Whither Pakistan?
Within a couple of days of the publication of this column, the people of Pakistan will be casting their votes in national elections. Would the elections be fair and transparent, as promised by President Musharraf and his interim Prime Minister, or would they be rigged as feared by numerous national leaders and warned against by several foreign leaders and commentators? What would be the shape of things to come?
These are the natural queries agitating the minds of Pakistanis at home and abroad amid the din of voices of leaders of national parties asserting that the government was determined to rig the elections to ensure the victory of Musharraf-sponsored Muslim League (Q). More disconcerting are the predictions of these leaders and of some foreign analysts that the ensuing agitations might lead to the very disintegration of the country.
I find it difficult to share the predictions of such prophets of doom. The situation is bleak, no doubt, but not bleak enough to mark the beginning of the end of a state in whose existence lies the vested interests of all the negative soothsayers. Let us start with the best-organized sector of the society – the military. The national revenues are paying for the upkeep of more than half a million men in uniform. The army has held power for half of the period of the country’s existence. It has set up industries, owns agricultural and urban lands and defense colonies, runs professional educational institutions, and has a 20 percent share, worth $38 billion, in the GDP. It would thus be the biggest loser.
The depth of its concern may be gauged from the fact that just a few days back hundreds of retired Generals and other senior officers belonging to the ex-servicemen’s association came out with a strong demand that Gen. Musharraf should quit, as he has become the chief source of the problem. The shortsighted policies of Musharraf regime are now blamed for the shortages of essential commodities, of water and power.
Musharraf enjoyed considerable popularity in the country for strengthening the economy, eliminating corruption at high levels, improving relations with India, granting unprecedented freedom to the media, permitting the setting up of dozens of TV channels in the private sector, doing away with the laws abridging the rights of women, and for launching numerous projects to strengthen the country’s infrastructure such as the network of roads and the gigantic Gwadar port project.
But, his graph took a southward turn when his self-interest started dominating his decisions.
It started on March 9, 2007 when he sacked the Chief Justice who appeared unwilling to lend judicial support to Musharraf’s bid for a second term as President. The countrywide lawyers’ agitations and the Supreme Court’s verdict reinstating the Chief Justice, caused him to show his teeth, impose an Emergency on November 3, dismiss the Chief Justice and scores of other judges, crackdown on the very media he had liberated and place Benazir under house arrest reflecting his reservations on the deal with her brokered by the US.
He did lift the Emergency quickly under local and external pressures, but the more the pressures, the more stubborn and paranoid he grew. During his visit to Europe, most of the leaders he met asked him to ensure fair and free elections as if he were bent on rigging them. He grew terribly irascible and took out his anger on the respectable Dawn rep in London when the latter posed a question about the disappearance from custody of a British national of Pakistani origin suspected of having links with terrorists.
In this situation, President Musharraf would be well advised to accept the suggestion of the retired Generals and announce his retirement to take effect as soon as a new elected government is formed, instead of maintaining that his continuance in office would ensure the progress of the country. Matter of fact it has already started sliding back. His presence would provoke agitations even if the elections bore no evidence of manipulation. The ensuing trauma might create severe dents in the national entity.
While his US support is shrinking, his standing in the army, his chief constituency, is dwindling too. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani wants his troops to distance from national politics. With the passage of time, Musharraf’s army ties have started fading. And, the serving Generals cannot be thinking on lines different from those of their retired colleagues who consider Musharraf as a major part of the problem and want him to go. His grip on the reins of government has become weak. The writ of the state in the tribal belt is under challenge. In 2007 there were 56 suicide bombings as against only 8 in 2006. The freedom fighters of 1980s are now labeled miscreants, radical Islamists and terrorists. This volte-face has created an enigma in the minds of the troops.
The Director of National Intelligence of the United States, Mike McConnell, in his testimony on Feb. 5 to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence described the situation in Pakistan as “an existential threat to its very survival”. The threat, in his perception, came from the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Dr. Selig Harrison, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, predicted a day later that the elections may unleash ethnic tensions and popular resistance against the military. The dissensions would keep expanding till a new political landscape takes shape. A lose federation may abate the growing ethno-nationalism. Reverting to the 1973 constitution, which provides for provincial autonomy, could be the first step to resolve the conflicts he maintained.
No matter what Cassandra and other prophets of doom may predict about the disintegration of the state, the factors which unite the various segments of the nation are much firmer than those pulling it apart. Pakistan is the result of the agitation of the Muslim mind of the subcontinent for almost a couple of centuries after the defeat in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. It was certainly no decision taken at the spur of the moment. If Sir Syed, Iqbal and Jinnah had not been there, some others would have come forward and articulated the community’s proclivities.
If you travel today from Karachi to Khyber, you will find bulk of the people in Shalwar-Kameez, eating the same kind of curries and even their bread would be round, not oblong like the Afghan bread. More important, their basic values would be almost identical, despite the tribal and ethnic division. You may talk to anyone from any part of the country in Urdu and he wouldn’t turn around and say that he does not understand you.
For sixty years the people have lived together and developed closer bonds with each other. A new generation has taken over that subscribes to the concept of ‘labor to live well’. In this milieu, talking of the disintegration of the country just because things are not moving entirely your way is nothing short of a death wish! Perhaps the agitations that may follow the elections might cause the elimination of the distortions that a long period of military rule has produced.
(arifhussaini@hotmail.com)
