Geopolitics

Pakistan: Unstable and Not at Peace - III
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Issue Courtesy: Aakrosh | Date : 06 Jul , 2011

“¦.if the still minority Deobandis were allowed to gain an upper hand, that would complete the fundamental transformation of Pakistan into a medieval”¦

“The movement was led by a group of people who belonged to the Muslim minority areas of British India and who felt that their economic future would be threatened in a state in which the Hindu majority would rule. However, they created a state in the part of British India in which Muslims constituted a large majority and felt secure about their economic future even after the departure of the British from India. It was for this reason that Punjab and the Frontier were at best lukewarm to the idea of Pakistan. But once Pakistan came into being these two elements coalesced to define a view in which the economic betterment of the citizenry was the main goal to be pursued.

“However, then Islamists under Gen Ziaul Haq entered the picture and began to distort the original idea of Pakistan. Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s famous words uttered as he was preparing to launch the new state of Pakistan — ‘You are free. You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state’ — meant nothing to these ideologues. They got busy in rewriting the meaning of the idea of Pakistan.”

In the process, the crises—multiple crises—they have created have given birth to the acute sectarian divide by which the Barelvi majority feel threatened in the country they helped create. The army has become a representative body of an ethnic majority. And the political class can no longer get off the tiger it set out to ride.

“¦the problem arose when capitalist development in Pakistan remained stymied in the face of strong feudal influences. As a result, the natural liberalism that follows capitalist development could not take place in Pakistan.

Pakistan translated meant “land of the pure.” That search for purity was itself a misnomer as Burki says that the country was born from the conflicts of interest between the Hindu and Muslim bourgeoisie under a colonial yoke. The growing Muslim bourgeois felt stifled and numerically subdued under the predominance of their Hindu counterparts. So, they wanted a land of their own where they could enjoy their primacy, unfettered.

This bourgeoisie’s nationalism was limited to serving their own interests, which was not in a contest with the Western imperialists. So, they actually collaborated with the British representatives of the imperial interests and got their own country. Since they themselves were malformed, they did not get into a competition either with the feudal landlords, who too had made a common cause for the founding of Pakistan. In turn, neither of the two segments of the ruling classes of the new country found it awkward to further deepen their collaboration with Western imperialists in a divided world.

The resultant exploitation of the common people of Pakistan was unprecedented. But the sheer economic logic of all this could not have served as the engine of nation building, which required a corporate agenda on which every individual could be mobilised. So, Pakistan’s Islamic connection was found to be a suitable vehicle on which the interests of the feudal class and the bourgeoisie could ride. Plus, a common religion like Islam, with its egalitarian precepts, could also create a kind of social leveller that could hide the true class struggles. And it could act as a detriment to the creation of a genuine class consciousness.

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But the problem arose when capitalist development in Pakistan remained stymied in the face of strong feudal influences. As a result, the natural liberalism that follows capitalist development could not take place in Pakistan. Nor was there any surplus that could be generated and allowed to percolate to the bottom rungs of the society. Pakistan’s successive “democratic” governments proved especially inept in delivering the fruits of governance to the people. This loosened the bonds of the people with the nation state.

“¦the Islamist entities considered the state sufficiently weak for them to seek to replace them. That is the description of the current battle. And the elite of Pakistan””both bourgeois and feudal””are increasingly losing their grip on the situation.

The space left by the retreat of the state was filled up by the activism of religious non government entities, which were often funded by ideologically radical Islamist nations, like Saudi Arabia. Part of the strength of the entities was also bolstered by the sectarian political interests and state institutions like the army for various reasons, including fake national enterprises like competition with India.

At some point in time, these Islamist entities considered the state sufficiently weak for them to seek to replace them. That is the description of the current battle. And the elite of Pakistan—both bourgeois and feudal—are increasingly losing their grip on the situation. So, the bonds that hold the country together are showing wear and tear.

That is the perspective from which one needs to view the Barelvi–Deobandi conflicts. The fear is if the resurgent Barelvis decide to take on the Deobandis with the same arms with which they are being bombed and killed, as Shah Mohammad Quereshi has been quoted as hinting, there would be a bloodbath and a civil war. On the other hand, if the still minority Deobandis were allowed to gain an upper hand, that would complete the fundamental transformation of Pakistan into a medieval, Islamist outpost of the world—an anachronism to the twenty-first century. This, of course, Pak bourgeoisie does not want to countenance. But the question remains, do they have the ability to reverse the tide of history?

Notes and References

  1. A dispute exists, like much of his political legacy, about Jinnah’s religious denomination. While his birth records show that he was an Ismaili Shia, many in Pakistan claim that he had converted to being a Sunni later.
  2. In a report “Govt’s writ fully restored in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa” published in Dawn on 26 November 2010, the correspondent Ismail Khan quoted an unnamed senior military official as saying that the political leadership has to take “ownership” of a North Waziristan operation despite General Kayani’s having a blanket authorisation from the government for it.
  3. B. Raman wrote about the inception of Sipah-e-Sahaba in Paper no. 484 of South Asia Analysis Group, titled “Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Bin Laden & Ramzi Yousef,” published on 1 July 2002. South Asia Terrorism Portal of Institute of Conflict Studies wrote Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group of Pakistan <http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/terroristoutfits/Ssp.htm>.
  4. Writing the New America Foundation’s Counterinsurgency Strategy Initiative Policy Paper, in April 2010, Khattak detailed in a 16-page article entitled “The Battle for Pakistan: Militancy and Conflict in the Swat Valley,” a sort of after-action report. It was supremely detailed in nonmilitary parts of the story.
  5. On 23 November 2010, Dawn gave front-page coverage to an ongoing debate in the country’s senate subcommittee about the introduction of a reformed general sales tax—a demand of the IMF. The debate is entitled “Hafeez lets out steam on senators.”
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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Pinaki Bhattacharya

Pinaki Bhattacharya, writes on Indian strategic security issues. He is currently working as a defence correspondent for a leading newspaper published from New Delhi.

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