices once they were no longer important for achieving U. S. strategic goals. The idea of international jihad – which was promoted by the United States and Pakistan when it was expedient, took hold and spread, ultimately resulting in deadly terrorist crimes throughout Asia as well as the September 11 strikes.....Mr Abbas warns of a frightening future – one in which extremists gain more military support and more military might; and tensions between India and Pakistan continue to rise...." Jessica Stern, in her foreword to Hassan Abbas's book 'Pakistan Drift into Extremism – Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror' 2005.
Abbas himself sounds rather concerned when he says in the concluding chapter of this book, "The Pakistan Army dare not confront them, [Islamists] knowing their strength and suspecting that they have many sympathisers, if not supporters, within its own ranks. It was therefore considered more feasible for the Army to continue to direct its energies in the battle zone of Kashmir rather than to face the jihadis.......No one knows has a clear idea about the exact numbers, but their potential capability resides in the subconscious of those in authority, and this stays there because the reality of it is too hard to confront. Their funding will not dry up because thousands of Pakistanis and Arabs believe in them and contribute to them."
Former adviser to Benazir Bhutto and the present Pak Ambassador to the U.S. Hussain Haqqani had made some very perceptive comments in his book 'Pakistan-Between the Mosque and Military' (2005). Haqqani observed "Pakistan's military historically has been willing to adjust its priorities to fit within the parameters of immediate U. S. global concerns. It has done this to ensure the flow of military and economic aid from the United States, which Pakistan considers necessary for its struggle for survival and its competition with India. Pakistan's relations with the United States have been part of the Pakistani military's policy tripod that emphasises Islam as a national unifier, rivalry with India as the principal objective of the state's foreign policy and an alliance with the United States as a means to defray the costs of Pakistan's massive military expenditures. These policy precepts have served to encourage extremist Islamism, which in the past few years have been a source of threat to both U.S. interests and global security."
Haqqani adds "America's alliance with Pakistan, or rather with the Pakistani military, has had three significant consequences for Pakistan. First, because the U.S. military sees Pakistan in the context of its Middle East strategy, Pakistan has become more oriented toward the Middle East even though it is geographically and historically a part of South Asia. Second, the intermittent flow of U.S. military and economic assistance has encouraged Pakistan's military leaders to overestimate their power potential. This in turn has contributed to their reluctance to accept normal relations with India even after learning through repeated misadventures that Pakistan can, at best hold India to a draw in military conflict and cannot defeat it. Third, the ability to secure military and economic aid by fitting into the current paradigm of American policy has made Pakistan into a rentier state, albeit one that lives off the rents for its strategic location."
Two other observations by Haqqani are important. He says, "Contrary to the U.S. assumption that aid translates into leverage, Pakistan's military has always managed to take the aid without ever fully giving the United States what it desires." Further, "Unless Islamabad's objectives are redefined to focus on economic prosperity and popular participation in governance – which the military as an institution remains reluctant to do – the state will continue to turn to Islam as a national unifier."
Amir Mir, in his book 'The True Face of the Jihadis', (2004) writes "The Pakistani Army became a politicised army in the very first decade of the creation of Pakistan.....The politicisation of the Pakistan Army has led to a further spread of Islamic fundamentalism --- a phenomenon that has found fertile ground in Pakistan primarily due to socio-economic reasons. Large masses of the urban and rural poor, with no avenues for economic advancement, are being drawn to fundamentalism. As the soldiery of the army is largely drawn from the rural and urban masses, it would be well nigh impossible for it not to be infected with the virus of Islamic fundamentalism being propagated thousands of deeni madrassas across Pakistan. During the Zia ul Haq regime, the composition of the Pakistan Army was changed at the expense of the urbanised, Westernised looking middle class and upper class elite and preference in officers' commissions was given to the rural educated generation with strong leanings towards conservative Islam. This large body of Islamist officers, commissioned during the Zia ul Haq regime, forms the backbone of the present day Pakistan Army, and its members have since moved up the ranks....The resentment within the Army is believed to be two levels: among junior officers who view with contempt General Musharraf's attempts at getting the army to combat rather than abet Islamic militancy, and among the upper echelons where Musharraf finds himself pitted against a few of his senior generals."
Later in the book, Mir says, "While the US may feel that it has achieved a great success in convincing Musharraf to make a U-turn on the Taliban, and on stopping the inexorable tide of hate-filled messages put out by the Deobandhi and Ahle Hadith seminaries, the real question is whether the Pakistan government will change its long term policy and stop supporting jihad. The Pakistan defence for its slow progress is that madrassa reform is difficult and dangerous, so it may take a while. The problem with that argument is that the longer the madrassas operate as they do, the fewer people there will be in Pakistan who would support such a change."
Shuja Nawaz, author of the book "Crossed Swords: Pakistan Army and the Wars Within" while on a visit to the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi in May 2008 said "The young officer cadre in Pakistan army today is conservative and ritualistic, not necessarily radical. But the influences of Zia's Islamisation continue to bedevil the armed forces."
In his book 'Gateway to Terrorism' (2003), Mohammed Amir Rana describes the jihadi culture "During the course of the last two decades, thirty thousand Pakistani youth have died in Afghanistan and Kashmir, two thousand sectarian clashes have taken place and twelve lakh youth have taken part in the activities of jihadi and religious organisations.....In consequence, Pakistan got neither Kabul nor Srinagar, but was itself saddled with terrorism." Rana adds, "During the first phase of her rule, when Benazir Bhutto had visited Muzaffarabad, ISI briefed her about the Hurriyat movement in Occupied Kashmir and recommended status quo in the Kashmir policy. Benazir Bhutto approved of the policy and the future plan. No one ever thought of changing the character and style of ISI before 11 September 2001. ISI and the governments working under its influence gave a fillip to the jihadi culture. The raw material(s) for jihad were collected from two sources: religious madrassas (and) students of government colleges and schools."
"Lashkar-e-Tayyaba will ultimately plant the flag of Islam on Delhi, Tell Aviv and Washington,' according to Lashkar leader Hafiz Saeed speaking in 1998. Ten years later in October 2008 the same Hafiz Saeed said "India understands only the language of jihad."
In a subsequent book 'The Seeds of Terrorism' published in 2005, Rana says "In an interview in Newsweek in March 2000, the President of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf, said: "I cannot pressurise the Taliban to arrest Osama bin Laden. The Taliban lead a free country." The jihadi weekly, Zarb-e-Momin (Karachi) published an extract from that interview. It quoted the president as saying "No jihadi organisation in Pakistan is involved in terrorism. They are now working against India in occupied Kashmir after completing their jihad against Russia in Afghanistan."
The Daily Times in its edition of March 6 2004 quotes former ISI Chief Javed Ashraf Qazi as saying "We must not be afraid of admitting that Jaish (-e-Mohammed) was involved in the deaths of thousands of innocent Kashmiris, bombing the Indian Parliament, Daniel Pearl's murder and attempts on President Musharraf's life." And the talkative General Musharraf's pronouncement that "If we find a solution on Kashmir with India, all jehadi organisations have to pack up" (The News August 10, 2004) was in effect an admission of Pakistani involvement in the violence in Kashmir.
The concluding sentences of Owen Bennett Jones book are even more telling "If General Musharraf is to transform his vision of Pakistani society into a reality he will need great reserves of political will and a more effective bureaucracy. He has neither. And while he still believes that the Pakistan army is the solution to the country's problems, he shows no signs of accepting that, in fact, it is part of the problem."
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa in her book "Military Inc-Inside Pakistan's Military Economy" (2007) describes the Pak Army's hold the best. "The fragility of Pakistan's political system, however, cannot be understood without probing into the military's political stakes. The fundamental question here is whether the Army will ever withdraw from power. Why would Pakistan's armed forces, or for that matter any military that has developed deep economic stakes, transfer real power to the political class? The country is representative of states where politically powerful militaries exercise control of the state and society through establishing their hegemony. This is done through penetrating the state, the society and the economy. The penetration into the society and economy establishes the defence establishment's hegemonic control of the state. Financial autonomy, economic penetration and political power ae interrelated and are part of a vicious cycle.
She goes on, "Today the Pakistan military's internal economy is extensive, and has turned the armed forces into one of the dominant economic players. The most noticeable and popular component of Milbus relates to the business of the four welfare foundations: the Fauji Foundation, the Army Welfare Trust, Shaheen Foundation, and Bahria Foundation. These foundations are subsidiaries of the defence establishment, employing both military and civilian personnel. The businesses are very diverse in nature, ranging from smaller scale ventures such as bakeries, farms, schools and private security firms to corporate enterprises such as commercial banks, insurance companies, radio and television channels, fertiliser, cement and cereal manufacturing plants and insurance businesses. Operations vary from toll collecting on highways to gas stations, shopping malls and to other similar ventures." Further, .... "there are a variety of benefits provided to retired personnel in the form of urban and rural land or employment and business openings. The grant of state land is a case of diverting the country's resources to individuals for profit."..... "Over the past 59 years of the state's history, the army has experienced direct power four times, and learnt to negotiate authority when not directly in control of the government.... As a result the political and civil society institutions remain weak."
Dr Siddiqa also says, "Stephen P Cohen also mentions an elite partnership in his latest 'The Idea of Pakistan.' He is of the view that the country is basically controlled by a small but 'culturally and socially intertwined elite', comprising about 500 people who form part of the establishment. Belonging to different subgroups, these people are known for their loyalty to the 'core principles' of a central state. These key principles include safeguarding the interests of the dominant classes."
This is the most telling commentary "Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a crusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state of the art electronic technology regular air service to the west and security services that don't always do what they are supposed to do." Newsweek, January 2008.
This is the mosaic as seen by Pakistani, British and US commentators. Now the narrative of what has happened and what might happen next.
Pakistan's problems began in the beginning. The country was created by a group of elitists on behalf of Muslims who eventually did not leave India for the new homeland and was formed for a people that did not really ask for a new homeland. From its early days, Pakistani rulers denied their new country's Indo-Gangetic past and promised its people a glorious Islamic future with its moorings away from 'Hindu' India. Fearful of being dominated or of being overpowered by a larger India seen as irreconciled to the partition, Pakistan's leaders relied on Islam and an image of non-India to try and establish an identity. Pakistan's population had to be cleansed of everything Indian and hatred and fear of the Hindu was the common idiom. Being non-Indian was being a Pakistani and soon being Islamic was being a good Pakistani.
Governance was first taken away from the educated migrants from UP and Bihar by the Punjabi feudals who came with a particular Islamic mindset from eastern Punjab and their feelings of insecurity. Eventually this was taken over by the Punjabi army with a special vehemence and tenacity. Over time, Pakistan's USP became its ability to be a nuisance in the neighbourhood while being a client-state of distant powers. It was this military and economic sustenance from friends that gave Pakistani rulers a false sense of power and invincibility backed by their religion.
While the Indian leadership of the day set about giving its people a written Constitution, in Pakistan the twin pillars of governance were the Army and Islam. Punjabi feudalism to the exclusion of almost everyone else did not help either. Over the years this problem has only accentuated with the mullah, intolerant of any deviation today, interprets the Islamic tenets in a narrow sectarian sense that excludes women – half the country's population -- from equal treatment. He also seeks to exclude other sects from similar benefits, earthly or otherworldly. The Army by training treats any adherence to alternative opinion as disobedience at best and treason most of the time. Equality and dissent are the essential ingredients of democracy but Pakistan's twin pillars discouraged both. Protection and military assistance was sought from the US by being rendering assistance for its strategic goals.
With all its institutions of legitimate governance trampled beyond recognition, Pakistan today is a country with a murky past and uncertain future. There are many in India who still believe that Pakistan has changed and that there is a genuine desire for peace and that India should now sit down and solve all problems with Pakistan. The truth is that the change in Pakistan has been towards more and not less, Islamisation. Pakistan is not a moderate Islamic state. It is ruled by the mullah-military alliance neither of who understand secularism or democracy. From early days Islam was a higher ideal than nationalism. Created in the name of Islam, Pakistani leaders took recourse to Islam in danger almost from the very beginning. Even the Bengali language riots of 1952 were countered with Islamic slogans and stress on their Islamic identity. From then it was an incremental move which after 1971 became a common goal for the Army and the mullahs. The former wanted to balkanise in India as revenge and the latter wanted to establish caliphates in Hindu India.
However, Pakistan today is facing a bigger crisis than it did in 1971. At that time, Pakistan could blame its predicament on enemy India and this acted as a unifying factor. There was a fall back in West Pakistan and Z. A. Bhutto was able to consolidate the fragmented country. In 1971, the Pak Army had not been Islamised; it was only Punjabised. Today's Pakistan Army is Islamised and its motto Iman (faith), taqwa (piety), Jehad fis'billah (Jehad in the Name of Allah) is intact. Today, Pakistan cannot blame India for its multiple sclerosis and it has no fall back. And that is the danger.
The blow back then, is in Pakistan. The concentration on jehad and military rule has cost that country enormously in economic terms. The pursuit of jihad has damaged its already weak civil society, irreparably hurt generations of bright young men and women who have had to go without a reasonable education or hope for a respectable employment opportunity in a country where science and humanities have been subverted to Islamic teachings. The country now lives perpetually on the dole and handouts from the IMF; there is no industry worth the name.
In today's Pakistan there are other fault lines too. The Baloch struggle continues. It is not about preserving the Sardari system of the Bugtis, Marris and the Mengals. The struggle is about basic rights — economic and political — because the revolt is all over Balochistan and not restricted to these three tribal areas. The second reality is that FATA , which was the launching pad for many of the campaigns in the jehad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, is today prime Taliban country — and continuing to grow in depth and area. This would be of considerable concern to persons like Gen Mahmud Ali Durrani, the Pak NSA who is credited to have remarked "I hope the Taliban and Pushtun nationalism don't merge. If that happens, we've had it and we're on the verge of it." Third, Pakistan is now 'jehadised'.
There was a time when the jehadis and the fundamentalists were the fringe elements and the civil society of Lahore and Karachi was the mainstream. The fear is that this may not be so any more. It is the civil society that has increasingly become the fringe and jehadi mindset now the mainstream. Gen Zia is considered the father of Pakistani Islamisation but it must be remembered that Islamisation was possible because there was receptivity to the idea. Every setback that the Pakistan Army had at the hands of the Indians was interpreted to mean that Islamic tenets were not being properly followed. Every defeat for the Army also meant that it was strengthened further. Thus both Islam and the Army grew stronger together. Jihad became a favourite weapon of the Pak Army who did not have to fight the Indian enemy themselves and let the jihadis do this fighting at much lower rates. The only problem now is that, as Sushant Sareen says, "The bottom line is that instead of the Pakistan Army exercising control over its jihadist assets, the army itself has become an asset of the jihadis." The Pakistani Army can hardly say it is fighting for the defence of Islam against those every Islamists who are also defending Islam.
Pakistan is a country that has been run by a self-seeking warrior class that has always felt that it has been ordained as Protectors of the Realm and Defenders of the Faith. They have been helped by a pliable and self-serving elite consisting of the bureaucracy and judiciary, the feudals of the Punjab, and most of the politicians. The corporate interests of the Pakistan Army cover almost every activity of the country's economy. The Pak Army, for instance, runs the Fauji Foundation, established as a charity for retired military personnel. Over time it has become a mammoth organisation with multiple interests and worth about Rs (Pak) 9000 crores a few years ago and growing. In addition, the Army Welfare Trust deals dabbles and controls varied economic and financial interests including the Askari Commercial Bank, which has been run by a very understanding kind of management many of whom had earlier served in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The Trust's assets are estimated to be about Rs 18000 crores. Apart from this, the National Logistics Cell and the Frontier Works Organisation which monopolise government contracts in the transport and construction sectors. Accounting rules are flexible and transfer of funds from the defence budget quite routine. It is the collective corporate interest of the Armed Forces that is at stake in any arrangement that appears to diminish the role of the Army. A peace deal with India threatens to do precisely that.
There are many in India, Pakistan and the West who remain in a state of denial about the march of Islamic forces in Pakistan. The manner in which various issues involving the Islamists have been handled in Pakistan by Pakistanis -- with hesitation and extreme circumspection and under compulsion are some of the symptoms of the disease and of what is happening in Pakistan. Islamic radicalism is today backed by the gun of both the radicals and the Army. There are believed to be 18 million unlicensed weapons in the country and the estimates of possible extremists trained in extremist universities vary from 225,000 to 650,000. It is apparent that the Army cannot take action against the very fundamentalists and extremists and also rely on them for survival. Yet unless the Pakistan Army moves beyond looking for patchwork solutions to ensure its own primacy and decides to eradicate this menace, a spectre of total radicalism haunts Pakistan.
The Taliban takeover in the FATA is now being replicated in the rest of the NWFP. Large tracts the valley of Swat, Pakistan's idyllic tourist spot, are today under Taliban control. There are reports of other districts of NWFP like Dir coming increasingly under Taliban dominance. The Army's attempts to oust them have failed. It is obvious that in the eyes of many especially the Pushtuns, the Pakistan army has been fighting an unpopular war in FATA against the Taliban. It was far easier for the Pakistan establishment to switch the mood and generate an anti-India fever following the Mumbai massacres. The manner in which the hunted Baitullah Mehsud became a patriot was alarmingly easy. This only underscores the fact that it is easier in Pakistan to be anti-Indian than being anti-Taliban.
Tribal loyalties, which are quite often trans-border, the Pushtun code of conduct and religious sentiments have become intertwined in the province. Recruitment among the devoutly religious locals is easy for the Taliban. The morale of the government forces is low and they are unwilling to fight fellow Muslims. There have been desertions. The Pakistani army brought up on a single threat perception, is ill-equipped to play a counter-insurgency role. Besides, it would need local intelligence which will not be available to Punjabi troops operating in the absence of Pushtun troops. It will take years for the Pakistan army to cover this gap and, meanwhile, a Punjabi-Pushtun animus could set in.
The manner in which Pakistan was allowed to go nuclear, acquire warheads and trade in nuclear technologies by successive regimes is a tragic testimony to failure of policy or mindless pursuit of self-interest. And almost simultaneously, Pakistan was allowed or even encouraged to become jehadi. Pakistan's hopelessly misconstrued policies have only converted the unemployed young of Pakistan into terrorists who have now returned as unemployable jehadis to haunt their former masters.
This now leaves the world petrified about Islamist terrorists armed with nuclear weapons. Statements from Washington and Islamabad have tried to assuage this fear. This evades the larger issue that the Pakistani state has systematically proliferated for decades which constitutes by far the bigger danger. Pakistan has continued to harbour criminals like Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Akhtar, Omar Sheikh and has denied their presence is indicative of a criminal and irresponsible mindset.
There is more to follow with an impatient Washington unable to control Afghanistan now contemplates active intervention in Pakistan, something that will further inflame passion in the country. Yet the Taliban advance eastward into the NWFP and beyond must be rolled back but how does Islamabad organise retreat from a mindset that is far more pervasive than is imagined.
The entire episode of the Mumbai massacres and the manner in which the Pakistani leadership has behaved only indicates the extent to which that state can act without any responsibility. The extent of state involvement in this terror attack is obvious. This means that the state of Pakistan, despite being a basket economic case and dependent on doles, is either consciously willing to be the delinquent or is unable to control elements within its own apparatus. This leads to the conclusion that if this is so then the state, which in Pakistan is the Army, has lost control. Therefore, it follows that if the state has lost control over parts of its territory and has also begun to lose control of its instruments, then the state is spinning out of control. It is a failing state.
This is not going to happen in isolation. The US and China have huge real estate interests in Pakistan. The US has its energy security interests as well as strategic interests of keeping the Russians and Iran in check. Supplies to Afghanistan in the current war have been through Pakistan and should that need to change then the alternative routes lie through the Caspian Sea running overland via Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. This would naturally bring in greater American presence into Central Asia and add to Russian discomfiture. China remains interested in Pakistan as a means of access to the Arabian Sea through Gwadar, to outflank India and ultimately to be able to take on the Americans in the region.
It increasingly appears that the Pakistan Army that is not going to be able to solve the problem and, paradoxically, the longer it lasts the more it hurts that country. The core issue in Pakistan today is not India or Kashmir. The core issue is the collective corporate interest of the Pakistani Army derived as a war dividend. The arrival of Zardari as a civilian president on the scene has not changed the basic reality.
Unfortunately, if neither the Army nor the Taliban retreat, we are staring at an abyss as Pakistan is consumed by its own creations – jehad and Taliban.
"If the British Commonwealth and the USA are to be in a position to defend their vital interests in the Middle East, then the best and most stable area from which to conduct this defence is from Pakistan territory. Pakistan is the keystone of the strategic arch of the wide and vulnerable waters of the Indian Ocean." Cited by Narendra Singh Sarila in his book 'The Untold Story of India's Partition' from an unsigned British memorandum dated May 19 1948 – 'The Strategic and Political Importance of Pakistan in the Event of a War with the USSR'. (These were from Mountbatten Papers, Hartley Library, Southampton).
Commenting on Pakistan's early days, Owen Bennett Jones in his book "Pakistan-Eye of the Storm " (2002) said "Even if the vast majority of Pakistan's first generation of politicians were firmly in the modernist camp it is significant that they tried to avoid a direct confrontation with the Islamic radicals. Faced with growing challenges from Baloch, Sindhi, Pukhtoon and Bengali nationalists, even the most secular leaders found it was expedient to appeal to Islam so as to foster a sense of Pakistani unity. In doing so, the politicians established a trend which has been a feature of Pakistani politics ever since." "The fate of Pakistan will affect the entire world. Will Pakistan's military continue to use the mullahs to achieve its short term political and military goals? Will the sectarian killers – created by the ISI – get involved in sectarian crimes in other countries, for example in Iraq, further destabilising the country? Will terrorists continue to see Pakistan as a hospitable place of refuge? If Pakistan is to be saved from a Taliban-like future, and the rest of the world saved from future Dr Khans, it will have to make accommodations with India on Kashmir and stop flirting with the mullahs. It will have to spend less of its national income on defence and more on educating its youth. It will require that a true democracy take hold. But none of this will happen, Abbas warns, without the assistance of the United States. After all, the U. S. government helped to design and fund the strategy of employing violent Islamist cadres to serve as "volunteer" fighters in a war that seemed critically important at that time, but left those cadres to their own devices once they were no longer important for achieving U. S. strategic goals. The idea of international jihad – which was promoted by the United States and Pakistan when it was expedient, took hold and spread, ultimately resulting in deadly terrorist crimes throughout Asia as well as the September 11 strikes.....Mr Abbas warns of a frightening future – one in which extremists gain more military support and more military might; and tensions between India and Pakistan continue to rise...." Jessica Stern, in her foreword to Hassan Abbas's book 'Pakistan Drift into Extremism – Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror' 2005.
Abbas himself sounds rather concerned when he says in the concluding chapter of this book, "The Pakistan Army dare not confront them, [Islamists] knowing their strength and suspecting that they have many sympathisers, if not supporters, within its own ranks. It was therefore considered more feasible for the Army to continue to direct its energies in the battle zone of Kashmir rather than to face the jihadis.......No one knows has a clear idea about the exact numbers, but their potential capability resides in the subconscious of those in authority, and this stays there because the reality of it is too hard to confront. Their funding will not dry up because thousands of Pakistanis and Arabs believe in them and contribute to them."
Former adviser to Benazir Bhutto and the present Pak Ambassador to the U.S. Hussain Haqqani had made some very perceptive comments in his book 'Pakistan-Between the Mosque and Military' (2005). Haqqani observed "Pakistan's military historically has been willing to adjust its priorities to fit within the parameters of immediate U. S. global concerns. It has done this to ensure the flow of military and economic aid from the United States, which Pakistan considers necessary for its struggle for survival and its competition with India. Pakistan's relations with the United States have been part of the Pakistani military's policy tripod that emphasises Islam as a national unifier, rivalry with India as the principal objective of the state's foreign policy and an alliance with the United States as a means to defray the costs of Pakistan's massive military expenditures. These policy precepts have served to encourage extremist Islamism, which in the past few years have been a source of threat to both U.S. interests and global security."
Haqqani adds "America's alliance with Pakistan, or rather with the Pakistani military, has had three significant consequences for Pakistan. First, because the U.S. military sees Pakistan in the context of its Middle East strategy, Pakistan has become more oriented toward the Middle East even though it is geographically and historically a part of South Asia. Second, the intermittent flow of U.S. military and economic assistance has encouraged Pakistan's military leaders to overestimate their power potential. This in turn has contributed to their reluctance to accept normal relations with India even after learning through repeated misadventures that Pakistan can, at best hold India to a draw in military conflict and cannot defeat it. Third, the ability to secure military and economic aid by fitting into the current paradigm of American policy has made Pakistan into a rentier state, albeit one that lives off the rents for its strategic location."
Two other observations by Haqqani are important. He says, "Contrary to the U.S. assumption that aid translates into leverage, Pakistan's military has always managed to take the aid without ever fully giving the United States what it desires." Further, "Unless Islamabad's objectives are redefined to focus on economic prosperity and popular participation in governance – which the military as an institution remains reluctant to do – the state will continue to turn to Islam as a national unifier."
Amir Mir, in his book 'The True Face of the Jihadis', (2004) writes "The Pakistani Army became a politicised army in the very first decade of the creation of Pakistan.....The politicisation of the Pakistan Army has led to a further spread of Islamic fundamentalism --- a phenomenon that has found fertile ground in Pakistan primarily due to socio-economic reasons. Large masses of the urban and rural poor, with no avenues for economic advancement, are being drawn to fundamentalism. As the soldiery of the army is largely drawn from the rural and urban masses, it would be well nigh impossible for it not to be infected with the virus of Islamic fundamentalism being propagated thousands of deeni madrassas across Pakistan. During the Zia ul Haq regime, the composition of the Pakistan Army was changed at the expense of the urbanised, Westernised looking middle class and upper class elite and preference in officers' commissions was given to the rural educated generation with strong leanings towards conservative Islam. This large body of Islamist officers, commissioned during the Zia ul Haq regime, forms the backbone of the present day Pakistan Army, and its members have since moved up the ranks....The resentment within the Army is believed to be two levels: among junior officers who view with contempt General Musharraf's attempts at getting the army to combat rather than abet Islamic militancy, and among the upper echelons where Musharraf finds himself pitted against a few of his senior generals."
Later in the book, Mir says, "While the US may feel that it has achieved a great success in convincing Musharraf to make a U-turn on the Taliban, and on stopping the inexorable tide of hate-filled messages put out by the Deobandhi and Ahle Hadith seminaries, the real question is whether the Pakistan government will change its long term policy and stop supporting jihad. The Pakistan defence for its slow progress is that madrassa reform is difficult and dangerous, so it may take a while. The problem with that argument is that the longer the madrassas operate as they do, the fewer people there will be in Pakistan who would support such a change."
Shuja Nawaz, author of the book "Crossed Swords: Pakistan Army and the Wars Within" while on a visit to the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi in May 2008 said "The young officer cadre in Pakistan army today is conservative and ritualistic, not necessarily radical. But the influences of Zia's Islamisation continue to bedevil the armed forces."
In his book 'Gateway to Terrorism' (2003), Mohammed Amir Rana describes the jihadi culture "During the course of the last two decades, thirty thousand Pakistani youth have died in Afghanistan and Kashmir, two thousand sectarian clashes have taken place and twelve lakh youth have taken part in the activities of jihadi and religious organisations.....In consequence, Pakistan got neither Kabul nor Srinagar, but was itself saddled with terrorism." Rana adds, "During the first phase of her rule, when Benazir Bhutto had visited Muzaffarabad, ISI briefed her about the Hurriyat movement in Occupied Kashmir and recommended status quo in the Kashmir policy. Benazir Bhutto approved of the policy and the future plan. No one ever thought of changing the character and style of ISI before 11 September 2001. ISI and the governments working under its influence gave a fillip to the jihadi culture. The raw material(s) for jihad were collected from two sources: religious madrassas (and) students of government colleges and schools."
"Lashkar-e-Tayyaba will ultimately plant the flag of Islam on Delhi, Tell Aviv and Washington,' according to Lashkar leader Hafiz Saeed speaking in 1998. Ten years later in October 2008 the same Hafiz Saeed said "India understands only the language of jihad."
In a subsequent book 'The Seeds of Terrorism' published in 2005, Rana says "In an interview in Newsweek in March 2000, the President of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf, said: "I cannot pressurise the Taliban to arrest Osama bin Laden. The Taliban lead a free country." The jihadi weekly, Zarb-e-Momin (Karachi) published an extract from that interview. It quoted the president as saying "No jihadi organisation in Pakistan is involved in terrorism. They are now working against India in occupied Kashmir after completing their jihad against Russia in Afghanistan."
The Daily Times in its edition of March 6 2004 quotes former ISI Chief Javed Ashraf Qazi as saying "We must not be afraid of admitting that Jaish (-e-Mohammed) was involved in the deaths of thousands of innocent Kashmiris, bombing the Indian Parliament, Daniel Pearl's murder and attempts on President Musharraf's life." And the talkative General Musharraf's pronouncement that "If we find a solution on Kashmir with India, all jehadi organisations have to pack up" (The News August 10, 2004) was in effect an admission of Pakistani involvement in the violence in Kashmir.
The concluding sentences of Owen Bennett Jones book are even more telling "If General Musharraf is to transform his vision of Pakistani society into a reality he will need great reserves of political will and a more effective bureaucracy. He has neither. And while he still believes that the Pakistan army is the solution to the country's problems, he shows no signs of accepting that, in fact, it is part of the problem."
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa in her book "Military Inc-Inside Pakistan's Military Economy" (2007) describes the Pak Army's hold the best. "The fragility of Pakistan's political system, however, cannot be understood without probing into the military's political stakes. The fundamental question here is whether the Army will ever withdraw from power. Why would Pakistan's armed forces, or for that matter any military that has developed deep economic stakes, transfer real power to the political class? The country is representative of states where politically powerful militaries exercise control of the state and society through establishing their hegemony. This is done through penetrating the state, the society and the economy. The penetration into the society and economy establishes the defence establishment's hegemonic control of the state. Financial autonomy, economic penetration and political power ae interrelated and are part of a vicious cycle.
She goes on, "Today the Pakistan military's internal economy is extensive, and has turned the armed forces into one of the dominant economic players. The most noticeable and popular component of Milbus relates to the business of the four welfare foundations: the Fauji Foundation, the Army Welfare Trust, Shaheen Foundation, and Bahria Foundation. These foundations are subsidiaries of the defence establishment, employing both military and civilian personnel. The businesses are very diverse in nature, ranging from smaller scale ventures such as bakeries, farms, schools and private security firms to corporate enterprises such as commercial banks, insurance companies, radio and television channels, fertiliser, cement and cereal manufacturing plants and insurance businesses. Operations vary from toll collecting on highways to gas stations, shopping malls and to other similar ventures." Further, .... "there are a variety of benefits provided to retired personnel in the form of urban and rural land or employment and business openings. The grant of state land is a case of diverting the country's resources to individuals for profit."..... "Over the past 59 years of the state's history, the army has experienced direct power four times, and learnt to negotiate authority when not directly in control of the government.... As a result the political and civil society institutions remain weak."
Dr Siddiqa also says, "Stephen P Cohen also mentions an elite partnership in his latest 'The Idea of Pakistan.' He is of the view that the country is basically controlled by a small but 'culturally and socially intertwined elite', comprising about 500 people who form part of the establishment. Belonging to different subgroups, these people are known for their loyalty to the 'core principles' of a central state. These key principles include safeguarding the interests of the dominant classes."
This is the most telling commentary "Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a crusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state of the art electronic technology regular air service to the west and security services that don't always do what they are supposed to do." Newsweek, January 2008.
This is the mosaic as seen by Pakistani, British and US commentators. Now the narrative of what has happened and what might happen next.
Pakistan's problems began in the beginning. The country was created by a group of elitists on behalf of Muslims who eventually did not leave India for the new homeland and was formed for a people that did not really ask for a new homeland. From its early days, Pakistani rulers denied their new country's Indo-Gangetic past and promised its people a glorious Islamic future with its moorings away from 'Hindu' India. Fearful of being dominated or of being overpowered by a larger India seen as irreconciled to the partition, Pakistan's leaders relied on Islam and an image of non-India to try and establish an identity. Pakistan's population had to be cleansed of everything Indian and hatred and fear of the Hindu was the common idiom. Being non-Indian was being a Pakistani and soon being Islamic was being a good Pakistani.
Governance was first taken away from the educated migrants from UP and Bihar by the Punjabi feudals who came with a particular Islamic mindset from eastern Punjab and their feelings of insecurity. Eventually this was taken over by the Punjabi army with a special vehemence and tenacity. Over time, Pakistan's USP became its ability to be a nuisance in the neighbourhood while being a client-state of distant powers. It was this military and economic sustenance from friends that gave Pakistani rulers a false sense of power and invincibility backed by their religion.
While the Indian leadership of the day set about giving its people a written Constitution, in Pakistan the twin pillars of governance were the Army and Islam. Punjabi feudalism to the exclusion of almost everyone else did not help either. Over the years this problem has only accentuated with the mullah, intolerant of any deviation today, interprets the Islamic tenets in a narrow sectarian sense that excludes women – half the country's population -- from equal treatment. He also seeks to exclude other sects from similar benefits, earthly or otherworldly. The Army by training treats any adherence to alternative opinion as disobedience at best and treason most of the time. Equality and dissent are the essential ingredients of democracy but Pakistan's twin pillars discouraged both. Protection and military assistance was sought from the US by being rendering assistance for its strategic goals.
With all its institutions of legitimate governance trampled beyond recognition, Pakistan today is a country with a murky past and uncertain future. There are many in India who still believe that Pakistan has changed and that there is a genuine desire for peace and that India should now sit down and solve all problems with Pakistan. The truth is that the change in Pakistan has been towards more and not less, Islamisation. Pakistan is not a moderate Islamic state. It is ruled by the mullah-military alliance neither of who understand secularism or democracy. From early days Islam was a higher ideal than nationalism. Created in the name of Islam, Pakistani leaders took recourse to Islam in danger almost from the very beginning. Even the Bengali language riots of 1952 were countered with Islamic slogans and stress on their Islamic identity. From then it was an incremental move which after 1971 became a common goal for the Army and the mullahs. The former wanted to balkanise in India as revenge and the latter wanted to establish caliphates in Hindu India.
However, Pakistan today is facing a bigger crisis than it did in 1971. At that time, Pakistan could blame its predicament on enemy India and this acted as a unifying factor. There was a fall back in West Pakistan and Z. A. Bhutto was able to consolidate the fragmented country. In 1971, the Pak Army had not been Islamised; it was only Punjabised. Today's Pakistan Army is Islamised and its motto Iman (faith), taqwa (piety), Jehad fis'billah (Jehad in the Name of Allah) is intact. Today, Pakistan cannot blame India for its multiple sclerosis and it has no fall back. And that is the danger.
The blow back then, is in Pakistan. The concentration on jehad and military rule has cost that country enormously in economic terms. The pursuit of jihad has damaged its already weak civil society, irreparably hurt generations of bright young men and women who have had to go without a reasonable education or hope for a respectable employment opportunity in a country where science and humanities have been subverted to Islamic teachings. The country now lives perpetually on the dole and handouts from the IMF; there is no industry worth the name.
In today's Pakistan there are other fault lines too. The Baloch struggle continues. It is not about preserving the Sardari system of the Bugtis, Marris and the Mengals. The struggle is about basic rights — economic and political — because the revolt is all over Balochistan and not restricted to these three tribal areas. The second reality is that FATA , which was the launching pad for many of the campaigns in the jehad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, is today prime Taliban country — and continuing to grow in depth and area. This would be of considerable concern to persons like Gen Mahmud Ali Durrani, the Pak NSA who is credited to have remarked "I hope the Taliban and Pushtun nationalism don't merge. If that happens, we've had it and we're on the verge of it." Third, Pakistan is now 'jehadised'.
There was a time when the jehadis and the fundamentalists were the fringe elements and the civil society of Lahore and Karachi was the mainstream. The fear is that this may not be so any more. It is the civil society that has increasingly become the fringe and jehadi mindset now the mainstream. Gen Zia is considered the father of Pakistani Islamisation but it must be remembered that Islamisation was possible because there was receptivity to the idea. Every setback that the Pakistan Army had at the hands of the Indians was interpreted to mean that Islamic tenets were not being properly followed. Every defeat for the Army also meant that it was strengthened further. Thus both Islam and the Army grew stronger together. Jihad became a favourite weapon of the Pak Army who did not have to fight the Indian enemy themselves and let the jihadis do this fighting at much lower rates. The only problem now is that, as Sushant Sareen says, "The bottom line is that instead of the Pakistan Army exercising control over its jihadist assets, the army itself has become an asset of the jihadis." The Pakistani Army can hardly say it is fighting for the defence of Islam against those every Islamists who are also defending Islam.
Pakistan is a country that has been run by a self-seeking warrior class that has always felt that it has been ordained as Protectors of the Realm and Defenders of the Faith. They have been helped by a pliable and self-serving elite consisting of the bureaucracy and judiciary, the feudals of the Punjab, and most of the politicians. The corporate interests of the Pakistan Army cover almost every activity of the country's economy. The Pak Army, for instance, runs the Fauji Foundation, established as a charity for retired military personnel. Over time it has become a mammoth organisation with multiple interests and worth about Rs (Pak) 9000 crores a few years ago and growing. In addition, the Army Welfare Trust deals dabbles and controls varied economic and financial interests including the Askari Commercial Bank, which has been run by a very understanding kind of management many of whom had earlier served in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The Trust's assets are estimated to be about Rs 18000 crores. Apart from this, the National Logistics Cell and the Frontier Works Organisation which monopolise government contracts in the transport and construction sectors. Accounting rules are flexible and transfer of funds from the defence budget quite routine. It is the collective corporate interest of the Armed Forces that is at stake in any arrangement that appears to diminish the role of the Army. A peace deal with India threatens to do precisely that.
There are many in India, Pakistan and the West who remain in a state of denial about the march of Islamic forces in Pakistan. The manner in which various issues involving the Islamists have been handled in Pakistan by Pakistanis -- with hesitation and extreme circumspection and under compulsion are some of the symptoms of the disease and of what is happening in Pakistan. Islamic radicalism is today backed by the gun of both the radicals and the Army. There are believed to be 18 million unlicensed weapons in the country and the estimates of possible extremists trained in extremist universities vary from 225,000 to 650,000. It is apparent that the Army cannot take action against the very fundamentalists and extremists and also rely on them for survival. Yet unless the Pakistan Army moves beyond looking for patchwork solutions to ensure its own primacy and decides to eradicate this menace, a spectre of total radicalism haunts Pakistan.
The Taliban takeover in the FATA is now being replicated in the rest of the NWFP. Large tracts the valley of Swat, Pakistan's idyllic tourist spot, are today under Taliban control. There are reports of other districts of NWFP like Dir coming increasingly under Taliban dominance. The Army's attempts to oust them have failed. It is obvious that in the eyes of many especially the Pushtuns, the Pakistan army has been fighting an unpopular war in FATA against the Taliban. It was far easier for the Pakistan establishment to switch the mood and generate an anti-India fever following the Mumbai massacres. The manner in which the hunted Baitullah Mehsud became a patriot was alarmingly easy. This only underscores the fact that it is easier in Pakistan to be anti-Indian than being anti-Taliban.
Tribal loyalties, which are quite often trans-border, the Pushtun code of conduct and religious sentiments have become intertwined in the province. Recruitment among the devoutly religious locals is easy for the Taliban. The morale of the government forces is low and they are unwilling to fight fellow Muslims. There have been desertions. The Pakistani army brought up on a single threat perception, is ill-equipped to play a counter-insurgency role. Besides, it would need local intelligence which will not be available to Punjabi troops operating in the absence of Pushtun troops. It will take years for the Pakistan army to cover this gap and, meanwhile, a Punjabi-Pushtun animus could set in.
The manner in which Pakistan was allowed to go nuclear, acquire warheads and trade in nuclear technologies by successive regimes is a tragic testimony to failure of policy or mindless pursuit of self-interest. And almost simultaneously, Pakistan was allowed or even encouraged to become jehadi. Pakistan's hopelessly misconstrued policies have only converted the unemployed young of Pakistan into terrorists who have now returned as unemployable jehadis to haunt their former masters.
This now leaves the world petrified about Islamist terrorists armed with nuclear weapons. Statements from Washington and Islamabad have tried to assuage this fear. This evades the larger issue that the Pakistani state has systematically proliferated for decades which constitutes by far the bigger danger. Pakistan has continued to harbour criminals like Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Akhtar, Omar Sheikh and has denied their presence is indicative of a criminal and irresponsible mindset.
There is more to follow with an impatient Washington unable to control Afghanistan now contemplates active intervention in Pakistan, something that will further inflame passion in the country. Yet the Taliban advance eastward into the NWFP and beyond must be rolled back but how does Islamabad organise retreat from a mindset that is far more pervasive than is imagined.
The entire episode of the Mumbai massacres and the manner in which the Pakistani leadership has behaved only indicates the extent to which that state can act without any responsibility. The extent of state involvement in this terror attack is obvious. This means that the state of Pakistan, despite being a basket economic case and dependent on doles, is either consciously willing to be the delinquent or is unable to control elements within its own apparatus. This leads to the conclusion that if this is so then the state, which in Pakistan is the Army, has lost control. Therefore, it follows that if the state has lost control over parts of its territory and has also begun to lose control of its instruments, then the state is spinning out of control. It is a failing state.
This is not going to happen in isolation. The US and China have huge real estate interests in Pakistan. The US has its energy security interests as well as strategic interests of keeping the Russians and Iran in check. Supplies to Afghanistan in the current war have been through Pakistan and should that need to change then the alternative routes lie through the Caspian Sea running overland via Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. This would naturally bring in greater American presence into Central Asia and add to Russian discomfiture. China remains interested in Pakistan as a means of access to the Arabian Sea through Gwadar, to outflank India and ultimately to be able to take on the Americans in the region.
It increasingly appears that the Pakistan Army that is not going to be able to solve the problem and, paradoxically, the longer it lasts the more it hurts that country. The core issue in Pakistan today is not India or Kashmir. The core issue is the collective corporate interest of the Pakistani Army derived as a war dividend. The arrival of Zardari as a civilian president on the scene has not changed the basic reality.
Unfortunately, if neither the Army nor the Taliban retreat, we are staring at an abyss as Pakistan is consumed by its own creations – jehad and Taliban.
Source : Eternal India , January 2009 Issue
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