Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif, after initially vowing to strengthen its ties with India, has formed a secret Kashmir cell aimed at putting the issue back on the boil. Utpal Kumar examines how Pakistan has changed since Sharif’s last tenure, and why its politicians refuse to learn from their past mistakes
In 2007 when Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan after almost a decade-long exile, he appeared a changed man. He was more patient in approach, measured in response, and statesman-like in diplomacy. Many believed Sharif had recast himself as a defender of democracy who would go an extra mile to take on the military’s undue interference in civilian affairs. In stark contrast to the one-upmanship of the 1990s, when Sharif and Benazir Bhutto took turns to get the other out of office in collaboration with the army, Sharif this time spent the past five years in opposition without attempting to bring down the Zardari-led PPP regime. Even when Tahir-ul-Qadri parachuted
into Islamabad with the objective of bringing down the ‘corrupt’ PPP Government in January this year, Sharif rallied all political parties together to take on the Canadian cleric, who many believed had emerged with the army’s blessings. All through, Sharif remained consistent with his issues: Restraining the military’s interference in matters of governance, forwarding dialogue with India, and defending democratic institutions in Pakistan.
In this backdrop, when the news came about the renewed Pakistani efforts to put the Kashmir issue back on the boil, it surprised many, particularly those who saw hopes of slow but steady moderation in Pakistani politics. Islamabad’s game plan, if the report is to be believed, is to revive worldwide misinformation regarding India’s role in the Valley, for which the ISI has been told to activate its propaganda cells in Brussels, london, Washington, New York and Toronto. Interestingly, these activities will be run by NGOs, thriving on liberal fundings from the ISI, and not Pakistan’s foreign ministry officials. What further bolsters this claim is the fact that there has, of late, been an upswing in violence in Jammu & Kashmir. Combine this with Sharif’s proposed initiative to grant India the ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status, and one gets the new lahore bus diplomacy-like camouflage to forward Pakistan’s sinister plan in the Valley, something which he could do so well in 1999.
So, who exactly is Nawaz SharifIJ And what explains his dual, often contrasting personalityIJ Answers lie not only in his past but also in the history of Pakistan. This ‘disease’, if one may call so, after all, isn’t Sharif-specific. But first let’s discuss who the PMl-N leader is. Sharif entered politics as a protege of Gen Zia-ul-Haq in 1981. Then 31, he was a pro-military, conservative businessman with grievances against the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Government, which had nationalised the steel mills owned by Sharif’s father. It was, therefore, quite natural for him to carry forward not just the anti-Bhutto outlook but also the legacy of Zia when he first took over as Pakistan’s Prime Minister in 1990.
This was evident when he picked up Gen Javed Nasir for the post of director general of the ISI. “A born again Muslim,” says Zahid Hussain about the maverick general in his book, Frontline Pakistan, it was he who had widened the ISI’s covert operation beyond Kashmir and Afghanistan. During his tenure, the spy agency was accused of masterminding a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in March 1993, which killed hundreds of people. Even Arab states like Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria had complained about him extending support to radical Islamist movements in their respective countries. Gen Nasir was sacked from the ISI and prematurely retired from the army in May 1993, following the dismissal of Sharif’s Government.
In 1997, when Sharif again came to power, he was hardly different, still pursuing Islamist policies to bolster his position. Thus, he introduced an Islamicshariah bill, reinforcing the Islamisation process initiated by Zia. Sharif had also planned to make further amendments to the Constitution, declaring himself Amirul Mominin (absolute leader of Muslims). Then, he did something remarkable: He found a way to exhaust the energy and resources of the army in things as absurd as managing state-owned corporations and overseeing development work. A quarter of a million troops were mobilised to conduct a long-delayed population census. Another one hundred thousand were deployed to read electricity metres and oversee irrigation work. And, at one point, soldiers were brought in to help kill stray dogs in Sharif’s home town lahore!
Then happened Kargil and Sharif found himself on slippery ground, despite having a ‘pliable’ mohajir army chief in Gen Pervez Musharraf (who, ironically, became his nemesis). Initially, Sharif championed the cause of Kargil — to extract political mileage out of it. But after he was deposed, he took the line that he had no prior information about Kargil. Many experts don’t buy this argument. Stephen P Cohen says, “Apparently, Sharif decided to give permission for an incursion by the Pakistan military and either it was larger than he thought it would be or it got to off hands.” The most likely scenario is reconstructed by Prof Samina Yasmeen, who argues that Sharif “was briefed about the case but he apparently did not comprehend the nature and possible consequences of adventurism”. Maybe he was too much in a hurry to improve his standing within Pakistan to have closely scrutinised the pros and cons of the plan.
What punctures Sharif’s claim is the fact that a Kargil-like plan dates back to the 1980s, when the Pakistan Army thought it could invade Kargil and cut-off India’s road connection to Siachen. When Zia was told about this in 1987, he asked the director
general of military operations whether the Indian Army would react. The answer was yes, to which Zia responded, “So in other words, you have prepared a plan to lead us into a full-scale war with India.” And the idea got dropped. Benazir was also briefed on the plan, she had claimed years later, but she too rejected it because while “it’s doable militarily, it is not doable politically”.
Sharif perhaps expected that the Kargil incursion would prompt the American intervention to stop the fighting and cool down a “nuclear flashpoint”. Unlike his expectations, however, Washington reacted angrily to the Pakistani move. At the height of the Kargil war, Sharif told US President Bill Clinton that he was prepared to help resolve the crisis if India was committed to settle the “larger issue” of Kashmir in a specific time frame, but the American leader snubbed him saying it would amount to a “nuclear blackmail”. This left Sharif with no choice but to take the humiliating decision of Pakistan’s retreat from the hills of Kargil.
Sharif’s second term as Prime Minister was the last time Islamabad had called the shots in the Valley and was taken somewhat seriously worldwide. Since then it has been a steep downturn for Islamabad. With Pakistan grappling with internal instability, the issue of Kashmir has taken a back seat. The Zardari Government, which followed Gen Musharraf’s regime, was so preoccupied with domestic problems that it had no choice but to put the Kashmir issue on the back burner. Today, Pakistan has been dubbed “the most dangerous state of the world” by one of the most prominent magazines in the world. And, a prestigious US think tank ranks it 10th on the list of failing states. Somalia remains on the top of the 2010 list.
So, why is Pakistan in such a messIJ “Pakistan is today being consumed by the religiosity that was whipped as a ‘means’ to achieve a separate homeland,” says Babar Ayaz, the author of the book, What’s Wrong With PakistanIJ “According to a conservative estimate, even if 50 per cent madarsagraduates adopt the religious profession, and the rest go back to join their parents’ farms or businesses, the system is producing one mullah for every 225 Pakistanis every year. This is in sharp contrast to one nurse for over 3,600 people, and one doctor for some 3,400 people,” he adds, pointing towards the misplaced priority of the nation as a whole.
Pakistan’s Islamisation was partly circumstantial, and partly due to the failure of secular parties. Circumstantial because the erstwhile Soviet Union decided to invade Afghanistan in 1979 and the US had to open its treasury to deny the Russians any foothold in the region. The problem was the Americans left everything for the ISI to manage on the ground. No wonder, the spy agency’s staff strength jumped from mere 2,000 in 1978 to 40,000 a decade later, with a billion-dollar budget. The ISI ensured that some factions, notably the Pastun and Islamist groups, got arms and money at the expense of non-Pastun and relatively modern elements. The man who ran the operation for much of the 1980s was Mohammed Yousaf, the chief of the ISI’s Afghan bureau. In his book, The Bear Trap: Afghanistan’s Untold Story, he divulges: “As soon as the arms arrived in Pakistan, the CIA’s responsibility ended. From then on it was our pipeline, our organisation that moved, allocated and distributed every bullet that the CIA procured.” It was, therefore, hardly a surprise when Ahmed Shah Massoud, a non-Pastun but central figure in the Afghan war, revealed that of more than 2,000 missiles being provided by the CIA to Afghan fighters in the 1980s, he could get just eight! “That was all,” the lion of Panjshir thundered, “and only at the end of the fight against the communist regime.”
As for Sharif’s dual personality, it’s something very unique about Pakistani politicians. They are both modern and medievalistic at the same time. Just look at Mohammed Ali Jinnah. In many ways, he seemed an odd candidate for the role he played in the creation of a nation carved purely for Muslims. He was not a practising Muslim; he drank alcohol, ate pork, smoked 50 cigarettes a day, and dressed like a true English gentleman. Stanley Wolpert, his biographer, tells us that Jinnah never wore the same silk tie twice, which he would have ordered from an expensive tailor in london to go with his more than 200 Savile Row suits.
Then there was Benazir Bhutto, who in her personal outlook was undoubtedly one of the most liberal and secular rulers in Pakistan’s history. Ironically, the Taliban’s rise was presided over by her. So much so that Pakistan under her would be the Taliban’s most ardent supporter in the international arena, arguing that the militia was the only hope for stability and peace in Afghanistan. She had even declared in 1990 that Pakistan would fight for a “thousand years” to free Kashmir.
Gen Musharraf was another intriguing figure. Steve Coll writes about him in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Ghost Wars: “Musharraf himself was typically called a liberal, which in Pakistan’s political vernacular meant he did not blanch at whiskey, danced when the mood was upon him, and believed Pakistan should be a normal country — Islamic in some respects but also capitalistic and to some extent democratic. Yet, Musharraf also believed firmly in the necessity of the Taliban in Afghanistan, for all of their medieval and illiberal practices.”
This paradox has even confounded John R Schmidt, who writes in his book, The Unravelling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad: “Western officials tend to be impatient with the Pakistanis. How could anyone believe that the Indians might actually be persuaded to abandon the vales of KashmirIJ Yet, many Pakistanis did, and still do, believe it.” Schmidt vividly remembers a conversation in which a senior Jamaat-e-Islami official insisted that the mujahideenwould drive the Indians out of Kashmir, just as they had driven the Soviets out of Afghanistan!
So, Sharif isn’t alone in his wishful thinking when he restarts his sinister Kashmir plan. He has a host of supporters pursuing the same line. And till this line of thinking thrives in the mainstream, Pakistan will be forced to revisit its mistakes time and again.