DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI says Pakistan is in dire straits, and cannot escape disintegration unless it sheet-anchors its destiny on Islam in whose name it was created.
The February 20 poll results from Pakistan have disappointed the world Muslims, who constitute more than one-fifth of mankind, those who wanted to see Islam in the corridors of power, Islam in the street, Islam in business houses, Islam in the court of law, Islam in police stations, Islam in households and Islam in world bodies and international affairs.
Those who did not want to see this positive face of Islam are happy, happy because “fundamentalists”, “extremists”, “terrorists” and the “jihadis” have been kept at bay by the “wise” Pakistani voters.
FOR THAT VERY PURPOSE
Who will tell the latter categorically that Islam is not what they have been led to believe. Then what is Islam? It is for the cogent and comprehensive answer to this question that the Muslim ideologues and intellectuals have since long been aspiring to see Pakistan as a laboratory of Islamic ideology.
Contrary to this aspiration, Islam has been on trial in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. During its 60th year of existence, Pakistan has been ruled by military for more than 45 years. These men-in-uniform knew little about Islam, its ethos and ideology. Much of their time passed in how to perpetuate themselves into power. This tendency popularised the remark that “democracy does not suit the Pakistan genius.” This fact has brought a certain “military culture” into existence in our neighbourhood. (See Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy by Ayesha Siddiqua).
The rest, the civilian rulers, were either adventurers or those who took politics as a lucrative profession, who were at logger heads with the ideology of Pakistan. That is the reason why Islam has been on the defensive ever since 1947, when Pakistan got independence.
WHAT DILUTED ISLAMIC ISSUE
The periodic military rules also helped dilute the Islamic issue, with the result that “Democracy Versus Dictatorship” question remained prominent, most of the time, on the national horizon.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam lost the Provincial Assembly seat in his hometown with a margin of 40,000 votes (he however won the National Assembly seat with a margin of just 1000 votes). The North West Frontier Province, said to be centre of Islamists, gave more seats to the secular Awami League National Party. Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the third (not first or second) largest group in the previous National Assembly with 66 seats, suffered heavy losses. This time, they could win only five. In this backdrop, the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Tehrike Insaaf Party and some of the Baloch nationalist parties, which, in their own wisdom, boycotted the polls, failed to anticipate the shape of future events. It is really regrettable.
VARIOUS PARTIES BREAK-UP
It would not be out of place here to give the various parties strength: The seats in the National Assembly 272; polling held in 268; PPP got 88, PML-New Delhi : 66; ANP 10; NP(A) 1. The PML-Q got 38. Among others, MQM got 19, MMA 5 and others 40.
The mandate is split. But if PPP and PML (N) join hands, as is already happening, and cobble up the support of some independents, they can impeach the President. But will they? The US would never allow that to happen as Mr. Musharraf is their most useful man and their other would-be useful man there is, Mr. Ashfaq Keyani, who also happens to be Mr. Musharraf’s man.
IN DIRE STRAITS
The truth is Pakistan is in dire straits. Today the most hated “friend” of Pakistan is the United States. But the PPP chief Mr. Asif Zardari is in continuous dialogue with the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson. The US does not want him to adopt confrontationist attitude towards their time-tested friend Mr. Musharraf. Mr. Zardari, that is why, has been saying that the National Assembly will decide the President’s future. On the other hand, Mr. Nawaz Sharif is clear that the Supreme Court Chief Justice unjustly sacked on November 8 last and other 60 judges later on, should be reinstated. Only recently Mr. Musharraf’s emissaries carried a message for Mr. Zardari: “Don’t go with Sharif.”
POINTS TO PONDER
The first and foremost collective duty of Islamic bodies is transforming today’s “fun-loving” Pakistan into a God-fearing responsible, accountable and serious Pakistan.
Because of the un-ending irresponsible behaviour of Pakistan’s political leadership, the faith of Pakistanis in their own country has since long been shaking. It has to be firmed up and restored. To quote Mr. Anees Jilani, an Advocate of the Pakistan Supreme Court: today 38 per cent of Pakistanis want to emigrate, according to a recent Gallup survey. This is the number of people who would like to settle down abroad permanently. An overwhelming 62 per cent would like at least to work abroad. The scenario is hardly reflective of an economy in which the growth rate is stated to be one of the highest in Asia.
How to free Pakistan from the clutches of the United States is the main problem of the Islamic parties over there. When, with the US military assistance, they fought against Russians in Afghanistan, they forgot that Islam cannot come to power with motivated patronage. Another example: after 9/11, Pakistan received more than nine billion dollars. Primarily, its acceptance is questionable. Then that money has benefited a fraction of populace only. Millions continue to be poverty-stricken and unemployed. Today 60 per cent of Pakistanis survive on $2 a day. The Islamic parties alone can usher in prosperity. They alone can wipe tears from every eye.
PLAN RATHER PLOT
The Islamic parties, we believe, already know the US plan rather plot to disintegrate rather dismantle Pakistan. In the words of Mr. Selig S. Harrison – Director of Asia Programme at the Centre for International Policy Washington and author of In Afghanistan’s Shadow, a study of Baloch nationalism – “as matters stand, the Punjabi-dominated regime of Pervez Musharraf is headed for a bloody confrontation with the country’s Pashtun, Baloch and Sindhi minorities that could well lead to the break-up of Pakistan into three sovereign entities. In the event, the Pashtuns, concentrated in the north-western tribal areas, would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent “Pashtunistan.” The Sindhis in the south-east, numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baloch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation along the Arabian Sea from India to Iran. Pakistan would then be a nuclear-armed Punjabi rump state.
In historical context such a break-up would not be surprising. There had never been a national entity encompassing the areas now constituting Pakistan, an ethnic melange thrown together hastily by the British for strategic reasons when they partitioned the subcontinent in 1947.
“For those of Pashtun, Sindhi and Baloch ethnicity, independence from colonial rule created a bitter paradox. After resisting Punjabi domination for centuries, they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces – particularly the natural gas deposits in the Baloch areas – and siphoned off much of the Indus River’s water as they flow through the Punjab.”
The resulting Punjabi-Pushtun animosity, asserts Mr. Harrison, helps explain why the United States is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary from Punjabi forces to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of fellow Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends.
India had tryst with its destiny, the destiny bedrocked on socialism and secularism. Had Pakistan no tryst with its destiny – the destiny sheet-anchored on Islam which today, as ever, remains that proverbial fifth wheel of the coach!