Pakistan under
the Lens
By Dr. Khan Dawood
L. Khan
Chicago, IL
It’s
Pakistan’s turn now.
The press that Pakistan receives has been a mixed
bag. Over and above its own internal problems
(which are obviously many), Pakistan also occupies
a special place in the post-9/11 world stage.
The Economist (UK) has published a 10-page fairly
comprehensive ‘Survey of Pakistan’
(8 July 2006), complete with inevitable comparisons
with its neighbors. It looks at whether it is
‘too much for one man’, President
Musharraf, whose plate is lot fuller now than
it was when he arrived on the scene in 1999. The
politics remains ‘messy’ and uncertain,
as it has been for most of its existence as an
independent country. Though it is now supposed
to be toddling toward democracy, we are still
witness to what The Economist calls ‘parliamentary
puppetry’. The country appears to be brimming
with Islamic militancy, and The Economist sees
the future as more “bearded,” and
this is in addition to the tribal conflicts, particularly
in Baluchistan, with almost half of Pakistan’s
landmass, threatening a ‘second Bangladesh’.
While the economy turned “more tigerish”
– not in a small measure due to the influx
of post-9/11 dollars -- other countries interested
in it still remain nervous. Kashmir is not going
to disappear as an issue anytime soon. It will
continue to growl between handshakes and cricket
unless both Pakistan and India (not just one side)
look to the future, setting the baggage aside.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem possible
unless the public, in both countries, decides
to rise up, and scream as Howard Beale (Peter
Finch) did in the 1976 movie ‘Network’:
"I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it
anymore!"
But is President Musharraf the right man at the
right time to accomplish what is best for Pakistan?
This time, The Economist seems kinder and gentler
to him: in 2000, the magazine called him a ‘useless
dictator’ because his first year produced
little on his ‘seven point agenda’
to save the nation. He did inherit a precarious
economy, with defaults on foreign loans, sanctions
and increasing deficit, but he has managed (coincidentally
with some post-9/11 American help) to do better
than his two democratically elected predecessors,
Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. America’s
new ally got $600M up front, a promised relief
of up to $2B, and a $1.3B facility from IMF (in
2001). With some reforms, the economy now reflects
an average 7% growth over the last three years
(compared to just 2% in 2001). This is close to
India’s growth rate. Since 1999, in Pakistan,
about $5B worth of assets have been privatized
and the number of taxpayers doubled. Government’s
focus on education was crucial: in a recent education
ministry survey of 15,000 schools in Punjab, 4,000
(or 27%) of them had no teachers present. Now,
the government is to spend more on health, education
and other aspects of the country’s development
(to around 5% of GDP). These are healthy signs.
Direct foreign investment has increased to $3.5
B (or 2.7% of GDP), but with a boom in consumerism,
the trade deficit has also crept up ($11.5B now).
Pakistan needs increased foreign investment, if
it were to main a 7% growth rate, but the problem
is that, because of Islamic militants, the UK
and the USA both still advise their citizens against
travel in Pakistan.
Pakistan still has huge problems --- poverty (about
one-third of its 165 million people) and illiteracy
(about 50%),Sunni-Shia, Islamic fundamentalism,
Baluchistan, and problems associated with 9/11
and Afghanistan. Pakistan “needs a sustainable
political system, representing the majority of
its people,” and it is “too big, too
fractious and too complicated to be ruled so overwhelmingly
by one man”! How long can he effectively
create “enlightened moderation” in
the country? Despite some ‘sensible reforms’,
he rules the country under “a façade
of democracy,” and by “sabotaging
Pakistan’s fragile democracy, he may well
have made the country even more dangerous,”
the Economist states.
The Economist feels that Pakistan’s is “a
Punch and Judy democracy” (an old puppet
show for children). The government has 63 ministers
(about the same as in India but with a 7-times
higher population), but most decisions are made
by the President, and by his decrees , not by
the ministers as is the case in India. In the
past seven years, Musharraf has issued 44 ordinances,
only five of which have become law; the decrees
are renewed every four months, but not widely
known how many are renewed, regularly or properly.
Often, the National Assembly doesn’t even
get a quorum (25% presence); ministers don’t
even show up for the question-hour. Musharraf
is quite skillful in games his predecessors and
others played. He got a 98% approval rating in
a 2001 referendum that was so rigged that he had
to later apologize on behalf of his ‘over-eager’
supporters. It’s likely that the election
next year (October) may also have same type of
irregularities. Political parties of Nawaz and
Bhutto are in disarray (both in exile and bitter
enemies have also met to develop strategies).
Though there are other parties, mounting a consensus
against Musharraf would still be difficult.
When in October 2005 northern Pakistan and Kashmir
had devastating earthquake (over 70,000 dead and
many more made homeless), those who rushed to
help were not Pakistan government or international
agencies: They were religious parties, prominently,
Jamaath-ul Dawa and others. “Islamic extremists
are the only political force in Pakistan easily
able to rally a crowd,” the Economist rightly
concludes, and “almost all of [Pakistan’s
leaders], civilian and military, have pandered
to the mullahs.” In 1947-48, there were
about 200 madrassas, but with a failing educational
system, and now 10,000 to 40,000 are in operation
and according to a World Bank study quoted by
the Economist, 20% of them teach fighting skills,
and the national curriculum “is infected
with religious and sectarian bigotry.” Public
universities are controlled largely by the youth-wing
of Jammat-e-Islami: they banned Coca Cola as “Jews
drink,” and Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad
has three mosques but no bookstore! Musharraf
has done little to change things in this area
for the past 6-7 years.
Kashmir is something that can be easily resolved.
Pakistan and India know it’s a no-win situation,
but they will continue to sustain that level of
armed hostility from the Siachen Glaciers to the
dales of Kashmir. Pakistan spends one-fourth of
its budget on its defense, including Kashmir.
The General has tried to develop pleasant relations
with India, more perhaps than one had imagined
in view of Kargil and his career on the border.
Growing US-Indian friendship could also help him
in Kashmir. While the relations with Iran seem
to improve, Afghanistan has steadily moved away.
Peace is a give-and-take process, a two-way street.
By sowing seeds of trust (transport links, cricket
etc.), a lot can be achieved in the neighborhood
in a relatively short period of time. Trust and
amity alone may not be enough if peace is to be
cut out of long-entrenched positions. The road
to Hell, as they say, is also paved with good
intentions.
It is a “default form of government,”
according to the Economist , in which “a
powerful army chief is supported by unscrupulous
civilians.” The rich among the civilian
elite have been wooed by the military, but the
military itself has also grown increasingly arrogant.
To his credit, Musharraf has economic growth and
improved chances of peace with India, but under
his vast powers there has also been a steady erosion
of some political institutions, making “even
a bigger travesty of the democratic process than
did the civilian leaders he succeeded.”
It’s difficult to predict what lies in Pakistan’s
future, but if this “slide is not arrested,
it will accelerate.”
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