Pakistan was conceived as a people’s welfare state but exponentially has become a security state where the welfare of the people was sacrificed at the altar of the military establishment. The security of people’s constitutional, fundamental and human rights, lives and property, economy and social services, the basic responsibility of the state that it has abrogated, was precarious since the very inception of Pakistan as an independent and sovereign state and has deteriorated especially after 1958 when the first military coup took place. The subsequent military regimes of Generals Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq and Musharraf further perpetuated the military’s dominance of politics in the country to the detriment of political democracy, people’s socio-economic development, sovereignty and security.
Foreign, defence, and domestic security policies are dictated by the military establishment, which undermines any civilian government’s efforts for peace with neighbouring countries and within the country. The military’s perception of external and existential threat is India-centric due to the unresolved Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek issues with a history of three wars and the Kargil misadventure. Militarily and economically being the weaker state, Pakistan’s military turned to the doctrine of the “Fifth Column” strategy, created jihadi militant groups to infiltrate Indian-Held Kashmir and conduct guerrilla warfare with the objective of inflicting substantial damage to the Indian military. Pakistan’s military strategists subscribing to outdated doctrines hoped to resolve the issue by proxy wars instead of putting moral pressure through conforming to UN resolutions for a plebiscite in both Indian and Pakistani Kashmir.
The (1979) Saur revolution and subsequent USSR intervention in Afghanistan turned Pakistan’s attention to its western borders from the eastern borders when some 30 million Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan’s border districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The US, seeing an opportunity to avenge its defeat in Vietnam at the hands of the Viet Cong supported by the USSR and China, jumped into the fray. Using the Pakistani ISI as a conduit for training, weapons and money, it organised the Afghan refugees into a guerrilla (mujahideen) army that fought the USSR for nine years forcing it to abandon the occupation and pull out of Afghanistan. The US promptly withdrew its support, having achieved its strategic objective and leaving the mujahideen under the command of the Pakistan military. Pakistani strategists, overjoyed with the success of the ragtag guerrilla army defeating a superpower under their command planned to control Afghanistan through the mujahideen under its doctrine of strategic depth against India. But that was not to be as the infighting amongst the various warlord mujahideen groups sabotaged their plans.
The ISI was thus tasked to create an alternative, which gave birth to the radical Islamist Pashtun Taliban movement. Within a matter of a year the Taliban led by Mullah Omar, a cleric from Kandahar, and financially supported by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, soon overran the mujahideen and took control of the whole country except a small swath in the north held by the Farsiwan Northern Alliance. Mullah Omar established a government in Kabul supported by Osama, who in turn was given a free hand to plan his radical, misconstrued jihad against ‘western imperialism and its allies in the Muslim world’, while establishing training camps for the al Qaeda network. Pakistan recognised the Taliban government. Under Osama’s influence the control of the Taliban slowly slipped from the hands of the ISI and as far back as 1985, sectarian violence escalated in Pakistan with suicide bombings and attacks on Shia Imambargahs, Deobandi madrassas and even the security and law enforcement agencies, etc. Then 9/11 happened and the US came back with a vengeance.
Bombed out of Afghanistan, the Taliban and al Qaeda took sanctuary in Pakistan’s border districts, again with the support of the military establishment. When Pakistan was forced by the US to become a major partner in the war on terror and supported the US with military operations, the Taliban fighters found new and softer targets in attacking the Pakistani civilian population (approximately 30,000 killed) and military institutions, killing some 5,000 troops and officers. Since 2008, 122 attacks have been reported by media sources against military institutions and forces while only 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists are reported killed by the Pakistani military and US drone attacks.
(To be continued)
The writer is Director Programmes Sungi Development Foundation. He can be reached at [email protected]