The Hindu Business Line : The Pakistan tragedy

A Gallup poll, conducted in Pakistan recently, has thrown up figures which suggest that a momentous tragedy is unfolding on our north-western borders. Among other things, the findings tell us that, once again, US geopolitical strategy in Central Asia (does anyone remember the Central Treaty Organisation — CENTO) has led to a classic Dr Frankenstein situation — where the creation (for strategic purposes) becomes a veritable monster, to such an extent that the cr eator’s existence itself comes under pressure.

Not Pakistan’s war

In this specific instance, Pakistan’s Central Asian policy, though borne out of Islamabad’s own strategic calculations and imperatives, was nevertheless an integral part of a larger picture, that fashioned by Washington to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, in the perception of the average Pakistani, the military action in the north-west was not Pakistan’s war. The Gallup Pakistan chairman, Ijaz Shafi Gillani, has been quoted as saying that the poll finding last year showed that just 23 per cent of those covered felt that the military action in the region was Pakistan’s war.

If it was not Pakistan’s war, it was someone else’s, and in the specific circumstance it is clear that that “someone” was Washington. As long as it was not Pakistan’s war, it was more or less a comfortable situation for Pakistanis as a whole — and not merely the governing elite (mainly the military) — particularly in view of the financial largesse that successive US Administrations canalised into Pakistani pockets.

But, all the while, the “monster” was growing up so to speak and was learning to flex its own muscles. It was also shedding its old, anti-Soviet skin and donning the far more pervasive, ideological mantle of Islamic fundamentalism, one which would lead ultimately to the destruction of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre.

When the “monster” began flexing its muscles, it was time for Washington to ask Islamabad to take action against it. In fact, Pakistani society had already become a safe haven for the fundamentalist terrorists, who had begun to hit not only the Big Satan in the West but also India.

Up to a point, the pressure from the US was resisted. When the capitulation came, the moment was ripe for the “monster” to strike at Islamabad itself, with the result that in no time the resultant violence was perceived by Pakistanis as being their own war instead of America’s, as it had been for decades. The latest Gallup findings revealed that as much as 37 per cent of the people covered by the poll now feel that the military action represents Pakistan’s war while 39 per cent sees it as America’s war.

Reining in the ‘monster’

The tragedy lies in the fact that the Pakistani state is so weak that it is perhaps only a matter of time before the military acts once again formally to usurp power, a step which will drive one more long nail into the coffin of the Pakistani republic.

The big problem is that this time the military itself will come under tremendous pressure either to side with the “monster” or to fight Washington’s battle, as it has been doing since the 1950s. If the “monster” could infiltrate US domestic civil aviation and work out its plan over a few years to hit Washington (9/11), it is more than probable that it has already done the same thing with the Pakistani military.

The Pakistani dream, born in 1947, could be dead in five years, something which no true Indian would like to see happen because of the deep commonality of the myriad strands which, despite the artificially generated obstacles, bind the two societies so tightly together.

RANABIR RAY CHOUDHURY

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