Now is the time for Pakistan’s new spring

There comes a time when every nation should pause in its track and take stock of its failings, reconsider its ideology and re-purpose its existence. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US and adviser to three former prime ministers including Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, believes that for his country, that time is now. Currently living in exile in the US, where he is director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, Haqqani was in Delhi recently for the launch of his new book, Reimagining Pakistan . He spoke to BL ink about confronting reality and why Indo-Pak relationship would be furthered by becoming good neighbours before building good fences. Edited excerpts:

In your book’s introduction, you say that Pakistanis are plagued by a dogma of blind patriotic fervour —‘My country, right or wrong’ — without remembering the rest of the Carl Shurz quote, ‘If right to be kept right, if wrong to be set right’. What can Pakistanis do to set right that wrong?

I think the acceptance of reality would be a very good first step towards changing that reality. When you live in denial, the prospect of change is very limited. If more and more Pakistanis started saying that we do not accept your version of history or the transmitted version of what is good for our country, and that we’re aware of where policy errors have led us, then change starts automatically.

Pakistan is a nation of over 200 million people. But it has published far fewer books than a country like Greece, which has 12-15 million people. And that is essentially the result of a scuttle of discussion. The most important thing for the citizens of Pakistan to do is to try and increase their own awareness of how they are being equated with the state narrative.

Is there not a very heavy price to pay at this point?

Those of us who try to change the narrative are paying a heavy price. I assure you that living in exile is not a picnic. But, at the same time, history shows us that those who stay on to fight and get physically eliminated make less of a contribution sometimes, than those who get out and continue to rally for change.

Pakistan is seeing a Pashtun Spring with the Long March and other social media-driven movements. Of course, the Pakistani mainstream media won’t cover it. But people know it’s happening. And so, if there could be a greater momentum, and the ideas for it continue to come from those who are in exile, who are able to say things that people at home are unable to say, then we may see a situation where even Pakistan’s establishment might reconsider its own position. I don’t think individuals heading the establishment would be ruthless to the point where they don’t care.

Pakistan’s literacy rate has shrunk in the past years. Pakistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world and it is also lagging behind in capital development indicators. Exports are not increasing while imports are. Pakistan is under a lot of debt. They will, at some point, have to take stock.

In our lifetime we have witnessed the change in China. It was only in the last two decades that we began seeing changes in China, where the establishment asked itself why they would call themselves the Communist Party of China when they were no longer communists. The same realisation allowed the republics of the Soviet Union to realise that staying together was causing more damage than growing in their own right. Why would Pakistan be the only place in the world that would be totally unable to change?

Coming to Indo-Pak relationships, we’re engaging in the systematic harassment of each other’s senior diplomats like never before — ringing each other’s door bells at 3 am, cutting power and water supplies, making obscene phone calls, intimidating each other’s children, and even filming these encounters. What has led to such severe deterioration of diplomatic relations?

All diplomatic spats are a result of collective frustration. The Pakistani establishment is frustrated after having invested so much time and energy on Kashmir without any success. The Indian establishment is frustrated that they can’t end Pakistani jihadism. So they’re taking it out on individuals in a tit-for-tat spiral. It’s what (Mahatma) Gandhi would’ve called ‘an eye for an eye making the whole world go blind’.

After Independence, Indians and Pakistanis have had very respectable diplomatic exchanges for decades. Now we see this insistence that the other side is the enemy. When you see each other as the enemy, you don’t recognise that the children of each other’s diplomats should not be harassed. It is not healthy. People have to realise this isn’t going anywhere. Pettiness is not statecraft. Both sides need statecraft to return.

What steps should we take to create conditions for dialogue?

I am not someone who advocates dialogue for dialogue’s sake. It is important for both sides to wait to see whether they can have dialogue with some end-result. If history is any benchmark, it has always been easier for nations to become friends first and resolve outstanding disputes later on. When you say we should resolve disputes first before getting to normalise equations, then we would never get to an atmosphere of normal equations nor resolve our disputes.

In the case of India and Pakistan, Pakistan’s insistence that outstanding disputes be solved first has been an impediment to normal relations between the two. I think the way forward would be to change that and start having trade, start having normal economic relations, and to accept that maybe we won’t be able to resolve our outstanding disputes, especially Kashmir, at this stage.

Pakistan can do what China did with Taiwan. China hasn’t given up its hold on Taiwan, nor pressed it. As a result, it does billions of dollars of trade. That is how you move forward. China and India, for instance, have the ability to overcome even a crisis like Doklam. It was possible because they had billions of dollars of trade, they had other interests, they are part of the BRICS together and there are many fora where China and India have to deal with each other. If Pakistan and India were in a similar situation… of course, to get there, no nation can have dealings with a country seen to be feeding terrorism.

Do you think a military-to-military dialogue should be paved, for talks to be effective?

The Indian political system places authority in the hands of the civilians. The Pakistani system is still evolving, and civilian governments are weak and therefore cannot deliver; but we’ve seen even military governments cannot deliver. So sometimes we should just wait for better conditions. The problem that has arisen in the era of 24/7 news is that the 24/7 news cycle is driving decisions. It is better sometimes to wait, for the correct opportunity to move the process forward, than insisting it has to be done because we want it to make news.

Reimagining PakistanTransforming a dysfunctional nuclear stateHusain HaqqaniNon-fictionHarperCollins₹699

Will at least lifting the embargo on civil society, so that cultural exchanges and cricket can thrive perhaps, help broker hope?

I think civil society interaction is always useful because it helps change national narratives. Having said that, it is also hostage to government-to-government relations because, after all, visas are still given by the government. But we should know that a handful of Pakistanis coming to India for their jappi pappi moments, or Indians going to Pakistan is not going to change the reality that a large number of Pakistanis and Indians continue to be fed a narrative of mutual dislike and even hate. I am all for interaction, but sometimes you should have interactions without expectations. I think India and Pakistan should lower expectations and deal with deeper problems.

With elections around the corner, how much of an impact will foreign relations play on the minds of the electorate?

I think Pakistan’s politics is not yet mature to be issue-oriented. What we have is personality-driven politics. The forthcoming elections will be about how much the people of Pakistan are willing to let unelected generals, bureaucrats, and judges dictate to elected leaders. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification by the Supreme Court and his defiant appeal to public opinion have set the stage for a showdown we have not seen before. A Punjabi politician produced with the help of the establishment is challenging the establishment’s supremacy, while the establishment is manoeuvring behind the scenes to execute a non-coup coup by ensuring that the future civilian government remains weak.

The title of your book, Reimagining Pakistan , gives the impression that the ideas you have for your country lie in the realm of imagination. What is it going to take for a new kind of politics to emerge on the ground, which would give weight to those ideas, without being silenced, and reach out to those unwilling to see reason?

All politics starts with ideas. Social scientists say nations are imagined communities, united by the idea of being a nation. The people of Pakistan have been denied the opportunity to discuss alternative ideas under semi-authoritarian rule. But we have seen in many cases — Soviet Union is a case in point — that once new ideas and the questioning of the existing paradigm starts, change can come rather quickly.

COMMENT NOW