Introduction: Is Musharraf doing enough to wipe out terrorists? Or is this the endgame for Pakistan?
Is Musharraf doing enough to wipe out terrorists? Or is this the endgame for Pakistan? It used to be said at the time of the Agra summit that the best hope for peace between India and Pakistan is when a BJP government is in power in New Delhi and a military dictator rules in Islamabad. But since, as the British colonialists found out, whatever is true in India (in this context, the subcontinent), its opposite is equally true, the chances of a war between the two neighbours are also at their highest under the rule of the BJP in India and a dictator in Pakistan.
The reasons are obvious. The BJP and its allies in the Sangh parivar look upon a war against Pakistan as a continuation of the medieval conflicts between sections of Hindus and Muslims in the subcontinent. On their part, the military dictators of Pakistan presumably believe that there is no point in being a military dictator if there is no war. Two of Pakistan’s dictators — Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan — went to war against India while a third — Pervez Musharraf — has already fought a border war in Kargil. The fourth — Zia-ul-Haq — didn’t wage a war, but prepared the ground for one by encouraging Islamic fundamentalism.
While the factors responsible for Yahya Khan’s belligerence are understandable — he was losing the war in East Pakistan — Ayub Khan’s motives remain unclear. As Pakistani commentator Ayaz Amir has pointed out, “Ayub Khan... got himself into a war he had no idea how to finish or indeed any idea of why he had embarked upon it in the first place.” It is possible that Nehru’s death in 1964 and India’s earlier humiliation during the border conflict with China convinced Ayub that the time was ripe for an attack on India. The distinctly unmilitary appearance of Lal Bahadur Shastri may have also encouraged the Pakistani field-marshal.
Ayub was also probably contemptuous of India’s military prowess. As he says in his autobiography, Friends Not Masters, the Chinese “made rings round the Indians” in NEFA although they could not use more than “one and a half divisions in any given sector” because of the difficult terrain. However, he added that “let me not denigrate the Indian soldier, for some of them are as good as any in the world... Had they been better led they would have given a more satisfactory account of themselves”.
When it went all wrong for him, however, in 1965, Ayub ran off to China for advice where Zhou Enlai told him, as Ian Talbot says in his book, Pakistan: A Modern History, to fight a guerrilla war in which “cities like Lahore might be lost but the Indian forces would be sucked into a quagmire of popular resistance”. The classical Maoist prescription!
It is curious how the Pakistanis always turn to China whenever in trouble. Nawaz Sharif went to China when Musharraf’s Kargil misadventure backfired and Musharraf himself has been in Beijing more than once in recent weeks. Evidently, dictators feel more at home with others of their kind.
Arguably, Pakistan would have become resigned to its fate of being a secondary power in South Asia after its 1971 defeat but for the appearance of Islamic fundamentalism, fuelled by the American policy of undermining democracy (by toppling prime ministers like Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran —- the “Persian George Washington”, according to Time) and supporting dictatorial regimes in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
Zia-ul-Haq was the first to turn to fundamentalists to bolster his own power, but even this ploy may not have harmed India if Indira Gandhi had not provoked discontent in Kashmir by toppling the popularly elected Farooq Abdullah government in 1983 for hobnobbing with the opposition. Just as her policy of encouraging Bhindranwale laid the ground for militancy in Punjab, the placing of puppets in power in Srinagar made the Kashmiris start harbouring doubts about the usefulness of the democratic system.
Since 1989, Pakistan has taken full advantage of this sense of despair and alienation in Kashmir. Later, its sponsorship of the Taliban and the endless supply of jehadis made Islamabad ever more hopeful of seeking revenge for the secession of East Pakistan by prising Kashmir away from India. Musharraf probably believed that his Kargil enterprise will mark the beginning of Kashmir’s acquisition by Pakistan.
But what he did not take into account was how Islamic fundamentalism will turn into a Frankenstein’s monster and arouse the fear and wrath of the whole world. The Americans, of course, have been trying to save him. They have always had a soft corner for their ‘sons of bitches’. (As President Roosevelt said about dictator Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, “he may be a son of a bitch, but at least he’s our son of a bitch.”) This has been their theme song for many others of that genre — Papa and Baby Doc of Haiti, Syngman Rhee of South Korea, the Shah of Persia, et al.
Musharraf is no exception. He is so much of a favourite that instead of ‘smokin’ out’ the terrorists and ‘huntin’ ’em down’, as George W. Bush promised, the Americans turned a blind eye to Pakistan airlifting its own men from among the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and transferring them to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for carrying on the ‘struggle’.
But the mistake which the jehadis made was to strike at the Indian Parliament. This was too much of a blow for India to bear. And its entirely justified response of downgrading diplomatic relations with Pakistan and moving troops to the border made even the US change its tune from simply berating ‘Stateless’ outfits of terror like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba to banning it.
For Pakistan, this may well be the endgame. If it can no longer sustain the terrorists, the ‘movement’ in Kashmir will fizzle out. It will not be easy for a dictator to survive such a setback. Musharraf is an usurper who might have expected to remain in power if he could somehow snatch Kashmir or, at least, put India very much on the defensive. But no dictator can afford to be seen retreating. Yahya Khan had to go after 1971 after the loss of East Pakistan and now Musharraf may have to go after the ‘loss’ of Afghanistan and Kashmir.
His other problem is that he has botched his own record by changing sides too often —- like Mamata Banerjee! He stabbed his boss Nawaz Sharif in the back for ordering the retreat from Kargil under American pressure, and he has also stabbed his friends of long standing in the Taliban, again under American pressure. Clearly, he is a man who cannot be trusted.
Under him, therefore, the failed
State which had escaped being described as a sponsor of terrorism by a
hair’s breadth has reached its nadir. Pakistan has lost nearly everything
it started out with — its eastern wing, the two-nation theory, its democracy
and now any hope of acquiring Kashmir by fomenting trouble. With the economy
in the doldrums, the democratic system yet unformed and the entire society
facing the challenge of jehadis, Pakistan has never been in deeper trouble.