country risk profile pakistan 2000 · tutionalism, democracy and human rights and the question of...

I. A. Rehman

Hazard-Prone Pakistan

Country Risk Profile 2000 2000 Swiss Peace Foundation ⋅ Institute for Conflict Resolution and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) ⋅ Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

Swiss Peace Foundation Sonnenbergstrasse 17, Postfach, CH-3000 Bern 7 Telefon ++41 (0)31 330 12 12, Telefax ++41 (0)31 330 12 13 E-mail: [email protected] www.swisspeace.ch

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I. A. Rehman: Hazard-Prone Pakistan

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 1

1 Executive Summary 2

2 Policy Options 3

3 Risk Assessment 6

3.1 Introduction 6

3.2 An unfinished federation 7 3.2.1 The Devolution Plan 11 3.2.2 The military’s succession plans 13

3.3 Theocratisation and Talibanisation 14 3.3.1 Present regime’s policy 17 3.3.2 Militants and Taliban 19

3.4 The economic squeeze 20

3.5 Ethnic and sectarian conflicts 23 3.5.1 Sectarianism 26

3.6 External risks 27 3.6.1 Central Asia 30

3.7 The meaning of the “fundamentalist” challenge 30

3.8 Lack of corrective measures 32

3.9 Conclusions 34

4 Bibliography 36


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Preface

The present series of case studies on Afghanistan, India and

Pakistan were presented and discussed at the “Second Workshop on

Conflict Dynamics in South Asia: Early Warning in Practice” in Septem-

ber 2000 in Bern, Switzerland. The workshop was organized by the Swiss

Peace Foundation's early warning unit FAST (Early Recognition of Ten-

sion and Fact Finding) and brought together scholars, local experts,

and representatives of NGOs dealing with the South Asian region.

FAST's main objective is the early recognition of impending or

potential crisis situations for the purpose of early action towards the

prevention of armed conflict and – if given – seizing opportunities for

peace building. Combined with a collection of statistic evidence and

systematic monitoring of conflictive and cooperative events, the pre-

sent Country Risk Profile is part of FAST's early warning methodology

linking early warning and early action by relevant decision makers.

FAST is mandated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Coop-

eration (SDC).

The case studies on Afghanistan (Rahimullah Yusufzai), India

(Navnita Chadha Behera) and Pakistan (I.A. Rehman) shed light on

the various political, socio-economic and demographic causes of

specific ongoing conflicts in the South Asian region.


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1 Executive Summary*

Pakistan is a high-risk state because it is raked by both seri-ous domestic crises and dangers of cross-border conflicts. Inter-nally, the crises include strains on the federal structure, the threat of the state’s capture by conservative religious militants, ethnic and sectarian cleavages, chronic economic difficulties, alien-ation of the people from the state, and degradation of civil soci-ety institutions. On the external front, the dispute with India con-tinues to pose the danger of war in which nuclear weapons could be used. A Taliban-ruled Afghanistan poses the threat of embroiling Pakistan in conflicts with Central Asian states besides threatening the stability of Pakistan’s political and social struc-tures. However, a prudent leadership, amenable to international counsel and pressure should not find the task of maintaining peace along the borders impossible. It is the risk of an implosion from within that appears more ominous.

The present military regime lacks an adequate comprehen-

sion of the domestic crisis which have been aggravated by the previous military regimes. Its policies are further undermining the federal structure, demonising both politicians and the process of politics, sweeping the ethnic/sectarian issues under the carpet, and strengthening the conservative militants. The plan to devolve power to the local level will have a dangerous backlash, as it aims at breaking sub-national units and regional democratic platforms. However, the most immediately critical issues are the challenge from fundamentalist religious lobbies that decry consti-tutionalism, democracy and human rights and the question of succession to the military regime. The basis issue before Pakistan is whether at the time of the military’s withdrawal, whenever that takes place, the state will have the institutional capacity to pro-ceed towards a modern democratic society.

* The views expressed in this study are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).


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2 Policy Options

Pakistan cannot overcome its current “risk situation” unless its leadership acquires a correct comprehension of the present drift and makes a serious effort not only to devise both long and short-term policies to address the various issues but also to develop an apparatus adequate for achieving the desired results. The impor-tance of external actors in promoting this process should not be exaggerated. Nevertheless, Pakistan should not be written off as a state incapable of profiting from a right mixture of counsel and incentives. The following policy options for concerned parties abroad can be suggested:

1. There is no getting away from the fact that Pakistan’s sal-

vation lies only in consolidating democratic institutions. Therefore, its rulers must continuously be pressed to restore the democratic system. However, the advice should not be confined to a single generic demand. Experience shows that one of the serious ob-stacles to the democratic process has been the framework under which military regimes return power to the civilians. Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif contributed to their downfall but the constraints under which they were allowed power-sharing with the military cannot be ignored. Thus, the holding of an election and handing over power to meticulously screened favourites will again not be enough. Islamabad must be reminded of the limits to a caretaker regime’s power to tamper with the state’s consti-tution. It should also be warned against taking measures that should be decided only by people’s representatives and nobody else. At the same time a discussion on the functioning of democ-ratic institutions should be encouraged.

2. Those having any influence in Islamabad should urge rec-

ognition of civil society’s role in public affairs. Some of the steps that can be suggested are:

withdrawal of university ordinances so as to enable

the academia to freely debate national political and economic issues;


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stronger support to the trade union movement and af-firmative action to help the large peasant population to organise itself;

dismantling of the state control over the electronic media;

the creation of an independent Election Commission; and

the establishment of a legal framework for civil soci-ety’s organisations to contribute to fair electoral proc-esses.

3. The importance of Pakistan’s social action programme

must continue to be emphasised. The donors should improve their partnership programmes by fine-tuning monitoring and follow-up arrangements. Special emphasis needs to be placed on women’s education, public health and employment policies.

4. Pakistan should be persuaded to enter the UN main-

stream by ratifying the covenants of 1966 and the core conven-tions and encouraged to benefit from UN advisory and technical support services. Pakistan’s public must be enable to appreciate developments abroad and study alternatives to theocratic or other forms of arbitrary rule.

5. The common western intelligentsia’s view that Pakistan’s

adherence to Islamic tenets cannot be questioned needs to be reviewed. There is no need to abolish God but it is equally un-necessary to keep telling the Pakistanis that without religious un-derpinnings their state would disappear. They should be made aware of a choice between a liberal and evolutionary faith and a retrogressive version frozen during the Muslim people's political decline. Researches and studies being done in the west on liberal Islam may be made accessible to Pakistani audiences through publication programmes and colloquia.

6. Pakistan should be helped to get out of the tangle it has

landed itself in Afghanistan. The western policy towards Afghani-stan need not be determined by Washington’s bid to get Osama bin Laden. The Taliban are unlikely to yield to harsh measures, they will only increase the demands on Pakistan’s resources. The Taliban have bought power, their conversion to decent govern-


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ance will also have to be bought. An international programme for the rehabilitation of Afghanistan is needed.

7. While outside powers’ direct involvement with the Kashmir

issue is likely to be counter-productive, efforts to persuade India not to reject negotiations with Islamabad should continue. Out-side actors can also remind both India and Pakistan that the In-dian troops and the militants are not the sole plenipotentiaries to discuss restoration of peace in Kashmir, the civil population must be involved in all processes. Western countries should consider the possibilities of bringing the Kashmiris from both sides (Indian and Pakistani parts of the sate) together and articulate their views.

8. Greater attention may be paid to enable SARRC to ex-

pand its role. The donors may put a little move emphasis on re-gional initiatives in all fields of life, especially in the areas of ad-ministrative, educational, economic and judicial reforms.


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3 Risk Assessment

3.1 Introduction With an unstable political structure and a long record of fail-

ure to deliver on its obligations, Pakistan cannot but be labelled as a high-risk state. It faces a threat of implosion from a combina-tion of flaws in and strains on its federal design, drifts towards theocratisation and Talibanisation of the state, sectarianism and ethnic conflicts, degradation of political processes, chronic eco-nomic crisis, alienation of the people, and degradation of the civil society. It is also involved in a long-standing confrontation with India, a situation that has made the region a nuclear flash-point. However, the risks on the external front largely stem from the domestic crisis and are perhaps more manageable than the latter. Besides, the problems caused by Pakistan’s external policy have been discussed earlier at this forum at considerable length. The present study will not ignore the dangers of external conflict but will give more attention to the domestic situation since it de-termines the present and holds the key to the future.

The decisive nature of the domestic crisis is confirmed by the

present military ruler’s declared agenda. Five days after his loyal-ists among the corps commanders had carried out a putsch against the elected government while he himself was still in the air, General Pervez Musharraf announced the following seven-point agenda:

1. Rebuilding of national confidence and morale; 2. Strengthening of the federation, removal of inter-

provincial disharmony and restoration of national co-hesion;

3. Revival of economy and restoration of investors’ con-fidence;

4. Ensuring law and order and dispensation of speedy justice;

5. Depoliticisation of state institutions; 6. Devolution of power to the grassroots level; and


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7. Ensuring swift and across the board accountability.1

The general’s priorities amused only a few. Firstly, because everybody knew, perhaps better than the general, that the prob-lems listed by him had been on the national agenda from the day the state was born. Secondly, it was not possible to forget that successive military rulers in the past had not only failed to re-solve these problems but had invariably aggravated them and made them more intractable than before. Since the first objec-tive on the general’s list should be seen as the end result of suc-cess on the rest of the objectives, one must begin by taking a look at the threat to Pakistan’s solidarity posed by failure to establish a genuine, workable federation.

3.2 An unfinished federation The basic structure of the Pakistan state is that of a federa-

tion comprising four federating units (called provinces) which not only pre-existed the birth of the state, but were part of the inher-ent choice that made the establishment of Pakistan possible. The provinces had had some experience of running a developed sys-tem of democratic government2 and this obliged the individuals that demanded the creation of Pakistan to promise them autonomous and sovereign status in the independent states they sought to carve out of British India.3 But once the idea of Pakistan had come into being, the consensus among the Indian Muslims on the rationale for a new nation-state ended and the provinces started asserting their rights. While the early leaders of Pakistan had some reason to ignore the federal principle to meet the ur-gent demands of state formation, denial of federal and democ-ratic principles soon became a necessity of the group in power. The framing of a constitution for the new state took nine years simply because in a bicameral parliament, considered an essen-

1 The News, Oct 18, 1999, p 1 2 Callard, Keith; Pakistan a Political Study; Allen and Unwin and Oxford; 1968; p 155. 3 See the text of Pakistan resolution in Pirzada, Sharifuddin; Foundations of Pakistan. Later on the Objectives Resolution of 1949 which is supposed to serve as the grund-norm of Pakistan also promised a federation “wherein the units will be autonomous” but with such “limitations on their powers and authority as may be prescribed.” See also the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Preamble.


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tial feature of a democratic federation (one that was also envis-aged in the Indian federal constitution devised by the British, the Act of 1935), a lower house dominated by the eastern wing on the strength of its majority in population was not acceptable to the western wing. Similarly, an upper house in which the west wing had four-fifths of the seats was not acceptable to the east-ern wing. Thus, no progress was possible unless a formula had been clubbed together that merged the four west wing prov-inces into a single unit, and parity between the two wings guar-anteed in a single chamber legislature called the National As-sembly.4 Meanwhile the country continued to be governed un-der the 1935 Government of India Act, with a dominant centre, whose repudiation had formed the constitutional lynchpin of the Pakistan demand, and provincial grievances mounted at a fast pace. The constitution of 1956 did not resolve the issue and at the prospect of the very first general election the ruling clique im-posed military rule. The situation was summed up by Pakistan’s fifth Prime Minister, H. S. Suhrawardy when he observed that the ruling group delayed the introduction of democracy as long as possible and when the democratic process was on the verge of fruition it was suppressed altogether.5

Against the backdrop of Pakistan movement’s insistence on

allowing a limited authority to the centre and residuary powers to the provinces in the scheme of British Indian federation, the de-bate on provincial autonomy has raged throughout the years of independence. It was fuelled by a number of incidents, such as the sacking of the Congress government in NWFP soon after in-dependence;6 revival of Article 93 that had been deleted from the 1935 Act at the time of independence in the form of Art 92-A of Pakistan’s provisional constitution;7 separation of Karachi from

4 The basis of the 1956 constitution was parity between the two wings. Each wing had 150 seats in the National Assembly. 5 Suhrawardy, Hoseyn Shaheed; Memoirs, ed. M. H. R. Talukdar, University Press Dhaka, 1987, p 77. 6 The Congress Ministry which was in power in NWFP at the time of independence was summarity dismissed by the Governor-General, Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah, an action the Pakhtuns have never forgiven. 7 Under the Indian Independence Act . Art 93 of the 1935 Act, which allowed for dismissal of a provincial government had been deleted. It was reintroduced as Arti-cle 92-A in the provisional constitution of Pakistan in 1948 and frequently used.


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Sindh in 1948,8 suppression of the Bengali language movement in East Bengal in early fifties;9 the dismissal of ministries in Sindh, Pun-jab and East Bengal during the first decade of independence;10 the merger of west wing provinces into one unit in 1955 through force and chicanery;11 and finally the resistance to East Bengal’s share of power after the 1970 polls.12 However, after Ayub Khan conceded the failure of the constitutional scheme he had im-posed in his personal name, the military regime of Yahya Khan was obliged to respect the provincial aspirations to the extent of reviving the provincial entities in the western wing and burying the parity formula by accepting the principle of one-man one-vote, thus paving the way for east Bengal’s majority in the di-rectly elected chamber of parliament.13

By the time the last constitution (1973) was drafted, the po-

litical elite had learnt a great deal about the strength of the pro-vincial demands and therefore the scope of provincial powers was enlarged. At the core of the debate lay the distribution of legislative powers between the centre and the provinces. The progress made since 1947 is reflected in the following table:

Legislative lists Number of subjects

1935 Act 1956 Constitution

1973 Constitution

Federal list 61 30 67

Provincial list 55 94 --

8 Sindh’s alienation from the federation began when Karachi was separated from it and made federal territory in 1948, despite stiff opposition by Sindh’s leaders. 9 Soon after the Quaid-i-Azam’s declaration in Chittagong in 1948 that Urdu alone would be the national /official language of Pakistan, the demand for recognition of Bengali as an official language gained strength, especially after the killing of a stu-dent in police firing. The demand was conceded years later but after much bad blood had been created. 10 Till 1958, provincial governments had been dismissed in Punjab, Sindh and East Pakistan. 11 For details see Jalal, Ayesha, The state of Martial Rule, Cambridge University Press, 1990. 12 Provincial rights lay at the heart of the Awami League movement in 1970-71 which led to Pakistan’s disintegration in 1971. 13 See Legal Framework Order of 1970


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Concurrent list 37 17 47 The smaller provinces in present-day Pakistan had accepted

the concurrent list at the time of constitutional accord secured by Z. A. Bhutto on the promise that it will be abolished after 10 years. That did not happen and this now is one of the major de-mands of the three smaller provinces.

The provisions of the 1973 constitution regarding provincial

rights have been honoured more in breach than in compliance. Apart from the centre’s operations against Balochistan and NWFP in the 70’s, the smaller provinces have become increasingly criti-cal of Punjab’s dominance. Punjab’s population exceeds the combined population of the other provinces, it has a majority in the National Assembly, and it dominates the army. Apart from demanding abolition of the concurrent list, the smaller provinces also demand withdrawal of the centre’s emergency powers un-der which the provincial governments can be sacked, greater powers for the upper house, more democratic functioning of the Council of Common Interest14’, a fair division of resources through the National Finance Commission15, and cancellation of the Kala-bagh Dam project.16 Since the last two issues have become exceptionally contentious, a brief explanation seems necessary.

National Finance Commission (NFC) is the constitutional or-

gan for the allocation of state revenues (central as well as pro-vincial taxes collected by the centre) among the federation and the units (the latter have limited resources of their own). Tradi-tionally, the centre used to keep 20% of the divisible pool to meet its own needs and the remaining 80% was divided among the provinces on the basis of population. In 1996 the award was drastically altered. After adding some more taxes to the pool the NFC allocated 62.5% of the revenues to the centre and only

14 The 1973 constitution provided for a Council of Common Interest to deal with in-ter-provincial matters, such as railways, irrigation, distribution of gas and electricity, but the council has never been allowed its due say. 15 The 1973 Constitution also provided for a National Finance Commission to deter-mine distribution the state revenues in the divisible pool among the federation and the provinces. 16 The project envisages creation of a dam in Punjab on the Indus. It is stubbornly opposed by NWFP and Sindh.


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allocated 62.5% of the revenues to the centre and only 37.5% to the provinces. The provinces, especially the smaller ones (Ba-lochistan, Frontier and Sindh), have been howling in protest ever since. Their main grievances are that this system is contrary to the federal principle (in which it is the units that decide what to give to the centre), that the centre expropriates two-thirds of the pool largely to pay for debts and defence, liabilities assumed without consultation with the provinces, and that the system of allocating resources based on the percentage of the population of each unit (within Pakistan) is iniquitous as it ignores the needs of the more under-developed regions. It is also pointed out that before 1971, East Pakistan was not given resources based on this popula-tion majority basis, except in one year. After the separation of East Pakistan, Punjab imposed the population majority formula because its population exceeds the population of the other three provinces. The present regime has tried to defuse tension by in-creasing the gross payments to the provinces and by setting up a new NFC much before this was due. However, the issue is likely to remain a highly contentious one.17

The Kalabagh Dam (KBD) project envisages the construction

of a dam in the Punjab on the Indus. The project was designed many years ago and has been delayed because of opposition from NWFP and Sindh. The former fears threat to a sizeable urban population and the latter argues that it will face acute water shortage. WAPDA (the executing agency), the central govern-ment and Punjab assert that without KBD the country will face se-rious water and power scarcity in the near future and that KBD is vitally needed in national economic interest. In view of the smaller provinces’ deep-rooted suspicions of the centre and Pun-jab it has been impossible to discuss the matter on merits. Nawaz Sharif ran into serious opposition when he announced the deci-sion to revive the project and so will the present regime if it shows signs of going ahead with it.18

3.2.1 The Devolution Plan

17 Tahir, Parvez, Joint Chief Economist, Planning Commission, The News, April 6, 2000. 18 Rallies and protest meetings against the project continue in Frontier and Sindh.


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The military regime’s plan to radically restructure the local level government through a so-called devolution plan has brought the federal arrangement under exceptionally severe strains. Democratic opinion has long been favouring an effective and constitutionally protected system of local government in place of a highly manipulable adjunct of the provincial govern-ment. But the provinces, again especially the smaller ones, reject this plan. They argue that first the centre should devolve its exces-sive powers to the provinces and then the provinces will work out plans to devolve authority to the lower tiers. They accuse the mili-tary government of repeating the experiments made by Ayub Khan and Ziaul Haq to create local power bases with a view to undermining the influence of political parties at the provincial and central levels.

What is relevant in the federal context is the fact that the

plan will replace the five power centres at present (the centre and the four provinces) with 110 (the centre, four provinces and 105 district governments). This will seriously undermine the re-gional democratic forces, from where all the challenges to mili-tary regimes and civilian despots have come19 and also split pro-vincial unities. Balochistan will be divided into Baloch ad Pakhtun districts, Frontier between Pakhtun, Hazara and Seraiki districts, Sindh between Sindhi and ‘mohajir’ districts, and Punjab be-tween Punjabi, Seraiki and Potohari districts.20 The capacity of the provinces to negotiate with the centre will be greatly reduced and the whole federal structure may change. At the moment the provincial political parties may be too weak to resist the govern-ment plans but before long the centre should face an explosive backlash.

19 “The outstanding fact about Pakistan’s political history is that the most powerful challenges to the dominant central authority ... came primarily from political move-ments that drew their strength from people of under-developed regions and voiced demands for regional autonomy and for a fuller share in the distribution of resources, as well as in state power.” Alvi, Hamza, ‘The state in post-colonial societies – Pakistan and Bangladesh’, New Left Review, 74. 20 Air Marshal Asghar Khan, a prominent supporter of the military regime and its devolution plan, conceded in a newspaper interview that after the district govern-ments are formed there will be no need to create new provinces. In other words the existing provinces will be broken up. – daily Khabrain, March 14, 2000, P 1.


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3.2.2 The military’s succession plans The federalists as well as champions of provincial autonomy

have never trusted military regimes because the latter by defini-tion are committed to dominating central authority. That is why the provinces have been in the forefront of democratic move-ments. The situation appears more complicated when one real-ises that all military regimes in Pakistan have tried to perpetuate themselves through designing successor regimes to serve their in-terests.21 All of them have tried to ensure that they retain their say in the system to which they hand over power at the end of direct military rule. Yahya Khan let East Pakistan break away rather than abandon the military’s claim to retain the whip even after de-mocracy had been revived after the 1970 polls. Ziaul Haq drasti-cally changed the constitution to ensure that the system devised by him survived his death – and it has to this day, because the 1973 constitution has in fact become Zia constitution. All govern-ments have been formed and thrown out under clearance from the army top brass.22 Now the talk of giving the military a perma-nent role in the constitutional structure of the state is quite com-mon and most analysts believe that if and when democracy is re-stored at least a military-led body will be created or the Turkish model will be followed to ensure that the military retains an upper hand. Besides, all military regimes have tried to raise their own po-litical factions to whom they may hand over (or share power with covertly).23 The present military regime seems to have undertaken this task already. Apart from expecting support from the leaders of new district governments it is already gloating over a split in the ANP (the nationalist party in NWFP); and a split in Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League is also imminent. In light of the above, re-gardless of what exit plan the present regime devises, a new or-der is unlikely to be tension-free.

21 “ ... even where democracies have theoretically been restored in their ding-dong battle against such dictatorships, they have in fact never been free but have always been directed and controlled by the military, who, once having tasted blood, find it advantageous and necessary in their vested, as well as newly acquired, interest to keep civilian power in subordination .... military dictatorships have a tendency to perpetuate themselves.” Suhrawardy, op. cited, p 78. 22 See Khan, Roedad, A Dream Gone Sour, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1997, for an account of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif governments’ dismissal by President G. I. Khan. 23. Khan, Roedad, op cited, p 118, and Dr. Inayatullah, State and Democracy.


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3.3 Theocratisation and Talibanisation The germs of the movement for theocracy in Pakistan were

sown in the formulation of the Pakistan demand to use religion as the most important cultural marker to determine the Indian Mus-lims’ right to nationhood. The controversy whether in the crucial elections of 1945-46 the Indian Muslims voted for the Muslim League for socio-economic–political change or for a theocracy remains unresolved. The religious lobby had opposed the Paki-stan demand24 but once the provinces of Bengal and Punjab were divided under the partition formula and the Muslims formed nearly 88 per cent of the population in the state that came into being in 1947, the clerics saw an opportunity to turn it into a reli-gious state. They began by “demanding the head” of Foreign Minister Zafrullah Khan, a member of the Ahmadiya sect; a dec-laration of Ahmadis as non-Muslims;25 and followed up with a charter of 22 further demands.26

The founders of Pakistan subscribed to the liberal version of

Islam that had evolved in the subcontinent as distinguishable from the traditional version followed elsewhere and they saw no conflict between their faith and a modern democratic state. While they conceded adherence to the concepts of Islamic so-cial justice their political creed was assimulitative of modern ideas and not confined to traditional legalistic interpretation of Is-lam.27 Today Pakistan is in the grip of clerics who are determined

24 Maulana Maudoodi, the founder of Jamat Islami, was foremost in denouncing the Pakistan demand and another religious party, Ahrar, called Jinnah the ‘great infi-del’. 25 The Ahrar agitation for the removal of Zafrullah led to rioting in Punjab which was quelled only after the centre had put Lahore under martial law in March-May 1953. During this period, described as a rehearsal for the subsequent declarations of mar-tial law, Pakistan had its first post-independence experience of military courts. 26 For this charter see Ahmad, Ishtiaq, The Concept of an Islamic State, Frances Pin-ter, London, 1987. 27 See Hakim, Khalifa Abdul; Islamic Ideology, Islamic Institute of Culture, Lahore. Here the author holds democracy, women’s rights, non-Muslim’s right to equally and even socialism compatible with Islamic belief. The first Punjab government got Lebanese jurisconsult Samsami’s book translated into Urdu wherein the author ad-


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to impose the traditional legalistic Islam. Several factors have contributed to this denouement.

First, insecure governments, beginning with the first one of

Liaquat Ali Khan, sought to legitimise and perpetuate themselves through rhetoric about enforcing Islam. The process began with the adoption of the Objectives Resolution by the Constituent As-sembly in 1949 which created the concept of dual sovereignty – the superior sovereignty of God above and an inferior sover-eignty of people’s elected representatives below. This concept has played havoc with Pakistan’s politics. Pakistani individuals and groups swearing allegiance to God’s laws have become in-creasingly disrespectful of the laws made by parliament, resulting in a situation Lisa Anderson described as competing conceptions of identity, loyalty and legitimacy.28 Today in Pakistan people parading themselves as soldiers of God have the freedom of the country. Some years ago a group of army officers tried for plot-ting to overthrow the government were defended by at least one leading newspaper on the ground that they claimed to be collecting arms for jihad in Kashmir!

Secondly, the state continued the policy of appeasement.

The 1956 constitution named the state as an Islamic republic, created a board of clerics to advise the state and prohibited leg-islation repugnant to Islamic injunctions.29 Ayub Khan in his consti-tution of 1962 dropped the word Islamic from the state’s title but soon retracted and created an Islamic Advisory Council. But he did not stop at that. By curbing normal politics, he created space for the clerics to monopolise political activity.30 Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto further appeased the theocratic forces by declaring Islam to be

vocated a liberal interpretation of Islam to the extent of allowing Muslims to review Sharia injunctions. 28 “As Lisa Anderson has observed, politics in the modern Middle East has been charactrised by an almost endemic strain between officially sanctioned ‘state pa-triotism’ on the one hand, and the appeal of ‘alternate identities’, on the other. As a result, ‘the notions of citizenship, patriotism and love of country which undergird loy-alty to the modern state frequently face competing conceptions of identity, loyalty and legitimacy.” Quoted in Bose, Sumautra, States, Nations, Sovereignty (Sri Lanka, India and the Tamil Eeelam Movement), Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1994; pp 87-88. 29 See the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Articles 30 See Jilani, Hina, Human Rights and Democratic Development in Pakistan, a study for Rights and Democracy, Montreal.


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the state religion in the 1973 constitution and carrying out an amendment to it which had the effect of putting Ahmadis out-side the Islamic fold. These signals were picked up by the judici-ary which seized upon on the Objectives Resolution as the defini-tion of the Islamic ideology of Pakistan. But it was Gen Ziaul Haq who completed the institutional framework for a theocracy by reviving separate electorates – an apartheid-like system under which Muslim voters elect only Muslims and non-Muslims only non-Muslims on the basis of separate lists – by introducing Islamic pe-nal laws, by obliging high state functionaries to swear allegiance to Islamic ideology, and above all by creating a hierarchy of Is-lamic religious courts with incredibly sweeping powers.31

Thirdly, the liberal discourse within Islam that had gone on in

the South Asian subcontinent for over 400 years has been largely replaced with sectarian quibbling among the traditional legalist schools.

The debate between theocrats and democrats has centred

around three issues – the concept of Pakistan nationhood, the locus of state power, and the definition of the legislative author-ity.

The demand for Pakistan was based on the so called Two-

Nation Theory, that the Muslims in India constituted a nation dis-tinctly separate from the more numerous Hindus, which was given its final shape by Jinnah. But he himself abandoned this theory on the eve of partition when he called for the creation of a new Pakistan nation based on the unity of all citizens regardless of be-lief.32

31 Articles 203-A to G, Constitution of Pakistan. 32 See Jinnah’s speech to the Constituent Assembly on Aug 11, 1947, in Jafar, Malik, Rehman, I.A,, and Jafar, Ghani, ed, Jinnah as a Parliamentarian; Azfar Associates, Lahore, 1977. Chief Justice Munir maintained that Jinnah had declared the theory redundant as having borne fruit. Then, Jinnah was not the only one to hold that view. Suhrawardy, who had opposed Jinnah’s proposal of 1928 to give up separate electorates, defended joint electorate in the fifties in these words: The “two-nation theory was advanced by Muslims as a justification for the partition of India and the creation of a state made up of geographically contiguous units, where Muslims were numerically in a majority. Once that state was created the two-nation theory had lost its force even for the Muslims.” Suhrawardy, op cited, p 52.


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As opposed to the democratic principle of the executive being elected and answerable to a broader assembly of elected representatives, the religious parties subscribe to the concept of an all-powerful Amir and reduce elected assemblies to at best advisory functions.33

As for legislative authority, Iqbal rejected even the concept

of clerics advising elected representatives and allowed all pow-ers of legislation to parliament.34 The early leaders of Pakistan maintained that democratically elected legislatures alone could have power to make laws.35 This concept survived only till the ar-rival of Ziaul Haq; he created the Federal Shariat Court which has become the highest law-making body.36

3.3.1 Present regime’s policy While Gen. Parvez Musharraf’s rhetoric about religious toler-

ance and inter-communal harmony had struck a liberal note, the policies his regime has chosen to follow leave little doubt that it has taken up the process of turning Pakistan into a theocracy where Ziaul Haq had left off. As evidence of the regime’s subser-vience to, if not collusion with, the conservative religious lobby:

All religious political parties and militant organisations

hailed the military take-over. The Council of Islamic Ideology went out of its way to

endorse the general’s agenda.37

33 See for an exhaustive discussion, Ahmed, Ishtiaq, The Concept of an Islamic State – An Analysis of the ideological controversy in Pakistan, op cited. 34 Iqbal, Allama, Reconstruction of Religious Thought, Sh. Mohammad Ashraf, La-hore, 35 For example: “The legal sovereign shall be Muslim law, but its definition shall be in the hands of a legislature representing the people which will, by deliberation and discussion, decide how to apply the principles of Islam to the needs of the commu-nity in varying circumstances.” I. H. Qureshi, quoted by Callard, op cited, p 219. 36 All the bodies created under the constitutions of 1956, 1962 and 1973 to examine laws on the grounds of their repugnancy to the Islamic injunctions had only advisory functions. The Federal Shariat Court created by Gen. Zia by inserting Article 203 in the constitution not only has the power to strike down laws but also to determine how their replacements should be worded. 37 Dawn, October 25, 1999, p 13


18

When the composition of the National Security Coun-cil was announced, religious organisations demanded the inclusion of a cleric in it38 and the demand was promptly conceded.

Soon after the take-over, the question of the regime’s capacity or inclination to contain the militant religious groups was raised in many quarters. The militants de-clared the regime would not dare to interfere with them.39

General Musharraf defended the ‘jihadi’ organisations and described the army itself as a jihadi institution.

Towards the end of April 2000 the regime held a hu-man rights convention and announced a procedural change in prosecution under the blasphemy laws. Under pressure from clergy the measure was with-drawn in a state of panic.

At the same convention the recommendation for re-placing separate electorates with joint electorate was adopted. Despite this, the Election Commission’s plea for joint electorate and assurances to Christians the local government elections are to be held on the ba-sis of separate electorates.40

The Interior Minister told the New York Times that Paki-stan believed in secularism. The mullahs denounced him, and held a protest meeting at Jama’at Islami headquarters. A contradiction was issued.

The mullahs raised a non-issue that the Islamic provi-sions of the constitution should be made part of the Provisional Constitution Order of Oct 14, and the mili-tary ruler obliged them by amending the PCO1.41

A campaign to regulate the religious seminaries was announced and quickly given up.

The leader of Islamisation movement in Malakand area was asked to train Islamic judges and the pro-vincial home secretary waited on him to make the re-quest.

38 For instance, News, Nov 2, 1999, p 5 39 Dawn, Oct 23, 1999, p 3, quoting a report in Guardian, London. 40 See Nation, March 3, 2000, p 5; News, March 9, p 8, Jang, April 8, 2000, p 1, and text of local government plan, in Dawn, Aug 14, 2000 41 See Dawn, May 22, 2000, p 6; Nation, June 4, 2000; and Dawn, July 16, 2000, p1.


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3.3.2 Militants and Taliban The militant religious organisations, such as Lashkar-i-Tayeba,

Harkat-ul-Jehad, Hizb-i-Islami, and Jaish-i-Muhammad, have been allowed to function and expand. They are carrying out their recruitment and training programmes openly. Three features of their activities need to be noted: First, they are apparently well-supplied with money and guns and have become possibly the largest employer of young men. Secondly, they are calling for scrapping the democratic constitution and for jihad at the global level. Thirdly, in view of their enhanced strength, the religious po-litical parties that always took part in elections are openly saying that they will capture power through non-parliamentary route.42

Pakistan’s links with the Taliban have by now been well-

documented.43 After having helped the Taliban in every possible way, Pakistan has become their prisoner. The Taliban have fully exploited their “access to more influential lobbies (than ISI) and groups in Pakistan than most Pakistanis.”44 The Taliban involve-ment with the holy war in Kashmir gives them a strong hold over Pakistan, especially its military establishment.45 The Taliban influ-ence is not only visible in the emergence of autonomous tribal emirates and drug mafias in Pakistan’s border areas, Pakistan is threatened with centrifugal tendencies on a wider scale. Even politicians (like Nawaz Sharif), economic experts (like an adviser to the military regime), and military officers are talking of Talibani-sation of Pakistan as a none-too-unwelcome prospect.46 Few in Pakistan disagree with Paul Kennedy’s observation that “ten years of active involvement in the Afghan war has changed the social profile of Pakistan to such an extent that any government faces serious problems in effective governance. Pakistan society is now more fractured, inundated with sophisticated weapons,

42 For example the chief of Dawat-i-Islami (Lashkar-i-Tayeba), Hafiz Saeed, address-ing the annual congregation of his organisation called for abrogation of the 1973 constitution and jihad across the world, Jang, Nov 11, 1999, p 1 43 For a detailed analysis, see Rashid, Ahmad, Taliban, I. B. Tauris, London, 2000 44 Rashid, Ahmed, op cited, p 185 45 ibid, p 186 46 ibid p 187, and interviews


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brutalized due to growing civic violence and overwhelmed by the spread of narcotics.”47 Except for the Taliban-partisans the whole country lives in mortal dread of the over 80,000 Pakistani militants who have trained and fought with the Taliban since 1994, and who “form a hardcore of Islamic activists, ever ready to carry out a similar Taliban-style Islamic revolution in Pakistan.”48

The regime’s policy of appeasement of the politico-religious

lobby, its tolerance of the militant groups, and its scarcely -concealed admiration for the Taliban has created an extremely grave situation for Pakistan. It was succinctly summed up by the late Aziz Siddiqui, one of the most perceptive political analysts Pakistan has had: “The country spent the first fifty years nursing a military to fight for Kashmir. Now it has been raising a corps of holy warriors to the same end. Some of the consequences of the first have been unravelling themselves over the past. Those of the second lie in the future. May be not in too distant a future either, if timely heed is not taken.”49

3.4 The economic squeeze Practically every problem that Pakistan faces is aggravated

by its chronic economic crisis. Ten months after the military take-over, Shahid Javed Burki, a former World Bank vice-president and a consistent observer of the economic situation for over 35 years, declared: “It would not be an exaggeration to say that the crisis that has afflicted the Pakistan economy for more than one dec-ade has not passed. It shows no sign of loosening its grip on the country.”50 All available indicators support this grim prognosis.

A midway review of the three-year US$ 1.6 billion IMF struc-

tural adjustment programme last year revealed that during the 90’s the economy grew at an average of only 3% per year as compared to the average annual growth rate of 6% during the 80’s, that exports instead of rising by a projected 15% declined by

47 ibid, pp 193-4 48 ibid, p. 194 49 Dawn, Feb 13, 2000, p 21 50 Dawn, Economic and Business Review, Aug 7, 2000, p I


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10%, that the national debt (US dollars 70 billion) equalled the GDP, that the foreign exchange reserves could barely meet six weeks’ needs, and that national savings had further declined.51

The impact of the economic straits on the people is re-

flected in their increased pauperisation. Absolute poverty figures more than doubled over a decade, from 17% in 1987-88 to 37% at the end of 1999, and Shahid Javed Burki estimates that at the end of the present decade 80 million Pakistanis, that is, 47% of the projected population of 170 million, will be living below the pov-erty line.52 Newspapers claim a sharp increase in suicides be-cause of economic causes. The employment base, instead of expanding, has been shrinking. The ranks of the educated un-employed are swelling. During the current summer the media has highlighted the plight of a large population afflicted with bone deformities caused by the use of polluted water for drinking. Some other disturbing features of the economy are: a huge black economy estimated at Rs.1.8 trillion;53 rampant smuggling; unre-ported burden of support for the Taliban and the religious militias (called mujahideen); and the scare caused to foreign investors partly by lack of political stability and partly by failure to resolve disputes with the energy producing companies (such as Hubco) backed by international agencies.

The present regime’s plans for an economic turn-around do

not inspire much confidence. The three-year targets announced in mid-June 2000 include achieving a growth rate of 6%, keeping inflation down to 4%, ensuring investment rate of 18%, reducing budget deficit to 3.2% of GDP, and raising foreign exchange re-serves to equal 12 weeks’ needs. These targets are supposed to be realised by doubling the tax revenue to touch Rs. 600 billion mark and raising exports by 75%.

Scepticism about the success of the three-year plan is bol-

stered by evidence of the regime’s poor performance over the past 10 months. It has concentrated on punishing the corrupt in-

51 Gross national savings as a percentage of GNP fell from 19.3 % in 1991 to 13.3% in 1997 as compared to Singapore’s 51.3%, Malaysia’s 41.2%, South Korea’s 34.7% and India’s 27.7%. 52 Ahmad, Sultan; Dawn, EBR, January 27, 2000, p 1 53 Haq, Dr Ikramul, The News on Sunday, August 6, 2000.


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stead of trying to find a cure for institutionalised corruption, on recovering the wealth plundered by the past rulers instead of en-suring generation of wealth, and on ham-handed and expensive means of increasing tax revenues instead of developing an ad-ministrative apparatus capable of husbanding the national re-sources. The principal official drive to document the economy has led to a prolonged confrontation with the traders, which cannot wholly be attributed to their incorrigibility. The regime has been given a considerable respite by a record wheat crop this summer and yet the budget figures for the current fiscal cannot conceal the weaknesses of the economy. Expenditure this year is estimated at Rs. 577.6 billion, nearly 90% of which (Rs. 519.3 billion) will be claimed by debt-servicing (Rs. 305.6 billion), defence (Rs. 133.5 billion), and civil administration (Rs. 80.2 billion). To meet this expenditure, resources have been estimated at Rs. 698.0 billion largely on the assumption that tax revenue will rise by 24% (from Rs. 352 billion in the last fiscal to Rs. 438 billion in the current one). The development plan for the year, on which all hopes of new development and relief to the people rest, projects an expendi-ture of Rs. 120.4 billion only, and there are reports that this figures is being scaled down.

It must be said to the regime’s credit, however, that it has

managed to survive without any fresh aid/loans and it has pur-sued its plans to widen the tax net with much greater persever-ance than ever in the past. Nevertheless, two factors continue to prevent the public from sharing its optimism. First, official statistics inspire little confidence. Last year IMF detected Rs. 90 billion fudg-ing in the 1998-99 budget figures and when the accounts were revised jointly by IMF and GoP, the budget deficit figure rose from 4.3 % of GDP (as claimed earlier by GoP) to around 6%.54

Secondly, the need for an efficient economic management

service remains unmet. Before launching its plan for documenta-tion of economy and tax survey, the Central Board of Revenue announced the suspension of over a thousand of its officials, with-out offering any evidence that the purge was on merit or that a leaner apparatus had become more efficient.

54 See The News, April 1, 1999


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Not even a brief review of the Pakistan economy can be complete without taking note of the regime’s commitment to switch over to what is called interest-free Islamic economy by the end of June next – that is, only 10 months from now. Little is known about the labours of the 11-member committee set up to achieve this purpose.55 What kind of hypocritical exercises56 will be undertaken in this regard is anybody’s guess.

That the economic realities increase the strain on the state is

obvious. Shortage of resources aggravates the tensions between the federating units and the centre, people’s frustration increases their alienation not only from politics but also the state itself, the process of economic revival is delayed, and failure to satisfy the aspirations of the ordinary citizens increases the risks of the re-gime’s relying on adventures / diversions on the external front. Above all, the clergy looks forward to Islamisation of the econ-omy as an important milestone on their march towards total cap-ture of the state.

3.5 Ethnic and sectarian conflicts The conflict between the new settlers in Sindh, who migrated

from India after partition and insist on calling themselves ‘moha-jirs,’ and the Sindhis and the central authority is not the only seri-ous ethnic issue in Pakistan, although it has had the most serious manifestations and has received greater attention than any other, mainly because of the extent of violence and the high number of casualties.

55 This spectre has been haunting Pakistan since 1991 when the Federal Shariat Court declared 22-interest based laws repugnant to Islam and hence liable to be struck down. The government went in appeal to the Supreme Court but no decision was possible for three years. A new government tried to wriggle out of the situation by seeking FSC help without withdrawing the case from the SC which made the lat-ter furious. Eventually, the SC ruled in December 1999 that all interest-based laws had to go and that the economy had to be Islamised by June 2001. The military government accepted the verdict and appeared keener than its predecessors to uphold the clerics’verdict. 56. This is not merely the writer’s prejudice. Attempts to introduce interest-free bank-ing since 1979 have been described as hypocritical by all experts.


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The post-partition transfer of population in the sub-continent changed the demography of present-day Pakistan. The most sig-nificant impact was on Sindh, particularly in the Karachi area where, by 1951, the new arrivals accounted for 48.56% of the population. They also acquired strength in other towns of Sindh – from cities like Hyderabad, Shikarpur, Mirpurkhas to smaller towns, such as Tando Jam, Tando Adam, Shahdadpur and Tando Mohammad Khan. They were better equipped, in terms of edu-cation and experience of business and enterprise, to exploit the opportunities independence offered. Soon they came to domi-nate the administrative and educational services and business and Sindh was divided into a rising urban sector and a stagnant rural sector. The status of the original Sindhis in the rural areas was further affected by the allotment of agricultural land left by the non-Muslims who had migrated to India to refugees coming from India and of the newly colonised land to military and civil bu-reaucrats, mostly from Punjab. The situation was ideal for the rise of a new Sindhi nationalism.

This nationalism grew in phases. At first the Sindhis welcomed

the migrants, partly out of the pro-Pakistan fervour but more es-sentially perhaps because they had been inviting Muslims from India to make up for their own lack of enterprise.57 However, they soon began to fear the loss of their majority in the province. The allotment of barrage lands to outsiders gave rise to a grievance shared by a large majority; the landlords did not like the rise of land-based rivals and the strong peasant movement was angry at losing the land that it believed should have gone to the land-less tillers of the soil. Disparities in services between the new and old Sindhis accentuated these grievances. Finally, the Ayub gov-ernment’s decision to reduce the status of the Sindhi language in courts, revenue records, offices and in schools drove the Sindhi people to clamour for their community rights.

The issue could have been sorted out if the new and old

Sindhis had been left free to do so but a centre incapable of ap-preciating the Sindhis’ aspirations, partly because of its obsession

57 Mr. G. M. Sayed was prominent among the Sindhi leaders who invited Muslims from other parts of the country to help in the economic field. The services of teach-ers were also sought.


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with ideas of suppressing ethno-cultural diversities by focusing on religious solidarity, did not let that happen. Instead, it created its surrogates in both the communities to force its own prescriptions (such as separation of Karachi from Sindh and the creation of one-unit.) Both the ‘mohajirs’ and the Sindhis relied on the centre to fight each other – the ‘mohajirs’ in the early days depended upon bureaucrats, and more recently sought strength in alliances with People’s Party (under both the Bhuttos) and Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif. The Sindhis did the same. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ef-forts to increase the Sindhi share in state benefits and recognition of the Sindhi language could not hurt ‘mohajirs’ immediate inter-ests but the matter was complicated further by the thoughtless and high-handed manner in which these plans were carried out. The two communities were now committed to a bloody conflict. And the battle has been fought during head-counts and a tussle for control of the provincial assembly.

The latest phase in this conflict began in the eighties when

General Ziaul Haq recognised in the Mohajir Quomi Movement of Altaf Husain’s group of students turned into political activists a counterweight to the People’s Party in particular and to Sindhi movement for democracy and national rights in general. But by giving MQM arms Zia considerably undermined whatever poten-tial this lower middle class party had of contributing to normal democratic politics. Violence or the threat of it became its prin-cipal instrument for achieving any objective – from extorting money from a vendor or industrialists to capturing ballots. MQM’s battles with the central authority took a huge toll of life in the nineties. At present there is a relative lull in incidents of violence. The ‘mohajirs’ have been attracted by the devolution plan be-cause they hope to capture most of the important cities while by the same token the Sindhis are more scared than ever. Once the straightjacket of military rule is withdrawn, the conflict in Sindh may erupt again.

Next in severity is the ethnic divide in Balochistan. The prov-

ince was formed by a merger of British-administered Balochistan and the princely Balochistan states (Kalat, Kharan, Mekran and Lasbela), the former territory more developed than the latter. This also meant bringing the Pakhtuns, concentrated in the former area, and the Baloch (including the Brahuis), dispersed over the


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latter area, together in a single political entity. Both communities had ideas of overcoming their divisions by national and sub-national frontiers. The Baloch dreamt of a Greater Balochistan while the Pakhtuns looked up to their kinsmen in NWFP and Af-ghanistan.

For a variety of reasons, including their numerical majority in

the provincial assembly, the Baloch assumed political leadership while the Pakhtuns progressed in services and business. Their alli-ance within the National Awami Party lasted till the middle of the seventies but since then political leadership has fragmented. Now the Pakhtuns demand either parity with the Baloch or a divi-sion of the province. The ethnic divide is likely to be accentuated by the present government’s plan to create powerful district au-thorities.

The divisions in NWFP are caused by linguistic diversities and

class disparities. The Hindko speaking people in the Hazara divi-sion, the Seraikis in Dera Ismail Khan, the economically deprived in Kohat and the religiously-aroused poor in Malakand all have grievances against the more privileged Pushtu-speaking popula-tion of Peshawar as well as the state centre. These tensions also are likely to be aggravated by the district government plan. A similar situation prevails in Punjab where the Seraiki speaking people in Multan, Bahawalpur, and Dera Ghazi Khan Divisions have been agitating for their linguistic and political rights.

All these conflicts originate in economic disparities and un-

even distribution of opportunities in education, administrative services and business. The state’s incapacity for any reason to remove deeply felt deprivations will sharpen consciousness of ethnic and linguistic peculiarities and continue to strain the politi-cal super-structure.

3.5.1 Sectarianism Pakistan was never free from sectarianism which had its

roots in competition for state jobs and economic privileges. How-ever, the modern phase began with the state’s assumption of re-


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ligious functions, beginning with the introduction of religious courses in educational institutions. The Shia-Sunni gulf was wid-ened by the Arab states’ attempts to use their money to force their theological concepts on Pakistan and by the emergence of a challenge to their leadership of Islam from Khomeini’s Iran. Paki-stan has become the battleground for a proxy war between the two camps. Ziaul Haq’s Islamisation programme further exacer-bated the Shia-Sunni differences because the demand for a Sunni state (since the Sunnis form a large majority) was a natural corollary to Pakistan’s transition to an Islamic state. The Sunnis too are divided broadly between Barelvi (the more numerous) and the Deobandi (the more militant) sects. All these factions have their militant wings and have been settling their scores through violence. The advent of the military regime has persuaded them to observe a ceasefire but they are keeping their powder dry. What can safely be said about future is that if the movement to-wards theocracy continues, as likely, the possibilities of sectarian bloodshed will grow correspondingly.

3.6 External risks When the military ruler General Musharraf or his Foreign Min-

ister refer to the dangers of a nuclear conflict in South Asia their logic is not difficult to follow. The issue is Kashmir and the way the gloomy scenario is developed is quite clear. The militants in Kashmir are waging a holy war nobody can prevent. The Indians cannot control the situation and may be forced to commit ag-gression against Pakistan, not only to secure Kashmir against in-cursions by mujahideen but also to knock out Pakistan’s army, and this could lead to the use of nuclear weapons that both Pakistan and India possess. This reasoning is reinforced by the dangerous dimensions the Kargil conflict assumed in 1999.58 But behind this view lies history of a muddled process which has made Kashmir the ultimate determinant of not only Pakistan’s policies but also of its psyche, particularly the mindset of its mili-tary.

58 Both Indian and Pakistan sources have confirmed that nuclear threats were traded during the conflict.


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Pakistan’s strong emotional attachment to Kashmir is rooted

in history. The initiators of the Muslim separatist movement in British India always included Kashmir in their schemes because fellow-Muslims formed a majority of its population and the territory was contiguous with Muslim majority provinces of Punjab and NWFP. But the party that led the movement for Pakistan was strong on legalist reasoning and weak in appreciation of the game of po-litical drive and thrust. It could not decide clearly whether to de-mand a princely state's inclusion in Pakistan on the basis of its population being Muslim or its ruler being a Muslim.59 Thus, while Pakistan relied on a Standstill Agreement signed by the Maharaja of Kashmir in 1947, India befriended the party that enjoyed major-ity support in the territory. Pakistan’s bid to take the state by force during 1947-49 failed and India’s appeal to the UN got forgotten in long debates, and the world body eventually found itself in a situation that the complainant considered its petition to have become infructuous while the respondent continued to press for its intervention for the sake of justice.

Over the past 40 years Pakistan has been convinced of two

things – that Kashmir cannot be gained by war and that the UN has neither the will nor the inclination to seek compliance with its resolutions on the issue. It has clung to the view that if there is large-scale turmoil in Kashmir the world community will intervene, to prevent a full-scale war between India and Pakistan if nothing else.60 Thus, when the Kashmiri nationalists rose in revolt in 1989 Pakistan began to see a chance of settlement desired by it.

The result is the growth of a large network of mujahideen

forces operating in Kashmir who do not conceal that they have recruiting grounds and bases in Pakistan. This can be gathered from even a curosry gleaning of newspapers in Pakistan. Lashkar-i-Tayeba, which regularly issues lists of the Pakistani mujahideen killed in Kashmir; claims a total of 23, 972 killed since 1990 – 11,416 civilians, 1,993 members of Indian security forces, and 10,623

59 As early as 1938 a Muslim League committee had pointed out the difficulty of in-cluding both Kashmir and Hyderabad in Pakistan. See Aziz, K. K., The Genesis of Paki-stan, Vanguard Books, Lahore. 60 See Khan, Roedad, the American Papers, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1999.


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freedom-fighters.61 Enthusiasm for holy war in Kashmir is not con-fined to the mujahideen camps. Religious parties have been building up a war psychosis through different means. For in-stance, Jamaat Islami organised an International Kashmir Con-ference in Azad Kashmir in April this year and the proceedings in-cluded an address over telephone by a Hamas leader (Sh. Ah-med Yasin)62

At a Kashmir conference, the powerful chief editor of Nawai

Waqt and Nation, Majid Nizami, declared that Kashmir would be liberated as Afghanistan was, that the Quaid-i-Azam’s orders to the Pakistan army had been defied by its British chief and that the execution of the Quaid’s command is incumbent upon the army today.63 The climate of public opinion in Pakistan that the military and the mujahideen have built up has made it difficult for any Pakistani regime to soften its posture on Kashmir, even if its leaders (like Nawaz Sharif) realise the futility of confrontation, and therein lies the danger of war. On top of everything Pakistan’s fervour for holy wars has been fuelled by impressions that Paki-stan’s superiority over India in missile technology and smaller nu-clear warheads has made its defence impregnable.64

The mujahideen camp suffered a setback when Hizbul Mu-

jahideen, the most significant militant group in Kashmir, offered a three-month ceasefire. The Pakistan regime and the religious par-ties both were visibly disturbed and presumably succeeded in persuading the Hizb supremo to end the ceasefire after two weeks. All indications are that the militants will continue their op-erations, although the Hizb commanders in Kashmir are clearly divided. Considerable behind the scenes activity is going on and a powerful group hopes that settlement on the basis of division of Kashmir along the line of control, with minor adjustments, could be brokered. But proposals that aim at dividing the territory along communal lines carry the dangers of ethnic cleansing, which will not leave India and Pakistan unembroiled. A discussion of how

61 Newspaper reports 62 TS, April 24, 2000, p 1. 63 Nation, February 6, 2000, p 1. 64 For example: “Pakistan today has a greater capacity to put nuclear warheads on missiles and launch them tomorrow than India has.” -- George Perkovich, inter-view in Newsweek, Jan 24, 2000.


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the Kashmir issue can be resolved is outside the scope of this pa-per. Suffice it to say that while the international community has some proven capacity to prevent an India-Pakistan war or to bring hostilities to a halt if they do break out65, Kashmir will con-tinue to be a hazardous issue for Pakistan.

3.6.1 Central Asia Pakistan’s harbouring of and support to militant jihadi groups

also strains its relations with the Central Asian republics, especially Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Both of them, along with Russia and In-dia, are worried over the threat of the Taliban’s encouraging simi-lar movements in their neighbouring states and have complained of Pakistan’s involvement. They have reason to be alarmed at the reported Pakistan militarys’ theory of acquiring strategic depth via a compliant Afghanistan.66 While the possibility of a di-rect conflict between Pakistan and the Central Asian states in the near future cannot be entertained, this country will not be able to avoid the consequences of a serious tussle between a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and its neighbours to the north.

3.7 The meaning of the “fundamentalist” challenge By far the most serious threat Pakistan faces is that of the

state’s capture by religious parties backed by indigenous muja-hideen, those trained for operations beyond the national fron-tiers, the Taliban, and their supporters within the defence forces. What does this portend?

It is true that Pakistani ‘fundamentalists’ cannot be precisely

likened to their counterparts in other Muslim countries but they too have no political theory to answer the demands of a modern state and they also follow the traditional legalistic version of the religion. If the state does surrender to them, their application of Shariah as frozen by jurists six hundred years ago will mark the end

65 It is no secret that foreign powers effectively doused the Kargil conflict. 66 For a discussion of this issue see Rashid, Ahmad, Taliban, op cited.


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of democracy. As Abdullahi Ahmad An-Naim has demonstrated, in a state governed under traditional Shariah women and non-Muslim citizens can never have their right to equality and “at the international level, Shariah authorises the aggressive use of force to propagate Islam and does not recognise the equal opportu-nity of non-Muslim states.”67 The Pakistani fundamentalists have shown no capacity “to develop a version of Islamic public law which is compatible with modern standards of constitutionalism, criminal justice, international law, and human rights.”68

The threat to any Muslim society posed by half-baked clerics

has been summed up Mehdi Bazargan: “The most regrettable consequence of wrapping personal opinions and political and administrative decisions in the garb of religiosity and then pre-senting them as pure Islam is that to oppose these decisions would be to fight with God! In this manner, the inevitable blend-ing of politics and spirituality exposes Islamic society to the tyr-anny of the medieval church, with the concommitant eclipse of freedom, truth, virtue, progress, health and prosperity.”69

That the Pakistani ‘fundamentalists’ have derived their es-

sential strength from the state leaders, especially military rulers, is known. The many Pakistanis who have discovered this include Omar Asghar Khan, one of the leading members of the present military government: "By minisinterpreting Quranic verses and the Ahadith in complete disregard of the historical context, many a Muslim ruler has distorted Islamic injunctions in a crude attempt to legitimise his rule. In keeping with these traditions, the military re-gime in Pakistan has used the cover of Islam to thwart the aspira-tions of the people for a change in the social order and the es-tablishment of a democratic system of government.”70

67 An-Naim, Abdullahi Ahmed, Towards an Islamic Reformation (Civil liberties, Human Rights and International Law), Syracuse University Press, 1990, p 9. 68 ibid, p 9 69 Bazargan, Mehdi, in the chapter ‘Religion and Liberty,’ in Kurzman, Charles, ed. ‘Liberal Islam, a sourcebook’, Oxford University Press, New York, 1998, p 73-74. See also Lindholm, Tore and Vogt, Karl, ed.’Islamic Law Reform and Human Rights,’ Nor-dic Human Rights Publications, for a discussion on the possibilities of harmonising classical Islam with modern norms of justice. 70 Khan, Asghar, ed, ‘Islam, Politics and the State, The Pakistan Experience, Zed Books, London, 1985, p 145. Of course, Omar Asghar Khan was commenting on the Zia regime only.


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It is also true that the ‘fundamentalist’ have nothing positive

to offer and that they cannot command the minds of any people for long. This was realised many years ago by Dr. Fazlur Rahman, one of Pakistan’s foremost religious scholars who was hounded out of the country in the sixties and forced to find refuge in Chi-cago: “There can be no doubt that fundamentalism will be short-lived because being essentially a reaction, it can offer little posi-tive, but its brief career will not end without doing great damage to Pakistan in several ways, unless of course, the actual exercise of power on the part of its representatives (should they be able to wield power for a considerable time) should result in a drastic change in some of their attitudes.”71

Although one may not completely agree with Olivier Roy

about his theory of ‘neofundamentalism’, the clergy’s agenda for Pakistan is none other than raising a nationalist entity indulging in rhetoric about umma, wedded to one-party rule, faced with “the same alternative that all governments already face: a weary state socialism offset by a black market, or a liberal neoconserva-tism constrained to follow the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund under the veil of ‘Islamic banks’.”72

3.8 Lack of corrective measures The problems and hazards Pakistan faces, which have only

briefly been touched upon in this report, assume more ominous dimensions when one realises the absence of corrective forces or mechanisms.

The military custodians of power inherently lack checks-and-

balances mechanisms. They are never amenable to outside counsel. Ayub Khan treated the Constitution Commission’s report with contempt, Yahya threw out his civilian advisers while dealing with post-election issues, Ziaul Haq did not accept Zafar Ansari

71 Naim, C.M., ed., ‘Iqbal, Jinnah and Pakistan – The Vision and the Reality,’ Van-guard Books, Lahore, 1984, p 9. 72 Roy, Olivier, ‘The Failure of Political Islam,’ tr. Carol Volk, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachsetts, 1996 edition, p 194.


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Commission’s report and reportedly imposed zakat despite ex-pert opinion to the contrary. And there are reports that the pre-sent military regime has not wholly gone along with the plan of the National Reconstruction Bureau. While describing the first mili-tary rule, Suhrawardy had said: “Most soldiers belonged to a stra-tum of society easily capable of indoctrination that as saviours of the nation they had been divinely charged with the noble duty of obliterating politics and politicians as amoral and pestilen-tial.”73 The same can be said today.

Today power has been monopolised by a small group of the

officer corps as never before, not even under the preceding mili-tary regimes, and all the deleterious consequences of absolute power are visible.74 There is little evidence of the essential intra-executive dialogue. The entire civil administration has been side-lined and made to look like a pack of thieves. That this makes the state more brittle and unstable than ever is not realised. Above all, the military has no concept of socio-political processes. It be-lieves in quick-fix responses to issues that can only be resolved through a long process of trial and error, including blundering. In this situation only the purblind can hope for salvation at the hands of present rulers.

The civil society is very largely paralysed. The political parties,

the essential engines of change and progress, have lost the con-fidence of the people. Instead of being helped to regain a de-cent status, they are under regime’s pressure. The trade union movement is in disarray, enmeshed in an endless battle to secure even the basic right to freedom of association. The academia is prohibited under law from participating in public affairs. The judi-ciary’s credit is at the lowest-ebb ever. The electronic media is functioning as regime’s mouthpiece as stridently as before. The print media is free in a relative sense but not in areas that matter the most. There is no sign yet of legislation to respect its and the people’s right to know.

73 Suhrawardy, op cited, p 17. 74 See Hamoodur Rahman Commission report which is now being discussed in the media.


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The people by and large have been alienated from the state because it has shed most of its benevolent functions and its coercive role is becoming more and more oppressive. They had lost faith in political parties quite some time ago, their disen-chantment with the defence forces now exceeds all previous re-cords.

The NGOs are there but they are under attack from mullahs

and bureaucrats who were taught to hate them by the previous regimes. Some of them have compromised their position, at least in the eyes of the democratic sections, by running the military re-gime's errands.

3.9 Conclusions 1. Further delay in settling the federal arrangement and in

harmonising the state structure with the pluralist nature of society, even blunderous experiments with provincial entities, will not pose any immediate threat to the state or the regime, because of lack of organsied challenges. But within a few years new forces should emerge to demand a fair division of power and resources be-tween the federation and its constituent units. Persistent eco-nomic difficulties and impoverishment of the people could ac-celerate this process. But by then solutions might have become more painful.

2. The people’s alienation from the democratic process

cannot continue for ever. They have a history of hailing the ouster of incompetent and corrupt political rulers but each time this has happened they have rallied for the restoration of democracy. This is bound to happen again sooner rather than later. What form of turmoil this swing will bring will depend upon the kind of succession the military regime provides for. Its rhetoric about cre-ating a steel-frame structure that nobody will be able to tinker with is not very encouraging because the tighter a society is strapped to any system the fiercer the resistance to it is bound to become. In due course new political forces will emerge and no-body should be surprised if the regime succeeds in rehabilitating


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the same politicians that it has joined the populace in demonis-ing, as has always happened in the past.

3. The regime can keep the lid on ethnic and sectarian con-

flicts for some more time but its capacity to do so will inevitably be on the decline.

4. Pakistan’s external security horizon is clouded but rhetoric

notwithstanding the danger of war with India can be averted. 5. The country’s economy cannot be salvaged without im-

proving relations with India. 6. The external pressures will not work by calling for restora-

tion of a democratic facade alone. More fruitful will be support to civil society institutions, pressure for independent accountability processes, and recognition of the people’s right to know.

7. Western scholars must grow out of the notion that the

Pakistani people’s consciousness is wholly determined by their re-ligious belief.75

8. Pakistan’s immediate future, and the whole issue of risk

management, cannot be discussed in the absence of evidence of the present regime’s stability and the military establishment’s will or capacity to rein in the religious militants. There are already reports that Gen. Musharraf is under the veto of commanders who agree with the mujahideen. A split in the high command and the assumption of total control by such elements may spell doom for Pakistan.

75 “The inefficiency of the Pakistan state to use the Islamic card is a powerful in-dictment of the argument that the religious factor in ‘Muslim consciousness’ out-weights all other considerations.” Ayesha Jalal in ‘Nationalism, Democracy and De-velopment’, edited by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, OUP, Delhi, 1997, p 99.


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4 Bibliography Ahmed, Ishtiaq, The Concept of an Islamic State, An analysis of the ideo-logical controversy in Pakistan, Frances Pinter, London, 1987. An-Naim, Abdullahi Ahmed, Towards an Islamic Reformation (Civil liber-ties, Human Rights and International law), Syracuse University, 1990. Azfar, Kamal, Pakistan: Political and Constitutional Dilemmas, Pakistan Law House, Karachi, 1987. Bahadur, Kalim; The Jama’at-i-Islami of Pakistan, Political thought and po-litical action; Progressive Books, Lahore, 1983. Bajwa, Farooq Naseem; Pakistan and the West – the first decade 1947-1957, OUP, Karachi, 1996. Banuazizi, Ali and Weiner, Myron, editors; The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics, Syracuse University Press and Vanguard Books, 1987. Bose, Sumantra, States, Nations, Sovereignty – Sri Lanka, India and The tamil Eeelam Movement, Sage Publications, Delhi, 1994. Callard, Keith, Pakistan: a political study; Allen and Unwin and Oxford, 1968. Chaudhri, Zahid, ‘Pakistan ki Siyasi Tarikh, Vol. 10, Idara Mutalai Tarikh, La-hore, 1996. Hakim, Khalifa Abdul; Islamic Ideology, Institute of Islamic Culture, Lahore, 4th impression, 1980. Hays, Louis D., The struggle for Legitimacy in Pakistan, Vanguard Books, Lahore, 1988. Husain, Altaf, ‘Safar-i-Zindagi’ (Journey of life), MQM story as told by Altaf Husain, Jang Publishers Lahore, 1990. Inayatullah, Dr, State and Democracy in Pakistan, Vanguard Books, La-hore, 1997. Iqbal, Afzal, Islamisation of Pakistan, Vanguasrd Books, Lahore, 1986.


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Islam, M. Nazrul, Pakistan: A study in National Integration, Vanguard Books, Lahore, 1990. Jalal, Ayesha, The Sole Sokesman, Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, 1985. Jalal, Ayesha, The state of Martial Rule (The origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defence), Cambridge University Press, 1990. Jinnah, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali, Speeches and Statements 1947-48, Government of Pakistan, 1989. Khan, Asghar; Islam, Politics and the State, The Pakistan Experience, Zed Books, London, 1985. Khan, Roedad; A Dream Gone Sour; OUP, Karachi, 1997. Lindholm, Tore and Vogt, Karl, editors, Islamic Law Reform and Human Rights, Challenges and Rejoinders, Nordic Human Rights Publications, Oslo, 1993. Mahmood, Safdar; Constitutional Foundations of Pakistan; Jang Publishers, Lahore, 1990. Naim, C. M., editor, Iqbal, Jinnah and Pakistan, The Vision and the Reality, Vanguard Books 1984. Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban – Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia, I. B. Tauris, London, 2000. Rizvi, Hasan-Askari, The Military and Politics in Pakistan, 1947-86, Progressive Publishers, Lahre 1986. Roy, Olivier; The Failure of Political Islam, tr by Carol Volk; Harvard Univer-sity Press, Cambridge, Massachussetts, 1986 edition. Samad, Yunus, A Nation in Turmoil, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Pakistan, 1937-58, Oxford University Press, Karachi, and Delhi, 1995. Sayed, G. M.; The Case of Sindh, Naveen Sindh Academy, Karachi, 1995. Suhrawardy, Huseyn Shaheed, Memoirs, ed. M. H. R. Talukdar, University Press Ltd., Dhaka, 1987.


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Yusuf, K. F.; Politics and Policies of Quaid-i-Azam, National Institute of His-torical and Cultural Research, Islamabad, 1994.

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