Reassessing Pakistan

29 Sep, 2001    ·   594

Maj Gen Ashok Krishna reviews Anand K Verma’s recent book, “Re-Assessing Pakistan”, and says that the book is a must read for all those who wish to understand our inimical neighbour and deal with it effectively
Re-assessing Pakistan by Anand K Verma provides a well reasoned analysis into the continuing animosity between India and Pakistan . This book is ideal for the reader who is looking for a concise work to understand Pakistan ’s motivations with regard to India .

 

 

The author highlights how Jinnah had wanted Pakistan to be a secular democratic country. After his death in September 1948, Pakistan took a totally different orientation under the influence of doctrinaire religious groups. The two-nation theory was given a historical foothold by converting it into an ideology of Islam. This caused Pakistan to run into two serious problems. One was the slow and steady increase in the influence of the Islamic constituency in the polity and politics of Pakistan . The other problem arose from bestowing to Allah sovereignty over Pakistan . Hence the people of Pakistan , not being supreme, were deprived of being the final arbiters to confer legitimacy to policies, institutions and governance.

 

 

Islam and the Armed Forces have thus become the two pillars on which the state of Pakistan rests. The animus against the Hindus, which the protagonists of two-nation theory used for the creation of Pakistan , was now directed by both these institutions against India , which was seen as the land of the Hindus. General Zia-ul-Huq spelt out that, apart from guarding the nation’s boundaries, the Armed Forces were also responsible for protecting its ideological frontiers as soldiers of Islam. Implicit faith in the two-nation theory was thus instilled in the Armed Forces.

 

 

Pakistan rests its claims to Kashmir on the two-nation theory, not on law of any kind. It has gone to great lengths to wrest Kashmir , engaged in wars, promoted subversion and sabotage in J&K and the rest of India , and is unwilling to stay its hand. The option of solving the Kashmir issue on the basis of status quo has been available to Pakistan since a long time but it wants to incorporate all the Muslim areas of the state on the basis of this theory.

 

 

Pakistan is unable to come to terms of peace with India . Its leadership still believes that Indians want to annul Pakistan . It, therefore, looks for parity and balance of power with India . Its military doctrine is largely shaped by its concern about India . Its nuclear weapon policy is India specific.

 

 

There is no knowing to what extent Pakistan may go to harm Indian interests. Its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is trying to encircle India with a web of insurgencies in the north and northeast. The ISI’s aim now is to destroy the cultural and secular integrity of India and to raise Jehad against India to Pan Islamic levels. There is also a belief in army circles in Pakistan that no real peace process, which could decide against a military option, ever started between the two countries. This endeavour tries to rubbish the gains made in bilateral accommodation at Tashkent (1965), Simla (1972) and Lahore (1999).

 

 

In the concluding chapter, the author deals with the Way Out. According to him, the enunciation of the two- nation theory is one of the great tragedies of humankind and that this opinion is now shared by important political personalities in Pakistan today. The cries of Jehad which reverberate in Pakistan bespeak of a medieval mind, whereas, the need of the hour is modernization, pragmatism, humanism and universalism. He is not sure when Pakistan will carry out a philosophical reengineering of its ethos. The author then goes on to recommend a strategy for dealing with Pakistan which needs to be given serious thought.

 

 

Some of the important aspects of this strategy are as follows: Pakistan should give up its communal approach; territorial disputes should be taken up separately after philosophical questions have led to positive conclusions. A direct dialogue with the Pakistan military would be useful through friends in the Islamic world, such as, the Palestinian, Egyptian or Jordanian leadership. Further, an effective anti-dote to the proxy war must be found, and public opinion in India particularly among certain minorities, must raise a voice against communalism, proxy war and Jehad. He makes the telling observation that scholarship on Pakistan within India is not adequate. He recommends the creation of a first rate autonomous institution to study Pakistan closely and continuously from all angles to prepare short and long term estimates and to suggest options for policy making.

 

 

In today’s environment of terrorism this book is a must read for all those who wish to understand our inimical neighbour and deal with it effectively. 

 

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