INFLUENTIAL leaders continue shaping national fate posthumously
through concrete legacies. Viewed so, unfortunately Gen Ziaul Haq arguably
emerges as Pakistan’s most influential leader ever, whose legacies still haunt
Pakistan decades later.
Time and health did not
allow Mohammad Ali Jinnah to bequeath a definitive legacy which could clarify
his vision for Pakistan given his contrasting speeches about state and
religion. Ayub Khan’s legacy of a centralised polity and lopsided elitist
development was quickly dismantled by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s socialist democracy
project. Bhutto himself partially demolished this legacy later during his rule,
while Zia demolished it even further.
Although Ayub and
Bhutto’s legacies were not completely demolished, it is Zia’s legacies,
however, that loom large over Pakistan today. His vision included
maintaining a feeble democracy under establishment control; using militants
extensively to achieve foreign and domestic goals; promoting Salafist Islam to
control society; and radicalising society through madressahs and mosques. Subsequent
elected governments were too weak to seriously challenge these legacies. Even
Pervez Musharraf only slightly reversed the promotion of Salafist Islam and in
fact strengthened policies regarding a controlled democracy and the use of
militants for achieving state goals. Thus, among Pakistan’s long-ruling
powerful leaders, Musharraf is the only one unable to craft a unique national
vision.
The state is
not going far enough to dismantle Zia’s legacy.
Of late, Pakistan has taken bold steps which raise hopes about
the emergence of a post-Zia Pakistan. However, it is important to carefully
review the extent to which the current steps are actually dismantling Zia’s
four critical legacies listed above. Firstly, the events over the last one
year have actually cemented the establishment’s grip over the elected regime
and the security policy, thus reinvigorating the vision of Zia and other
dictators. Secondly, the most visible step has been the crackdown on a wide
range of militant groups which had emerged under Zia and Musharraf, often with
tacit state support. However, the concomitant strengthening of establishment
control over security policy creates doubts whether such a crackdown really
represents a complete break from the tactic of using militants as tools of
state policies.
During Musharraf’s rule,
Pakistan became infested with numerous militant groups, which coordinated
logistically and financially, but pursued different goals. These included the
West-focused Al Qaeda; the Afghanistan-focused Taliban; the India-focused
Lashkar-e-Taiba; the sectarian Lashkar-i-Jhangvi; the Pakistan-focused TTP; and
the Balochistan-focused insurgents. The current crackdown largely targets
internally-focused sectarian, TTP, Karachi and Baloch groups but spares India-
and Afghanistan-focused groups. Thus, the current operation is perhaps less
about abandoning the use of militants completely, especially for foreign policy
goals, and more about shielding Pakistan from the boomerang effects of using
militants for this purpose.
True, Afghan-focused
groups are being nudged towards peace talks while India-focused groups are
probably being kept on a tight leash against undertaking major attacks. But
this represents changing tactics rather than strategy. So long as the militant
use policy is not completely abandoned, Pakistan will remain vulnerable to
attacks by new splinter groups of externally-focused militant groups and covert
retaliation by foreign countries. But abandoning externally-focused groups completely would go to
the core of the Pakistani establishment’s worldview. As of today, there
is no concrete evidence that it is willing to make such huge changes, for doing
so would undermine its ability to dominate Pakistan.
Thirdly, the goal of
imposing Salafist Islam on Pakistan has been abandoned completely by both the
establishment and the PML-N. However, some madressahs and mosques continue to
spew radical thought without meaningful check by the state, even if it is not
supporting them aggressively now. Thus, it seems premature to celebrate a complete national
break from Zia’s devastating legacies. A complete break is also hampered by the
non-emergence of new groups with fresh ideas and the backing of large sections
of society to implement them. Thus, Bhutto’s strong, though partially flawed,
ideas quickly demolished Ayub’s legacy; Zia’s strong, and even more flawed,
ideas further demolished Bhutto’s remaining legacies. Today, the Pakistani
political landscape is bereft of such strong new visions.
The landscape is
dominated by the PML-N, the true heir of both Ayub’s economic conservatism and
Zia’s social conservatism legacies, from whom fresh, strong ideas are as likely
to emerge as the sun is likely to emerge from the west tomorrow. The PTI’s
vision of change is unclear and seemingly limited in scope. The PPP is in
irreversible decline. Thus, until new, powerful ideas emerge from society, the
establishment will likely continue to implement a scaled back version of Zia’s
vision.
The writer is a political and development economist.
Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2015
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