Pakistan is in deep trouble. As has been said before, the trouble this time is worse than in 1971. This time there is no fall back position because in 1971 there was a West Pakistan to come home to. The retreat from the Swat Valley by the Pakistani state is a sign of the troubled times and was perhaps pre-ordained. In intelligence parlance it is called ‘blowback’ – the unintended consequences of unacknowledged actions in other peoples countries.’
This time the admission comes from on high when the President of Pakistan says he fears a Taliban take over in Pakistan and that Pakistan was fighting for its survival. He should worry because the Taliban control Swat which is 160 kilometres away from Islamabad. To put this in the Indian perspective, it is like them sitting in Agra or a little beyond that. Simultaneously, there have been reports in Pakistan of the Taliban having infiltrated into the Punjab and Karachi. Killings and kidnappings continue, in FATA, in NWFP and in Balochistan where a nascent nationalist struggle is again visible. Worried that the Taliban were infiltrating into the Punjab province, Pakistani authorities have sent their Elite Force to the borders with NWFP and Balochistan to prevent these infiltrations. The economy is collapsing there and is no succour forthcoming either from the Americans or from the Friends of Pakistan unless Pakistan shows good faith.
Pakistan has shown progress only in one category. The Washington-based Fund for Peace now lists Pakistan at 9 in the list of failing/failed states, up from 10 two years ago. Thus we have a delinquent state that is also a failing state as our neighbour and that too a neighbour where hatred for India has been a habit. The sooner we accept this unfortunate reality the better it will be or easier, one hopes, to formulate serious long term responses and immediate pre-emption. Today, Pakistan is a metaphor for “ground zero of terrorism” or “epicentre of terrorism.”
Pakistanis themselves have been in denial for long and so have we been; assuming that Pakistan was a moderate liberal state and that what was happening in that country would eventually pass. This is not going to be so. For this one has to read what Pervez Hoodbhoy, the well known physics professor at the Quaid e Azam University in Islamabad, says in his essay ‘The Saudi-isation of Pakistan’. He begins his essay with the ominous prediction – “The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that the madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s cities. Left unchallenged this education will produce a generation incapable of coexisting with any one except strictly with their own kind. The mindset it creates, may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.” Hoodbhoy’s anguish is obvious when he says “Grain by grain the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture for a thousand years….. Now a stern unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.” This is an essay every Indian, and any one else who cares must read; not to exult in what is happening in Pakistan but to worry.
It is true that Pakistan was formed in the name of Islam and all its various leaders have used Islam for political ends. Quite early in Pakistan’s life criticising Pakistan meant criticism of Islam. This weakened the civil society. Undoubtedly Zia was the one who converted this into a strong instrument of state policy but right from the beginning Pakistan’s leaders tried to deny history and even geography when they sought their moorings elsewhere. Fear of India, the urge to be different and the search for an identity that was non-India led to the rise of the Army with the result that today the Army is the institution that owns Pakistan. And it looks increasingly that Pakistan’s latest attempt at democracy is about to flounder.
Many Pakistani leaders have been spreading the theory that India is about to reverse the partition and gobble up Pakistan. They flatter themselves. It is also a self-serving argument that encourages the retention of a huge self-aggrandising Army and feeds a feudal system. No right minded Indian would ever dream of taking over that desolate piece of territory whose sole harvest now is jihadi terrorists and hatred towards others.
Pakistani leaders never wanted to or failed to understand that their country would remain the safest when they confined themselves to adventures within their own boundaries. Pakistan becomes unstable the moment it pretends to be the inheritor of the Empire and seeks suzerainty over Afghanistan or seeks to cut India down to size. The pursuit of policies other than in one’s own national interest usually damages that national interest.
The US will most likely continue to repeat earlier mistakes – not having learnt anything and forgotten everything. Only the other day Richard Holbrooke was telling us (even though he was on a learning mission) that India and Pakistan face the same threat. Not quite, Mr. Holbrooke. We are victims of Pakistani-inspired, funded and equipped terrorism. Pakistan, on the other hand is a victim of its own policies, which for long spells were ignored and indirectly abetted by the US by the very fact that they were ignored. Anxious to achieve results in Afghanistan as soon as possible, it is likely that the Americans will be satisfied if Pakistan shows results in the war on terror, west of the Indus. This will be a mistake. Unless the Pakistanis tackle terrorism east of the Indus, dismantle the large infrastructure of terrorism and hunt down the terrorists the problem will never go away. Instead of this, what we have are peace deals even on the other side of the Indus facing the Afghan border. The US needs to change policy too from the earlier one of routinely plying the country with funds for misuse and arms for regional adventurism. Maybe Pakistan needs to be starved of both for some time till it is adequately disciplined and detoxified.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is looking more and more like a failed joint venture of the Anglo-Americans who spent most of the second half of the last century investing more and more in keeping this country afloat. The Pakistani melt down looks increasingly like the Lehman Brothers collapse and this country too must go into international receivership with stern conditionalities of sustained good behaviour which, above all, must make India safe from future depredations – sub-conventional, conventional and nuclear – by that country and Kashmir is not on the table.
Source : Mail Today , 19th Feburary 2009
This time the admission comes from on high when the President of Pakistan says he fears a Taliban take over in Pakistan and that Pakistan was fighting for its survival. He should worry because the Taliban control Swat which is 160 kilometres away from Islamabad. To put this in the Indian perspective, it is like them sitting in Agra or a little beyond that. Simultaneously, there have been reports in Pakistan of the Taliban having infiltrated into the Punjab and Karachi. Killings and kidnappings continue, in FATA, in NWFP and in Balochistan where a nascent nationalist struggle is again visible. Worried that the Taliban were infiltrating into the Punjab province, Pakistani authorities have sent their Elite Force to the borders with NWFP and Balochistan to prevent these infiltrations. The economy is collapsing there and is no succour forthcoming either from the Americans or from the Friends of Pakistan unless Pakistan shows good faith.
Pakistan has shown progress only in one category. The Washington-based Fund for Peace now lists Pakistan at 9 in the list of failing/failed states, up from 10 two years ago. Thus we have a delinquent state that is also a failing state as our neighbour and that too a neighbour where hatred for India has been a habit. The sooner we accept this unfortunate reality the better it will be or easier, one hopes, to formulate serious long term responses and immediate pre-emption. Today, Pakistan is a metaphor for “ground zero of terrorism” or “epicentre of terrorism.”
Pakistanis themselves have been in denial for long and so have we been; assuming that Pakistan was a moderate liberal state and that what was happening in that country would eventually pass. This is not going to be so. For this one has to read what Pervez Hoodbhoy, the well known physics professor at the Quaid e Azam University in Islamabad, says in his essay ‘The Saudi-isation of Pakistan’. He begins his essay with the ominous prediction – “The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that the madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s cities. Left unchallenged this education will produce a generation incapable of coexisting with any one except strictly with their own kind. The mindset it creates, may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.” Hoodbhoy’s anguish is obvious when he says “Grain by grain the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture for a thousand years….. Now a stern unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.” This is an essay every Indian, and any one else who cares must read; not to exult in what is happening in Pakistan but to worry.
It is true that Pakistan was formed in the name of Islam and all its various leaders have used Islam for political ends. Quite early in Pakistan’s life criticising Pakistan meant criticism of Islam. This weakened the civil society. Undoubtedly Zia was the one who converted this into a strong instrument of state policy but right from the beginning Pakistan’s leaders tried to deny history and even geography when they sought their moorings elsewhere. Fear of India, the urge to be different and the search for an identity that was non-India led to the rise of the Army with the result that today the Army is the institution that owns Pakistan. And it looks increasingly that Pakistan’s latest attempt at democracy is about to flounder.
Many Pakistani leaders have been spreading the theory that India is about to reverse the partition and gobble up Pakistan. They flatter themselves. It is also a self-serving argument that encourages the retention of a huge self-aggrandising Army and feeds a feudal system. No right minded Indian would ever dream of taking over that desolate piece of territory whose sole harvest now is jihadi terrorists and hatred towards others.
Pakistani leaders never wanted to or failed to understand that their country would remain the safest when they confined themselves to adventures within their own boundaries. Pakistan becomes unstable the moment it pretends to be the inheritor of the Empire and seeks suzerainty over Afghanistan or seeks to cut India down to size. The pursuit of policies other than in one’s own national interest usually damages that national interest.
The US will most likely continue to repeat earlier mistakes – not having learnt anything and forgotten everything. Only the other day Richard Holbrooke was telling us (even though he was on a learning mission) that India and Pakistan face the same threat. Not quite, Mr. Holbrooke. We are victims of Pakistani-inspired, funded and equipped terrorism. Pakistan, on the other hand is a victim of its own policies, which for long spells were ignored and indirectly abetted by the US by the very fact that they were ignored. Anxious to achieve results in Afghanistan as soon as possible, it is likely that the Americans will be satisfied if Pakistan shows results in the war on terror, west of the Indus. This will be a mistake. Unless the Pakistanis tackle terrorism east of the Indus, dismantle the large infrastructure of terrorism and hunt down the terrorists the problem will never go away. Instead of this, what we have are peace deals even on the other side of the Indus facing the Afghan border. The US needs to change policy too from the earlier one of routinely plying the country with funds for misuse and arms for regional adventurism. Maybe Pakistan needs to be starved of both for some time till it is adequately disciplined and detoxified.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is looking more and more like a failed joint venture of the Anglo-Americans who spent most of the second half of the last century investing more and more in keeping this country afloat. The Pakistani melt down looks increasingly like the Lehman Brothers collapse and this country too must go into international receivership with stern conditionalities of sustained good behaviour which, above all, must make India safe from future depredations – sub-conventional, conventional and nuclear – by that country and Kashmir is not on the table.
Source : Mail Today , 19th Feburary 2009
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