Opinion

From Delhi’s Red Fort to Islamabad’s Red Mosque
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA

History, wrote Dutch scholar Pieter Geyl, is an “argument without end.” The Red Mosque episode begs the question of how did things get to such a sorry pass.
For days, Pakistanis sat glued to their TV screens, awaiting the end. Was it really necessary to resort to military force less than two miles from the National Assembly building? This was as emotionally draining as the sight of Russian tanks firing into the parliament building in Moscow.
Was a military operation inevitable, given that the militants had been engaged in vigilante conduct for six months? Could they not have been made to surrender by cutting off their water and food supply?
Was the timing of the raid triggered by the declining fortunes of the country’s military ruler? Or was it the phone call from the President of China that demanded better protection for Chinese nationals? Perhaps it brought back bitter memories of a phone call from a much higher power that threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age.
The episode also raises several troubling questions about the future direction of the country. Are more such episodes likely at other mosques with built in seminaries that house “students” who are hell bent on blowing themselves to heaven. Are not the renewed attacks by insurgents in the Frontier and the attack on Chinese workers near Karachi a blowback from the raid?
There is no question that Musharraf has strengthened his position in the near term. President Bush and Prime Minister Brown were quick to congratulate him on his resolve. On the home front, protests were muted and confined to the extremists.
But it may be naïve to think that now that the “mad mullah” is dead, peace is at hand. The gain in Musharraf’s political standing may not persist, given the widespread affliction of religious extremism and proliferation of small arms in the country.
Will the polity be further militarized, as the army seeks to fight a national war on terror? Will the US intervene in Waziristan to take out a resurgent Al Qaida?
What toll will all this armed combat take on Pakistan’s economy, society and polity? Shaukat Aziz’s year of the tourist has become the year of the terrorist.
It is imperative that the Parliament establish an Independent Commission on Lal Masjid. To place current events in perspective, a few points are worth recalling.
Despite Musharraf’s claim of having delivered enlightened moderation, incidents of violence brought on by religious groups inside Pakistan have proliferated since he seized power in October 1999. Prior to that, terrorist activity was largely confined to the Indian provinces of Jammu and Kashmir. The tenor of terrorism intensified with his arrival, possibly because terrorists were emboldened by his raid on Kargil.
He did virtually nothing about terrorism, whether carried out by locals or foreigners, until the horrible tragedy of 9/11 took place. Moreover, the number of seminaries continued to grow. Their graduates are schooled in intolerance toward non-Muslims, hatred toward non-practicing Muslims and a desire to conquer the world, not exactly prepared for the job market.
In many ways, these problems predate the arrival of Musharraf on the political scene. They go back to the genesis of Pakistan. Born into an environment of fear, and plunged into a war within months of birth with its much larger sibling, the country proceeded to endow its military with a very strategic role in its polity. Ultimately, this grew into a fatal conceit, a desire to recapture the past glories of Islam by force.
In the sixties, General Ayub, with his spanking new American weaponry, once spoke of “strolling up” to Delhi in his Patton tanks if the Indians did not yield on Kashmir. Unwittingly, he gave a metaphor that clerics throughout the country would use to spike up their sermons.
A generation of Pakistanis grew up thinking that they would see the green flag being hoisted on the Red Fort in Delhi. The clerics had upped the ante on the army. It was no longer about regaining Kashmir but about emulating the Mughals.
Of course, it would all begin in Kashmir. A proxy war involving local and infiltrated insurgents would slowly but steadily bleed India, forcing it to yield. Additional incursions would occur in other restive provinces, ultimately bringing about the disintegration of India. Only then would she pay the price for dismembering the world’s largest Muslim country. General Yahya’s shameful role in the debacle was forgotten.
And who would be better equipped to carry out the attacks then people possessed by the fire of heaven, ready to lay down their lives “in the service of God.” So an otherwise secular army, whose general staff openly flaunted irreligious tastes, began a program of systematically training and arming militants whose religious sentiments would be used to carry out incursions deep into the heart of “Hindu” India.
Of course, given their complete lack of military fundamentals, none of their ventures amounted to more than pinpricks. Delhi did not bleed, it gained strength. Then, one Christmas day, Soviet armor rolled into Kabul. This was General Zia’s moment.
Ten years later, the mujahideen aided by Zia’s army and bankrolled by the US and the Saudis defeated the Soviets. Unfortunately, it would be a Pyrrhic victory and cost Pakistan its innocence. Its strategic culture would be over-run with narcotics, Kalashnikovs and illegal immigrants.
Zia had dreaded this outcome. He had told US Congressman Charlie Wilson, who procured covert funding for the war, that he wanted the pot to boil in Afghanistan, not to boil over into Pakistan. But sure enough it did (the Afghan war will soon be hitting the silver screen when “Charlie Wilson’s War” starring Julia Roberts is released).
The army sought to redeploy Afghan militants to Kashmir but failed. They began to strike soft targets within Pakistan.
In the aftermath of Musharraf’s U-Turn on the Taliban, they exacted revenge on an American journalist. The story of Daniel Pearl’s execution is told with much tenderness in a film based on his widow’s memoirs, “A Mighty Heart.” She told TIME magazine that she does not trust President Musharraf, that “he does not have as much power as we think,” and that during her ordeal, she “never thought that any help would come from the Pakistani government.”
Thus it was that the armed forces that boasted of taking over the Red Fort were reduced to raiding a mosque in their own backyard – admittedly one that resembled a fortress, to quote General Musharraf. The chicken had come home to roost!

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