Tag Archives: Pakistan

Let down by both carrot and stick

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American readiness to offer aid has bred dependence, and the U.S. has ended up as an enabler of Pakistan’s dysfunction.

By inviting Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the White House, President Obama may only have wanted to signal America’s continued interest in the nuclear-armed country. But in Pakistan it reignited the belief that Uncle Sam simply cannot manage the world without Pakistan’s help.

For years Pakistan’s policies have coincided with those of the U.S. only nominally. Pakistan’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan is the main reason Mr. Obama had to reverse his decision of pulling out troops from that country. Pakistan’s development of battlefield nuclear weapons also runs contrary to U.S. plans for reducing nuclear proliferation. Diplomatic statements notwithstanding, the two sides have very different priorities.

Even after feting Pakistan’s democratically-elected leader, it is unlikely that Mr. Obama’s problems in Afghanistan or Pakistan will end anytime soon. Although he continues to retain popularity at home, according to recent polls, Mr. Sharif has little control over foreign policy. Pakistan’s powerful military, currently headed by General Raheel Sharif (no relation to the Prime Minister) persists with its obsessive competition with neighbouring India, which in turn shapes Pakistan’s worldview.

Lost opportunity

Mr. Obama lost the initiative on Afghanistan by relying on Pakistan’s ability to set up direct negotiations with the Taliban. He has spent the last seven years alternating between coaxing Pakistan’s leaders with economic and military assistance and delivering tough messages. The pretence of toughness has lacked credibility. Diplomacy and inducements have failed because they only reinforce the Pakistani view that the country’s geostrategic importance for the U.S. outweighs its resentment of negative Pakistani policies.

Pakistan has received $40 billion in U.S. military and economic aid since 1950, of which $23 billion were given after the 9/11 attacks to strengthen the country’s resolve in fighting terrorism. But Pakistan’s focus has always been its rivalry with India, against whom it has initiated (and lost) three wars, using U.S. equipment each time.

The recent Pakistani announcement about an ‘India-centric’ tactical nuclear programme indicates that despite serious threats to Pakistan’s security by Jihadi extremists, India — an American friend — remains the principal enemy in the eyes of Pakistan’s leaders.

Americans have several reasons to mistrust Pakistan, which also accuses the U.S. of being a fair weather friend. Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons while promising Washington that it won’t go nuclear if it gets U.S. assistance. Pakistan’s ongoing support of jihadi terrorists is part of its effort to expand regional influence in competition with India, especially in Afghanistan and the disputed Kashmir region.

Over the last 13 years, many U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban and the Haqqani network — trained, armed and supported by Pakistan. The recent surge in Taliban activity, manifested most blatantly during the occupation of the Afghan city of Kunduz, is attributed by U.S. and Afghan officials to Pakistani support.

It seems that while officially Pakistan was helping the U.S. and Afghan officials in peace talks with the Taliban, its covert support was preparing the latter for reoccupying Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal. Increased willingness to fight Pakistani Taliban has not diminished Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban. Groups that target India — such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its other incarnation, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) — are not even deemed terrorists by Pakistan’s establishment.

Conditions waived

In 2009, Congress made aid to Pakistan conditional to specific criteria. The administration was required to certify to Congress that Islamabad was meeting American terms in fighting terrorism and diminishing the military’s role in politics. But for several years, instead of certifying that Pakistan was doing what it was expected, the Secretary of State has invoked the right to waive the conditions on grounds that continuing aid to Pakistan was necessary for U.S. national security.

The Obama administration spent its first few years trying to convince Pakistan’s civil and military leaders of the virtues of changing their strategic calculus. In doing so, they praised Pakistan publicly and expressed optimism every time Pakistan took a positive step, however small.

Over the last two years, much optimism was expressed over Pakistan’s decision to militarily eliminate safe havens used by terrorists responsible for attacks inside Pakistan and against China. But now the administration appears to have woken up, once again, to the realisation that Pakistan’s decision to act against terrorists does not extend to all jihadi groups.

During a recent visit to Islamabad, National Security Adviser Susan Rice reminded Pakistan of its unfulfilled commitments about helping with the Afghan peace process. She also asked Pakistan to act against the Haqqani network, which has been involved in several attacks on American targets including one on the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2011.

If things have not changed since 2011, one cannot help but question the administration’s intermittent hopefulness about a turnaround in Pakistani policies.

Pakistan is the sixth largest nation in the world by population but only 26th by size of GDP on PPP basis and 42nd in nominal GDP. It has the world’s sixth largest nuclear arsenal and eighth largest army but performs poorly in most non-military indices. It ranks 146 out of 187 countries in the world on the Human Development Index, which measures health, standard of living, and education.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report ranks Pakistan’s primary education at 136 out of 144 countries. The country has one of the world’s lowest tax to GDP ratio, with international aid making up for low tax collection.

The military and intelligence services that dominate Pakistani national security decision-making have sacrificed the country’s progress and prosperity in their relentless pursuit of military parity with India. Forcing New Delhi’s hand on Kashmir has become more important than educating Pakistan’s children.

American readiness to offer aid has bred dependence and hubris. The U.S. has ended up as an enabler of Pakistan’s dysfunction by reinforcing the belief of its elite that it is too important to fail or be neglected.

The intermittent cycles of optimism and pessimism about Pakistan have led to confusion in Mr. Obama’s Afghan policy. It is time to finally accept Pakistan’s lack of cooperation in Afghanistan as a given while making plans for that country. The U.S. would help Afghanistan, and even Pakistan’s people, more by insisting consistently that Islamabad correct its course. Instead of telling Pakistan’s elite how important they are, it might be more useful to stop footing the bill for Pakistan’s failings.

U.S. Policies Aggravate Pakistan’s Dysfunction

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By inviting Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the White House, President Obama may only have wanted to signal America’s continued interest in the nuclear-armed country. But in Pakistan it reignited the belief that Uncle Sam simply cannot manage the world without Pakistan’s help.

For years, Pakistan’s policies have coincided with those of the U.S. only nominally. Pakistan’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan is the main reason Mr. Obama had to reverse his decision of pulling out troops from that country. Pakistan’s development of battlefield nuclear weapons also runs contrary to U.S. plans for reducing nuclear proliferation. Diplomatic statements notwithstanding, the two sides have very different priorities.

Even after feting Pakistan’s democratically-elected leader, it is unlikely that Mr. Obama’s problems in Afghanistan or with Pakistan will end anytime soon. Although he continues to retain popularity at home, according to recent polls, Mr. Sharif has little control over foreign policy. Pakistan’s powerful military, currently headed by General Raheel Sharif (no relation to the Prime Minister) persists with its obsessive competition with neighboring India, which in turn shapes Pakistan’s worldview.

Mr. Obama lost the initiative in Afghanistan by relying on Pakistan’s ability to set up negotiations with the Taliban. He has spent the last seven years alternating between coaxing Pakistan’s leaders with economic and military assistance and delivering tough messages. The pretense of toughness has lacked credibility. Diplomacy and inducements have failed because they only reinforce the Pakistani view that the country’s geostrategic importance for the United States outweighs its resentment of negative Pakistani policies.

Pakistan has received $40 billion in US military and economic aid since 1950, of which $23 billion were given after 9/11 to strengthen the country’s resolve in fighting terrorism. But Pakistan’s focus has always been its rivalry with India, against whom it has initiated (and lost) three wars, using US equipment each time.

Americans have several reasons to mistrust Pakistan, which also accuses the U.S. of being a fair weather friend. Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons while promising the US it won’t go nuclear if it gets US assistance. Pakistan’s ongoing support of Jihadi terrorists is part of Pakistan’s effort to expand regional influence in competition with India, especially in Afghanistan and the disputed Kashmir region.

Over the last 13 years, many US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban and the Haqqani network trained, armed and supported by Pakistan. The recent surge in Taliban activity, manifested most blatantly during the Taliban occupation of the Afghan city of Kunduz, is attributed by US and Afghan officials to Pakistani support.

It seems that while officially Pakistan was helping US and Afghan officials in peace talks with the Taliban, its covert support was preparing the Taliban for reoccupying Afghanistan after the completion of the US withdrawal.

In 2009, Congress made aid to Pakistan conditional to specific criteria. The administration was required to certify to Congress that Pakistan was meeting American terms in fighting terrorism and diminishing the military’s role in politics. But for several years, instead of certifying that Pakistan was doing what it was expected, the Secretary of State has invoked the right to waive the conditions on grounds that continuing aid to Pakistan was necessary for US national security.

The Obama administration spent its first few years trying to convince Pakistan’s civil and military leaders of the virtues of changing their strategic calculus. In doing so, they praised Pakistan publicly and expressed optimism every time Pakistan took a positive step, however small.

Over the last two years, much optimism was expressed over Pakistan’s decision to militarily eliminate terrorist safe havens used by terrorists responsible for attacks inside Pakistan and against China. But now the administration appears to have woken up, once again, to the realization that Pakistan’s decision to act against terrorists does not extend to all jihadi groups.

During a recent visit to Islamabad, National Security Adviser Susan Rice reminded Pakistan of its unfulfilled commitments about helping with the Afghan peace process. She also asked Pakistan to act against the Haqqani network, which has been involved in several attacks on American targets including one on the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2011.

Washington’s complaints against Pakistani support for the Haqqani network are not new. The former Chairman Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, who met with Pakistan’s army chief 26 times in an effort to ensure consistent Pakistani cooperation described the Haqqani network as a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s security services at the end of his tenure.

If things have not changed since 2011, one cannot help but question the administration’s intermittent hopefulness about a turnaround in Pakistani policies.

Pakistan is the sixth largest nation in the world by population but only 26th by size of GDP on PPP basis and 42nd in nominal GDP. It has the world’s sixth largest nuclear arsenal and eighth largest army but performs poorly in most non-military indices. It ranks 146 out of 187 countries in the world on the Human Development Index, which measures health, standard of living, and education.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report ranks Pakistan’s primary education at 136 out of 144 countries. The country has one of the world’s lowest tax to GDP ratio, with international aid making up for low tax collection.

The military and intelligence services that dominate Pakistani national security decision-making have sacrificed their country’s progress and prosperity in their relentless pursuit of military parity with India. Forcing New Delhi’s hand on Kashmir has become more important than educating Pakistan’s children.

American readiness to offer aid has bred dependence and hubris. The US has ended up as an enabler of Pakistan’s dysfunction by reinforcing the belief of its elite that it is too important to fail or be neglected.

The intermittent cycles of optimism and pessimism about Pakistan have led to confusion in Mr. Obama’s Afghan policy. It is time to finally accept Pakistan’s lack of cooperation in Afghanistan as a given while making plans for that country. The US would help Afghanistan, and even Pakistan’s people, more by insisting consistently that Islamabad correct its course. Instead of telling Pakistan’s elite how important they are, it might be more useful to stop footing the bill for Pakistan’s failings.

Our Jihad Addiction

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It shook Pakistan and stunned the world. But the carnage on Dec. 16 at the Army Public School, Peshawar, marked only an escalation in the brutality of Pakistani militants, not its beginning.

Over the years, Pakistan’s homegrown terrorists have bombed the places of worship of the Shia, the Sunni, Ahmadis, Christians and Hindus. Since 2009, the Taliban have attacked over a thousand schools, mainly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. They have targeted ISI offices in several cities, Navy and Air Force bases, garrison mosques, the Karachi Airport, and even the Army’s General Headquarters. If this breadth of attrition has not cured Pakistan of its jihadist addiction, can the deaths of 134 innocent children and the burning alive of their teachers in Peshawar result in a fundamental change of heart?

The jihadist worldview is as stubborn as it is toxic. Soon after Peshawar, Maulana Abdul Aziz of Islamabad’s infamous Lal Masjid refused to condemn the Taliban’s heinous attack, and Hafiz Saeed of Jamat-ud-Dawah (née Lashkar-e-Taiba) went on television to blame New Delhi for the school attack and vowed revenge inside India.

The security establishment’s obsession with India, in which jihadism is rooted, goes back to Partition, the Two Nation theory, and the abiding fear that external powers want the dismemberment of Pakistan. The breakup of Pakistan in 1971 only reinforced the national paranoia instead of convincing the country’s Punjabi elite of the need to come to terms with Pakistan’s size and power and to seek security within the parameters of reality.

Pakistan’s constructed identity emphasizes religion and ideology at the expense of ethnic, linguistic, and sectarian diversity of a complex society. As a result, the country’s approach to national security has been driven by ideological rather than pragmatic considerations. Although Pakistan’s military and civil bureaucracy both originated from institutions created under the British, their approach and attitudes have progressively been driven more by the ‘ideology of Pakistan’ than the professionalism that they often project to outsiders.

The relationship between Pakistan and jihadism cannot be understood without understanding the country’s ideological dimension, the fact that it was created as the result of an idea. Pakistan has a national narrative, a national milieu, and a national identity—all built around Islam. For the first 30 years of Pakistan’s existence, the clamor was for religiosity within and Pan-Islamism in foreign policy. For the next 30 years, global jihadism was the overarching security and foreign policy idea that advanced the ‘ideology of Pakistan.’

Even though three successive commanders of the Pakistan Army—Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and now Gen. Raheel Sharif—have sought to curtail the jihadists’ influence within Pakistan, including through military operations, their efforts have always fallen short because of the nation’s ideological compulsions. The ‘ideology of Pakistan,’ and the falsified historic narrative taught in schools to justify it, produces sympathy in society for Shariah rule, for an Islamic caliphate and an Islamic state. This works in favor of more than 33 militant groups that operate out of Pakistan. Pakistan’s strategic planners may see no difficulty in eliminating global terrorists and fighting local jihadists while supporting regional ones. But the public is conflicted in its attitude toward jihadist groups. Unfortunately for those who want to stop the Pakistani Taliban, their rhetoric about Shariah and against Western values resonates with supporters of other, ostensibly ‘more palatable’ jihadist groups even if their methods are abhorred by Pakistanis.

For most countries, nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantee against invasion or territorial extinction. But to the disciples of the ‘ideology of Pakistan,’ security is not enough. Built in into the Two Nation theory is the notion of parity between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. The events of the last 67 years may have rendered the Two Nation theory redundant. The number of Muslims living in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh is now roughly equal and there are more Muslims in the subcontinent that live outside Pakistan than in it. But the ideological conception of Pakistan requires that it claim the mantle of Muslim nationhood and pursue equivalence to India in status, power and international standing.

Pakistan’s size and economy do not allow it to be on a par with much larger and increasingly wealthier India. The machinations of the Cold War that enabled Pakistani leaders to punch beyond their weight through alliance with the West, especially the United States, are also over. That leaves asymmetric warfare through jihadists as the only strategic option for Pakistan’s ideologues. The other course, that of pursuing security and prosperity of geographic Pakistan and its people without insisting on the ‘ideology of Pakistan,’ has simply not found sufficient resonance among Islamabad’s powerful quarters.

The case made by Pakistan’s ideologues is appealing to Pakistanis even as it drags the country down the road of tragedies similar to the recent one in Peshawar. In 1947, the country inherited few resources and feared strangulation at birth. The Partition riots and the exclusion of Jammu and Kashmir scarred Pakistan’s founding generation. The country survived because of its people’s resilience and its leaders’ adept Cold War alliances.

As early as 1948, Pakistan’s first military foray into Kashmir involved lashkars from the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. The irregular fighter added to the Pakistani military’s muscle. Engaging the tribesmen in jihad across the Indus, in Kashmir, preempted the possibility of their becoming involved in schemes for “Pashtunistan,” the land of the Pashtuns—advocated at the time by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the government of Afghanistan. Thus began Pakistan’s tolerance and support for nonstate actors tied by ideological nationalism to the strategic vision of Pakistan’s military establishment.

In the 1980s, Pakistan’s policy received a shot in the arm with the U.S. decision to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan in order to combat the Soviet Union. As substantial amounts of money, weapons and fighters flowed in, Pakistan’s security establishment began setting up camps to not only train fighters to battle in Afghanistan, but also in Jammu and Kashmir. Today, a wide array of militant organizations operates in Pakistan with safe havens in urban and rural areas. Some of these include sectarian organizations that target religious minorities and Muslim sects (Sipah-e-Sahaba), anti-India outfits (Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed), anti-Afghanistan groups (Mullah Omar’s Taliban and the Haqqani network), and militants waging war against the Pakistani military (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan).

The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan was the first turning point in the nature of militancy in Pakistan. General Musharraf was quick to sever ties with the Taliban government in Kabul and supported American operations in Afghanistan. To give the peace process with India some traction, he put a temporary halt on militant flow into Jammu and Kashmir. In April 1999, Musharraf had told a group of retired military officers that the “Taliban are my strategic reserve and I can unleash them in tens of thousands against India when I want.” By 2002, he had changed his tune, nominally banning groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. But the banned organizations and their leadership were allowed to operate under new names.

Under Musharraf, Pakistan began differentiating between jihadist groups. While foreign terrorists with links to Al Qaeda were handed over to the U.S., local and regional militants (sectarian, anti-India and anti-Afghan groups) were left alone. Some militants built capacity to challenge the writ of the state right under the nose of Pakistani security forces. They have inflicted huge casualties on security forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan over the years. Other groups such as the Haqqani network were allegedly ‘managed’ by intelligence agencies in a bid to exert influence on events in Afghanistan.

The current Pakistani problem of increasing terrorism at home is the result of that policy. While the state might differentiate among terrorists, the jihadists often tend to be sympathetic and supportive toward one another. The jihadists supported by the establishment end up supporting terrorists attacking Pakistan’s Army and civilians. As is often the case with ideologically motivated militants, ideology takes precedence over strategy. Even jihadists accepting or extracting state support see the value of some fighters using force to Islamize Pakistan further, even at the cost of undermining the country’s stability.

Pakistan’s adherence to an ideological nationalism based on Islam has allowed radical groups to propagate their message and raise large sums of money without much hindrance. Further, while the coercive military and intelligence apparatus has been strong, the local police have never been provided the political support, resources and skills required to be able to combat these radical outfits. Faced with a poorly trained and demoralized police force, some groups run extortion and kidnapping rackets in urban centers. They also raise money through narcotics trafficking and trade of smuggled goods. So the militant organizations have a sophisticated system of fundraising to support their activities. This would enable them to operate even after the Pakistani state has made a final decision to cut them off.

For years, Pakistan has been living in denial. For years, Pakistan denied support for the Afghan Taliban or the existence of Kashmiri jihadist training camps. The presence of Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, was attributed to the inadvertent consequences of Pakistan’s involvement in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s. But denial does not offer a way forward. Pakistan’s Islamo-nationalism has bred radicalism, diminished economic growth and weakened its international standing. Also unknown is the extent of ideological radicalization within Pakistan’s military, which remains the country’s dominant institution.

There have been numerous instances of military officers, noncommissioned officers and enlisted men cooperating with jihadists or deserting their service to join jihadist ranks. But the Pakistani military tends to hold back information on the matter, making an assessment of the extent of this problem difficult. The PNS Mehran attack in 2011, the attack on the Air Force’s Kamra base in 2012, and the foiled attempt last September by Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent to take over a Navy frigate in Karachi harbor all point to the persistence of jihadist influence within the ranks of the Armed Forces.

It is unlikely that the Pakistani establishment would want to give up its decades-long pursuit of paramountcy over Afghanistan. Faced with international pressure as well as growing threats from the Pakistani Taliban, Pakistan has cleared out known jihadist sanctuaries in North Waziristan. This has deprived Afghan groups such as the Haqqani network of their former headquarters. But Pakistan has neither acted against nor militarily confronted the Afghan Taliban; and the Haqqani network is believed to have relocated to other parts of the federally administered tribal areas.

Pakistan’s policy in the immediate future would likely be to engage with Afghanistan and the U.S. to find a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. At the same time Pakistan could continue to try and militarily change the ground situation in Afghanistan to force the world to deal with de facto Taliban control of parts of Afghanistan as fait accompli. In Islamabad’s view, this would enable it to determine the final terms of an Afghan settlement, resulting in India’s exclusion from Afghanistan and the northwestern neighbor being acknowledged as Pakistan’s sphere of influence.

But are fantasies of parity with India and paramountcy over Afghanistan realistic policies? For 67 years, Pakistan has developed one element of national power—the military one—at the cost of all others. The country’s institutions, ranging from schools and universities to the judiciary, are in a state of general decline. The economy’s stuttering growth is dependent largely on the flow of concessional flows of external resources. Pakistan’s GDP stands at $245 billion in absolute terms and $845 billion in purchasing price parity—the smallest economy of any country that has so far tested nuclear weapons.

Almost half of Pakistan is very poor. Pakistan’s literacy rate is 57 percent, and a staggering 38 percent of Pakistanis between the school-going ages of 5 and 15 are out of school. The low literacy rate and inadequate investment in education have led to a decline in Pakistan’s technological base, hampering economic modernization. With one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, at around 9 percent, a GDP growth rate of 1.7 to 2.4 percent and population growth rate of 1.5 percent, Pakistan needs foreign as well as domestic investments in addition to drastic changes in local laws, all of which need broad political consensus and stability, both of which are lacking. With almost 40 percent of its population urbanized, the Pakistani government spends around 2.6 percent on public healthcare. As a result, social services are also in a state of decline. On the other hand, Pakistan spends almost 6 percent of its GDP on defense and is still unable to match the conventional forces of India, which outspends Pakistan 3 to 1 while allocating less than 3 percent of GDP to military spending.

Over the decades, Pakistan has managed to evade crises and failure status primarily because the international community has bailed it out. But now the rest of the world sees Pakistan as Jihad Central. Camps nestled in the tribal areas have trained and equipped militants who have gone on to fight in the name of Allah in different regions of the world. Foreign fighters trained in Pakistan have reportedly been in action in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria and China’s Xinjiang region. It is no longer possible to keep Pakistani jihadists as a strategic reserve “only to cause damage to India.”

Instead of securing parity with India and paramountcy over Afghanistan, jihadists have only caused crisis and disruption within Pakistan, which must recognize the heavy cost being exacted by its pursuit of regional influence through asymmetric warfare. Fighting some jihadists while embracing others is self-defeating. Thirty years of escalated jihadism have caused erosion of the writ of the Pakistani state and decline in the capacity of state institutions, especially its coercive apparatus.

Even with sporadic military operations, Pakistan’s tribal areas will remain host for some time to a wide range of militant organizations with local, regional and global agendas. Punjab is now the main recruitment ground not only for the Pakistani Army but also for assorted jihadist groups. The growing presence of jihadists in south Punjab and northern Sindh and even in Pakistan’s financial hub, Karachi, does not augur well for the economy.

Pakistan’s jihadists are already exercising virtual veto over Pakistan’s relations with India. The Mumbai attack proved Lashkar-e-Taiba’s ability to undermine the initiatives of a civilian government for normalization of India-Pakistan relations. They could, in future, force the Pakistani military’s hand in a similar manner. Pakistan needs to get out of denial that there are any jihadist groups that can be trusted or considered allies of the state. However useful they might have been for external purposes, nonstate actors will always be a danger for the state internally. Instead of increasing Pakistan’s strategic options, as they were designed to do, the jihadists are now limiting Pakistan’s foreign policy choices.

Instead of doubling down on its jihadist misadventures, Pakistan can plot its course out of the disaster. To do so, it would have to change the defensive national narrative about Pakistan’s creation, raison d’être and prospects of survival. So far, any discussion of the nation’s origins that does not conform to the ‘ideology of Pakistan’ has been treated not as history but as an attack on the country’s foundation.

After mobilizing support for the demand for Pakistan, and establishing it as an independent country, successive Pakistani leaders have chosen to keep alive the divisive frenzy that led to Partition. If Pakistan was attained with the slogan ‘Islam in danger,’ it has been built on the slogan ‘Pakistan in danger,’ creating a constant sense of insecurity among its people, especially in relation to India and internal demands for ethnic identity or pluralism.

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy had opposed the conjuring of this ‘ideology of Pakistan.’ He had told Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly in March 1948 against building Pakistani nationalism around the notion of Islam being under threat. According to him, the rhetoric used to mobilize Muslims for the creation of Pakistan was no longer needed after Independence. “You are raising the cry,” he said, “of ‘Pakistan in danger’ for the purpose of arousing Muslim sentiments and binding them together in order to maintain you in power.” Suhrawardy warned against transforming Pakistan into a state “founded on sentiments, namely that of ‘Islam in danger’ or of ‘Pakistan in danger.’” He declared that, “a state which will be held together by raising the bogey of attacks” and “friction” with enemies “will be full of alarms and excursions.”

Suhrawardy’s words seem almost prophetic today. He said, “You think that you will get away with it but in that state there will be no commerce, no business and no trade. There will be lawlessness and those lawless elements that may be turned today against non-Muslims will be turned later on, once those fratricidal tendencies have been aroused, against the Muslim gentry and I want you to be warned in time.” He also defined the two key issues for the new country. The “fundamental aspect of the foundations of Pakistan,” he asserted, should be “the goodwill of the people and of the citizens of Pakistan within the state” and “the mutual relationship between the Dominion of Pakistan and the sister dominion, Indian Union.”

If Peshawar has indeed changed Pakistan, it will heed Suhrawardy’s advice.

Re-imagining Pakistan

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Almost every discussion of Pakistan, especially in India, inevitably tends to be about the logic and raison d’etre of the country’s creation.

The process of partitioning a sub-continent along religious lines did not prove as neat as Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah had anticipated. Mr. Jinnah was a lawyer who saw partition as a solution to potential constitutional problems in an independent India.

In his first address to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947 –exactly 67 years ago today – Mr. Jinnah had said: “I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division of India and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been said against it, but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of every one of us to loyally abide by it and honorably act according to the agreement which is now final and binding on all…. One can quite understand the feeling that exists between the two communities wherever one community is in majority and the other is in minority. But the question is, whether it was possible or practicable to act otherwise than what has been done. A division had to take place. On both sides, in Hindustan and Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may not like it; but in my judgement there was no other solution, and I am sure future history will record its verdict in favour of it. And what is more, it will be proved by actual experience as we go on that that was the only solution of India’s constitutional problem.”

It is clear from Mr. Jinnah’s statement that he only saw partition as a constitutional way out of a political stalemate, as he saw it, and not the beginning of a permanent state of hostility between two countries or two nations.

This explains his expectation that India and Pakistan would live side by side “like the United States and Canada,” obviously with open borders, free flow of ideas and free trade. It is also the reason why the Quaid-e-Azam insisted that his Malabar Hills house in Bombay be kept as it was so that he could return to the city where he lived most of his life after retiring as Governor-General of Pakistan.

We all know now that partition and the birth of Pakistan were not simply the end of an argument about constitutional options, as Mr. Jinnah had thought.

The entire country was plunged into communal violence, hundreds of thousands of people from both sides were butchered and millions had to flee their homes.

Instead of living as good neighbours like the United States and Canada, India and Pakistan have gone on to become adversaries in a state of constant war, a situation that has not benefitted either country but has damaged Pakistan even more.

The territory that constituted Pakistan was undivided India’s economic backyard and could not immediately provide trained manpower to lead the new country’s administration or military.

While many Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan as a result of the violence that also drove Hindus and Sikhs out of Pakistan and Muslims mainly out of Punjab, others moved to take advantage of economic and employment opportunities in the new country.

For several years after independence, higher educated migrants from India – Muhajirs, as opposed to sons of the soil – secured better jobs and higher positions in the new state of Pakistan.

Over the years, Pakistan evolved into an Islamist ideological state, a short-cut to resolving the complex inter-ethnic, social and economic dynamics among its peoples.

After the loss of its eastern wing, which became Bangladesh in 1971, Pakistan has been completely dominated by one ethnic group, the Punjabis, who tend to favour the ideological model for Pakistan and are heavily represented in the military, the media, and the bureaucracy.

Political scientist Benedict Anderson, in his book ‘Imagined Communities,’ defined a nation as “an imagined political community, imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.”

According to Anderson, a nation is a socially constructed community, joined by the imagination of people who perceive themselves as part of that group.

Many writers, including Salman Rushdie, have argued that Pakistan was “insufficiently imagined,” given the ambiguities inherent in the demand for Pakistan.

As a Pakistani born well after partition, and who has known no other homeland, I understand much of the critique of Pakistan. But I am unable to dispense with the idea of home and millions like me now know only Pakistan as their country. We are willing to discuss its history objectively and chart a different future for Pakistan but for us Pakistan is our homeland, which we will defend and improve.

Pakistan’s median age today is 21, which means that 90 million of its 180 million inhabitants are less than 21 years old and have not seen either the 1947 partition of India or the 1971 separation of Bangladesh.

For the sake of these young Pakistanis, a reimagining of Pakistan is needed, going beyond the bitterness of the 1947 partition and the subsequent disasters inflicted upon Pakistanis by their own rulers and leaders.

Pakistan, like any other nation, is not a monolith. Its people have energy, talent and aspirations for a good life like anyone else. Most foreign visitors to Pakistan, including Indians, will tell you of our hospitality, our warmth and the capabilities of individual Pakistanis they meet.

One can disagree over or even be agnostic about whether the creation of the state of Pakistan in August 1947 was a tragedy or not. But there is no doubt that the failure of Pakistanis to create a more tolerant and democratic state and the difficult reconciliation between India and Pakistan have proved catastrophic.

Ever since their nation’s creation, Pakistanis have felt compelled to defend their nationhood and to constantly define and re-define their identity.

Pakistan’s unfortunate history may justify the description of Pakistan as being “insufficiently imagined,” but imagination is by definition not a finite process.

An entity that is insufficiently imagined can be re-imagined.

Just as the imagination “can falsify, demean, ridicule, caricature and wound,” it can also serve to “clarify, intensify and unveil.”

Several Pakistanis are working, albeit with great difficulty, to re-imagine Pakistan as an inclusive, pluralist, democratic, modern state that works toward the well-being of its own people, instead of being preoccupied with endlessly defining itself, especially in relation to its neighbours.

From its inception Pakistan was seen as an anachronism by many. It also assumed permanent hostility from India whose leaders were opposed to partition and had predicted the demise of the new nation.

The dispute between the two nations over the Himalayan territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which remains unresolved to this day, enhanced Pakistan’s confrontation with India.

Unsure of their fledgling nation’s future, the politicians, civil servants and military officers who led Pakistan in its formative years decided to exacerbate the antagonism between Hindus and Muslims that had led to partition.

Very soon after independence, “Islamic Pakistan” was defining itself through the prism of resistance to “Hindu India.” The attitude of some in India helped create that binary.

Short of resources and burdened by inheriting a large army, Pakistan also sought great power allies to help pay for the economic and military development of the new country.

The partition of British India’s assets in 1947 had left Pakistan with one-third of the British Indian army and only 17 percent of its revenues.

The military started out as the dominant institution in the new state, a dominance it has perpetuated over the years.

After several years of exercising behind-the-scenes influence, General Ayub Khan assumed power directly in 1958 and ruled through martial law. Three further direct military takeovers followed. The military has directly or indirectly dominated Pakistani politics and set Pakistan’s ideological and national security agenda since 1958.

Some scholars attribute Pakistan’s troubles to its inception and the ambiguity about what it means to be a Pakistani. In the words of Chatham House scholar Farzana Shaikh (author of Making Sense of Pakistan) “It is the country’s problematic and contested relationship with Islam that has most decisively frustrated its quest for a coherent national identity and for stability as a nation state capable of absorbing the challenges of its rich and diverse society.”

The success of the Jihadi experiment against the Soviets in collaboration with the United States and much of the non-communist world encouraged Pakistan’s strategic planners to expand Jihad against India, and into post-Soviet Central Asia.

Pakistan’s sponsorship of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the presence on its territory of Islamist militants from all over the world, was the outcome of its desire to emerge as the center of global Islamic resurgence.

Ironically, not all Pakistani leaders supporting this strategy were motivated by religious fervor. In most cases, they simply embraced Islamism as a politico-military strategic doctrine that would enhance Pakistan’s prestige and position.

The focus on building an ‘ideological state’, however, has caused Pakistan to lag behind in almost all areas that define a functional modern state.

At the moment the ‘insufficiently imagined’ Pakistan, is the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim country that has been described as slowly sliding towards state failure for at least the last two decades.

As a Pakistani, it offends and worries me that the rest of the world sees my state as being constantly on the brink of failure. I am not willing to retreat into a shell and blame the rest of the world for asking tough questions about my country. I, along with other of my countrymen, want to find answers to the world’s tough questions.

The return of chaotic democracy has exacerbated Pakistan’s ethnic, religious and social divisions even as it has had the positive effect of giving its people a voice.

The country’s most powerful institution, the military, is having to contend with several parallel insurgencies and is no longer able to fully ensure order or security.

Islamist extremists have become sufficiently emboldened to attack army headquarters and major military installations.

Although almost 36,695 Pakistanis have been killed by terrorists since 2008, both civilian and military leaders have yet to demonstrate resolve in confronting the challenge of terrorism.

Pakistan is strategically located at the crossroads of three significant regions: The Gulf, Central Asia and South Asia. It borders Iran, Afghanistan, China and India, all of whom are important for different reasons.

Still, Pakistan’s economy is stagnant, its population is increasing rapidly, and its institutions of state are too tied to a national ideology rooted in Islamist discourse to be able to address its multi-dimensional challenges.

With terrorists trained in Pakistan showing up all over Europe and in places as far from one another as Mali and Indonesia, Pakistan’s change of direction is now a global concern.

It is no longer easy for Pakistan’s military or civilian elite to create a semblance of stability with covert arrangements with the United States or with China.

If the influence of Islamists in Pakistan continues to rise, it would most likely be increasingly adversarial towards the U.S. and the west.

Islamist enthusiasm for creating an Islamic East Turkestan would not sit well with China. This would only increase Pakistan’s isolation.

In any case, Pakistan’s direction as a nation cannot and should not be determined by the U.S. and other outsiders and the principal actors in this process would have to be Pakistanis.

Despite the constant re-writing of constitutions, Pakistan is far from developing a consistent system and form of government.

Political polarization persists between Islamists and secularists, between civilians and the military, and among different ethnic and political groups.

Pakistan’s pursuit of strategic objectives disproportionate to its capacity has been inadvertently encouraged by its alliance with the United States.

One element of national power –the military one—has been developed at the cost of all other elements of national power.

Pakistan’s GDP stands at $222 billion in absolute terms and $ 547 billion in purchasing price parity — the smallest economy of any country that has so far tested nuclear weapons.

Twenty two percent of the population lives below the poverty line and another 21 per cent lives just above it, resulting in almost half the people of Pakistan being very poor.

It is little comfort for Pakistanis living in poverty when they are told that poverty across the border in India or Afghanistan is even starker.

Soon after independence, 16.4 percent of Pakistan’s population was literate compared with 18.3 percent of the much larger population in India.

By 2011 India had managed to attain 74.04 percent literacy while Pakistan’s literacy rate stood at around 55 percent. What was a 2 percent difference in literacy rates has expanded into a 20 percent difference in 67 years.

With a population of 180-190 million out of which 60% fall in the working age category of 15-64 and another 35% under 14 years of age, Pakistan has a demographic dividend which can also turn into a demographic nightmare.

The low literacy rate and inadequate investment in education has led to a decline in Pakistan’s technological base, which in turn hampers economic modernization.

The disproportionate focus on ideology, military capability and external alliances has weakened Pakistan internally.

There is an alternative vision of Pakistan as a pluralist, multi-ethnic, modern democratic Muslim state functioning under rule of law for the material well-being of all its citizens.

But in recent years, those articulating or supporting this alternative vision have been marginalized as a result of the dominance of Pakistan’s national discourse by Islamists and Islamo-nationalists.

Reimagining Pakistan involves changing the nature of the Pakistani state, from an ideological Islamic one to a state that that is pragmatic in defining its national interest and functional in attaining it.

The first step in reimagining Pakistan would be to abandon the narrow ideological paradigm of Pakistani nationalism.

Pakistan is here to stay and no one in the world wants it dismembered if it functions effectively as a responsible international citizen.

Armed with nuclear weapons Pakistan does not need to live in fear or insecurity.

The state of insecurity fostered in Pakistan is psychological and should now be replaced with a logical self-confidence.

Once pluralism and secularism are no longer dirty words in my country, and all national discussions need not be framed within the confines of an Islamist ideology, it will become easier for Pakistan to tackle the Jihadi menace.

The shift away from ideological nationalism to functional nationalism –“We are Pakistanis because we were born in Pakistan” as opposed to “We are Pakistanis because our forebears resolved to create an Islamic state”—will help change the milieu in which various Islamist extremist and Jihadi groups recruit and operate in Pakistan.

Pakistan must also overcome archaic notions of national security. Instead of viewing ourselves as a ‘warrior nation’ we should see ourselves as a ‘trading nation’ that can take advantage of our location for economic purposes.

High literacy, global connectivity, increased agricultural and industrial productivity, and a prosperous citizenry would be the goals of the state in a re-imagined Pakistan.

These objectives would replace Pan-Islamism, Jihadism, and pursuit of parity with India and Strategic depth which have been Pakistan’s unattained ambitions of the past.

Only by reimagining itself can Pakistan find peace with itself and its neighbours and stop being viewed by the rest of the world as a troubled state, a failing state or a crisis state.

A Nobel Laureate and Beacon for a Troubled Nation

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A 17-year-old from Pakistan has become the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize—awarded Friday to Malala Yousafzai, for her courage in standing against the obscurantist Taliban and demanding her right to modern education. For this, she was shot in the head in 2012 by Islamist militants.

Malala, as she is known in Pakistan, shares this year’s prize with Indian children’s-rights activist Kailash Satyarthi. There is great symbolism in a young Pakistani and an Indian children’s advocate sharing the world’s most coveted award for promoting peace and human rights, at a time when the armies of the two countries are shooting at each other across their contested frontier in Kashmir.

While Malala’s courage in defying the Taliban’s barbarism won her the admiration of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, her Pakistani detractors’ criticism reflects the national malaise that young Malala has committed herself to fight. Hundreds of young Pakistanis, most of them supporters of cricket icon Imran Khan, have started the #MalalaDrama hashtag on Twitter to describe Malala as a tool of the evil West who is seeking to impose Western values on Islamic Pakistan. A few on Twitter even called for her to be charged with blasphemy, the catch-all accusation frequently used in Pakistan against those advocating anything but the most primitive ideas. Luckily, she now lives in Birmingham, England, after having come to Britain for medical treatment for her head wound.

Malala began documenting life under the Taliban in 2009, after they took control in the Swat Valley of northwestern Pakistan and then tried to shut down her school. The Taliban and their Islamist supporters oppose education for girls, and their concept of education for boys is far from enlightened. A young village girl with little outside exposure, Malala wished to connect to the rest of the world. She says she was inspired by the Pakistani Benazir Bhutto, who became the Muslim world’s first woman prime minister and was killed in 2007 by terrorists for challenging their ideas.

By rejecting the Taliban’s version of Islam—which was being brutally imposed by force of arms—Malala showed greater foresight than many of Pakistan’s politicians, generals and public intellectuals who have gradually ceded space to extremist Islamists. She didn’t buy into the propaganda description of the Taliban as a nationalist reaction to U.S. dominance or Indian influence, recognizing them as a menace that would set the country back several centuries.

Pakistan’s leaders have been in a deep state of denial about their national priorities for a long time. Religious extremism and terrorism are often not seen as a serious threat for a nation that has, since its inception in 1947, focused on acquiring military parity with its much larger neighbor, India. Instead of seeing the Taliban as murderous brutes fighting modernity, Pakistan’s strategic planners have considered them as allies against Indian influence in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union.

Terrorist groups with an ideological affinity for the Taliban were assisted by successive Pakistani governments in hopes of resolving Pakistan’s long-standing dispute with India over Kashmir. Although Pakistan has lost thousands of its own citizens and soldiers to terrorist attacks since 9/11, strategic delusions continue to prevail.

Anti-Western sentiment and a sense of collective victimhood also have been nurtured as a substitute for serious debate on social or economic policy. The country’s resources have been devoted to maintaining a large military and expanding its nuclear arsenal, with inadequate investment in education, health care and other social needs. The result is that Pakistan appears on virtually every list or directory of countries that are facing the potential of state failure. Half of the country’s almost 200 million people remain illiterate, population growth remains high, and economic growth has risen only in periods of an increased flow of aid from the U.S.

Nothing illustrates the crisis of Pakistan, and possibly a large part of the Muslim world, better than a 2013 book by Mujahid Kamran, the vice chancellor of Punjab University, Pakistan’s largest institution of higher learning. In “9/11 & The New World Order,” Mr. Kamran—who has a Ph.D. in physics from Edinburgh University—claims that the 9/11 terror attacks were an inside job and that al Qaeda was a CIA asset. According to a September 2013 article in Karachi’s Express Tribune newspaper, Mr. Kamran told the audience at a book-launch ceremony that “the U.S. and British governments are controlled by a high cabal of banking families, who seek to manipulate each of us by putting microchips in our brains and who sponsor terrorist attacks in Pakistan.”

Mr. Kamran was once a U.S. Fulbright Fellow and could be seen as a poster child for the ineffectiveness of the U.S. government’s public-diplomacy programs. Yet he is far from alone in the conviction that Pakistan is being held back, not by the ignorance of many of its leading citizens but by the conspiracies of a hidden American hand. To give just one example, I have heard Pakistani generals attributing the country’s recurrent floods to the U.S. ionosphere-research program known as Haarp.

So, alongside her courage, Malala Yousafzai has demonstrated wisdom beyond her age in shunning the obscurantism and conspiracy-theory obsession of the society in which she was born. Malala is already a hero of Pakistan’s embattled modernizers, and now her voice has been amplified as never before by the Nobel Peace Prize.

A Foreign Economic Policy

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For decades, pundits have described India and China as rivals for leadership in Asia. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to India suggests that economic cooperation, rather than strategic competition, could be the main driver for the two Asian giants. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming meeting with US President Barack Obama also gives due weight to economic considerations, India could be on the verge of significantly redefining its global role.

It is good that Modi pays attention to economics, unlike the entrenched establishment in Pakistan, which clings to military strategies even when the cost is the country’s impoverishment. India and the United States could still emerge as strategic partners, but with shared economic interests rather than just shared concerns about the balance of power. And Sino-Indian rivalry could be postponed to a day when both countries have modernised their economies.

India has yet to realise its full potential as a leading global economy. The rapid economic growth that India has witnessed since the mid-1990s was ushered in by much-needed reforms. After being criticised by economists for its low rate of growth, India finally earned a place among the world’s leading emerging markets. Further reform could lead it to greater success among the BRICS, that is, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and beyond.

Americans believe that India can achieve rapid economic growth through innovation if it opens up its economy to foreign technologies. As Modi and Obama meet, Indian policymakers must recognise that economic factors are as important to Washington as they are to Beijing. For American FDI, India must strengthen its intellectual property right regulations and protect foreign investors who are exporting new technologies to India. Greater protection for foreign technologies will not only encourage growth and innovation, but also bring in vital FDI.

New Delhi cannot afford to persist with its dated modes of thought on pharmaceuticals or the defence industry either. Spending on healthcare is only about 1 per cent of the GDP in India, making the country one of the lowest spenders in the world. A number of issues plague India’s healthcare sector, ranging from a lack of infrastructure and financing to a dearth of health workers across the country. Hatred of Western pharmaceutical corporations cannot be the core of India’s healthcare strategy.

While India has emerged as a hub for IT outsourcing, it has lagged behind in exporting value-added manufactured goods. It has been unable to increase its share of technology-intensive products. With wages rising and productivity falling in China, India has a great opportunity to attract American FDI in its manufacturing sector. Such investment could go a long way in kickstarting India’s economy.

The country will require over $500 billion just for funding its infrastructure needs in the next five years. This fact makes capital market reforms a critical component of the agenda. Lack of liquidity and transparency as well as an excessive government footprint in capital markets are a few of the problems plaguing this sector. Any positive commitment from Modi in this area would be music to American ears and might help attract dollars for infrastructure.

With India seeking to modernise its armed forces and diversify its arms acquisitions, opportunities for stronger US-India defence ties will arise. The speed with which the two countries collaborate will largely depend on how reforms are introduced in India’s defence sector. Both sides speak of the opportunities for defence cooperation. But success in this arena will require streamlining the licensing processes as well as improving foreign and private participation.

As the economy grows, India’s energy needs continue to expand as well. The energy sector has been dominated by monopolies and the state, resulting in a lack of market-based mechanisms in the sector. This has led to governance issues, inefficiencies and a lack of strong competition from private companies. Americans would like to see market-based reforms in the energy sector.

The first set of reforms, implemented in the early 1990s, marked India’s arrival on the global economic map and made the country a key destination for international investors and companies. It has made significant progress in the last two decades and is now counted among the world’s leading emerging markets.

Economic growth led to a rise in India’s global standing and has radically improved the country’s socio-economic indicators. It has also raised the expectations of people within and outside the Indian economy. The burgeoning middle classes expect more growth from the economy and are keen to see even more improvement in the country. So do the major powers courting India.

The success of Modi’s initiatives with both China and the US depend on his ability to put economics at the centre of India’s new foreign policy. India has a remarkable knack for exploring new ideas and then settling for old ones. For peace and stability in Asia, and in order to create a model for its neighbours, one can only hope that India under Modi will have the economic emphasis that the prime minister’s predecessor failed to sustain.

Pakistan #Fail

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After paralyzing Islamabad for days, the crowds at boisterous protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are starting to thin out. But even if Pakistan’s current political standoff comes to an end, the country’s deeper political crisis won’t.

Sharif, who leads the conservative and pro-business Pakistan Muslim League party dominant in the populous Punjab province, has successfully rallied to his side most political parties represented in parliament. A consensus seems to be emerging within Pakistan’s political class that the country’s fragile democratic system should not be derailed. But the underlying causes of instability — terrorism, ethnic and sectarian conflict, and economic stagnation — remain unaddressed.

The protests were initiated by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and Canada-based cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. The two political allies are clearly tapping into the disenchantment of Pakistan’s urban middle class, which wants social and political reform even if it does not agree on what reforms to adopt. Sharif’s style of governance, which puts family members and friends in charge of key government functions, doesn’t appeal to most Pakistanis. Nor is Sharif’s tendency to try to marginalize all opposition and his confrontational approach towards Pakistan’s all-powerful military winning him many supporters.

Most Pakistani analysts now seem to agree that Khan and Qadri would not have dared to challenge Sharif in the streets had they not been encouraged to do so by someone from within the army hierarchy. The army has ruled Pakistan directly for 33 years and has played a behind-the-scenes role during periods of intermittent civilian rule, including splitting and forming political parties. The military also influences politics by initiating smear campaigns against political figures it does not like by describing them as unpatriotic.

The army insists it has no political agenda. But the timing of the protests, in conjunction with the retirement of top generals, coupled with Pakistan’s history of military intervention, makes the generals’ role suspect. Moreover, Javed Hashmi, Khan’s close associate and president of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party, has now gone public with accusations that Khan told his colleagues that he was being backed by senior army officers. It’s a story that Pakistan has seen many times in its 67-year history. And it is, sadly, a key component of the country’s continuing political dysfunction.

Khan claims that he wants fresh elections because the vote that brought Sharif to power in May 2013 was rigged. That makes as much sense as Al Gore announcing a sit-in 14 months after the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Similarly, Qadri claims he wants a revolution in Pakistan because the country is mired in corruption. But he also has no explanation for why he chose this particular time to return from a decade in Canada, coinciding with Khan’s agitation. Corruption in Pakistan did not start only this summer.

I, like many others, suspect that the protests were timed to coincide with the pending retirement of five top generals, including the head of the ubiquitous Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. Gen. Zahir ul-Islam. In Pakistan, prime ministers facing political challenges are often more willing to extend the tenure of powerful intelligence chiefs in order to maintain their favor. Previous civilian governments have faced manufactured crises around the time they had to make critical decisions about replacing ISI directors-general.

Sharif may yet succeed in beating back the latest challenge to his authority. But the euphoria about economic reform and peace with India that marked Sharif’s inauguration last year — the first transfer of power in Pakistan’s history from one civilian government to another — is already gone.

Pakistan’s latest imbroglio highlights the country’s permanent political crisis. Despite the constant rewriting of constitutions — the country has had three since its founding in 1947, in addition to several amendments and draft constitutions — Pakistan is far from developing a consistent system and form of government. Political polarization persists between Islamists and secularists, between civilians and the military, and among different ethnic and political groups.

Political factions have often found it difficult to cooperate with each other or submit to the rule of law. At any given time, one or the other political party has been aided by the military intelligence apparatus, which plays a behind-the-scenes role. Political rivalry, like the kind now on display between Khan and Qadri and Sharif, has been cited throughout Pakistani history as a reason for military intervention.

Pakistan’s military, which dominates the state even in the presence of an elected government, has developed a set of policies that include an emphasis on Islam as a national unifier, hostility towards India as the principal foreign-policy objective, and an alliance with the United States that helps defray the costs of Pakistan’s massive military expenditures. These policies have encouraged extremist Islamism, promoted the pursuit of strategic objectives disproportionate to the state’s capacity, and obstructed Pakistan’s political evolution. But the disproportionate focus on ideology, military capability, and external alliances has weakened Pakistan internally.

The military has been developed at the cost of all other elements of national power, such as the economy, education, technological innovation, and institutional strength. The country’s institutions, ranging from schools and universities to the judiciary, are in decline. The economy’s stuttering growth is dependent largely on foreign aid or International Monetary Fund and World Bank financing. GDP stands at $236.6 billion in absolute terms — the smallest economy of any country that has tested nuclear weapons.

But these issues barely get any mention in Pakistan’s national discourse. The oversimplified Pakistani narrative makes it seem that the country’s real problems are wresting Jammu and Kashmir from India, fighting Indian and American “hegemony,” and keeping in check the corruption of elected civilian leaders.

Sharif’s latest troubles, too, are the direct result of his attempt to modify that national narrative by wresting control of foreign policy and national security issues from the military. He spoke of normal trade relations with India soon after his election in May 2013, without insisting on resolving the Kashmir dispute first, and argued that Pakistan’s interests are better served by staying out of Afghanistan’s internal matters.

The Pakistani military and its political allies see civilian initiatives for peace with India as treason. The military also remains unwilling to revise its policy of employing Afghan proxies, like the Taliban and the Haqqani network. Pro-ISI television news channels heaped scorn on Sharif for being pro-American and pro-Indian, just as they had condemned the government led from 2008 to 2013 by President Asif Ali Zardari.

Allegations of collusion between the political opposition and elements within the army seldom surprise Pakistanis: During periods of civilian rule that have been interspersed with direct military dictatorship, the army has consistently refused to submit itself to the decisions of, or scrutiny by, elected civilians. And it has looked for allies wherever it could find them in the political arena. The scope of direct military intervention in the form of a coup has diminished lately. Instead, Pakistan’s 20-odd 24-hour television news channels have become instruments of pressure on elected leaders through vicious propaganda guided by the army’s psychological operations experts.

Both Sharif and Khan have a reputation for obstinacy and their protests were meant to provide the military with a fig leaf for acting as the final arbiter in a political deadlock. A prolonged sit-in outside parliament by Khan’s hard-core followers, joined by Qadri’s devotees, coupled with Sharif’s stubborn refusal to resign, would be perfect justification for a military-brokered settlement.

Educated Pakistanis are often torn between their support for democracy and civilian control of the military, on the one hand, and their desire for social and political reform, on the other. Just as Sharif is a flawed advocate for democracy, Khan and Qadri’s calls for reform are tainted by their covert ties with the military and its intelligence arm.

At the root of Pakistan’s crisis is a refusal of all major actors to play by predetermined rules and in accordance with the constitution. The Pakistani military does not realize that its meddling makes Pakistan less stable, not more. An elected government must have the right to make policy in all spheres, including foreign affairs and national security. But politicians like Sharif also need to recognize that winning an election does not give them the right to govern arbitrarily. As for the likes of Khan and Qadri, they need to learn to wait until the next election rather than cutting secret deals with generals to secure a share in power through a soft coup.

Pakistan’s problems are myriad: a see-saw economy, low literacy rates and educational performance, and growing international isolation as others see the country as an incubator of Islamist extremism. These come from decades of political mismanagement. Unfortunately for Pakistan, the generals and politicians refuse to change their ways. That’s likely to keep the country lurching from crisis to crisis.

Pakistan, Obsessed Over India, Risks Anarchy

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The elaborate diplomatic dance between India and Pakistan has been interrupted once again. The two sides remain far from a major breakthrough in their troubled relationship. As long as the Pakistani Army continues to view India as an existential threat and maintains its grip over security policy, the twain may never achieve permanent peace.

India has called off the meeting between its Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh and her Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Chaudhry scheduled for August 25 in Islamabad, after Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Delhi met Kashmiri separatist leaders. This has ended the euphoria following Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s journey to New Delhi for the inauguration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last May. Pakistan’s decision to remind Indians of their dispute over Kashmir followed Modi’s comments about Pakistani support for terrorism during a recent visit to Kargil, where the two countries fought a war in 1999.

Both Sharif and Modi spoke of the need to bury the hatchet during their meeting on occasion of Modi’s inauguration. But the expressions of desire for normalization could not contain the more substantive problems in the India-Pakistan relationship. India remains unhappy over Pakistan’s failure to prosecute terrorists involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Sharif, on the other hand, must deal with hardliners in Pakistan’s military who insist on seeing India as their country’s permanent enemy – unwilling to look too closely at the terrorists involved in the attack.

For India, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks were as much a challenge as the 9/11 assault was for Americans. The 12 coordinated shootings and bombings carried out by ten Pakistani terrorists killed 164 people and terrorized India’s commercial capital for almost three days before commandos flushed them out of various buildings, including five-star hotels and a Jewish Community Center. The images of the attacks, telecast live into Indian homes, are seared in the memory of most Indians.

Although Pakistan arrested several individuals involved in planning and executing the Mumbai attacks, prosecution has been repeatedly delayed. Intelligence reports, including some from US sources, have indicated that the detained commanders of Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT, enjoy amenities not available to prisoners. Some have been found passing instructions on the phone to operatives. Recently, their trial was once again postponed without recording evidence or other substantive proceedings.

LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Sayeed remains free, appearing on television spouting venom against India, Israel and the United States from his massive headquarters near Lahore. Indian officials read Pakistan’s refusal to prosecute the 26/11 accused or clamp down on Hafiz Sayeed as a sign of reluctance in shutting down anti-India jihadi groups.

In July Pakistan’s military launched a military operation against terrorist safe havens along its border with Afghanistan, yet the Pakistani state is far from shutting down the jihadi infrastructure built since the 1980s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and the subsequent militant uprising in Kashmir during the 1990s.

The Pakistani military continues to seek military advantage against India even though the possession of nuclear weapons by both countries should deter the prospect of war. Jihadis offer a sub-conventional deterrent to Pakistan against India’s overwhelming advantage in conventional military capability. Most Pakistani civilian politicians recognize the dangers of reliance on terrorism as an element of Pakistan’s strategic planning, but the military retains tight control over foreign and national security policy despite return to civilian rule in 2008.

Like his civilian predecessor Asif Ali Zardari, Sharif has declared normalization of relations with India as a priority. Zardari’s government tried to open travel and trade and, in 2011, agreed to Most Favored Nation status for India. Despite completion of legal formalities, the status has not yet been granted, demonstrating behind-the-scenes military influence.

After his election last year, Sharif renewed talk of normalizing relations with India, with special emphasis on trade. India and Pakistan have a combined population of 1.4 billion, share a 2,000-mile border and a common history until 1947. Their languages are mutually understandable, and parts of their populations have overlapping ethnicity. There is also significant complementarity in the two neighbors’ economies. Still, trade between them amounted to only $2.6 billion last year, less than 0.5 percent of India’s total commerce. As a businessman, Sharif says he understands the benefit of freer trade between the two countries.

Rhetoric and expressions of desire for more trade notwithstanding, security remains the overarching consideration in India-Pakistan ties.

Sharif’s participation in Modi’s inauguration was billed as the first time a Pakistani prime minister had attended such celebrations in India – an opportunity for laying foundations of a new relationship between India and Pakistan. The prospect of a new beginning, however, was soon undermined by incidents of firing along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. The two countries have fought for the control of Kashmir since 1947.

According to Indian officials, Pakistan has violated the ceasefire in the disputed territory 54 times this year through July 16 and 19 times since the Modi government took office May 26. Defense Minister Arun Jaitley told parliament recently that Pakistan violated the ceasefire agreement 199 times last year. Pakistan flatly denies reports of these incidents just as it denies support for jihadi groups operating in Kashmir though they operate in full view of Pakistani and international media.
There are many logical reasons for why and how Indian-Pakistan ties can be normalized. Psychological, not logical, factors have held the relationship back so far. Since the country’s birth through India’s partition in 1947, Pakistanis have sought to define their national identity through denial of commonality with India.

Disputes, such as the one over Jammu and Kashmir, have over the years become more symptom than cause of tensions in the subcontinent. At the heart of the problem is Pakistan’s carefully nurtured national narrative and state ideology, diametrically opposed to India’s view of itself as the region’s preeminent power.

Since independence, Pakistanis have been told, and with greater vehemence since 1977 with the rule of military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, that their country is a “citadel of Islam,” that its destiny is to be an Islamic State and its army is “the sword of Islam.” Advocates of modern, secular values, even pluralism, are denigrated as “enemies of the ideology of Pakistan,” therefore cast as “traitors to Pakistan.” Pakistan’s establishment, led by its military, also seeks parity with India, not only in the legal sense of sovereign equality between nations but in military and political terms.

This ideological milieu has helped religious-political groups exercise greater influence on national discourse than is justified by either the size of their membership or number of votes in Pakistan’s sporadic general elections and led to the outgrowth of jihadi groups, one more extreme than the other.

Pakistan’s state ideology has undermined prospects for peace with India since 1950, when Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan travelled to Delhi and signed the first major agreement. The optimism about the agreement died within a year with the assassination of its Pakistani signatory. Pakistan has since gone through years of political instability while the army has gained influence in policymaking.

Over the years, Pakistan participated in US-led anti-communist military alliances to secure military hardware that would enable it to deal with a larger, ostensibly hostile neighbor. It has fought four wars with India, including the one in 1971 resulting in the creation of Bangladesh, leaving Pakistan with half its 1947 territory. Although Pakistan has acquired nuclear-weapons capability, its insecurity in relation to India has not diminished.

Soon after independence, Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah had said that he expected India and Pakistan to live alongside each other like Canada and the United States. But as long as Pakistan’s establishment continues to paint India as an existential threat and a permanent enemy in the minds of its people, no Pakistani leader –civilian or military –can embrace the Canada-US model. For now, the two sides will maintain their well-worn pattern of diplomatic engagement interspersed with periods of intense hostility.

A Bubble Called Pakistan

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Barely 14 months after convincingly winning a general election, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government is being asked to resign amid threats of street protests. Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and Canada-based Sunni cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri plan separate marches on Islamabad on August 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day. Several politicians and parties known for their close ties to Pakistan’s deep state, the ISI, have announced support for the anti-Sharif protests.

Sharif will most likely ride out this first wave of attack. He retains an absolute majority in parliament and, by most accounts, there is no appetite in the country for a military coup. But the protests will weaken Sharif and sap the elected government’s energies, diminishing its effectiveness. That is exactly how the wings of the previous civilian government led by Asif Zardari and Yusuf Raza Gilani were clipped. Then, the judiciary played a critical role in tying up elected leaders in knots though, this time, the judges have yet to get involved.

The military has ruled Pakistan directly for more than half its existence as an independent country. When it can’t govern directly, the military and its intelligence services still want to exert influence, especially over foreign and national security policies. At any given time, there are enough civilian politicians, media personalities or judges willing to do the military’s bidding for this manipulation to persist.

Currently, the military wants Sharif to curb his enthusiasm about normalising ties with India and turn away from Pakistan’s past policy of meddling in Afghanistan’s politics. It also wants an end to the treason trial of former dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

In the Pakistani military’s worldview, coup-making should not result in a trial for treason. The armed forces represent patriotism, even if their errors result in the loss of half the country’s territory, as happened in 1971 with the loss of Bangladesh. Civilians, on the other hand, can be judged traitors merely for advocating a different path forward for the country.

Ironically, the latest effort to destabilise an elected civilian government is taking place at a time when the Pakistan army is ostensibly waging war against jihadi terrorists in North Waziristan. The chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif, has promised that the war will continue until all terrorist groups are eliminated. Usually, war unites political rivals, but there has been no effort by the military and its civilian political allies, or for that matter by Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), to overcome polarisation.

The current political chaos reminds me of a conversation I had with the then US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, soon after the covert American operation that resulted in discovering and killing Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.

Grossman, who was in Islamabad at the time of the May 1, 2011 operation, described the atmosphere in the Pakistani capital as “surreal”. He told me that he felt Pakistani officials and the rest of the world seemed to exist in “parallel universes”.

The veteran American diplomat noted that instead of realising the need to be apologetic about the world’s most wanted terrorist being found in their country, Pakistanis angrily protested America’s decision to kill bin Laden on Pakistani soil without informing Pakistani authorities.

As Pakistan’s ambassador to the US at the time, I could not tell Grossman that I agreed with him. But like many Pakistanis who worry about their country’s future, I have often noted my compatriots’ tendency to live in a world all our own.

The rest of the world is clearly concerned about the inadequacy of Pakistan’s efforts in eliminating the jihadis. The spectre of terrorism impacts Pakistan’s economy adversely and makes it difficult for Pakistanis to find jobs or travel abroad. Sri Lanka recently withdrew visa-on-arrival facility from Pakistani citizens, further reducing the number of countries where Pakistanis might travel without a visa.

But these adverse reports barely find mention in Pakistan’s media, which remains preoccupied with the shenanigans of people like Imran Khan and Tahir-ul-Qadri. Such is the media noise that Pakistanis are often kept ignorant of how the rest of the world looks at their country and remain confused about considering jihadist terrorism the principal threat to the country’s survival.

Pakistani leaders seem to prefer hyper-nationalist rhetoric and allegations of corruption against their rivals to an honest debate about the country’s loss of direction. Thus, Imran Khan and Qadri are not behaving differently from the way Nawaz Sharif and the lawyers’ movement acted against Zardari in the preceding five years.

Calls for a change of government, even if it is only a few months after its election, serve as a substitute for serious debate about how Pakistan may have lost its direction as a nation. There is virtual denial about real problems like rising extremism, increasing intolerance, widespread violence and the prospect of global isolation.

Denial leads to self-deception. The Pew Global Attitudes Survey recently found that even in Pakistan’s closest ally, China, only 30 per cent of those polled had a positive view of Pakistan. But the poll and its implications were barely discussed in the Pakistani media, which has been focused on the verbal duels between Sharif’s supporters and opponents. Parallel universes indeed!

If the Generals Have Changed Their Mind

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Last month, the Pakistan army launched what it describes as a major military offensive against the jihadi terrorist safe haven in North Waziristan. Senior generals and the civilian defence minister insist that this time Pakistan will go after all militant groups, including fighters who target neighbouring Afghanistan and have, in the past, been deemed Pakistan’s strategic assets.

Accompanied by much media discussion of “Operation Zarb-e-Azb”, the Pakistani army has fought many battles over the last few weeks, killed several terrorists and lost some soldiers. The offensive has also caused a huge humanitarian crisis as more than half a million people have become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), leaving villages that were being shelled by artillery or pounded from the skies by F-16 aircraft.

But most foreign observers and many knowledgeable Pakistani commentators remain sceptical about the extent to which Pakistan’s generals have truly changed their minds about jihadi militias as an instrument of state policy. The Pakistani military, the critics say, is only eliminating extremist groups that have started targeting Pakistan and Pakistanis. Anti-India jihadis, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), continue to flourish with Hafiz Mohamed Saeed and his cohorts parading openly in major cities like Lahore.

According to the naysayers, the military operation will target hardline Uzbeks, Chechens and footsoldiers of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who have claimed responsibility for the recent assault on Karachi International Airport. Groups such as the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban have already been directed or pushed across the Pakistan-Afghan border (the Durand Line) so that they can resume operations once NATO forces leave Afghanistan.

The Pakistani establishment has responded to its critics with a public relations offensive. In a conversation with Indian journalist Aakar Patel, a retired ISI general even made the argument that the sharp spike in violence in Pakistan over the last decade was the result of the Pakistan “military’s decision to crack down on terror groups operating against India.”

According to Patel, “The ISI general said that the thinking in India appeared to them to be that of satisfaction at the situation Pakistan found itself in. ‘Let them stew in their own juice’ and ‘You created the problem, now you suffer the consequences’ were some of the phrases he used to describe what he thought the Indian attitude was.” The Indian journalist was also informed of “limitations of the state with respect to the LeT and Hafiz Saeed in particular,” but he was also told that “this must not be seen as encouraging the group.”

Unfortunately, crisp statements are not a substitute for sound policy. Pakistan’s establishment has made similar arguments since General Pervez Musharraf famously proclaimed soon after 9/11 the country’s U-turn away from its jihadi past. Even the declaration of intent to clear the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), including North and South Waziristan, of jihadi terrorists is not new, neither is the launching of a military offensive.

There is no doubt that a large number of Pakistanis, including senior military commanders, now realise the dangers posed to Pakistan by Islamist extremists. There is substantive evidence also that the latest North Waziristan offensive is better planned and better executed than previous such military operations. But instead of dismissing the opinion of sceptics and critics, Pakistan’s military and intelligence leaders must try and understand their arguments.

Pakistan’s jihadi infrastructure grew out of a carefully nurtured national narrative and state ideology. Since independence in 1947, Pakistanis have been told that their country is a “citadel of Islam”, that its destiny is to be an Islamic State, and that its army is “the sword of Islam”. Advocates of modern, secular values or even of pluralism have been denigrated as “enemies of the ideology of Pakistan” and therefore cast as “traitors to Pakistan”.

This ideological milieu has helped religious-political groups exercise greater influence on national discourse than is justified by either the size of their membership or the number of votes they have obtained in Pakistan’s sporadic general elections. The jihadi groups, one more extreme than the other, is also an outgrowth of the decision to cast Pakistan as an ideological state.

If the Pakistan army is as serious about eliminating extremism as it asserts then it must realign itself in the context of Pakistan’s domestic ideological polarisation. If Pakistani nationalism continues to be defined solely in religious terms and the state rhetoric does not change, General Raheel Sharif’s efforts against some jihadis will prove as ineffective as similar juggling attempts under General Musharraf and General Kayani.

The generals’ promise of fighting extremism would be more credible if it was accompanied with an embrace, however gradual, of groups and individuals that have been marginalised and labelled as traitors because of their advocacy of a secular Pakistan or for supporting close ties to the West or India.

Until then, one cannot blame sceptics abroad for being unmoved by a military operation against terrorism that is supported by Hafiz Saeed. Nor will the army’s critics at home change their stance easily if clerics who issue fatwas against human rights activists are also the first ones to march in support of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).