 Copyright and Translation Rights Reserved by Hamza Alavi – 14 Feb 2002 For

publication in: MIDDLE EAST REPORT -- March 2002 - – WWW.merip.org

Pakistan, Afghanistan and India

by
Hamza Alavi

Pakistan has been passing through extremely difficult times. It was bullied into supporting
America’s Afghan war, which was costly for it. That was followed by a dangerous military
confrontation with India, threatening a war that neither side wants. South Asians, who are
committed to values of secular democracy, are faced with a paradox. A military ruler in Pakistan
has declared a war against Islamic fundamentalism and is, apparently, pursuing secular values.
By contrast, the once proudly secular India has been taken over by extreme Hindu
fundamentalists. It was through the ballot box that they were brought into power. They have
threatened war against Pakistan. Secularism and democracy are at odds with each other.

Pakistan and Afghanistan

Islamic fundamentalism was fostered in the country in the 1980s by Pakistan’s military dictator,
General Zia-ul Haq, who was recruited by Reagan to work with the CIA to mobilise Afghan
warlords to fight the Russians in the name of Islamic jihad. A jihadi culture was actively
promoted in Pakistan and Afghanistan with the help of US and Saudi money.
Islamic jihadi groups, in both counties, were armed with sophisticated weapons (including e.g.
Stinger SAM missiles) and trained by the CIA. US and Pakistan backed Afghan warlords, who
had helped to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, now began to tear that country apart. Against
that background the Afghan Taliban were helped into power by their Pakistani and US patrons.

Oil, Afghanistan and the Taliban

The interests of UNOCAL, a US oil company, have been at the heart of America’s Afghan policy.
UNOCAL wants to lay oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to the
Pakistan coast, by-passing Iran. But warlord-dominated Afghanistan was too insecure for it to
proceed with its huge investments. Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto government was mobilised to take
matters in hand. In 1994 Pakistan helped to organise the Taliban’s rise to power. The US
government too supported the Taliban, who had made much of their dislike of Iran and their
determination to cut down poppy and drug production which had flourished under the warlords.
Once the Taliban were installed in power, the US was happy to leave matters in the hands of
Pakistan and UNOCAL, and it adopted a policy of masterly inactivity.

By late 1997 world opinion was outraged by news of the extremely oppressive policies of the
Taliban, especially with regard to women. US feminist groups mounted pressure against both
UNOCAL and the Clinton administration, demanding a change in policy towards the Taliban.
The women’s vote was crucial for Bill Clinton in the 1996 elections and he could not ignore
women’s groups. The Taliban invited reprisals from the US also for providing a base for Bin
Laden, who had declared war against the US and the Saudis and was held responsible for the
bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. Ironically, it took the petty
Monica Lewinsky affair, when Clinton needed a dramatic alternative focus for public attention,
to precipitate a hurried, ill-planned and ineffective cruise missile attack on Afghan territory in
August 1998, launched from American warships in the Persian Gulf. At that point UNOCAL felt
that it had to pull out of Afghanistan, at least formally and for the time being.

UNOCAL and the US continued ‘backroom contacts’ with the Taliban. Three years later the
Americans revisited the scene. Top secret contacts between the Bush administration and
the Taliban, in February 2001, were reported by two retired French Intelligence Officers (Daily
Telegraph, London, November, 20, 2001) who wrote that ‘The Bush Administration was ‘willing
to accept the Taliban regime despite charges of sponsoring terrorism’. The US, they reported,
considered the Taliban as a ‘source of stability in Central Asia’. But, given the notorious
intransigence of the Taliban, the talks did not proceed smoothly. Bush warned
the Taliban: ‘Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold or we bury you under a carpet of
bombs!’ He kept his promise.

The terrible and outrageous attacks of September Eleven, finally provided the Americans with an
opportunity to get rid of the Taliban and install in their place a new government with whom they
hoped they could do business. It appears, however, that the transitional government that was
cobbled together at Bonn, made up of hostile rival warlords who came together temporarily
under Karzai, himself a weak US nominee, is unlikely to offer a basis for the stable future that
the US and UNOCAL are looking for in the new Afghanistan. Warlords are already back in
action in the countryside, defiant of the central authority.

Secularism vs. Islamic Fundamentalism in Pakistan

There was little of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan until the regime of the military dictator
General Zia, who, with Saudi and CIA help, set about promoting Islamic fundamentalism with
fanatic zeal. A chain of Deeni Madaris (religious schools) soon proliferated throughout Pakistan.
Given generous funding, the madaris recruited sons of pauperised peasants offering them free
board and lodging and ‘religious education’. Their ‘education’ was designed to turn them into
religious zealots. Some madaris also gave military training to their pupils, providing foot-
soldiers for the Afghan Taliban, as well as for militantjihadi groups in Pakistan. The brainwashed
minds of the pupils (taliban) of the madaris were filled with utopian dreams about an ‘Islamic’
society that they would create, in which there will be plenty and no one will be left in want. They
were highly motivated to fight for their beliefs. Most leaders of the AfghanTaliban were products
of Pakistani (Deobandi i.e. Wahhabi) deeni madaris. They kept close links with their Pakistani
mentors, notably the leaders of the two factions of the Pakistani Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam.

More than 70 percent of the larger deeni madaris (with more than 40 pupils) belonged to the
puritanical ‘Deobandi’ (Wahhabi) tradition. The Saudis funded them generously to foster anti-
Shi’a and anti-Irani ideology. The Iranians responded in kind. But the number of
Shi’a madaris numbered less than 4 per cent. The deeni madaris provided recruits for extremist
sectarian groups of which most were heavily armed. Pakistan soon became an arena in which
Middle Eastern ‘Muslim’ powers played out their rivalry by proxy. Sectarian violence reached a
scale that Pakistan had never known before. The fabric of Pakistan’s civil society was being torn
apart.
Religious leaders acquired new ambitions. They began to assert that Pakistan was created to
establish an Islamic state and it was they, therefore, who had the right to run the state of Pakistan.
Post-Zia civilian governments (alternatively under the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Muslim
League) continued to promote fundamentalist Islamic ideology, through schools (textbooks being
rewritten), Universities and the media. Most Pakistanis soon came to believe that it must be true
that Pakistan was created to establish an Islamic state. The fact, however, is that the Pakistan
movement had secular foundations. The All India Muslim League was not a religious movement
at all. It was a party of Western educated professionals and the ‘salariat’ i.e. those who aspired to
get government jobs. They successfully resisted attempts by mullahs to gain influence in their
Party.

Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan, spelt out the secular creed of the Pakistan movement, and
his vision of the new state in his inaugural address to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly. Speaking
against the background of the long history of Hindu-Muslim conflict in India before
independence, he said that in Pakistan ‘Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to
be Muslims, not in the religious sense, for that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the
political sense, as citizens of the State’. Pakistan was to be a secular state. It was not until the
1980s, under the regime of General Zia-ul Haq, that an extreme form of ‘Islamic’ ideology was
espoused and propagated by the state and ‘secularism’ was equated with apostasy.

Musharraf’s ‘Secularism’ ?

Armed jihadi groups who were patronised by the ‘democratic’ regime of Nawaz Shareef,
dominated Pakistan’s civil society, when the 1998 army coup that brought General Musharraf
into power, took place. Thanks to policies of General Zia, Islamic ideology permeated some
sections of the army too. However, the dominant ideology in the army is a legacy from British
colonial rule. The colonial rulers promoted an ideology of professionalism among Indian officers
of the British Indian army, to insulate them from the appeal of nationalist movements. That
ideology entailed a belief in the moral superiority of the ‘professional’ army officer over ‘self-
seeking politicians’ who exploited the illiterate masses. That ideology included a notion of
‘military honour’ and loyalty to one’s regiment. The ideology of professionalism, with its
contempt for politicians, has remained the dominant ideology of the Pakistan military officers
corps. This was only partly changed when Gen. Zia made a big effort to promote Islamic
ideology instead. The ‘professionals’, however, remained dominant.

In 1995 an army coup, to dislodge the professionals, was attempted by Islamic ideological
fanatics, led by one Major General Abbasi. Their aim was to Islamise the army and Pakistan. The
coup attempt failed. But it was a major shock to the professionals. That failed coup ‘reinforce[d]
the senior commanders’ concern with professional development’ (S. Cohen, ‘The Pakistan
Army’, 1998, p. 171) In the aftermath of that coup attempt many Islamist officers were weeded
out. But many, especially in senior positions, still remained. Musharraf and the ‘professionals’
were faced with difficulty in contending with powerful Generals who are committed to Islamic
ideology.

In opposing religious fundamentalist tendencies in the army and society, Musharraf has invoked
the secular values of Jinnah. But Musharraf himself does not appear to be driven by any
ideology. He is a ‘professional’, a pragmatic and flexible man, who believes in the armed forces,
as the sole repository of legitimate force in society and, indeed, the custodian of the nation. As a
pragmatic man, he has had no difficulty in abandoning one policy, supporting another, if that
promises to be more profitable. It was easy for a pragmatist to turn around and climb the
bandwagon of Bush’s war against terrorism. His earlier support for the Taliban, let it be said, was
not on grounds of Islamic ideology. The fact is that the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, which in
effect was a victory for Pakistan forces behind them, was the first ever victory of the Pakistan
army in the field. Musharraf’s took pride, as a professional, in that victory. But soon it was clear
to him that the Afghan Taliban was the wrong horse to back and he quickly and easily made the
switch to back the War Against Terrorism.

Soon after taking power Musharraf indicated the direction in which he wanted to go, by
declaring that Kemal Atatürk, the great ‘Muslim’ secular soldier, was his personal hero! He made
an unsuccessful move to modify Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy law, a legacy from Gen. Zia,
which was being misused to persecute innocent people, especially Christians. That move was a
challenge to Islamists still in the army. There was a loud and angry outcry. If that had been
merely an outcry from the public, Musharraf might not have cared. But resistance from within
the army was another matter. The ‘professionals’ had not yet consolidated their influence in the
army, which Musharraf was later able to do. Meanwhile, he had to retreat. Although he is now
quite firmly in power, it speaks much for the still lingering ideological influence from the Zia
days, that Musharraf has thought fit to declare that he will not make any attempt to repeal or
modify any of the unjust and oppressive laws that were promulgated by Gen. Zia, in the name of
‘Islam’ which are still in force. It will take a long time to obliterate the Zia legacy of Islamic
fundamentalism from the minds of the Pakistani public and, especially, the army.

The power of heavily armed jihadi groups was a matter of great concern to the ‘professionals’ in
the military establishment for reasons other than that of Islamic ideology. The heavily armed
Islamist groups were rival nodes of power vis-à-vis the army. This was anathema for the
professionals like Musharraf. This was an issue of a challenge to the army’s monopoly of
legitimate force in society. Jihadi groups, with their highly sophisticated weapons were a threat
to the army itself.

In the summer of 2001 armed Islamist groups went on a sectarian killing spree throughout the
country. There were targeted killings of Shi’a professionals, doctors (68 in Karachi alone),
engineers, civil servants and teachers. It was not only the Shi’a who were killed. The Chief of the
relatively moderate Sunni Tehrik in Karachi was killed by rival Deobandis (Wahhabis). Shi’a
groups also retaliated, killing Sunnis. Iranian diplomats were assassinated by the Wahhabis. The
victims of killings by religious zealots numbered hundreds. Government officials, including
some senior police officers were among those killed. Judges were unwilling to try cases of
sectarian killings (as well as blasphemy cases) out of fear. One senior judge was assassinated in
his office by gunmen because he had found a sectarian killer guilty of murder.

It was alleged (cf. Newsline June 2001) that intelligence agencies were involved in the sectarian
murders. Support for sectarian killers from within the state machinery was a challenge to the
army professionals. This was a major contradiction at the heart of state power. Musharraf and his
team were in contention with those who sympathised with the religious extremists. That
contradiction had another dimension too. Although the professionals were in charge at the centre,
religious ideologists were able to manipulate the corrupt and inefficient state apparatus in the
localities where it mattered. Many activists of religious extremist groups were common criminals
who had close ties with local police and military officers. (Newsline, September 2001). The writ
of the state ran very thin. The professionals had a difficult task ahead of them.

Soon Musharraf began to regain the initiative. The universal horror at the killings gave him an
opening. He convened a meeting of the Ulama (at a ‘NationalSeerat Conference’) in June 2001,
and roundly condemned them for their narrow and dogmatic conception of Islam. He asked them
if Islam was about sectarian killings ! He warned them that they were not above the law. It was a
hard hitting speech. He could not have said as much a year earlier. He was now more confident.
That warning to religious leaders was followed by the banning (on 14th August) of two of the
most notorious sectarian terrorist groups, the Sunni Lashkar-e-Jhanghvi and the Shi’a Sipah-e-
Muhammad. But it was only after Bush declared his global ‘War on Terrorism’, that Musharraf
knew that he could now depend upon the US to back him (for until then the US had been hostile
to him), He was therefore able to deal decisively with the army officers who were involved with
or supported religious zealots.

Many in Pakistan believe that Musharraf began to act against religious extremist groups only at
the behest of Americans, after Bush had declared war on terrorism. That is manifestly not the
case. Musharraf’s crackdown on armed religious extremist groups began not after September
Eleven but well before that. However, we must also recognise that he was able to act decisively
against Islamists in the army only after September, when he could count on US backing for his
moves against the fundamentalists. In the new situation, with American backing, Musharraf was
able to remove or sideline powerful Generals who had ‘Islamist’ leanings or involvement. To
give one example, amongst the several senior Generals who were compulsorily retired, was the
very ambitious and powerful Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmad, Director General of the notorious ISI.
His grip on power is illustrated by the fact that in the year 2000 Mahmud was able to prevent
Musharraf’s projected visit to Afghanistan where he had intended to persuade Mullah Omar to
yield on the Osama bin Laden issue. Instead of that, Mahmud chose to go himself and gave the
green light to the Afghan Taliban, instead of exerting pressure on them.

In opposition to the fundamentalists’ slogan of Islamic jihad (e.g. in Kashmir or Afghanistan)

Musharraf has raised the counter slogan of ‘Pakistan First’. That has caught on. To justify
disarming or banning armed religious fundamentalist groups he has declared that the ‘Writ of the
State Must be Restored’. By that he has clearly meant the writ of the army. For the time being the
professionals have got the upper hand. But main job has yet to begin. The effects of ideological
conditioning spanning over two decades, both within the army and in civil society cannot be
erased overnight. Moreover, it is not just a question of personal beliefs. Thanks to the legacy of
Gen. Zia, fundamentalist Islamists are well entrenched in the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the
educational system, at all levels. Clearing the system of such well entrenched elements is a major
problem that has not yet been even addressed.

The problem is not only one of personnel and their beliefs. There is an even more urgent problem
of doing away with Shariat Courts, that were created by Gen. Zia, to enforce ideologically
informed laws, rules and policies, pandering to extremely narrow fundamentalist interpretations
of Islam. Judges of Shariat Courts have virtually legislative powers, in the name of Islam, but
they are answerable to no one. For example one of the decisions of the Shariat Bench of the
Supreme Court which has banned interest in all its formers. If implemented that would bring the
economy to a standstill. All that the government has found courage to do is to buy time instead of
putting an end to such lunacy. What the Government needs to do is to abolish the Shariat
Courts, which are undemocratic. They encroach on the powers of democratic legislatures. All
such issues have yet to be properly debated and the government has yet to take a firm and
principled stand on this.

The main job of re-education and, one would add, institutional restructuring, has yet to get
underway. Lt. Gen. (rtd.) Talat Masood (Dawn, January 26) reflected concerns about it amongst
the professionals of the military when he pointed out that ideological ‘reforming and recasting
will not be easy. … and is likely to be met with resistance from disaffected groups, even from
some elements within the establishment (meaning the army H.A.) itself.’ Instead of boldly
moving forward, Musharraf has already started backtracking. We find new words in his
vocabulary such as ‘ultra-liberals’ to whom he will not give way. After their recent set-backs, this
must come as music to the ears of Islamic fundamentalists.

A cultural revolution is called for. Musharraf has said that he wants to transform Pakistan into a
‘modern, moderate Muslim state’. If Musharraf and the military believe that a progressive and
vibrant society can be created purely by orders from above, they will be sadly mistaken. What is
needed is free and open public debate and freedom of speech and expression that might allow
creative and courageous thought to flourish. For over half a century, since independence, a
culture of conformity and censorship has been enforced. Old habits die had. There is an ingrained
fear of new ideas, not least among those who rule over the academic world and the media and the
police (vis-à-vis public meetings). The most determined opponents of any break from what they
(rightly or wrongly) believe to be the officially approved dogma of the day, are the petty tyrants
who preside over our universities. They are not people who will encourage and promote new and
challenging ideas. What Pakistan needs is an intellectual environment that will breed new and
creative thought. There are already some signs of this. But we have a long way to go. Moreover,
this will not flourish in a political vacuum. Nor will it be painless, achieved without a struggle.

Kashmir

The Kashmir issue has been the main obstacle in the way of better relations between Pakistan
and India. It is time that both countries recognised that the future of Kashmir is for the Kashmiris
to decide. Since the beginning of the Kashmir intafada in 1989 there has been a growing
realisation of that in Pakistan. People of Pakistan support the cause of self-determination of the
Kashmiris very passionately. No Pakistani government can abandon that cause. Musharraf too
has affirmed that commitment, while condemning the way in which jihadi groups have gone
about their activities in Kashmir. He has made a distinction between ‘terrorism’ and national
liberation struggles against an occupying power, justifying and supporting the struggle of the
Kashmiri people. But at the same time, he has categorically rejected any role for Pakistan
based jihadi groups in Kashmir. In 1989, when the Kashmiri intifada began, the then army chief,
General Aslam Beg set up the ISI’s Kashmir Cell which controlled and co-ordinated the activities
of jihadi groups. Musharraf has closed it down. In criticising the role of Pakistan
based jihadi groups in Kashmir, he has said that they were trying to impose their
own Taliban version of extremist Islam on the Kashmiris, which was alienating them. Secondly,
he has accepted, realistically, that there is no military solution for the Kashmir issue. It has to be
a political struggle. What Pakistan must do, he says, is to give all political and diplomatic support
to the struggle for self-determination of the Kashmiri people and to try and secure international
mediation and enforcement of UN resolutions on Kashmir. A. G. Bhatt, Chairman of the APHC,
the 23 member All Parties Hurriyat Conference of Kashmir, has welcomed that declaration,
saying that the time had come for the political process to take over.

India’s Threat of War

By mid-December 2002, Pakistan was faced with India’s threat of war, as a response to
a jihadi terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13. The Indians instantly blamed
Pakistan’s ISI and two Pakistani jihadi groups, namely Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-
Taiba for the attack. As it happens, not long after that leaders and activists of these
two jihadi groups were arrested in Pakistan. It was (unconvincingly) claimed that this was
unconnected with the New Delhi attack. That attack is the last thing that the Musharraf
government could have wanted. Pakistan had nothing to gain and much to lose by staging such a
drama.

The scale of Indian troop mobilisation at the Pakistan border has been unprecedented.
Washington Times (January 14) quoted US Intelligence sources saying that ’90 per cent of
India’s military forces is now deployed (vis-à-vis Pakistan).’ India has a far bigger and better
equipped army and much larger nuclear capacity than Pakistan. Its economy is much larger and
stronger than that of the virtually bankrupt Pakistan. A war between the two nuclear South Asian
countries would be a most terrible disaster all round. Pakistan has few illusions about the
ultimate outcome of such a conflict. Musharraf has been appealing for talks and for the return of
troops on both side of the border to peacetime positions. Analysts have stressed that a war would
not be a walk-over for India either. Whatever may the final outcome be, the Pakistan army has a
capacity to inflict heavy and unacceptable damage in return. The last thing that either India or
Pakistan should want is a war, whose repercussions for both countries would be devastating. For
this writer, who has spent the best part of his life promoting friendship between India and
Pakistan, the way in which the present Hindu religious extremist BJP government of India has
dismissed every approach made by the Musharraf government (and by an anxious US) for a
peaceful settlement, is extremely sad – and very worrying.

Immediately after the jihadi attack on the Indian Parliament, Musharraf condemned it
unreservedly. He offered to the Indian Government that Pakistan would be willing to take part in
joint investigations to identify the culprits and bring them to book. That offer was turned down
by India. Pakistan then asked the Indians, at least, to provide it with evidence that might enable it
to act against those who were involved. That offer too was dismissed. Instead, the Indian
government demanded that about 20 persons whom it named in a list (consisting largely of
Indian nationals) should be deported to India. Musharraf said that Pakistan had not given asylum
to any Indian subjects. As for any Pakistanis in the list, no Pakistani national would be handed
over to another country. If action against any one was called for, that would be done in Pakistan,
under law.

India should feel reassured by the measures taken by the Musharraf government against Pakistan
based jihadi groups, some of whom were active in Kashmir.Musharraf spelt out in detail, his
government’s policy about religious fundamentalist and jihadi groups, in a keynote speech of
January 12. Five Islamist andjihadi groups were banned. There were large scale arrests of
religious fundamentalist leaders and activists, which were estimated at the time to number more
than 2000. Arms of all jihadi groups were ordered to be confiscated. That policy was generously
acclaimed by leaders of India’s main opposition party, the Congress Party and its two
Communist Parties. But the response from the ruling BJP party, predictably, was cool, once again
repeating the overworkedmantra that they wanted ‘action, not words’. It took a three day visit of
the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell who tried to persuade the Indians to ‘get real’ and soften
their line. At a joint press conference with him, India’s Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh expressed
his appreciation of Musharraf’s January 12 speech and said that India was ready to cooperate
with Pakistan in the fight against terrorism. But the very next day Interior Minister Advani was
back in form. While acknowledging that Musharraf’s speech was important, he repeated that
‘Mere speech is not enough’. Indian troops would not withdraw until Pakistan handed over to
India those whom he had named.

For his part Musharraf, referring to his own far reaching actions against religious extremist
groups, declared that ‘We will not allow anyone to sit on judgment (on us) … Whatever
measures we are taking for eliminating terrorism and religious extremism are aimed at reforming
our own society and not to appease anyone’. He was also conciliatory. ‘We need patience’, he
said, ‘You have to realise that they are a 20 party alliance and often speak with different voices.
It takes them time to arrive at an agreed position.’ He speculated, however, that the military
confrontation might not end until after the February elections. But, he added, ‘There will be no
war’.

The present confrontation between India and Pakistan has occurred in very different conditions
from the past. In recent years, extremist ideology has overtaken India’s once proud secularism. A
fundamentalist Hindutva ideology, which is both anti-Christian as well as anti-Muslim, has
gripped that country. Atrocities have been committed against both those minorities by fanatics,
with impunity. Many in Pakistan feel that the Indian Prime Minister, Vajpayee, is not himself a
war-monger. But he is under great pressure from his senior colleagues, especially Lal Krishna
Advani, the extreme Hindu fundamentalist Minister of Interior, and George Fernandes, the ultra
chauvinistic Minister of Defence. There is also much political pressure from Hindu
fundamentalists in the country to ‘teach Pakistan a lesson’. It is being suggested that Advani has
adopted an ultra hard-line position because he is making a bid to succeed the aging and ailing
Prime Minister Vajpayee. If that is his ambition, he should know that given his extreme
fundamentalist views, he unlikely to be able to hold together a fractious alliance of 20 parties.

The hard line of India’s ruling BJP in the current military standoff with Pakistan, is being
attributed to the forthcoming elections (due in late February) in UP, India’s largest state. It is said
that its results may decide the future of the ruling BJP party not only in that state but also in the
country. Small wonder then that the government has pulled out all stops, including the dangerous
military confrontation with Pakistan. But, over and above local and transitory factors, there is
one new long term factor that is shaping India’s global policies. That is its ambition to be
recognised as a world power. As the largest economic and military regional power, India now has
ambitions to extend further its power and influence in Asia, especially in the Middle East (for
which it is promoting a new alliance with Israel !) and South East Asia. It has made a bid for a
permanent seat in the UN Security Council, for which Bush and Britain’s Blair have announced
their support. America too wants India to play a key role in its strategy for the Middle East and
South East Asia and, not least, its policy to contain China.

In pursuit of its global ambitions India has been developing close ties with Israel, especially in
the field of military cooperation. Israel is to provide highly sophisticated military technology to
India. In pursuit of these new ties, in November 2001 alone, three official Israeli delegations
visited India, namely a Parliamentary delegation, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs delegation and,
crucially, a high level Ministry of Defence delegation. These were followed by a three day visit
in January of Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, to New Delhi. Israel is to provide state
of the art weapon systems and military technology to India. That includes the supply to India of
the Phalcon airborne early warning system, which in the past the US had refused to allow Israel
to supply to third countries. India already has a massive military superiority over all its
neighbours. That raises the question what such huge investment in highly sophisticated military
technology is for. The declaration by Defence Minister George Fernandes, at the time of India’s
nuclear test in May 1998, may be a clue. He said that India’s nuclear bombs and delivery systems
are intended for deployment against China !

Military and Democracy in Pakistan

In Pakistan the military has exercised power, de facto, even when civilian governments have
been in office. Successive ‘democratic’ leaders have depended on the army’s support and
approval to stay in office. The military has had a pervasive influence on the shaping of state
policies. That was in effect acknowledged by Lt. General (rtd.) Talat Masood who has spoken of
a ‘monumental failure of our past domestic and foreign policies in which, ironically, the military
has had a crucial role to play.’ (DAWN, Jan 26, 2002). The army’s unshakeable grip over power
was revealed when (the ultra right wing) Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made a bid to end the
autonomy of the army by attempting to dismiss Musharraf and putting his own nominee in his
place. He was promptly removed by the coup, which was an institutional coup by the army to
preserve its autonomy. Nawaz Shareef was much favoured by the US. That did not save him
from being ousted. The US, angrily led international pressures on Pakistan to restore democracy.
That Musharraf and the army has to promise to do.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan, which had initially legitimated Musharraf’s coup has, following
extension of its first deadline, now laid down that the army should restore parliamentary
government by October 2002. Musharraf has agreed to do so. It is too early at the moment of
writing, to see in what precise form that will be done. The fact that Musharraf has appointed
himself President of Pakistan (for ‘at least five years’) is not a good beginning. The constitution
too has to be reinstated but we do not know in what shape will that be done.
Elections have been promised, though the army has unconcealed contempt for politicians.
Religious parties will not be a threat, for they will be nowhere in the picture. In the past they
have not been able to take more that 2 per cent of the vote and they are unlikely to do better. The
two main political parties will not present much of a challenge either. The Muslim League has
been successfully fragmented and its rival, the Pakistan People’s Party, is demoralised with its
leader in exile. There is a political vacuum in the country. There are few signs that it will be
filled soon. One of Musharraf’s Ministers has given up his Ministerial post to set up a new
political party. Indications are that the new system will have two components, one of them rather
lame. One part of the new system is likely to be based on local bodies, for which elections were
held last year. That part of the set-up would be on the lines of Gen. Ayub Khan’s much
discredited ‘Basic Democracies’ which were ideally suited to control and manipulation by the
bureaucracy. The other component would be a moth-eaten national assembly, without significant
powers, which would be held up for international acclaim, as an exemplar of army democracy.
We have to wait and see how that goes.