The
problems underlying some conflicts are so simple that one tends to
overlook them while laying out a resolution plan. It is the same with
Pakistan authorities who have vowed to beat “terrorism” in a week, a
problem that has been created over a period of nearly three decades. And
instead of looking at the root causes of the present mess –
militarisation, radicalisation and alienation; the whole of Pakistan is
unanimously rallying around the Pakistan Army that has decided that
fighter jets bombing a part of their country is the solution to resolve
the problem.
Sprinting to give a knee-jerk
reaction the Pakistan state, which has always been represented by the
Pakistan Army, has completely sidelined the reason that the militants,
who conducted the killings in a school in Peshawar. The militants did it
in the name of avenging the deaths of their near and dear ones during
the air strikes that the Pakistani forces have conducted in the region
since June this year. The air strikes have apparently left 1700
‘suspected militants’ dead and the figure of people dying as collateral
damage has seldom come out. In the chest beating that followed, the
issue of innocents, including women and children, has totally escaped
being discussed in the public domain in Pakistan or elsewhere.
The
collective public clamour for revenge reminded me of a conversation
that I had with a friend from Pakistan. I told him that pounding your
own population with fighter jets is not a good idea, in reference to the
air strikes launched by Pakistani forces since June this year in their
own country. My friend responded saying the operation is for snuffing
out ‘terrorists’ inimical to Pakistan’s interests. And I asked him if he
has ever heard any other country deploying fighter jets against its own
people and what about the innocent killed in the strike as fighter jets
are not precision weapons. Like a firm believer in the Pakistan Armed
Forces he replied “our army knows how to handle the situation, the
fighter jets are designed for precision bombing”.
For
the starters, in the paucity of an apt analogy, the situation is akin
to if India had deployed fighter jets in Kashmir at the peak of
insurgency. Fighter jets are not meant to kill a person; they destroy
neighborhoods and regions all together. But the blind faith of the
Pakistan’s population in its Army and a consistent disdain towards its
elected representatives is the symptom of the grave problem afflicting
the country. The three main problems of Pakistan at the moment are
militarisation, radicalization and alienation of its population. The
future of Pakistan does not depend upon its Army, rather on sending the
Army back to its barracks, institutionalising democracy, cessation of
religious intolerance in all forms and giving more power to the federal
structure to give representation to its diverse population groups.
Militarisation
Within
first decade of its inception, Pakistan faced a military coup that saw
General Ayub Khan taking over the power in 1958. Since then Pakistan has
come a long way experiencing a slew of military coups and periods of
martial law. The result has been the general militarisation of day to
day life. Today, there are very few Pakistanis left who would raise an
eyebrow when the all-powerful Pakistan Army would dictate terms to
elected government and would meddle in all affairs – whether domestic or
otherwise.
The level of militarisation can
also be gauged from the fact that two Nobel Laureates from Pakistan –
Abdus Salam and Malala Yusfazai – do not enjoy the status of hero in the
society.
The former, a physicist, belongs to
Ahmadiyya community of Pakistan which was through a constitutional
amendment in 1974 were declared non-Muslims and in 1984 under the rule
of General Zia ul Haq further restrictions were placed on their
religious freedom. Malala, who had been shot by the Taliban militants
for championing the right of girl education, received ire of Pakistan
masses for bringing ‘disrepute’ to her country in international arena.
At
the same time Zia ul Haq, who took over Pakistan in 1977 and is one of
the longest serving head of states of the country and has to his credit
the ‘Islamisation’ of the society and its foreign policy, is revered as
the country’s hero. He consolidated the strategy of supporting extremism
as a tool of countering India is well known. His famous quote of
“bleeding India by 1000 cuts” referring to the proxy war, has often been
quoted by the proponents of the use of extremists against India.
General Parvez Musharraf, who led Pakistan into the botched up military
operation in Kargil against India in 1999, is also hailed as hero.
Militaries’
job is to secure the borders against external enemy and not to govern.
But majority of Pakistanis continue to be oblivion to this truth. And
there is no soul searching on how the decades of military rule has
debilitated the social fabric of the country and the Army has also
replied by pandering to the public’s emotions of revenge in response to
the Peshawar Attack and presents itself as the savior of Pakistan as a
nation.
Radicalisation
The
education curriculum in Pakistan, which has been shaped by years of
military rule, promotes a ‘muscular’ national identity through
falsification of historical facts, political use of religion and
encouraging xenophobia. The generation of Pakistanis born and raised
since the rule of Zia ul Haq do not have any influence of liberal
thoughts. The education system fosters religious intolerance through a
distorted narrative, based on hatred of imagined enemies, local and
foreign; and is unable to prepare youngsters for job market.
According
to the latest report of International Crisis Group in 2014, Pakistan’s
public education system “needs to foster a tolerant citizenry, capable
of competing in the labour market and supportive of democratic norms
within the country and peace with the outside world”. A decade prior,
Crisis Group had come out with a report that had raised caution against
the Pakistan education system radicalising young people. And since then
little has changed and Pakistan continues to have lowest education
expenditure in the region. According to the Crisis Group’s latest report
the country has second highest number of out of school children in the
world.
Here is an extract from the report,
describing the radicalisation of Pakistan’s population through education
– “An over-emphasis in textbooks on Islamic interpretations, not just
in religion classes but also in history, literature and the sciences,
has been used to create a discourse on national identity that validates
the politically dominant military’s domestic and foreign policy agendas.
Control over the curriculum by military and military-backed governments
has been used, for instance, to galvanise popular opposition to their
main adversary, India, and support for jihadi proxies in
Indian-administered Kashmir and Afghanistan.” The Peshawar attack should
have acted as a wake-up call for Pakistan if its decades-old strategy
to counter the “Indian threat” has paid off or pushed into an abyss. The
need of the hour is a proactive zero-tolerance against all forms of
religious extremism.
Alienation
Since
its origin the Pakistani state has laid a greater emphasis on national
cohesion, crowding out religious, regional and linguistic minorities
from the public sphere. The military operations can assuage the public
anger in the wake of the Peshawar attack, but they cannot provide long
term solution for this problem of alienation that population of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan
face due to the imposition of the culture of Urdu-speaking Punjabi
community that dominates practically all spheres in Pakistan.
Rising
mob violence against minorities, that form 3.7 percent of Pakistan’s
population, cases of alleged blasphemy, forced conversion of girls from
minority community is a grim reality that has furthered the alienation
of the minorities. The heightened sense of religious identity among the
majority population is the challenge staring the Pakistan state in face.
A briefing note presented by Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network to UN
Special Procedures mandate holders summarized the situation like this :
“The level of violence and the extent of threat to their identity,
culture, religion, to their life and property have reached a point where
the minorities are pushed to live a life in perpetual fear and anxiety
of an impending disaster.”
The Shia-Sunni
divide and cleavage between Muslims and non-Muslims has reached a
critical level. All of these point towards institutional indifference or
discrimination against certain regions or religions. The Pakistan
political authority needs to take a call and have zero tolerance towards
all forms of religious extremism – whether directed towards a sect,
religion or a particular region.
(This opinion piece was published in Millenium Post )
