Misreading Pakistan’s crisis

By K.N. Pandita

Pakistan abetted 26/11 Mumbai carnage is condemnable. No words are too strong. It is more so because of flip-flop manner in which Islamabad handled India’s complaint, and world’s silent reprimand. We would not see a better case of a house divided against itself.

But the manner in which our media, and especially the electronic media, has been responding to Pakistan’s domestic situation, which in no wise is reassuring, is something that causes worry. It is not only overdoing things but doing these in a crude manner, something that serious viewers would not expect from an Indian channel.

Some channels are telecasting sensational stories like the imminent demise of Pakistan, sudden take-over of the state by Pakistan Taliban, dismember of the state and emergence of four independent states etc. Even sensational reports about Pakistani nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of the “terrorists” are also widely trumpeted. 

Is it to express anger against a state that has caused us much harm over past several decades? Will our expression of anger through crude words bring us consolation? Are we so cheap a people that we should hail expression of anger as our national policy? It is a sad commentary.

When Pakistan was created on 14 August 1947 after a bloody partition, the person who brought it into existence by playing rabid communal card declared that Pakistan would be a “secular” state. Imagine the hypocrisy.  His successors made it a formal Islamic state Thrice did its army commander engineer a coup and removed civilian governments including those that were elected by the people. to be replaced with long spells of military rule.

Al this shows that Pakistan never had a direction. The only direction it has had is of domination by feudal lords, army commanders and top level bureaucrats all working in tandem to maintain their steel grip on her power structure. In doing so, they are using the formidable instrument, meaning. rabid religious slogan. In their scheme of things this slogan needs to be reinforced and energised intermittently in order to keep the pot boiling. Jihad by the faithful against infidels and polytheists is the provider of that specific fuel.  Hence jihad has been let loose in Kashmir and India is the daru’l-harb or the land of fighting. The vast terrorist structure meticulously planned and raised by the civilian and military think-tank is actually the operative mechanism of Islamabad regime.

Creation of religious zeal especially among less educated and unemployed youth through indoctrination and whipping up of religious sentiments and then providing them with sophisticated arms is the only way how the Pakistani think-tank believes Pakistan can survive after total falsification of two-nation theory in Bangladesh war.

There is complete understanding between this think-tank and the so-called terrorist outfits. The truth is that those whom we have given the name of “terrorists” are dedicated soldiers of Islam. They have been fed with the ideas of the supremacy of faith and the belief in the World Islamic Caliphate and they are carrying forward their assigned mission.. Pakistan’s policy planners know that the role which they and their powerful religious muscle can play in bringing the ummah to the forefront cannot be played by any other Muslim country. Therefore they are happy that Swat has been silently handed over to the theocrats.  NWFP is far more close to a theocratic dispensation than we might imagine. The wave is spreading to the Punjab and Sindh and the sooner the shadow of theocratic dispensations looms over these two provinces the better. Who among the military commanders in Pakistan, who among the civilian leaders in that country and who among the higher echelons of that civil society do not want the Islamists to emerge victorious? Is there a Pakistani who does not despise American presence in NWFP or in Afghanistan?

What we see today in Pakistan is gradual coming together of all these elements that want the Islamic Caliphate to be planned directed, and made operative from Pakistani perception and parameters. The struggle is actually between the ruling house of the Saudis and the indoctrinated and self-energized vast Pan-Islamist legions world over from among which Pakistani volunteers want to steal the march.

Therefore we should stop presuming that Pakistan is on the brink of disintegration ory that heavens will fall if the army stages a coup at any time. The Army needs to avenge the coup that was staged successfully by the civil society a year ago, albeit with blessings from outside.  What is happening there is logical and natural like day to day matters and having o bearing, whatsoever it be, on the grandiose plan for which Pakistani Machiavellis are working hard.  Pakistan is secure as long as its people find redemption in the role the Army-landlords-bureaucracy combine plays to control the destiny of a beleaguered people.
(The writer is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

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