Desperate times for Pakistan

Pakistan never had easy time politically or economically since its inception. The reason is quite simple – if something is made out of flawed or defective material or designed out of misconceived ideas, it is bound to reflect on its imperfection and show up in its poor performance or existence. Pakistan is no exception to that.  

The country, Pakistan was envisaged on the basis of a flimsy ideology which had no philosophical underpinning or deep deliberation. The Two Nation Theory (TNT) was produced by Allama Iqbal in his dissertation in 1930 as an academic discourse. It was not meant to be a political philosophy chalking out the birth of a nation in the turbulent post-colonial times of British Raj. There was no serious discussion on whether there was any mileage in taking TNT seriously or was it just an arm chair discussion document? Mohammad Ali Jinnah, took up this half-baked TNT as a potent political tool to suit his purpose for a separate nation and thereby stave-off Indian National Congress’ (INC) political supremacy. He did not give any serious thought on the implications of TNT, nor did he initiate any proper discussion on it before taking it up as a serious political tool. When he was asked whether he had thought through this political ideology, he replied in 1946, just one year before the creation of a State, that “let us get it before we think about it!” It was like building a factory before thinking what to do with the factory! To a large extent, this TNT may even be synonymous with Tri-Nitro Toluene – a chemical substance used to blast off a building or a barrier.   

The perceived ideology of the TNT was that as Hindus and Muslims are two separate peoples, with separate religions, culture, philosophy, education and upbringing, they cannot live together. That Hindus and Muslims had been living together for centuries had been cast aside for the political shenanigan of the day. Two nations, one for Muslims called Pakistan and the other for all other religions in India, had been curbed out in the Indian subcontinent in 1947 and to do this, communal riots and violent antagonism had been whipped up by the blatantly aggressive communal politicians. That there were more Muslims in India than in the whole of Pakistan – East Pakistan and West Pakistan put together – was considered irrelevant and superfluous.

Within a few years of creation of Pakistan, it was found that religion far from being the unifying force was, in fact, a poisonous pallet blowing apart even Muslims of various sects and ethnicity. Pakistan adopted a foreign policy that was primarily based on anti-Indian, anti-Hindu philosophy in order to keep incongruous Muslim communities together. Inherently it was assumed that this attitude would bind the loosely bound religious people of both the provinces together and thereby make Pakistan viable. The religious opportunists had the field day in that situation in Pakistan. They made Pakistan an Islamic State and then made non-Sunni Muslims second-class citizens. Even Ahmadiyya sect, to which Prof. Abdus Salam who won Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 belonged, had been declared non-Muslim and thereby made Abdus Salam a non-Muslim.

The running of the State which Field Marshal Ayub Khan had forcibly taken away from the civilian rule in 1958 had never really reverted back to civilians. The aggressive exploitative stance that Pakistan government took under the tutelage of the Pakistan Army had caused Pakistan to break up in 1972. East Pakistan which became Bangladesh is now in much better shape, both politically and economically. Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh is not a theocratic State and therefore free to run the country for the well-being of the people, not for the brain washed dogma that everything is done by Allah and we are just His lowly creatures!

Pakistan had never been a democratic State. Nearly half of the time since 1947 Pakistan was ruled by Army and the remaining other half by civilian governments under sharp eyes of the Army. As Shashi Tharoor of India said, “The State of India has an Army, the Army of Pakistan has a State.” No civilian government in Pakistan under a prime minister had managed to complete full five-year term of office. Either the incumbent prime minister had been killed or removed by the Army or in the present case, the sitting prime minister Imran Khan, had been removed under no confidence motion. The Pakistan Army is truly called “The Establishment”. The Establishment is in charge of the country whether in power or out of it.

Pakistan is in a very sorry state. Foreign interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs is a recurrent phenomenon. Of course, Pakistan had demonstrated that it had no moral compulsion either against interfering in foreign countries. The most recent incident was the Pakistan Army’s surreptitious involvement in Afghanistan, which made American military power pull away in disgrace like a third-grade power. America is now taking the revenge in removing Imran Khan from power. A number of times Pakistan resorted to despicable activities – sending saboteurs to India in Taz hotel killing more than 20 people; sending arms and ammunition to religious fanatics in Bangladesh and elsewhere.   

Ayub Khan wrote a book, back in 1960, called ‘Friends Not Masters’ pointedly telling America that Pakistan seeks friends, not masters. But, given half the opportunity, Pakistan would not shy away behaving like masters to other smaller States. East Pakistan had enough of Pakistan’s barbaric mindset and when Pakistan had been beaten and made to surrender in 1972, Pakistan showed no remorse at all. Now Bangladesh as an independent sovereign State would have no reason whatsoever to shed any tears at Pakistan’s desperate situation. As the saying goes, “If you dance with devils, you should be prepared to have devils bite your neck.”

After nearly 75 years of outright hostility and deadly animosity towards India, Pakistan’s deposed prime minister all of a sudden found that India is a decent democratic country and Pakistan should have good relations. But is it not somewhat incongruous to see that the mouth which is used to spew out vile words all the time now preaches amicable words?

• Dr A Rahman is an author and a columnist

Taliban – Pakistan’s weapon of mass destruction

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  Silhouettes of several soldiers with rifles against a sunset

Protection against terrorism

The world is horrified at the speed and extent of Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan and the consequent collapse of Afghan military force. Afghan military has shown that it is as strong and stable as the house of cards; when just nudged by Taliban, it starts to collapse and has the domino effect under its own momentum. At this point in time, the 15^th of August 2021, Taliban is poised to take over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and thereby bringing an end to the American invasion of Afghanistan about twenty years ago and completing the utter humiliation of mighty America.

But Taliban is not the rag-tag of rebel soldiers or tribal gangsters with slings and arrows. Taliban had been put together by Pakistan, made into a fighting force and, above all, the strategy of ensuing battle in Afghanistan had been master minded by Pakistan. Pakistan may be a rogue and failed state, but its military machine is very much functional and ready to meddle in other state’s internal affairs. As Shashi Tharoor, an Indian politician, said some years ago, “The state of India has an Army, the Army of Pakistan has a state.”  

In particular, one would say, Pakistan always had the inclination to fish in the muddy waters of other countries, particularly Afghanistan. Following the coup d’état in April 1978 (Saur Revolution) by the People’s Democratic Party in Afghanistan against its President Daoud Khan, a chain of events was set in motion. America wanted to sabotage the coup to undermine its cold war rival, the Soviet Union; and the Soviet Union in response sent in troops in December 1979 to prop up the collapsing government of the coup leaders.  

That is when Pakistan found enough ammunition to trump up the situation. How could an atheist communist state be allowed to take over a Muslim state, they thundered? Pakistan drummed up support from Western capitalist states as well as Muslim states to avenge the situation. Mujahedeen, a conglomeration of rebel soldiers with Islamist zeal along with some pro-Chinese elements, were formed by Pakistan with the direct help and administrative support of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan back in the early days following the invasion of Soviet Union. Pakistan took the central role in procuring funds from America and other Western states as well as unlimited funds from the oil-rich Arab states. On top of that, the 34-nation Organisation of Islamic States (OIC) gave Pakistan full political and financial backing. In return, Pakistan was entrusted with military training, logistic and intelligence support as well as arms and ammunition to the Mujahedeen.

It was a perfect win-win situation for Pakistan. Almost the whole of Pakistan’s military machine was bank-rolled on Mujahedeen’s expenses financed by Arab states and America. At the same time, Pakistan formed a gangster fraternity with the CIA and American military machine. Mujahedeen had been made into a fighting force much better than that of many third world country. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was bleeding profusely under the twin attack of the capitalist world and the Muslim world. By 1985, Soviet Union expressed willingness to negotiate its troops withdrawal from Afghanistan, but neither Afghanistan nor America was willing to negotiate. However, in 1988, Soviet Union decided to withdraw from Afghanistan and leave the country to fend for itself. Within a year, the Soviet Union itself was in turmoil and started to break up.

Pakistan was basking in the glory of defeating the mighty Soviet Union. It is said that Afghan war might have contributed, at least partially, to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ISI’s chief, Gen Hamid Gul, twirling his moustache bragged to the world that his men had brought down the mighty Soviet Union. However, radical Islam and political Islam got a new lease of life and a safe sanctuary in Pakistan. But that was a small price to pay for Pakistan for the wider geo-political victory and the concocted world status. America also in its turn declared that Soviet Union had been ‘taught a very good lesson’ and the ‘job was well done’. But hardly did the so-called victors realise that they had created a monster, a monster of Frankenstein’s proportion, which one day might devour the masters!

After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, America considered the job well done and lost any interest in the back waters of geo-political schism. Mujahedeen had been left in the lurch, with thousands of heavily armed soldiers roaming around aimlessly in the streets of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan’s ISI which had initiated and guided the Mujahedeen right from 1979 took advantage of this vacuum. In doing so, Pakistan received financial help and military assistance from Western countries to manage the situation. But that was not enough to Pakistan’s liking and Pakistan started to play a duplicitous role. On the one hand they continued to get American and Western help to disassemble Mujahedeen and on the other hand they surreptitiously helped to re-organise the terrorist groups into al-Qaeda and others groups including Taliban.

The word Taliban is a Pashtu word – the plural of ‘talib (student)’. The Taliban were students who were trained in the strict Islamic fundamentalism, the Deobandi ideology and vowed to follow the strict interpretation of Sharia or Islamic Law. These hardcore Islamists were put together in 1994 along with the remnants of Mujahedeen as Taliban under the tutelage of Pakistan’s ISI.

The stray Mujahedeen fighters started dispersing to various Islamist organisations including al-Qaeda, ISIS (Daesh), other fringe terrorist groups. American exploitation of Saudi oil, the invasion of Iraq, its blatant opposition of Iranian theocracy etc were all the powder keg of anti-Americanism. America’s desertion from the region without any reconstruction was very much resented in the region. America thus became the culprit, the root cause of the suffering of the people of the country and Pakistan fanned the flame of this narrative. 

When Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, America realised that they had created a monster and that monster had been let loose. The erstwhile ally and reliable foot soldiers in the shape of Mujahedeen had become America’s blood enemies. Afghanistan became the centre of world terrorism and al-Qaeda was the main operative. After the 9/11 attack in 2001 on America by al-Qaeda and when Osama bin Laden was tracked to be hiding in Afghanistan, America demanded his immediate extradition. Taliban being the ideological bedfellow of al-Qaeda refused to do so. America along with other Western countries invaded Afghanistan in December 2001 and dislodged Taliban within a year or so. Although most of the Taliban leadership had been killed and its offices had been massacred, but the brain behind Taliban ideology was safely tucked away across the borders in Pakistan.

Taliban had suffered temporary set-back but not destroyed. They were dispersed to outlying areas in the countryside in Afghanistan and regrouped in Pakistan. America thought that with their fire power and sophisticated military machine, they would annihilate Taliban in a short period of time and leave the country with ‘job well done’ after 2001 invasion! But after 20 years (from 2001 to 2021) of blood, sweat and tears, with over 1.3 trillion dollars cost and more than 2,300 American soldiers’ fatality (along with more than a thousand British, Canadian, Australian and other soldiers’ fatality), America lost any appetite to fight with the Taliban and decided to withdraw on the anniversary of al-Qaeda (supported by Taliban) attack on America!   

America announced its intention more than a month ago, which means more than two months before the intended withdrawal date, and since then America had been haemorrhaging in military capability and political credibility. At that time, the expert opinion was that within two months of America’s withdrawal, Taliban may take over the control of the country. Since that time, the time scale of collapse of Afghan government had been progressively reduced and now, one month prior to American withdrawal, the collapse is imminent. American soldiers, about few thousands remaining, haven’t got enough time to evacuate and any soldiers sent to rescue them will themselves be hostage! The collapse of Kabul is worse than Saigon. In Saigon, American soldiers at least had time to evacuate, now in Kabul they have no time to evacuate and they are likely to be prisoners in the invaded land. The superpower is a badly defeated party and Russia is having the last laugh. Russia now even can throw back ‘America had been taught a very good lesson’.

What made Taliban carryout such successful ‘blitzkrieg’ attack, albeit without air power, on Afghan soldiers? There must be unseen long hand of ISI directing and giving tactical advice to invade town after town and then closing in on the capital itself. Even America with its sophisticated satellite navigation, aerial survey and intelligence services on the ground caught completely unaware and now probably hoping to have divine help to rescue the American soldiers.

Pakistan with its duplicity has got the upper hand for the time being. They had been squeezing America over the years with the threat of Taliban to pump money into the country. Taliban has become Pakistan’s weapon of mass destruction. But there is always a time when the blackmail victim would say, “enough is enough, we must confront the menace”. That time has probably come. America and the rest of the world must stand up and put an end to the blatant Pakistani blackmail using Islamic fundamentalism and ensuing terrorism. 

Dr A Rahman MSRP CRadP FNucI

The Completion of Partition of India

From the early part of 17^th century, the great news about India’s wealth and affluence started to spread far and wide and invariably it reached the Western ears. The West was, of course, the centres of political and military might of the world at that time. Although India’s population was about 10% of world population, its economy was more than 30% of world’s GDP, taking the whole of Western economy into consideration. The amazing quality of muslin fabric in Dhaka, the exotic aromatic spices of South India, the evocating flavour of Assam tea etc were great attractions to the Western explorers, adventurers, fortune seekers and, of course, colonizers.

The Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French and latterly British fortune seekers and colonizers all started streaming in various guises at various ports of India, Sri Lanka and even beyond into Indonesia and so forth. But the golden goose of India was the province of Bengal (now Bangladesh and West Bengal in India) where wealth was fabulous, people were generous, mild-mannered and hospitable. But the provincial administration was ridden with selfishness, sycophancy, antagonism and conspiracy; in short, it was simply in dysfunctional state. On top of that, the Moghul Empire at the centre in Delhi was just crumbling down. The European fortune seekers and colonizers could not dream of a better set of conditions to fulfil their ambitions than in India.

The East India Company of Britain started their stall in Calcutta in the 17^th century as a simple trading post for import and export of various commodities. As they made jaw-dropping profits and their economic and political powers grew much bigger for their boots, the British government took notice. Moreover, when America managed to tear itself away from the British hegemony, Britain turned its attention towards the East. After the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny (the 1^st Indian War of Independence) when the British colonizers just managed to hang on to powers by the skin of their teeth, the East India Company was nationalised urgently and India was taken under the British Crown and it became officially a British colony in 1858 CE.

Fast forward nearly a hundred years and come to the turbulent period of 1940s, when World War II was ravaging and tearing apart the very fabric of human society and civilisation, Britain as a major combatant had no option but to agree to grant freedom to the people whose support she needed badly at that time. America also had been exerting tremendous amount of pressure on Britain to decolonise its territories. After the end of war in 1945, Britain started to decolonise in earnest and in great haste.

In India, the poison of sectarian division had been sown for decades, if not centuries, first by the petty bourgeoisie administration and then firmly by the British Raj to ‘Divide and Rule’ the country. The Hindus and Muslims had been told that they were totally different people, different race and different culture. It played very nicely at the hands of opportunistic Muslim and Hindu politicians and rulers, although the great national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and a few other leaders took a somewhat different stance. They asserted that the Muslims and Hindus in independent India would live in self-governing states based on democratic principles. But that that did not assuage the fear of the underclass Muslims being overwhelmed by the Hindu majority or the Hindu superiority. The political leaders of the Hindu majority did nothing to dispel such fears of the minority community; on the contrary they were rather flaming the fears.

The two communities started drifting apart ever since Allama Iqbal proclaimed his sectarian Two-Nation Theory (TNT) in 1930, where he envisaged the creation of a separate Muslim State in the North West part of India for Indian Muslims. Only as an after-thought Iqbal said years later that there was no reason why Bengal should not join the Muslim State. Although Muhammad Ali Jinnah was not keen to have a separate Muslim State at the beginning, but under Iqbal’s persuasion and, to some extent, due to antagonistic attitudes of some communal Hindu politicians, he gradually drifted towards separate two-nation-state idea.

However, when at the Lahore Conference of the Muslim League (ML) in 1940, the creation of a Muslim State, called Pakistan, on the basis of two-nation theory was adopted, the partition of India was virtually sealed. Communal feelings ran high throughout the whole of India and sometimes they boiled over into communal riots. In the 1946 provincial election in British India, the creation of Pakistan was a matter of patriotism, self-preservation and religiosity all rolled into one for the Bengali Muslims. The Muslims in the province were mostly landless farmers, day labourers and contract workers. So, they took the election as an opportunity to seek emancipation from not only the British colonial yoke but also Hindu dominance.

The election was also taken as a new dawn for the Bengali Muslims. The Muslim League got nearly 95% Muslim seats (114 out of 119 of all Muslim seats) in Legislative Assembly of Bengal. That was the best performance of the Muslim League in the whole of the country. Although 114 seats out of the Provincial Seats of 250 were not the majority, but they were the overwhelmingly dominant group.

Even Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, as a student leader, was a staunch supporter of the Muslim League and was associated with Husain Shahid Suhrawardy, a very prominent leader of the Muslim League from Bengal. He went to Sylhet with about 500 students from Calcutta to campaign for Pakistan before plebiscite in that district of Assam. The election result was the outcome of emancipation of dispossessed and landless farmers who had been promised to be made landed farmers.

Things started moving at break-neck speed after the Provincial Election in 1946. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee declared on 20 February, 1947 to give independence to India within two years. On 3^rd June 1947, British government formally accepted the division of British India into India and Pakistan. However, nobody, not even the top leaders like Jinnah and Nehru had the faintest idea on 3^rd June what the two countries would look like. Communal riots broke out throughout the whole country due to uncertainty. This vagueness had created a grave chaotic situation and aggravated the plight of people who suffered tremendously during the partition. Hindus in their millions moved from anticipated Pakistani territories in one direction and Muslims from Indian territories moved in the opposite direction and anger spilled over these moving migrants!

The British government washed its hands off from all responsibilities for the peaceful transfer of power and oversight of proper partition of the subcontinent under the guise of its commitment to transfer power as soon as possible. On 17^th August 1947, the first batch of British military troops set sail out of Bombay for home. Both India and Pakistan had been left on their own devices to slug it out.

But the province of Bengal (the then East Pakistan) where the British East India Company first set its foot some 200 years ago was in much disorientated state. It joined up, albeit on the strength of the provincial election in 1946, with another province (in fact, four provinces in West Pakistan which were later merged into one) which was some 1500 miles away, separated by an enemy state (as per Pakistani version). There was no common tenuous bondage between these two provinces except only religion; everything else like culture, language, attire, attitude and even race were different. The state of Pakistan was simply huddled up on the outcome of an election, which was based on emotion and centuries of pent-up injustices on the Muslims, and from undue haste of the British colonial masters to depart.

Within one year of Pakistan’s independence, in 1948, the severe fault line appeared when Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared in Dhaka, East Pakistan that Urdu would be the national language. But by far the majority, nearly 55%, of the whole country’s population was Bengali speaking and Urdu was spoken by less than 20% of the population. So, what was the justification for Urdu to be national language other than sheer subjugation of East Pakistan?

The Language Movement ensued in 1952 when police opened fire on unarmed university students and killed eight of them, when they demanded Bengali to be the national language.  Ever since that time, West Pakistan tried to kowtow the Bengalis into total submission and keep them as the underclass in the country. The Punjabis of West Pakistan started dominating by sheer military strength all spheres of activities in life – economy, education, employment, the civil service, sports and so forth and worst of all, they were conducting organised campaign to wipe out the Bengali identity by disenfranchising Bengali and to force people to learn Urdu. When Britain withdrew in 1947, Pakistan became the de-fact colonial power over East Pakistan and started exploiting with even more ruthlessness than the British.  

Pertaining to Bangladesh liberation war, 1971

The independence for Bengalis (Muslims and Hindus) in Bangladesh did not come about until 16^th December 1971, when East Pakistan broke away from Pakistan and became a sovereign independent state. So, it can truly be said that there was a hiatus of 24 years for the Bengalis. The process of independence, which started on 14^th August 1947 when the British Crown hurriedly left the scene without fulfilling its colonial obligations and responsibilities, did not come to completion until the 16^th December 1971. Then and only then the true partition could be said to have been completed.  

•   Dr. Anisur Rahman (a nuclear scientist) is an author and a columnist and
• Dr. Jadabeswar Bhatrtacharjee (a medical doctor) is a freelance writer.

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