This is the first installment in Kapil Komireddi’s series on Pakistan. Click here to read the rest of the series.
With a stockpile of over 80 nuclear warheads, a rapidly collapsing state, and an army and intelligence service severely contaminated with Islamists, Pakistan represents perhaps the single biggest security challenge of the 21st Century. Yet, as Stephen Cohen has written, the U.S. seems to know very little about this country. Washington’s policy toward Pakistan has been, at best, an enduring contradiction: it was a friend in the fight against Soviet communism, a conduit during the effort to befriend Chinese communists, a hub in the war against Soviet expansionism in Afghanistan, and is now an ally in the war against the formerly “good guys” of the Afghan war. Mistrust of America in Pakistan is fueled in part by Washington’s willingness to tolerate deeply destructive dictators – so long as they cooperate with the U.S. It is not by accident that the ruler most intensely detested by Pakistanis, the austere bigot Zia ul Haq, was also Pakistan’s most pro-American leader.
But the notion that American intervention somehow retarded Pakistan’s organic evolution does not stand up to scrutiny. Pakistan was rarely a passive player in its relationship with America, and where it stands today is in large measure a consequence of the active choices made by its leaders – choices in which a majority of the vocal urban Pakistanis always seemed to acquiesce. For instance, the blame for the crisis that is currently consuming Pakistan is often directed at America, precisely to the Reagan White House’s support for the anti-Soviet jihad, which turned Pakistan into a guesthouse for the globe’s mujahideen. Yet it was during a rare period of democratic rule in Pakistan that the Taliban – actively backed by Benazir Bhutto – flourished and seized control of Afghanistan. Bhutto had sought to build Pakistan’s defenses from the detritus of the anti-Soviet war; her assassination a decade and a half later revealed the depth to which the Islamism she encouraged abroad had penetrated her own country.
Today’s Pakistan is at war with itself, torn between competing ideas of what it means to be Pakistani. Created almost accidentally as a homeland for India’s Muslims on the premise that, in Pakistan, no Muslim would be killed for being Muslim, it has become a country in which Muslims are today being killed for not being “good Muslims.” The ongoing battle there is unlikely to deliver the Pakistani state to the Taliban. But that is hardly a consolation in view of the fact that the Taliban’s objectives are shared by many in the army that is fighting them. By some estimates, up to 30 percent of the Pakistani army are Islamists. To them, this is a logical culmination of the journey that began in 1947. And it is difficult to fault them – because for all the talk of malign external intervention, Pakistan’s capacity to produce, autonomously, a nationalism that can even remotely be described as humane or liberal has been checked by the foundational myth of the “Muslim nation”: it is impossible to arrive at equality in Pakistan without negating the struggle that created it. Pakistan has remained trapped in that struggle, keenly aware of what it is not, but failing to define cohesively, in over six decades of its existence, what it actually is.
Understanding Pakistan has never seemed more important than now. But to do so, we must look beyond the 1980s. In a series of essays here at FrumForum, I will begin at the beginning, looking at the origins of the idea of the Pakistan, its abrupt and implausible creation, the subsequent events that led to its disintegration and the enmity with India that has sustained Pakistan’s sense of itself since its birth. Along the way, I will dissect the key figures that have shaped Pakistan: M.A. Jinnah, Zulfi Bhutto, Shiekh Mujib, Zia ul Haq, AQ Khan, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and, finally, Pervez Musharraf. Four major issues – the birth of Bangladesh, the Kashmir conflict, A.Q. Khan’s global nuclear network, and the role of the Pakistani Army in the country’s history – will be analyzed in separate essays, and the final essay will carefully evaluate the state of contemporary Pakistan.
10 responses so far
1 imranpakistan // Nov 17, 2009 at 12:27 am
What else can u expect from a Hindu reporter. We all know how instrumental
India was in creating a rift between East & West Pakistan and how actively
involved Indian Intelligence was in East Pakistan.
I would like to highlight the plight of not only Muslims living in India
but also the other minorities including Christians and Sikhs. Look at
Kashmir, Assam and dozens of other states where insurgencies are waging war
against the state. Thank God we have have Pakistan. If not we would have
been living in India similar to the demoralized Indians muslims of today
who suffer from inferiority complexes. I say this through experience of
having worked with dozen of Indian Muslims in the UAE. They feel deprived
of their rights and can’t imagine working or living in India.
Kapil my dear friend, Pakistan will exist and continue to exist long after
India implodes.
Pakistan already controls a substantial piece of Kashmir and the remaining
will be free without any effort from Pakistan since the Indian security
forces through their atrocities will cause this to happen.
Such articles create only hatred between people of both countries. A job
well done Kapil.
2 imranpakistan // Nov 17, 2009 at 12:29 am
i always i am surprised u were given entry to pakistan after noticing your previous article attacking PAKISTAN whenever u had the chance. I will definitely email the authorities in Pakistan to investigate your motives and ban entry on your future visit to Pakistan.
3 SFTor1 // Nov 17, 2009 at 2:37 am
Imran says: “I will definitely email the authorities in Pakistan to investigate your motives and ban entry on your future visit to Pakistan.”
Way to GO Imran! You show those Hindu running dogs!
By the way, people on this site tend to cherish freedom of movement and expression, but don’t you worry about that. We understand that those dastardly Hindus need to be taught a lesson.
4 teabag // Nov 17, 2009 at 8:54 am
“By the way, people on this site tend to cherish freedom of movement and expression, but don’t you worry about that. We understand that those dastardly Hindus need to be taught a lesson.”
Not so much if you are a Democrat!
5 Independent // Nov 17, 2009 at 9:04 am
teabag, it isn’t that you’re a democrat that is the problem for many here… it’s that you act like a troll from the democrat underground, tossing buckets of your own feces on thread after thread… that’s the problem. there are lots of democrats and republicans who debate honestly and intensely; you seem content to just soil the discussion –time and time and time again, thread after thread after thread.
that you don’t get “it”, isn’t surprising; it’s just pathetic.
6 sinz54 // Nov 17, 2009 at 9:20 am
Komireddi:
“the U.S. seems to know very little about this country. “
imranpakistan:
“i always i am surprised u were given entry to pakistan after noticing your previous article attacking PAKISTAN whenever u had the chance. I will definitely email the authorities in Pakistan to investigate your motives and ban entry on your future visit to Pakistan.”
Well, I just learned something significant about this country: It’s a closed, intolerant society.
7 DFL // Nov 17, 2009 at 11:01 am
Pakistan is an Islamic nation without oil but with nuclear weapons and a turbulent military. Think also of the major bloodletting of hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Sikhs in 1947 by Pakistani Muslims. Also keep in mind that India has progressed forward since the end of the Raj while Pakistan would, like black Africa, be better off under the auspices of the old British Empire.
Inevitably, Pakistan is over 10,000 miles from America and has no oil. War with India or Iran seems out of the question. Nearer powers- Russia, China and India- should be encouraged to step up to contain the rogue nation which is Pakistan.
8 MI-GOPer // Nov 17, 2009 at 11:16 am
Independent at #5 notes: “teabag, it isn’t that you’re a democrat that is the problem for many here… it’s that you act like a troll from the democrat underground, tossing buckets of your own feces on thread after thread… that’s the problem. there are lots of democrats and republicans who debate honestly and intensely; you seem content to just soil the discussion –time and time and time again, thread after thread after thread.
that you don’t get “it”, isn’t surprising; it’s just pathetic.”
Well said! Nailed it perfectly, Indie.
9 Reason60 // Nov 17, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Komireddi:
“the U.S. seems to know very little about this country. “
imranpakistan:
“i always i am surprised u were given entry to pakistan after noticing your previous article attacking PAKISTAN whenever u had the chance. I will definitely email the authorities in Pakistan to investigate your motives and ban entry on your future visit to Pakistan.”
I learned a different lesson- namely, that this is not our war to fight; this is not something that directly threatens us. and this is NOT something we should assume we can unilaterally “solve”
Why are not Russia, China, and the EU not taking the lead on this? Isn’t this article saying that its America’s world, everyone else just lives in it?
10 Vinod // Jan 10, 2010 at 7:47 pm
“What else can u expect from a Hindu reporter.”
It is incredible this bigotry and hate for the religion of their own forefathers.
Then these same people accuse others of labeling them all!
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