A Vision of United India

Chapter 7

The present situation of Pakistan

All these have put Pakistan in a most unenviable situation. Pakistan is being talked all over the world as a failed State.

Here is an extract from Brahma Chellaney:

"Economically, Pakistan has become a basket case under military rule, which has scared away investors with its bellicose rhetoric and cosy ties with fundamentalists. It is doubtful whether the present military can keep Pakistan together. Pakistanis are more disillusioned than ever, realising that the Musharraf regime is no better than the

Page 108

politicians it replaced The military, however, can flourish only as long as the Pakistan State survives. Therefore, the military will do everything to keep Pakistan from disintegrating, even if it means raking up hostility with India and engaging in further adventurism.

The dangers

A SINKING PAKISTAN WILL INSIST ON SINKING INDIA TOO. ITS ROLE SINCE LAST YEAR IN KARGIL, KANDAHAR AND KASHMIR IS A STARK REMINDER OF THAT. One myth is that Pakistan is making itself bankrupt by bleeding India in Kashmir. Pakistan is perched on the edge of bankruptcy, not because of its surrogate war in Kashmir, but because of its search for military parity with India that results in unsustainably high defence spending as well as its political and economic disorder. In fact, proxy war is a highly cost-effective strategy that Pakistan can carry on everlastingly because it consumes a tiny proportion of its defence expenditure but inflicts disproportionately high costs on India - costs that a conventional military strategy cannot impose. As Pakistan sinks further, its military will increasingly take recourse to its economical tool of proxy war to keep India mired in internal-security problems. Today's "war of a thousand cuts" being waged by Pakistan could become a war of ten thousand cuts. It doesn't take much for a strong-willed State to murder, maim and menace the innocent through surrogate agents. India's interests can be served neither by pleading for a secure, stable Pakistan nor by disdainfully writing off Pakistan. Pakistan will continue to loom large on India's security horizon unless it disintegrates". It is becoming clearer with every passing day that Pakistan is becoming a failing State. It seems almost inevitable that Pakistan will disintegrate from within. The only thing that might keep it going for some more time is the support given to it by the United States.

Page 109

Here is an extract from an article by Arindam Bannerjee illustrating this point. .

Arindam Banerji, Ph.D., is an Indian-American entrepreneur in Silicon Valley with an expertise in geopolitics and US-India relations.

Pakistani Army vs. Pakistan

"Strong arm tactics and outright commandeering have left the army in Pakistan in control of all financial establishments of any value, including travel agencies, utilities, cement production, fertilizer factories, dairy production, employment agencies, rice mills, seaports, postal service, telecommunication infrastructure, oil/gas plants, pharmaceuticals, mines, wool mills and cereal production, to name a few. And no, this is not limited to just legal economic activities, but also extends to illegal ones - Kamila Hayat reports that a number of illegal gambling dens are coming up all over the country, run and owned by army personnel. You get the idea - everything and everything, legal and sometimes even illegal ones, in Pakistan, seem to belong to the Pakistani army. Quips Khayyam Durrani, who runs an elite school, only meant for army children "The army considers itself a privileged class. The fact is that the actual rulers in Pakistani society are the army people." These privileges and whims of the ruling army are slowly creating a divide that will never be bridged with American money or Musharraf's guns. A perfect example of this widening divide was the open threat to ban Musharraf's entry into NWFP, issued recently by Syed Munawar Hassan, a top leader of the MMA religious alliance. The vitriol in the Baluchistan Post article against the army is even more palpable, when it says: "With guns given to them by the nation to counter the enemy, the generals instead, have held the Mother country, its people, its parliament and the judiciary to ransom. ...The Army has become above the law, above the constitution and even above the country. It feeds on the country's prosperity and the well- being of its people who now, are trudging an existence simply to serve the army and its selected elites.". The army is not only immune from the law, but also dispenses its own brand of justice. A report in the Gulf Times, reports: "The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recently investigated a case in Multan where army officials had placed a banner outside a textile shop, asking all military men to boycott it. This mysterious message outside a commercial business had been motivated by the fact that the shop owner, Aslam Shahzad, had testified in a case involving an army officer and a policeman in a scuffle". Other similar incidents, where police officers have lost their jobs for going up against the army, are also related in the report. In fact, as Kamila states, patriotism today is increasingly tied to what is good for the Pakistani army, not what is good for Pakistan: "Indeed, the perception that civilians are today second class citizens in the state is growing. And with the army top brass apparently seeing any attempts to highlight wrongs committed by men in khaki as unpatriotic behaviour." Abid Ullah Jan, yet another journalist who had to flee Pakistan due to his opinions on the army, concludes his pensive article on "Pak army vs. Pakistan" with "In the final analysis we would come to know that Pakistan was not at war with India or someone else, but its own armed forces". This is not a country moving towards democracy, but towards anarchy - unfortunately, with American help. Problem is, we've seen this pattern before - the current situation is exactly the same as in late 1970 and early 1971 - provinces elected a government that the army did not like and the rift between the army and the citizens of East Pakistan exploded. Result - 3 million civilians killed, 300000 women raped in 9 short months. M.A. Niazi in his editorial in the Nation seems to predict the oncoming obvious: "There is therefore one solution which solves for the

Page 110

foreseeable future Musharraf's problems, and serves US interests. And that is for him to let loose a reign of terror on Pakistan, to establish a true dictatorship". Eerily similar to Gen. Yahya Khan's decision in 1971 to perpetrate genocide, in order to solve his problems. Where Next? It may suit our immediate interests to coddle this dictator, but let us not forget that we were doing the same to another dictator in Iraq till a few years ago. The difference is that this dictator actually does have nuclear weapons, has donated nuclear weapons technology to rogue states and does have nuclear scientists with strong linkages to the Osama. Terrorism against friendly governments like Afghanistan and India continue every day under the very noses of the army that controls all activity in Pakistan. We did not learn from our mistakes with the Shah and naively repeated them with Saddam; now, we see a repetition of this unfortunate habit with Musharraf. Sadly, Shenoy gets it about right: "The general has trampled on every principle Americans supposedly cherish - separation of church and state, democracy and free elections, an independent judiciary and the rule of law. Yet, as long as the Pakistani army does not openly embrace bin Laden, the United States shall support the dictator of Pakistan." Free Trade agreements and weapons of war like F-16s given unfettered to a brutal dictatorship with a penchant for terrorism may not be the best thing for the safety of US or its friends. In our hurry to bestow gifts on the genocidal dictator, let us not leave our national interests and abiding principles behind. Both our strategic interests and our principles, call for the support of the Pakistani people, and not the Pakistani dictator. Contrary to popular perceptions, Musharraf is not the only solution to key US interests in Pakistan -remedial steps to bring Pakistan back into the comity of respected nations is the only way forward. Instead of papering over problems specific to Pakistan through our injudicious support for Musharraf, we must deal with them directly, as in: Strengthen legitimate democratic leadership: Benazir Bhutto must be brought back with appropriate forgiveness of charges and a critical role to play in the administration of Pakistan, even if this means a re-election. Strengthen democratic institutions: Drop arbitrary modifications to the Pakistani constitution as well as revoke the supremacy of non-elected bodies such as the National Security council - the elected National assembly and the existing constitution must become supreme again, with some temporary support for maintaining Musharraf's position through the transition. Send army back to the barracks: Armies that own countries tend to cause immense destruction. The army's stranglehold over the economy and civilian organizations must be loosened - political corruption is a fact of life with almost all other countries in Asia and should not be used as an excuse to let the army loot the nation. Reform Pakistani education: Without significant changes to curricula in schools, the radicalisation of Pakistani society cannot be reversed. Aid dollars must be tied to metrics reflecting a change in the direction of education. This is the only solution to stopping the endless supply of terrorists. Reform in Charitable and financial institutions: Charity money is used to fuel terrorism in Pakistan - without this money and strengthened financial institutions, terrorism will starve. Without terrorism, problems with neighbour India can be resolved peacefully. Strengthening democracy and reforming education will automatically start improving Pakistan's economy and its relationship with other democracies like India; thus, reducing the need for WMD proliferation dollars. Pakistan's problems with nuclear neighbour India and the rest of the world will not disappear until we cure Pakistan's internal ills. At the cost of repeating myself, almost any cure of Pakistan has to start with limiting the role of the Pakistani army and bringing

Page 111

in democracy, and sadly enough things have become so convoluted in Pakistan, only America can help fix things at this point. In effect, much like the US is undertaking nation-building in Iraq, it has to do the same in Pakistan - Pakistan, probably needs this more than any other country in the world. If we're not careful and do not take remedial action in Pakistan soon, there will be another genocide; who knows where it'll be, but 1971 is here again - maybe in India this time, may be Afghanistan, or quite possibly in Pakistan, itself like 71. Or heaven forbid, as Physicist Gordon Prather, predicting a nuclear attack on the US suggests: " Who did it? Probably al-Qaida. But where did they get the nuke? Well, nukes leave "fingerprints." Our radio-chemists are going to know right away if the nuke came from Pakistan, the most likely source."

Conclusion

Finally we might conclude that Pakistan is facing disintegration; and this disintegration is coming from within and is not due to external factors. What are these factors?

• The inability of Pakistan to find an identity.

• The prevalence of the feudal mentality.

• The absence of a democratic system leading to long periods of Army rule.

• The adoption of jihad as a tool of foreign policy.

One of the major problems in Pakistan is the prevalence of the feudal mentality. The dominance of the feudal lords continues to be a feature of Pakistani politics. In the mid-seventies, two thirds of the leaders of the ruling People's Party were either landlords or tribal chiefs as were 157 of the 238 members of the National Assembly in 1985. Together, the landed aristocracy and the civil service constituted an oligarchy whose policies exacerbated inter-class and inter-regional economic inequalities. Within a few years of independence, this oligarchy expanded to include the military. Under the British rule, the bureaucracy and the military had served as the "steel frame" that held India together. In postcolonial Pakistan, they came together to "determine the parameters within which political and economic changes were to occur. The resulting political instability produced seven prime ministers in eleven years. Of these, one only stayed in power for two months.

The adoption of Jihad as one of its foreign policy tools is self-defeating and will destroy Pakistan. It will rebound on itself and lead to civil war and inevitable self-destruction. And it is obvious that with each passing day that the Musharraf regime has a rather low credibility on the international stage.

It seems quite clear that Pakistan is on its last legs. The dissolution of Pakistan seems inevitable. We shall discuss this in the next part of the book.

Page 112