Abstract
In any other part of the world, if a religious state turned liberal and moderate within the period of a few days, it would be considered a revolution. But in Pakistan, all it takes is a general's speech. ¶ If the attacks of September 11 were not enough to compel Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to take up the cudgel against homegrown Pakistani Islamic militants, there was the December 13 attack on India's parliament. Both the American anti-terrorism campaign and an unprecedented buildup of Indian forces on the border left Musharraf no wiggle room. Within weeks of turning Pakistan's pro-Taliban policy on its head, in a ground-breaking speech delivered January 12 he also withdrew support for Islamic militants in Kashmir.
On the surface, these actions may seem like political suicide for a Pakistani leader. But in reality, there has been no noticeable resistance from the public or the military to the general's strategic shifts.
Where have all the Islamists (those who promote antiWest and anti-India sentiment in Pakistan) and their much-feared popular appeal gone?
“When parents eat children to escape retribution there is public revulsion,” wrote former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan's January 21 News International. In another political climate such a statement might have elicited public outcry as well as political retaliation from the Islamists whom the military has patronized and nurtured over the years. Maybe the children of jihad know when to attack and when to duck. Or maybe the military has such control over Pakistani society that even the armed, trained, and motivated jihadi outfits know when there is no hope for a victory. History, at least, gives them no chance.
This is not the first time a Pakistani general has set out to reshape the state's ideology and destiny. The story is familiar: A military ruler supports a U.S.-led military alliance and decides to ride out events–as long as the good days last.
Although it was in the opposite direction (because Washington, at the time, supported jihad), this was the course Gen. Zia ul Haq took when he introduced “Islamization”–his plan to turn Pakistan into a “fortress of Islam.” The hope was that spreading the spirit of jihad among Muslim youth in Pakistan (and in other parts of the Arab and Muslim world) would help defeat the communists–as it indeed did.
With his religious fervor and nonchalant ease, Zia ruled Pakistan for 11 years. Any opposition was crushed, and religious symbolism was exploited to the full. Most Pakistanis, including Islamists and anti-Bhutto politicians, were happy to be manipulated.
Before Zia, Field Marshal Ayub Khan led an oppressive military regime for more than 10 years during the Cold War buildup of 1958-1969. A Westernized soldier-of-fortune, he introduced television, promoted liberal social mores, put Islamic politicians behind bars, helped contain the communists, and served American interests.
Musharraf therefore represents continuity, not change. His current course is consistent with the military's alliance with the United States, and he uses the relationship to give legitimacy to the military's near-absolute control over the country's domestic politics.
Regional and international events have again conspired to prop up a military junta here–which may be why few people were surprised when Musharraf told the Aspen Strategy Group visiting him in Islamabad this January that for the sake of political stability he would like to remain president for five years. This is bad news for the jihad business–but worse still for civil society in Pakistan.
All of Pakistan's military presidents have claimed public support for their policies. Khan invented an election system that ensured his election. Zia staged a referendum in which the people were asked only if they wanted an Islamic system. All “yes” votes were counted as votes for him. Musharraf is following suit.
In the January 20 Los Angeles Times, Paula Newberg described Musharraf's system of democracy as the “politics of constrained public discourse, docile elected bodies, and paternalism mired in old-fashioned feudalism.” The systems put in place by Musharraf's predecessors were similar in design and method, ensuring supremacy of the military–and keeping it unaccountable.
Decades of direct military rule (and controlled democracy during brief interregnums) have resulted in military supremacy over Pakistan's politicians, civil bureaucracy, and judiciary. Even when generals win accolades for transferring or sharing political power with civilians, they only transfer responsibility, not authority. In the past, elected legislators and prime ministers have been overthrown first–by the military or with its consent–and elections have been held later. Public opinion in Pakistan remains unorganized and unexpressed, and political maturity is at an abysmal level. Civil institutions are fragile, underdeveloped, and servile to military power.
A good example of the military's unchallenged authority can be seen in its ongoing assault on sectarian and ji-hadi groups. The Islamic backlash predicted by the wire services never happened. If it had, it would probably have been quelled more effortlessly here than in Algeria or Turkey.
“Pakistan needs political contests that encourage open debate, enshrine the value of fundamental rights, and challenge–finally–the verities that army rule had persuaded civil society to accept for too long,” Newberg wrote.
Unfortunately, most of those “accepted verities” have become articles of faith and a criteria against which patriotism is measured. Being anti-India tops the list.
Pakistani military rulers thrive on external threats. An Indian enemy knocking on the door, foreign forces in Afghanistan, and the perils of terrorism deepen Pakistan's survival dilemma.
Moreover, September 11 has changed the military equation in South Asia more profoundly than the nuclear explosions of May 1998. The current standoff with India at first seemed to have rudely interrupted Pakistan's honeymoon with the United States as a frontline state in the anti-terrorism coalition. But there is nothing unusual about Pakistan and India going eyeball-to-eyeball. It happens year-round. Thousands of soldiers and civilians are killed or maimed on either side in battles like the one at Kargil. A ceaseless military conflict in Siachen and along the Line of Control goes on despite nuclear weapons. Washington's intervention to prevent a Pakistani-Indian war is not uncommon either. But the connections between the attacks of September 11 and December 13–and between Kashmiri militants and Al Qaeda–have brought a new dimension to the Indian military buildup. Pakistan's military and diplomatic isolation is clearer than ever.
Making efforts for durable peace and normal ties with India should have been the next logical step following Musharraf's historic January 12 speech. Yet, as the January 14 Calcutta Telegraph noted, “Musharraf's plan to reform Pakistan's state and society is not matched by an equally far-reaching plan to make peace with India.”
This is because “institutional compulsions,” based on the threat from India, are used by the military to justify its running of the country. Enmity with India is based on the notion that it has never wholeheartedly accepted the existence of Pakistan and that the armed forces are the first and last defense against Indian aggression. Zia added a religious flavor to this rivalry, a process that instigated the Kashmir jihad. Musharraf is waving the flag on a different plank of anti-Indian nationalism, and an aggressive relationship with India serves to strengthen his hand at home.
The primary, and perhaps ultimate, function of the military in Pakistan has always been to govern the state, define its strategic outlook, and lay down the rules of national politics. Whether it is led by an Islamist like Zia, or by Westernized moderates like Musharraf and Khan, the military will continue to be the sole arbiter for the fate of the Pakistani people.
In their zest for civil-sector reform, a ploy that goes down well with the United States and other friendly Western powers, reformers in khaki would have us believe that the military remains extraneous to the country's politics. That the most profound impact on Pakistan's politics and society has been the role of the military itself does not seem to be an issue at all. Every major political, economic, and financial decision has been influenced or made by the military.
Musharraf breaks no new path by scrapping Zia's policies and denouncing religious violence. It is not history-in-the-making but a repetition of an old farce. This is not a new-found love for democracy, liberalism, and peace. Pursuit of power, at any cost, is the only ideology that dictates change in Pakistan. The main function of this government is to further entrench the military in state structures and society, while keeping India at bay so it doesn't ruin the party.
Pakistan's public and its politicians see the United States as the guarantor of every Pakistani military ruler's tenure. U.S. patronage and apparent friendship is considered a big factor in the rise and fall of Pakistani governments.
The Bush administration, engrossed as it is in Afghanistan, must not let Pakistan drift further away from its democratic moorings. It will be a pity if, for its short-term gains, the United States once again lets a sham democracy pass as real and a military dictator pass as a liberal reformer. It might come back to haunt America again.