Pakistan in difficult straits

THE architect of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, in his inaugural speech on August 11, 1947, to the newly constituted Pakistan National Assembly outlined his vision for his infant nation. Jinnah unequivocally expressed to his predominantly Muslim legislators that “You are free, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in the state of Pakistan”. The newly born Muslim nation’s Quaid-e-Azam (Supreme Leader) further clarified that “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state”.

Six decades later the inclusive dreams of Pakistan’s creator lie fully shattered at the altar of worsening Islamic radicalisation — a collapsing economy, a sham democracy, a weak government gasping for army-administered oxygen to survive, an army bigger than the state and the sole arbiter of its destiny. Pakistan displays all the attributes of a failing state with its very existence at stake. Jinnah rightly envisioned an “ideological balance” in his nation, but surprisingly, it was the rule of an army dictator, Gen Zia-ul-Haq which sowed the seeds of Islamic fanaticism corroding even state institutions, including the army. This strategic blunder caused much damage from which Pakistan has not been able to rescue itself and is now sliding down inexorably to an ominous destination which may have grave repercussions for the entire region.

Pakistan remains the hub of terror and instability. The terror machine and the terror infrastructure it developed, for operations in India and Afghanistan, is haunting it now with frequent blasts targeting innocent Pakistani civilians, religious shrines, high profile army and intelligence assets, etc. The recent assassinations of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, the sole Christian minister in the Pakistani cabinet, within weeks of each other, both for supporting the repeal of the one-sided blasphemy law portends the dangerous slide towards Islamic fundamentalism. Prominent Washington Post journalist Thomas Friedman recently expressed that “ What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?”

Pakistan continues with its myopic and inimical policies towards both India and Afghanistan forgetting the basic tenets and usefulness of good neighbourliness in today’s changing world. It persists with double-dealing with its financial mentor, the US, by its duplicitous participation with them in the so-called war against terror. It continues its patronage of fundamentalist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Jamat-ud-Dawa and its terror syndicate, the now internationally banned Lashkar-e-Toiba(LET) and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen for anti-India operations in Kashmir. Obsessed with its outdated fixation for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, Pakistan has kept supporting the Haqqani network, the anti-US Afghani Taliban and the old warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the hope of having a pro-Islamabad government in Kabul as and when the US departs from Afghanistan. Thus, it remains not overly enthusiastic in taking on the Afghani Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements in the badlands of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and South Waziristan. In keeping with its highly anti-India stance in Afghanistan, Pakistan through its ISI and local agents persists in targeting Indian personnel engaged in development activities in Afghanistan, not even sparing the Indian Embassy in Kabul by targeting it twice.

A Washington-based NGO, the Fund for Peace along with the prestigious magazine, Foreign Policy, based on a survey of 177 countries, has ranked Pakistan as the 10th most failed state with Somalia as the first and Afghanistan at number 7. Myanmar is ranked 13th and India at a respectable 87th ! Norway ranks as the most stable country in the world. The survey adjudges Pakistan as the world’s most dangerous country and the areas astride the Durand Line and especially FATA and South Waziristan as the sanctuary of the top leadership and cadres of Al-Qaeda, and the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. It notes that since 2009 nearly 3 million Pakistani civilians have been uprooted owing to counter-insurgency operations — “the largest single movement of people since the Rwandan genocide. The report also opines that President Asif Zardari heads a lame-duck government which has virtually no control over its nuclear-armed forces or the ISI, which nurtures the Afghan Taliban. An assortment of political, economic and social indicators, including developmental indices, also point to the precarious state of Pakistan.

As the leading country in South Asia and its immediate neighbour, India has a vital stake in the stability of a nuclear Pakistan. For years, India has made many friendly overtures to it in the larger interest of peace in the subcontinent, including the offer of a no-war pact by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Pakistan over five years back. He showed political courage in inviting his Pakistani counterpart to the World Cup semi-final cricket match at Mohali. Now Pakistan has to seriously introspect to ensure its own existence as a progressive and moderate nation-state.

The first and foremost step the Pakistanis need to adopt is to eschew utilising terror as an extension of state policy and stop support to terrorists of all hues, countless-terror organisations and dismantling the terror infrastructure. It must whole-heartedly participate in the war on terror in cooperation with the US, India, Afghanistan and Iran. Pakistan must realise that ensuring good neighbourly relations with India, in particular, is not a zero-sum game and it will itself benefit immensely. Pakistan must comprehend the fact that India does not behave as a regional hegemon and all outstanding problems can be resolved in a spirit of mutual accommodation.

However, it has to discard the export of terror to India, overcome its Kashmir-fixation and must appreciate the current ground realities. Whether Pakistan can ever achieve true democracy or not is, in reality, their problem but even under an army dispensation, it can strive for improvement in its relations with India for mutual benefit. Pakistan must never forget its many perilous faultlines, and only when it accords respect and succour to its minorities and the hapless people of Baluchistan and Sindh will its internal situation improve.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan army has to meticulously ensure the security of its nuclear wherewithal to prevent them from falling into wrong hands as the world fears. To survive and become a modern and moderate state as envisioned by its founder, Pakistan has to change tack. Perhaps, its most powerful state institution, the Pakistan army, has to take the lead and finally retire to the barracks

Courtesy: The Tribune, 11 March 2011

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110411/edit.htm

The writer was the first Chief of the Defence Intelligence Agency

(The views expressed in the article are that of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the centre for land warfare studies).