Musharraf had sought an Islamic justification for this apparent U-turn on the Taliban and Al Qaeda when he acquiesced to US demands to participate in the war on terror. He used examples from the Prophet’s tactical alliance with the Jews to defeat the Meccans. When the Jews became nervous about the rise of Islam six years later, He neutralised the Meccans with the Treaty of Hudaibiya and led the Muslims to victory.__________________________
by Vikram Sood
(May 02, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Richard Armitage arrived, delivered his now-famous “either you are with us or against us” message one fateful day in September 2001, and left. About a week later, it was Pervez Musharraf’s turn to honour this commitment, having convinced his grandees in khaki of the need to pretend to make peace with their god. In a not particularly well-written speech, Musharraf indulged in the mandatory India-baiting (“I would like to tell India: ‘Lay Off’”) as he tried to justify his dumping of his protégés, the Taliban. Despite this bravado, it was obvious that the speech had been delivered under duress. The hidden context, however, is important.
Musharraf had sought an Islamic justification for this apparent U-turn on the Taliban and Al Qaeda when he acquiesced to US demands to participate in the war on terror. He used examples from the Prophet’s tactical alliance with the Jews to defeat the Meccans. When the Jews became nervous about the rise of Islam six years later, He neutralised the Meccans with the Treaty of Hudaibiya and led the Muslims to victory.
The requirement was strategic, yet Musharraf had to satisfy the mullahs. He continued: “The lesson is that when there is a crisis situation, the path of wisdom is better than the path of emotions. Therefore, we have to take a strategic decision. There is no question of weakness of faith or cowardice... Even otherwise it is said in the Shariat that if there are two difficulties at a time and a selection has to be made, it is better to opt for the lesser one.” He ended his speech describing how India and the US had “conspired” to establish a large intelligence network in Afghanistan, as part of a “great game” to destabilise Pakistan as well as China, Russia, the Central Asian states and Iran.
He then begins to hallucinate about a multilateral intelligence network of the CIA, MI6, Mossad, RAW and the BND, with its nerve-centre at Jabal-us-Seraj. Located in huge buildings and equipped with antennas and state-of-the-art electronic gadgetry, this intelligence multinational has outposts in Sarobi and Kandahar to snoop on Pakistan; in Mazar-e-Sharif to keep an eye on Russia and the Central Asian states and in Herat against Iran. If the general is to be believed, the Faizabad camp against the Chinese also has Muslim ulemas from India imparting training to the Uighurs from Xinjiang. If this is meant to be part of a psychological war, then it is fairly unsophisticated. Mirza Aslam Beg runs an NGO in Pakistan ironically called Friends.
It is this paranoid mindset about India and excessive reliance on religious obscurantism that allows successive establishments to look the other way when Islamic radicals, like Hafeez Saeed of Dawat Irshad, and the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba talk of “annihilating” India and establishing “caliphates” here. There have been reports that the Inter Services Intelligence and the Lashkar were trying to revive Sikh militancy following a meeting in Berlin last June. No Indian general, nor any Indian public figure, makes the kind of statements that are routinely heard in Pakistan. Pakistanis and Indians may have had a common chromosome, but theirs seems to have mutated into something quite different.
This is what people like Zia, Aslam Beg and Musharraf have done to their people. The seed of such perspectives was sown in the Army’s training schools and in the madrasas.
Madrasas in Pakistan, quite a few beyond the control of the authorities, funded internally by Pakistanis as well as by generous donors from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran, educate about one and a half million students.
All madrasas certainly do not teach jihad, which is just as well, or the problem would have been far more frightening. Jihadist tendencies have nevertheless become a growing part of Pakistani society. It, therefore, cannot be simply wished away. Pakistan is now haunted by Pakistani terrorism. The Lal Masjid episode, the massive killings in Fata and the spread of terror into the Punjabi heartland are symptoms of the disease.
The situation may appear calm for the moment as Pakistanis begin another experiment with democracy. They have voted for a political dispensation that, it is hoped, will keep the Army under civilian control and the Islamists at bay. Neither is likely to happen. The PPP and the PML(N) have buried the hatchet for the present as they tackle the common enemy, Musharraf.
The Army is in the barracks and it is all quiet in Fata. But the issues that aroused passions in the tribal lands — US activities and Pakistan’s participation — have not disappeared. The country is in the midst of a political honeymoon, with dreams of a rosy future, but democracy is still a long way away. The hard grind of running a country where institutions have broken down has barely begun amid growing economic difficulties and no short-term solutions. This could easily lead to rapid disillusionment.
It must be remembered that about 30 per cent of voters in Pakistan gave a split verdict, by and large, on ethnic lines. They say the Islamists have been thrown out. But many did not vote and many didn’t stand for elections. It took Pakistan 30 years to slip into this jihadist mould; it will take another three decades to pull itself out of this.
Only a generational change with liberal education can pull Pakistan out of its morass where children transformed into obscurantist adults. So those of us who exult and gush at the arrival of democracy in Pakistan may want to pause and think. The time for open borders and visa-free travel is still far away.
(Vikram Sood is a former head of RAW, India’s external intelligence agency)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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