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A DENIAL REPUBLIC CALLED PAKISTAN

“Saarey Jahan Sey Achcha Yeh Hindustan Hamara”, that melodious patriotic song remained in this part of the geographical land mass, to be sung and sung again, for its sheer verbatim beauty. But the poet Allama Iqbal who created the song left this portion of the land of Hindustan for supposedly better pasture into the other portion of the land christened as Pakistan, by those who wanted a separate land for Muslims. The separation called PARTITION broke the country into three parts for ever, physically and mentally, and reduced the exercise into an estranged, wrangling, warring neighbours for all the 65 years of India’s post independence and of the creation of Pakistan.

Come August 1947, millions of Hindus and Muslims migrated to their chosen side from across the divided line decided by the then colonial masters, the British.  How happy and contended these mass of people are, after those tumultuous six plus-decades? It is a question of profound dimensions. 

Abdul Qadir Khan, known also as A Q Khan, the infamous stealer and dealer in nuclear technology, an Indian by birth but Pakistani by choice and migration, has recently warned of the second balkanisation of Pakistan, ‘if social evils are not rectified soon’. Writing in “NEWS INTERNATIONAL” under the title ‘Events of 1971’, this disgraced nuclear scientist, informs IANS, ‘Pakistan is at present in a worse situation than it was in 1971’. “It is plagued with all kinds of social evils. If we don’t rectify this soon, the day will not be far off when we disintegrate again. In order to rectify the situation, the first and the foremost necessity is to disengage ourselves from the foreign war and put our own house in order”, Khan had continued in his writing.

It is a timely and sensible advice. But the likes of Kayaanies, Qadries and Chaudharies of evolved Pakistan, would they listen to this sane advice? Of course, when A Q Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear technology, migrated to Pakistan, leaving behind the soil of his birth, in all probability, had no vision of the nightmare of the ‘Political Islam’ that his chosen country lapsed into.

Referring to the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971 he further writes “It is most unfortunate that we in Pakistan have also not learnt any lesson from our past tragic mistakes. The break-up of Pakistan on Dec. 16, 1971was one such event. Pakistanis are fully aware of the reasons behind that tragedy, but it seems that our rulers and the establishment are oblivious to these facts, despite the fact that it was such a traumatic experience. In 1971, Gen Yahya Khan sent Gen. Tikka Khan to East Pakistan to crush ‘insurgents’. We saw our own army killing our own people. Extremely horrible scenes were shown on foreign TVs at that time. I was ashamed to see that such cruel acts could be perpetrated by Muslims against Muslims. Pakistanis against fellow Pakistanis. All are aware of the fact that West Pakistan considered East Pakistan a colony and treated its citizens in the same way as the British used to treat us. Then, as now, the rulers were under illusion that they would and could crush their opponents. They could not manage to do that to a very docile nation in 1971. They will be fighting for a 1000 years and bleed the country to destruction and disintegration”, he warned, as he concluded.

Of course, it is not clear, who are the ‘opponents’ that he is referring to, whether it is the land of his birth or the fundamentalist militants and terrorist outfits within Pakistan? 

A Q Khan is a pronounced Anti-Indian. He certainly wants a stable and strong Pakistan to counter India. But he is sadly aware, that this is not happening. But given to hyper illusions, political leaders of Pakistan have always indulged in jingoistic rhetorics. In their closed, dog-in-the-manger, mind set, they always thought that India is the Enemy No.1 of Pakistan. Accordingly school curriculum was designed to corrupt the young emerging Pakistanis to create hatred towards India. The recent book ‘Headley & I’ by the son of Mahesh Bhatt, who considers himself as a friend of Pakistan, is a case in point. He has come calling, on Indians at large, to tell “I loathed India from childhood”, attributing to Dawood Gilani, aka David Headley. Dawood Gilani is a product of Pakistan, and not of undivided India, and hence it is very clear, how the school text books were printed and published to cater hate mongering by the then Pakistani establishment. But, they, as is their wont, have always denied that such is the case. Denial is their essential spirit, whatever officially the Pakistanis and their Indian friends like Mani Shankar Iyer would say. Their habit of denial is rather pretty old. Here it is pertinent to note Dawood Gilani urf David Headley has not converted to Christianity, Pakistanis would have killed him if he has done that. He only changed his name to get a passport to travel in Christian name, since it was easier this way, to travel globally including India. This Dawood Gilani urf David Headley has confessed to being an ISI agent more than once while in U.S. custody for espionage and other criminal offences. He has been convicted and jailed for 35 years, for his role in 26/11 Mumbai massacre. As was only expected Pakistan has totally denied having anything to do with this Dawood Gilani urf  David Headley.

Immediately after the proclamation of Pakistan’s creation, in 1947 itself, it sent its army to Kashmir, and called it ‘Pathani tribals attacked Kashmir’. They kept denying since 1947 itself. It was their army who went into unguarded Kashmir, in the tribal attire. Thus, this streak of denial has a long history, as long as Pakistan’s own history itself. So, their denials at the latest barbaric act by its sentries, of beheading dead bodies of Indian soldiers, should not shock anyone. It is in their genes.  

Go back in time, to the day notorious fugitive Dawood Ibrahim ran away from India and found shelter in Pakistan for all the 20+ years since Mumbai riots. Pakistan has been denying his presence in the country. Even when one of its very prominent citizens, Javed Miandad’s son got married to this fugitive Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter, Pakistan did not blink. Entire glitterati of Karachi attended the marriage and yet Pakistan kept denying his presence in Pakistan. Being an Islamic republic and clergy being a dominant player in national politics, it is indeed very strange that Pakistan allowed this criminal to operate his illicit empire on its soil. Yet kept telling India that Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan, every time India requested his extradition. It has done it innumerable times. It has always bluffed its way thru and world does recognise this truth, but Pakistan is unfazed.  

Karachi, the burstling commercial city of Pakistan, attracted hordes of people from the all over the subcontinent. After the migration of Hindus from  Karachi, Urdu speaking Muslims from UP and Bihar filled the vacuum, so did Pashtun from North West Pak in search of better pastures. Thus Sindhis, the original Karachiites, Mohajirs and Pashtuns occupied the socio-political space of Karachi. PPP, MQM & ANP, the political party of Sindhis-Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohajir Qoumi Movement, the party of Urdu speaking migrants from India, and Awami National Party representing Pashtuns interest, became the voices of these ethnic groups in the political landscape of Karachi. All these political outfits have militant armed wings. According to Andrew Marshal of the TIME, this fact is one of Karachi’s worst kept secrets. Of course, as usual, they have denied this too.

Look at the population profile of Pakistan. 98% are Muslims. 2% non-Muslims like Christians, Hindus & Parsies. This 2% has no political space hence are not trouble makers. However they do face trouble from some elements who want to usurp their women folks in marriages by forcible conversion or get them into trouble by hoisting false blasphemy charges, if they are found inconvenient to the ulterior design of these elements. These elements are often politically backed. But among majority there is an interminable conflict on sectarian lines. Sunny’s targeting Shias or Ahmediyas is fairly routine. Every year hundreds and thousands of people die in sectarian violence.

Writing from Karachi, Andrew Marshal of the TIME, however attributes violence to political differences. He titled his piece “PAKISTAN’S DARK HEART”. According to him there is huge chasm among political parties which are basically from an ethnic background. These differences are reflected on the streets. “Employers give jobs to members of their own ethnic group only” says one Abdul Ahad, a Kashmiri. “People have stopped trusting one another”. This distrust leads to recurring violence among Karachi residents. Hence there is a vacuum and this vacuum is being exploited by religious parties like Jamaat-e-Islami. Although these religious political parties could not influence the electorates to any serious extent, they too are not competent to bring about peace in the metropolis, thinks Andrew Marshal. He quotes a report by Crisis Group, a Brussels based think tank, who says that these religious parties “are commited to a narrow partisan agenda and willing to defend it through violence” and could be as bad as other political parties, in governance. ‘Karachi’, according to him “remains a maximum city with minimum governance”.

Post Mumbai attack of 26/11. When lone Pakistani-Ajmal Kasab from Faridkot-was captured, Pakistan totally denied initially, that Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani. They even ridiculed the Indian claim by stating that Faridkot is in Bangladesh.

It was left to Nawab Sheriff, the former Pakistani premier to call the bluff. Then you have this Shahryar Ali, a Pakistani youngster, writing in a Pakistani Promotional website “The most embarrassing development now proves that the terrorist in fact is a Pakistani from the same Faridkot which we could not find on our map. His father identified him. It’s a day of national humiliation for us. Ajmal Kasab is a Pakistani from Faridkot, a fact we kept on denying at every level. But will we learn? but alas we still need proof”. 

Oh yes! didn’t Pakistan kept saying to the world that Osama Bin Laden is not in Pakistan, while he was very much in Pakistan’s Abbottabad for years, under Pakistan’s own security cover. And it was U.S. president Barack Obama’s single point agenda which got the U.S. Navy Seals to shoot Osama dead, right inside Pakistan, only a few kilometers from Islamabad. Pak denial blew on its face, so violently.

Then you have the writings by Gen. John Allen, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He recently wrote in ‘Washington Post’, repudiating the repeated claims of Pakistan, that reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar is indeed in Pakistan along with his commanders, hiding in the areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. “Omar lives in Pakistan as do many of his commanders. From that safe vantage points, they have sent hundreds of young, impressionable helpless youth to their death and detention in Afghanistan. For this, they must forfeit their honour and any claim to Islamic virtue”, General had written.

Thus their denials are fairly common and hence should be taken with a pinch of salt. Pakistan in short, is not to be trusted. They are not trustworthy. They are always on denial mode. What can happen to the future of this country, is a loaded question. A Q Khan migrated from India to live for Pakistan, one day he may die for Pakistan. If A Q Khan, has no answer how can anybody else have the answer.

J.Shriyan

(The title was coined, after the latest development at the border. However, while searching for images of denials in the internet we were surprised, to find a Pakistani writer, who had written an article “The Denial Republic”. Thus the accusation has a history. Of course it is in a different context. We have reproduced the article in following pages.     - Editor)

The Denial Republic

Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi

We are approaching Pakistan’s 64th Independence Day but we continue to debate the reasons for the partition of British India and the establishment of Pakistan. There are disagreements on the root causes of the current socio-economic problems and what should be done to address them. Is there anything to be improved in the society or are Pakistan’s problems caused by an international conspiracy hatched by the followers of other religions and civilisations.

An important section of public opinion seeks the explanation of Pakistan’s establishment and current problems in the developments of the pre-independence period. Instead of focusing on the strengths of the Muslim community that led them to ask for a separate state, they highlight more what they call the exploitation of the Muslims by the Hindus of British India. The emphasis is on distinctions between the Muslims and the Hindus which, in their view, are still relevant to addressing the current India-Pakistan relations.

The exploitation theme can be referred to as a factor in the history of Pakistan which has greater appeal for those who experienced the pre-independence society. However, this argument loses much of its appeal to the second and third post-independence generation that is experiencing exploitation by their countrymen, invariably the Muslims. Unless their problems and concerns are addressed, their attitude towards that state and society is going to be influenced more by their own experience rather than the historical narratives of exploitation.

Today’s Pakistan must appear relevant to the present and future of the generations that have been born and trained in Pakistan. They are looking for a better future for themselves and Pakistan’s institutions and processes must facilitate that.

The MQM represents another kind of dilemma. Its stalwarts live in the nostalgia of the pre-partition period and talk of their exploitation in Pakistan by other ethnic groups. Some of them think that they still have the option of returning to India.

There are those who track the current problems back to the establishment of Pakistan and the decisions made in the early years of independence. They argue that Pakistan was established without giving a serious thought to what was to be done subsequently. Many decisions were made on the spur of the moment rather than taking into account the long term implications. For example, some analysts track the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan to the passing of the Objectives Resolution (March 1949) that incorporated Islamic identity in the political and constitutional arrangements for the future. This is viewed by many as yielding to the pressure of Islamic clergy which the latter used subsequently to justify their demand for a purely religion-based political order.

The Objectives Resolution was not the beginning of emphasis on Islam but a natural corollary of the employment of Islamic identity, culture and history for political mobilisation and identity formation by the All India Muslim League in the pre-independence period. The framers of the Objectives Resolution were convinced that the modern notion of state and democracy can be combined with the teachings and principles of Islam that were viewed as the ethical foundation of the Pakistani society rather than a set of punitive and regulative injunctions.

If they rejected the puritanical and orthodox view of the Islamic state, they also avoided the other extreme of a secular system like that of Kamal Ataturk’s Turkey. They adopted a midway house approach of keeping an identifiable linkage with Islam but not assigning the responsibility of enforcement of Islam to the state. All Pakistani constitutions direct the state to “enable” the Muslims to lead their lives in accordance with the teachings and principles of Islam. Another constitutional stipulation emphasises that there will be no law contrary to the principles and teachings of Islam. The basic change in the role of the state from an “Enabler” to “Enforcer” of Islam came during the military rule by General Zia-ul-Haq who began to enforce Islam through state orders and machinery for achieving his domestic and foreign policy agenda. Until 1977, there is only one instance of such enforcement; the state and society generally pursued a moderate disposition towards religion.

The current religious and cultural intolerance and militancy is the product of the policies adopted since 1977, especially from 1979 onwards when Zia-ul-Haq embarked on enforcement of Islam to the satisfaction of orthodox and conservative Muslim clergy. It is very difficult to draw the conclusion that if the founders of Pakistan had sought a new basis of identity for Pakistan after independence Pakistan would have been free of the on-going extremism and militancy.

Another explanation talks of external conspiracies against Pakistan for undermining the predominantly Muslim state and society. This discourse views all domestic and foreign policy developments as a function of religion. As per this view, the non-Muslim world is arrayed against Islam and there is a global conspiracy against Pakistan. This means that there is nothing wrong with Pakistan and Pakistanis. There is nothing to improve within the society but it has to be protected from the onslaught of the adversaries.

A variant of the conspiracy explanation is the well-known statement that Pakistan has all the needed natural, agricultural and human resources but the leadership is unable or unwilling to use them for the welfare of people or there is some international conspiracy for dissuading them from benefiting from these resources. The theories on international or domestic conspiracies are popular with the societies in decay that refuse to admit that something has gone wrong with the society. They also do not develop the capacity to meet the challenges to the future of the society because they are convinced that all conspiracies are bound to fail.

In the present day world, no matter how a country has come into existence and no matter what mistakes its rulers have made in the past, it cannot overcome its problems without acquiring modern knowledge and technology. This needs to be coupled with unemotional reflection on the problems or failures.

Pakistan cannot overcome its present difficulties by externalising its problems, blaming the past rulers or living in the delusion of possessing unlimited resources. The nations that have achieved socio-economic development in the last 50 years have assigned the highest priority to acquiring knowledge and technology and sought solutions through dispassionate self-analysis and sustained efforts. Pakistan’s future depends on how the current problems are addressed. This calls for building a knowledge-based society that assigns premium to professionalism and rationality.

The writer is an independent political and defence analyst. He was Visiting Professor of Pakistan Studies at Columbia University''s School of International and Public affairs (SIPA) from January 1996 to July 1999, and the allama Iqbal Professor at Heidelberg University, Germany from 1988 to 1991. Until 2001, he was a Professor of Political Science at the Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. Rizvi obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.Phil. in Politics from the University of Leeds, UK.