On Pakistan

A. Hypothetical Scenario...

Imagine... a large country, of disparate ethnic populations and a brutal history of Imperialism, war, and fluctuating borders. Parts of it are tribal areas, ruled by tribal laws and councils of elders, and feature separatist/ insurgent sentiments. Large chunks are in the grip of seemingly insurmountable poverty and beholden to grassroots radical movements, increasingly restive and violent.

The military strutting proudly before a domestic audience, has little hard power or "projection" capability on the world stage - except for control over a nuclear arsenal which, although only marginally useful strategically and tactically useless does earn it bragging rights.

The right-wing political class openly advocates a philosophy based on the majority religion, projects a jingoistic national identity that glosses over any historic failures, and nurses a grudge against a neighbor.

Religious nuts and a sensationalist media have taken command of the public square and and often operate behind the political scene, commanding policy-makers if not the policies themselves. Resource and market hungry corporate actors use and enable shadowy such power-players. The trivial and banal rules the burgeoning airwaves at the cost of serious issues - a situation all too convenient for the empowered class engaged in essentially strip-mining the country of its natural resources and filling their own pockets.

A rising middle class is oriented to the West and largely out of touch with the rural and poorer population; income inequality is at horrifying levels and rising. Corruption is rife, and the subject of much public debate. In large parts there is a flight of the affluent class to greener pastures (mostly America and Europe).

Located in a volatile region, this nations territorial disputes abound and two neighbours were (at least until recently) in a state of civil war, one is in the grip of poverty and natural disasters, another is a "failed state" according to Foreign Policy magazine, and yet another is ruled by an uncompromising military junta...

Do you see it? Do you see this sad country?

That's India, not Pakistan, as you may have guessed already - from a biased point of view.

Hold that thought.

***

B. Perceptions

My sister tells stories of how her kids surprise her with their precocious thoughts. One such anecdote she shared last year involved my niece's reaction to Sania Mirza, the Indian tennis player getting married to Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan cricketer. Little Saniya, all of 8 years old at the time and conscious of sharing the sound of her name with the sportswoman, was concerned about her marrying someone from Pakistan - why wouldn't she marry someone on the Indian cricket team?

We responded to this with a mix of surprise and some chagrin - where do kids pick up these things? My sister in the meantime gave the little one a non-answer and we all smiled about it...

I realized later that this innocuous incident triggered something, and got me inspecting my attitudes toward and knowledge of Pakistan and its citizens. I was (and still am) aghast at how little I really know about our neighbor. I'd only ever learnt about Pakistan through the readily available and all too slanted depiction of that land in the Indian (or American) media. I noticed my own biases and how a dismissively lazy acceptance of "facts" has fed them.

I set about correcting this (life allowing) and spent some time trying to learn about Pakistan, its relationship with India, and more importantly its place in the world in strategic terms from unbiased sources - or absent that, sources that were diametrically opposed to Indian and American conventional wisdom.

I have been following opinion pages in Pakistan-based newspapers (notably Dawn and Jung) over the web. I surfed around to find more factual information about the last 60 odd years. I browsed sites that traced the roots of various militant outfits to a philosophy born in Deoband (in India, for what it's worth) and those that saw Kashmir as anything but an integral part of India. I read remarkably vitriolic opinions on the reign of Zia, family histories of the Bhuttos, and precis biographies of the Qaid-E-Azam, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. I saw a documentary about Westerner among the party animals of Karachi (!) - some gay - lamenting the lack of a night scene.

In the wake of Abbotabad and the death of Osama Bin Laden, I read despondent opinions by the likes of Cyril Almeida (an opinion writer over at Dawn.com). I followed closely the PNS Mehran incident and the brutal slaying of Saleem Shahzad, a brave man anyone who admires journalism would have been happy to meet. I read of "think tank" gatherings in London where the (pipe-wielding?) old boys got together and harrumphed about how Af-Pak is Obama's reality check just as it was for the Empire in the Anglo-Afghan wars.

I read about Pakistan in context of the Shi'a/ Sunni power balance in the Middle-East and in context (of course) of the Israel-Palestine situation and America's War on Terror. I read Bob Woodward's accounts of Bush's Wars (parsed them, really) and I read about Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani's desperate power-plays in the wake of the troubled first half of 2011. I goggled at Foreign Policy magazines' 2011 index of "Failed States" - not only because Pakistan was featured at #12, but because India was described as a "Borderline" failed state.

I describe this to point out that my "study" was casual at best and mostly beholden to what was available on the web, and also to clarify that I haven't by any means finished it. I also realize that although I broke past the 'Indian media' bubble, I do remain firmly within the 'traditional media' bubble.

And yet, like a lucid dream that draws you in and makes you question what is real, the information pipes that are the internet bombarded me with visions of Pakistan, each pushing a separate subtle agenda, but in sum showing a different picture entirely.

Pakistan: A failed state,
Pakistan: A Jihadi haven
Pakistan: A reluctant American ally
Pakistan: India's nemesis
Pakistan: A stifled populace
Pakistan: The Earthquake hit tragedy
Pakistan: Nuclear state
Pakistan: Land of the lawless Pashtun
Pakistan: Oligarchy
Pakistan: Junta's playground
Pakistan: A soon-to-be Sharia state
Pakistan: Land of the madarsas
Pakistan: Run by the ISI

Yes, yes, all true, but none of these is the whole truth, is it? Think about it... it CAN'T be!

C. Realizations

0. First principles: No country should/ could be defined solely by the dominant media narrative that hounds it. Yes, there are social, geo-political, economic, religious, and historical forces shaping Pakistan just the same as every other nation in the world. Yes, there may even be a valid stereotype or a "personality" for such a country that describes how it operates in the world and the "path" it is on. Sure, history is made and proceeds on the basis of these macro-trends and big issues; but let us not for a moment imagine we understand it all! If we did, no one would've been surprised by what the self-immolation of a fruit-cart vendor in Tunisia has set off in the Middle-East!

I have never visited Pakistan - and chances are I never will. In that sense I can never get to know it as well as I arguably could. Hopefully what I have done in the past few months is looked at it from outside the usual filters that I live with. Let me share then a few "insights" or mostly obvious truths that I realized as I read about Pakistan I hadn't internalized before but should have.

1. Pakistan exists and is a sovereign nation: Somewhere deep down I (and I'm sure a lot of Indians) cannot think of Pakistan without also thinking back to pre-1947 and "unified India". This is plain idiotic. Can't we just be OK with the fact that it is a separate entity? Pakistan and India to some Indians are like legally divorced parents we secretly wish would get back together! Yeah, that's never going to happen. Get over it.

Perhaps an ongoing divorce is a better analogy to describe this relationship, with the custody of a child unresolved. Both nations have done enough bad crap to each other - Pakistan clearly played with fire to inspire an insurgency in Kashmir, and India clearly enabled and encouraged rebellion in East Pakistan and successfully split the country in two. Why should either like the other very much?

The thing that breaks your heart once you keep your mind open is how similar these two countries are, and how a few bad choices have made one a cauldron of tragedy and the other a strutting "BRIC" up and comer. The cherry atop this thought is this: this isn't and was never a zero-sum game - we are NOT in any sense competing with Pakistan, any more than we are with Libya or Zimbabwe. Why should we even care to compare?

Most of us, in both countries weren't even born when the feuds started... Let old wounds be, screams the rational part of our collective minds - move on! Sadly, reality intrudes.

2. "The Pakistan Problem": inasmuch as there is one, is (and should be) the sole concern of the citizens of Pakistan. Nothing those on the outside (the US included) do, think, say, or spend on is ever going to 'solve' it. I think everyone pays this thought lip service, but because Pakistan is where it is, and does what it does, too much depends on it. It always has been a hotbed of geopoliticking by the west - once over land, now over terror and oil.

All geopolitical roads to Iran and Saudi Arabia and the larger Middle East go through Afghanistan-Pakistan. It is the one arena where India, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States make it their business to play, and these power-plays have defined the region. Tragically, when the seven powers just named (and NATO) are all interested and active to varying degrees, the Great Game uses the region as a board if not a pawn - the Pakistani people's will be damned!

3. Immediate strategic situation: I think the sooner the US extricates itself from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars the better it will be for Pakistan. The Arab Spring has been good for Pakistan in a limited fashion. Hopefully it will cut off some of the materiel that fuels fundamentalist elements inside the country, as Saudi Arabia (which funded/ funds most extremists in Pakistan) and the Ayatollahs in Iran both frantically try to stem the social tides buffeting them. The military junta in Pakistan seem to be realizing that the two reasons they were using to keep themselves relevant to the average Pakistan citizen (the threat from India + the attendant need for "strategic depth", and the threat of the US/ CIA) are losing luster.

India (wisely I think) has overtly been a careful watcher of and occasional negotiator with Pakistan through all this... we need to resist the temptation to intervene in any way other than humanitarian/ developmental aid in Afghanistan

4. Indian Long Term Strategy: Indo-Pak peace/ rapprochement is a pipe dream. I think Indian foreign policy in recent years (regardless of which party was in power) has been based on a wise combination of a moderately hawkish stance and a do-nothing strategy. This is the wisest course of action (I think) for now... the dust needs to settle and that wont happen if we either provoke a convenient conflict with the right-wing idiots on the other side of the border, or striking a premature deal with whatever Johnny-come-lately is in a seat of power.

5. Pakistan and Radical Islam: Although Pakistan was from a beginning designed as an Islamic state, and that does modulate all discussion about it, I think Islam is both less and more central to the strategic situation than most suggest.

It is less central because even the most radical interpretation of Islam is only a means for the militant powers that are active either in Af-Pak or elsewhere in the world to justify their cause. Under the surface though, these are very much political and insurgent movements with political goals. So what can be done?

I think Ireland shows a very good model for Pakistan to get the militant groups to a 'negotiating table' assuming it cannot disband some of the bigger ones outright. These groups (some led by tribal warlords) are more diverse and splintered than the IRA ever was, admittedly, although some of this is by design - the ISI prefers they be splintered so they can be controlled).

A recent NY Times 'expose' revealed that in spite of some obvious blow-ups in their faces, the ISI is still cultivating militant groups - obviously old habits die hard and they may feel compelled to hang on to these 'tools' for future use (after the US and NATO exit the Af-Pak theater). It remains to be seen which way the wind blows, but I feel like civil society in Pakistan will eventually rise up against the elite that maintains these hostilities with India at the cost of welfare.

6. The 'Solution': The "Pakistan Improvement Lobby", like most of those worried about the world at large, tend to view Pakistan (and others) as patients who need to be administered the democracy/ capitalism cure. Now, while I am a fan of democracy certainly and ambivalent on capitalism, I do recognize that those two by and in themselves need not be panacea! There are no good answers because all the answers seem to come from those without any skin in the game - not from the people of Pakistan.

Why is it a bad thing if Pakistan declares a strict interpretation of Sharia law as the law of the land? Why NOT be an Islamic state (there are several others in the world after all) if a majority of the population so chooses? Neither of these are a problem in and of themselves - what is a problem is the belligerence, paranoia, and rank incompetence that successive governments in Pakistan, civilian or military have shown over decades. If these go away, who cares what form the final governance solution takes, so long as it works?

7. But one can dream: I feel like Pakistan needs a 19th century Japanese style decade - some time cut-off from the world at large, building a rational public discourse and building institutions that guarantee its populace a decent living (as opposed to a Military bent on 'securing' said people from threats real and imagined). Such a process (with or without the isolation) could happen - if fact it is more feasible than Indo-Pak peace!

Like any nation, it needs to build up its economy, and reconcile tribal/ regional elements to try and build a national identity. I think this is where India did better than Pakistan in the last sixty years or so - that unity in diversity spiel really worked!

There have already been some glimmers of such an identity/ process emerging. In the euphoria of the Arab Spring, people seem to have forgotten that Pakistan had it's own little spring not long ago, when the judiciary stood up to a military dictator who was eventually deposed and is now a punch line more than anything else. The mind boggles if one tries to play through what could have happened had that moment not passed, and if the Af-Pak nightmare and the military had not cast their malignant shadow on it.

One thing is certain: the government led by Asif Ali Zardari, however ineffectual and beset by crisis as it may be, is preferable to a return to military rule. I think if it is allowed to complete its term and if one or two more subsequent governments are democratically elected and allowed to play out their terms, Pakistan would become a very different place.

D. Conclusion

First, I do realize this post has become quite the ramble, and I apologize for its length. It was written over many days in bursts, and I'm sure that shows in some ways (perhaps it is incoherent). Much of what I've written could be misinformed or not put across well enough, but I think this post captures the roiling thoughts that have gone through my head as I thought about Pakistan and our relationship with that country and all it entails. I hope it added something to the lives of those of you that bothered to read it in full, and got you thinking.

I started this post with a rather provocative assertion - that but for a few details, India could be projected in the media in much the same way as Pakistan. I think the Himalayas, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea have given us some degree of 'strategic isolation' that we need to be grateful for... but I think the one redeeming factor for us has been our constitution. Not just the document, but the make up of this land and its peoples.

We do not accept tyrants - as Indira Gandhi found out. We do not like monarchies. We value our votes. Yes - I am sounding like an idealist, but you have to admit that India and its public discourse and elective processes work. The cynic in me is chastening me to add a "to a degree" to that last sentence, but in the spirit of keeping an Idealist slant on proceedings, I will not.

When it comes to Pakistan, I think we need to just let them be and internalize the thought that their loss is NOT our win. Yes, we need to resolve the Kashmir issue (an issue I purposely stayed away from in this post), and yes there are many bitter things to talk about - but that can wait.

First let our friends across the border come back on their feet. Let us recognize that we are, in fact, capable of a great friendship. And let us all (as I have begun to) try and understand this situation from outside the soapbox we tune in to daily.

If we do, perhaps there is hope.

E. I yield the floor...