The Hindu Business Line : A death ushers in 2008

In the event of political instability increasing across the border, the political posturing of Pakistan vis-À-vis India in international fora will harden appreciably.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

That the work of terrorists should mark the end of 2007 and usher in the New Year underscores, as nothing else does, the deep integration of terrorism in the daily lives of average people all over the world.

True, throughout the year, many lives have been taken by bullets and bombs fired and detonated by people who are prepared to impose their will on the world with the help of death and destruction. But the assassination of the Pakistan People’s Pa rty leader Benazir Bhutto — like that of Indira Gandhi 23 years ago — falls into the category of events which will not merely leave, as it must, an indelible mark at a personal level on the families concerned but also on the course of political (and perhaps military) events in the subcontinent.

Another spell of military rule

In the history of Pakistan, the impact of her assassination will probably be equivalent to the execution of her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in 1979 under the military regime of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in that the strictly political content in the quest for social leaderhip in that country has been delivered a serious blow. Her father’s execution led to 10 years of Zia rule (till 1988) which ended with the death of the military dictator in a plane crash in mysterious circumstances.

It seems likely that the exit of the daughter from Pakistan’s political scene will also lead to another prolonged spell of military rule in that country for the simple reason that there is no able successor to the late PPP leader on the horizon.

Admittedly, Mr Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), is the next most important Pakistani political leader and should be generally expected to take over the political mantle of the country in the absence of a viable, credible PPP leadership. But this, in fact, will be far from what is likely to happen because those who support the PPP will not back Mr Sharif even if it means continuance of the military establishment in the political saddle in Islamabad.

Only workable solution

It may be argued that Gen. (Retd) Pervez Musharraf, who made himself President of Pakistan in dubious circumstances, may try to seize this opportunity to anoint himself as the only workable political option in the absence of a strong PPP on the national political scene.

This view may appear to be logical to an extent, but is in fact somewhat fanciful because of the strong (probably unfounded) suspicion that he may have had a hand in the physical elimination of Benazir Bhutto. Put simply, Musharraf stands no chance at all in the post-Bhutto Pakistan political scenario, which means that the military establishment will once again resume its position as the supreme arbiter of life in that country.

Thus, history will probably repeat itself in that, like the period after the execution of her father, Pakistan will once again witness the ascendancy of the military, and unfortunately so because the present juncture appeared to provide a good opportunity for the political forces in that country to stage a comeback.

There is little doubt that whatever has been happening in Pakistan (including the return of Bhutto to fight the January elections) over the past couple of months has been carefully scripted by Gen. Pervez Musharraf — presumably with the help of the US Administration — his sole objective being to remain in power, particularly during the transition from a military career to a post-military one (which, quite obviously, does not rule out an effort to have his own man as Army Chief, namely, General Ashfaq Kayani). But such carefully planned scenarios, specially when they are dependent on human beings, sometimes misfire, Gen. Musharraf’s final nemesis being probably expedited by the Bhutto killing.

Take the back-seat

If the elections are held in early January, as scheduled, they will be nothing more than a State-managed farce, which no one in Pakistan (that is, including the Army and Musharraf) would probably be willing to indulge in at the moment. They could be pushed back, but the PPP leadership issue would still remain, which would have more or less the same effect. This apart, if the security situation in the country were to spin out of control, or threaten to do so, the military would have to bare its fangs, or appear to do so, an exercise over which Musharraf (now out of uniform) would probably not have any control.

What this would ultimately mean is that both Pakistani politicians and Gen Musharraf would have to take the backseat while the Army under General Kayani went about its task of restoring a semblance of civil order in a country where the practice of parliamentary democracy now seems to be even more uncertain after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Of course, the pertinent question is whether Gen. Kayani will turn out to be another Zia, something which only time will be able to tell. If he does, Mr Musharraf will have to seek early retirement; if he does not, Pakistan is in for an extremely unstable phase, which may — and this is important for New Delhi — have a critical military fallout affecting India-Pakistan relations.

Keeping tension alive

This is based on the key assumption that the Pakistan military establishment has always kept tension with India alive solely to underscore its own pre-eminent position in the Pakistani power-structure. Afghanistan is no longer an important issue (as it once was) which could be used for the same purpose, and the anti-terrorism struggle — as Islamabad has found to its discomfiture — cuts both ways.

So, the greater the problems within the country, it is safe to expect that India-Pakistan border problems will become more ‘active’. (Kargil appears to be a prime example where pressing domestic political considerations led to heightened Pakistani activity on the border, a process which finally culminated with Musharraf’s coup against Nawaz Sharif.)

It is, therefore, safe to conclude that, in the months to come, in the event of political instability increasing across the border, the political posturing of Pakistan vis-À-vis India in international fora will harden appreciably. However, the same may not be true on the trade front because a higher level of ‘controlled’ trade (from Pakistan’s perspective) could benefit certain sections in Pakistani society, whose support could be useful for the military rulers.

However, all this will depend crucially on the scale of activity launched by the Islamic fundamentalists, who will probably assert themselves in the New Year as much as they have in the year just ending.

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