Questions are being asked about the choices Pakistan has made over the past several decades, bringing it to the point where its very existence as a functional state stands threatened.
If the first quarter of the year laid bare the extent of intolerance in Pakistani society following two high-profile assassinations over the blasphemy law, the month of May forced the nation to look at itself. Many have turned away from the reflection — blaming the mirror for what it shows up — but some have redoubled their efforts to question the choices that Pakistan has made over the past several decades, bringing the nation to the point where its very existence as a functional state has come into question.
No doubt, Pakistan has had more than its fair share of upheavals since 1947. But no one can recall a time when the system seemed so shaky as it is today with terrorism, sectarianism, rising intolerance, an economy that grew at 2.4 per cent in the outgoing fiscal, widespread and increasing poverty amid pockets of plenty bordering on profligacy, power and gas shortages, crippling inflation, little or no investment, high unemployment levels, flight of capital — ironically, enough, in some cases to Bangladesh — a fledgling democracy plagued with a hand-to-mouth existence… And, now, a security establishment exposed to the core by the events of May 2011.
It was as if the last façade had crumbled. Not so much by the biggest news of the decade — the quiet finale of the most extensive manhunt of history on May 2 in Abbottabad — but by the attack on the naval airbase, PNS Mehran, 20 days later. Six terrorists penetrated a high-security facility of the Pakistan Navy, destroyed two aircraft and held out against the elite forces of the armed services for well over 12 hours with two of them even managing to escape, ripping apart the painstakingly cultivated legend of the invincibility of Pakistan's men in uniform.
While the U.S. use of superior stealth technology was cited as a reason for its helicopters flying in and out of the country unnoticed to take out al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the armed forces had no explanation for how such a high-security facility housing crucial assets of the Navy could have been breached so easily. They were left fumbling for answers, issuing clarifications stating that someone as senior as the Chief of Naval Staff had been misquoted by the media — a rarity in a country where the media are not known to take too many liberties with the armed forces. And, again, it was the civilian government which had to come up to do the fire-fighting vis-à-vis the public perception for something which has always been so out of its domain.
Though the budget of the military and intelligence agencies is beyond parliamentary scrutiny — a point flagged repeatedly by the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif — Parliament and the Defence Committee of the Cabinet were invoked to reiterate confidence in the capacity of the armed services and intelligence agencies to meet all threats to national security at a time when they were coming in for considerable ridicule. They were the butt of post-Abbottabad jokes — again a first — and the sarcasm got sharper after the PNS Mehran attack with people taking digs galore at the “specialized businesses” that the armed services have diversified into over the years including property, cement, fertilizers, bakeries and cornflakes; the message being these preoccupations leave them with little time to defend themselves, let alone the country!
But these jokes and caustic remarks like that of leading rights activist Asma Jehangir — who called the generals ``duffers'' and urged them to return to their barracks with whatever they have amassed and let people decide the destiny of this country — do not take away the reality that Pakistan has some hard choices to make. Some of this open criticism may tone down following the chilling murder of journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad — widely believed to have met his death at the hands of intelligence agencies for knowing too much — but the hard choices staring Pakistan in the face will not go away. And, even if addressed, they will take a long time to show some results as the need of the hour is to “re-engineer Pakistan” that has been built into a security state driven by a systematically manufactured hatred for India.
According to former Chief of Naval Staff Fasih Bokhari, Pakistan has interpreted the word “security” only in military terms. And “strategic depth” has always meant getting more territory while it should have essentially meant expansion of the economy. Stating that the blame game will not get the nation anywhere, he observed at a public discourse that Pakistan needs to review its national identity, figure out its national purpose — take it away from hatred for India — and identify vital national interests.
Pointing out that Pakistan opted to be an Islamic Republic, his question was “does that make us first Pakistani or Islamic?” More critically this, in his opinion and that of lawyer Basharat Qadir, constitutionally sanctioned religious discrimination in Pakistan and created two categories of citizens; one category more equal than the other.
Drawing attention to the muddle that has been created in the Constitution, columnist Adnan Rehmat says: “For starters, Article 25 in its Part II titled ‘Fundamental Rights and Principles of Policy' guarantees equality of citizens while Article 20 guarantees the freedom to profess and practise a religion of your choice. Article 17 guarantees the freedom of association and Article 26 promises non-discrimination. And yet in the Constitution's Part I, titled ‘Preamble,' Article 2 declares only one faith, Islam, to be the state religion while Articles 42 and 91(3) dealing with the oaths of the offices of President and Prime Minister mandate them to be only Muslims. This despite Article 8 guaranteeing that laws inconsistent with or in derogation of fundamental rights to be void.”
Now this is a fundamental question that is unlikely to be addressed in the near future. Truth be told, it is way too much of a hot potato to be even touched at the moment. Why, even speaking about it publicly has become a life-threatening issue, so much so that the Jinnah Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank — kept the Pakistani media out of a function organised this week to launch its report on the status of religious minorities in Pakistan.
In fact, the PNS Mehran attack has shown how deep and widespread the malaise is. It is now no longer a matter of speculation that the terrorists had inside help. Such an attack would not have been possible without it. As a reaction, the armed services have apparently banned the activities of ‘Tableeghi jamats' (Islamic preaching groups) in cantonments. But, even if cantonments are insulated from their influence, they are deeply entrenched in Pakistani society and the rank and file of the services are exposed to them everywhere. Then there is the use of what security analyst Imtiaz Gul describes as “Islamic motivation” within the forces. “What are we preparing the Army for? To defend Islam or Pakistan?” And, this conditioning runs through entire society; brought up as it is on a curriculum of doctored history, a never-ending search for strategic depth in Afghanistan and the “obsession” with “Enemy No. 1” India.
Given the ground realities in Pakistan, voices of reason — which say abandon Kashmir, give up dreams of making Afghanistan a Pakistani protectorate, let's rebuild Pakistan brick-by-brick — can at best flag these issues but taking on a radical ideology popularised by the state is not something civil society can do alone. This transformation has to be led by the state but, from all indications, it is still unwilling to make that course correction.
India remains the ‘Enemy No. 1;' providing the rationale for Pakistan having the fastest-growing nuclear programme in the world even as global concerns of it falling into the hands of terrorists is used by the propaganda machinery to whip up the spectre of the Hindu-Christian-Zionist axis tightening the screws on the country to take away the lone ‘Muslim bomb.'
According to Pervez Hoodbhoy, professor of nuclear physics, Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme has become the ultimate weapon of blackmail. Even if Pakistan is at the tipping point, there are far too many weapons for even the U.S. to take out. “It can do very little to take them out because that would mean a full scale war with a nuclear power. Pakistan knows this and is using its nuclear weapons as an instrument of blackmail. Pakistan knows that other countries will rush in to pump money into this country to prevent it from collapsing for fear of its nuclear weapons.” And, terrorists — of varied hue and nationality — know this, too, as they seek safe havens in Pakistan.
I think its a wrong approach to look at them and say 'oh we knew this would happen and you guys would be a failed state' well yeah our prediction did come true, so now what? Instead of laughing at their misery, we could try to have talks and more talks, work out way to settle issues and try and help the state. We could either be enenmy till the end of times and achieve nothing, but we could be allies sometime in the future and create a more prosperous valley with a growing India, Terroist and anti social elements are part of a poor and downtrodden state, more a idle brain being a devils workshop. Here India, can be the real big brother, that isnt selfish like American in its foreign policies but a true superpower that is responsible and one that people look up to, in times of crisis.
Propaganda at its best and dramatization of Pakistans situation I must say, yes things are bad, but to call it Pakistan 'Shaky since Jinnah' and think that it is the only country using these nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip is false at best. let me jog the Hindu mind, way back in 1974 India asked for a clear cut seat to the UN security council or it goes nuclear. the answer from the WEST was NO and India did it. In the early 1960's US warned China not to go nuclear or it would actually use nuclear weapons on it before it weaponized.....Pakistan has MADE NO SUCH threat. More recently North Korea clearly threatened nuclear armageddon when the South mobilsed her troops with US in assistance?, when did pakistan do this. No doubt pakistan has made some bad decisions but they are NOT FATAL worst than this was in the days preceding 1971 and Pre-1971 when relations with the Afghans at the lowest Ebb and the country has been broken into two, the current situation will NOT lead to a break up for sure that much I am certain despite the financial loses. Article also mentions some THINK TANK indicating a break up? I can bring you 10 other think tanks which will say Pakistan has the igredients to be an industrialized economy? who do I believe? And in almost all articles spewing poison against Pakistan this chap Pervaiz Hoodbhoy seem to be quoted even though the man is shaky in terms of his repo at best having been listed as one of the payees by the US embassy. Same holds for Professor Ahmed Rashid a so called Taliban expert? who has actually never been to Afghanistan? wow. Truth is, Pakistan is here to stay, the size of its arsenal is on the rise and Pakistan needs it as a deterent against a vastly superior conventionally armed India which is building up for China. So pakistan right to increase whatever deterent it needs is justified, we are trying to prevent a war, just like the US and the west in general says 'Nuclear weapons' keep the peace without being used.
More than 40 years ago the Mother (of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry) said that there is no need for India to fight with Pakistan: Pakistan will break up from within (Bangladesh was the first installment of this process). So within 15-30 years there will be no Pakistan, and most likely the Americans will have confiscated its nukes by that time too.
I think its high time to toss the idea of re-unification. India could stand at a high moral ground asking UN to link the Kashmir plebiscite with a similar plebiscite in Pakistan for re-unification. I am pretty sure with prevailing conditions in Pakistan, majority of the people in Pakistan (99% people have nothing to do with terrorism) will opt for re-unification as the only salvage.
I think more and more people in Pakistan now realize that the ideology behind two nation theory was flawed and was a diversion created by Pakistani landlords to escape congress plans of land reforms in their territories.
I recently saw the 1957 film Mother India and found its symbology to be highly prophetic. Nargis, as Mother India, has two sons (East and West Pakistan) that are fighting. She intervenes, siding with Rajendra Kumar over Sunil Dutt. Sunil Dutt then moves into a life of crime, terrorizing the villagers. At the movie's climax the villagers corner Sunil Dutt and are about to shoot him when Nargis snatches the gun from them. She says it was she who gave birth to this criminal and it is her responsibility to annihilate him. Most the predictions in that film have come true, I wonder if that final prediction will also be true?
Bharat has to decide which country posts a greater threat to its immediate security, Pakistan or China. If Pakistan is the immediate mortal threat, then Bharat has to neutralise the threat posed by China. This can only happen if Bharat starts negotiating with China on its border issues, security issues like the terrorist threats, food and energy security, etc. Pakistan has threatened to use nuclear bombs on Bharat if it is threatened with disintegration even if it not the fault of Bharat. Under this situation, Bharat has to put its house and the external relationship in order.
After visiting China recently, Mr Gilani said Pakistan and China are '2 countries, one nation'. If Pakistan slided into dysfunction, China will make Pak a satellite state, and prop it up with it's own brand of democracy. USA or no USA, China is there for Pak.
In my opinion from the date of division and self rule started PAKISTAN (Headed by Mr. Jinnah) never made any efforts to improve the country and instead they startead the HATE INDIA ACAMPAIGN. This negative attitude never stopped and all the Pakistanis vied with each other in intensity of hatred and gave vent to their feelings and eaxhibitead the same to the world. As years passed by they went from bad to worse and this is the reason for their present pitiable and poor condition.
A very nice article. For Pakistan, to stay as one, their only hope is to have India as their Enemy number 1. But by letting Pakistan grow its Nuclear arsenal only threatens the existence itself and the other countries around it. US keeps pumping money into Pakistan knowing that the day it stops, Pakistan will collapse as a state. Which will only worsen things. My only doubt is that why isn't China funding Pakistan? They support them in every other way then why not provide some monetary assistance as well?
Excellent writeup on the fallacies and choices that Pakistan has made in the past. The point to remember here is that of the need for immediate surgery of nukes and militants by the U.S. under the influence of general anasthesia ($).
It may sound silly but the only option that India has got is to protect its borders - both land and sea & both with friendly nations and not so friendly nations. Pakistan has reached a point of no return. It would take a miracle to bring it back to be a civil society. India has no economic or military influence unlike Western countries and we unfortunately are bang next door to them. We have just one option be on guard and pray.
Pakistan has been spinning out of control ever since Mr Jinnah passed away. With the advent of TV Media & the news trickling out of US, we are able to some semblence of the events that have decimated Pakistan into a failed state. The tragedy is that - i) their own Frankenstein Monsters, created with the purpose of throwing India out of Kashmir, have turned against them, ii) they have lost nearly 50,000 lives - almost 99% of them Moslems - due to these terror let loose by them against India, iii) No one seems to be in control of the state, not the Armed forces, not the civilian government, not the thugs of ISI & the state is hurtling towards disaster of unimaginable magnitude, iv) economy is in shambles - even this 2.4% is bogus & there is rampant poverty becuase such 'gains' is offset by rampant/soaring inflation, v) Pak Rupee is now worth Rs. 80+ to an US$ - FE Reserves are only due to the kind courtesy of the doles received from USA and Saudi Arabia, otherwise their FE Reserves would be in MINUS. One can go on and fill a full page about the horrors of Pakistani daily life BUT for the sake of our brothers and sisters across the border, they need to sit down and start a course correction very soon - like yesterday for example. Otherwise, the state will disintegrate into several even more loosely governed regions under the control of Pakistani Taliban/s; remember how the Moslem Warlords fought amongst themselves for years to gain control and eventually all were wiped out by Mullh Omar/Osama Bin laden!
Arab Spring must visit pakistan. A mass movement that seeks to restore rule of law,return the military to the baracks,dismantle nuclear arsenal, cut the size of defence spending i.e become like Switzerland. A country where the ordinary folk get better food, shelter, education and peace of mind!
Mr.Abul Kalam Azad, the late Minister of Education must be turning in his grave for the prophecy and fear he has voiced all his post-partition life on the Himalayan blunder of dividing India into Muslim majority Pakistan and Hindu majority India. Hatred, fanatism, religious bigotry, terrorism, extremism, intolerance are alien to the pluralism, tolerance, communal amity and catholicity of outlook which was the sole and substance of undivided Indian subcontinent which India now reflects to some extent but, Pakistan, very sadly does not reflect. There is not much difference between segregating a human being based on colour and religion.
Well-written and witty, even if it does not tell us anything we didn't already know. All the symptoms of malaise listed by the author are not independent of each other. There is a vicious negative cycle in Pakistan, and the vortex has been spinning for some time. One thing is for certain, it is indeed Pakistan's nuclear weapons which allow it to misbehave with impunity on the international stage. As long as Pakistan believes that it cannot be defeated militarily, the world's woes will continue. It is time to begin to tame the recalcitrance.
Excellent analysis. In simple terms, Pakistan is a failed state. The elites in this failed state - the military and the police apparatus - survive on the handouts from foreign countries, mainly the US and Saudi Arabia. The specter of the nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands is a scenario that the military will play to the hilt, to get more money. Cut off this money flow and let the generals face the music of making a living, minus the handouts. If this were to happen, their nuclear program will wither away.
Outstanding article with coherant, comprehensive and critical analysis of a problem with terrifying possibilities in the wings. All and sundry have known the constituants of this country's 'problems' for ages, but only now typically, is there any real acknowledgement of the seriousness. But as is said, only PK itself can find the way out. It is truly sad in every dimension. Somewhere, there must be a ray of hope. One feels for the Common Man and Woman.
This is good, if Pak disintegrates into various states, it is good for India. The Balochi people want separation, as do some Sindhis. Also Kashmir has been occupied by Pak since independance and they started an insurgency. Pakistan is a failed state built on fundamentalist islamic ideals. Pakistan only exports terror and instability and the frankenstien has come home to roost.
The die was cast when Jinnah, reportedly not a very religious man himself, joined the communal elements in demanding partition of the country. It was only a question of time before the country became more radicalized.
Apropos the comment that India is Pakistan's enemy no.1, we ourselves have encouraged this stance from the time of Independence by taking a soft posture to all of Pakistan's inflicting its heinous 'power' on a hapless India. Nehru donated POK to Jinnah during the 1947 war, we surrendered our superior military gains of the 1965 war at Tashkent, we gifted to Pakistan at Shimla a spectacular victory gained by our armed forces in the 1971 war, we refused to implement counter terrorism measures ever since Zia ul Huq launched his eminently successful war of attrition on us in 1986, and the latest act by us is agreeing to restart the dialogue with Pakistan while allowing it to continue with its daily terrorist strikes in J&K. We protect convicted terrorists like Mohd Afzal and Ajmal Kasab instead of executing them. Our turning-the-other-cheek attitude has encouraged Pakistan to wallop us with impunity. If we are concerned about our own backyard being threatened by Chinese presence at Hambantota port in Sri Lanka and in POK, surely Pakistan has similar fears with regard to our presence in Afghanistan? We have kept the Kashmir issue on the boil since 1947 - of course under a tacit agreement with Pakistan - and this adds more fuel to the fire. Worst of all, India simply cannot think beyond Pakistan in the context of International Relations.
I only want one important question answered by anyone who chooses to address it. In the event militants get hold of Pakistani nukes and decide to target india, will the Indian govt retaliate? Since the Pakistanis and the world at large would be screaming from rooftops that the attack has been perpetrated by ' non-state' actors and the hapless govt and the 'innocent' public should not be made to pay. This question has been bothering me for many months now.
Pakistan can only exist by serving US interest in the region. Its corrupt military dominated establishment thrives through this relationship. Pakistan is a profound mistake. It is on the wrong side of history and in terminal decline.
The biggest problem with Pakistan is that it is taking money from America to fight against extremists. As a result it has lost its moral high ground against militants in eyes of many Pakistanis who consider the government and military as American agents. On other hand it is not able to take an independent stand against USA either.
Your article very lucid, informative and accurate. Successive generation of Pakistan rulers laid the country bare for unscrupulous geo political exploitation by West (read US. The cumulative effects are coming home to roost. International relationship is all about self interest devil take the ethics. In a presentation 'Pakistan - a state on the crossroads: causes and effects' Dr. Mubarik Haider made brutally frank diagnosis of the mental health of Pakistan. As correctly pointed out by him, the country suffers from a never-ending persecution complex, convinced that everybody is out to get it and declines from reconsidering the opinion despite a heap of evidence to the contrary. It dreams up wild and fantastic conspiracies that others have plotted against him and interprets every action with deep suspicion and believes there must be something about Pakistan that others are jealous of or desire to covet, inevitably, becomes incapable of civilised dealing. Others are forced to resort to confrontation, avoidance or desertion. Vain to the last, it refuses to consider that something may be wrong with it after all and is simply incapable of one thing: critical self-reflection. Dr.Haider asked for the reflection on the fact that perhaps 'most of the world`s current revulsion towards Pakistan was based on good reasons, instead of it being the result of a vast Zionist conspiracy'. Whether it`s the floods that ravaged large swathes of the country last year, or the spectre of Islamic terrorism stalking the land, it`s all somebody else`s fault.Dr Haider is of the view that "Pakistan exhibits all the symptoms of a schizophrenic society embroiled in innumerable conflicts". He blames state institutions, the political and religious leadership and media organisations of "further fomenting a culture of conflict and paranoia by irresponsibly perpetuating myths about the world".
While Pokhran II triggered national euphoria, the fallout of it seems evident only now. Thanks to our attempt to be macho, we unleashed a beast over which have little control. While we lament that the nuclear weapons in Pakistan would fall into the hands of terror outfits, we forget that the tests were conducted by Pakistan only after India did so. Whether we like it or not, we are, at least partly, responsible, for the nightmare scenario that we are facing right now.
A very timely and factual article indeed!But let us not get fooled-we are also tending towards similar situation albeit slowly!
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