Daily Times

Bestowed with lush green valleys, fertile floodplains and remarkable deserts Pakistan can feed a large population, which its neighbours like Iran and Afghanistan cannot do. At the same time, the country is not as large as India or China, and can only aspire for the role of a balancer in regional politics. But the same frontiers pose a security dilemma as well: other than being long and porous, they cut across racial/cultural groups filling the landmass between Himalayas and the Arabian Sea.

On its western side, Pakistan stuck to the colonial era policy of “forward defence,” which it sought buying up loyalties of the Pukhtoon tribe to the western side of the Indus River up to the Durand Line. Afghanistan, which had never recognised the British-drawn border, had to be either pacified or kept paralysed to the extent that it did not raise the issue again. Its complex ethnic makeup proved helpful in destabilising hostile regimes inside Afghanistan. Kabul invoking ethno-nationalism to influence politics on the other side of the Durand Line was encountered with the mantra of “Muslim nationalism.”

Pakistan’s eastern borders have been drawn defying geographical realities. The rivers flowing into Pakistan have been cut at their sources due to division of Punjab on communal lines, without any thought to the survivability of the state. More senseless outcome was the Indus Basin Treaty that was thrust on Pakistan in 1962. That India got complete rights on eastern rivers — Beas, Ravi and Sutlej — is a development that is unprecedented. The treaty, arbitrated by World Bank, takes no account of ecology and environment at all.

During its formative phase, the policy-makers thought it proper to translate communal politics of the colonial era into the foreign policy of Pakistan as well. Later, when Pakistan formulated its constitutions, the ideological strand found its expression in the Objectives Resolution. Sovereignty was made to rest in heavens; faith was given precedence over territoriality in defining citizenship.

While Pakistan stood authoritarian in its governance structure, religious nationalism welded it with Middle Eastern politics, where Saudi Arabia and Iran had allied to the US so as to block Soviets from reaching warm waters of the Arabian Sea. Though Pakistan’s alignment with the western bloc served Indian interest as well — as it became a buffer state between India and Soviet Union — but Pakistan’s relations with this South Asian giant were marked with enmity and wars, one of which ended up in the separation of the East Pakistan.

Frontiers of Pakistan cutting across cultural communities deliver it the phenomenon of ethno-nationalism, which has grown in intensity and effectiveness with every move to carry forward communalist agenda of politics by dominant social groups. A consensus was reached in 1973 whereby the constitution assigned state religious characteristics but, at the same time, created four provinces — absorbing around a dozen of princely states — to accommodate the demands of ethno-nationalists.

The 18th Constitutional Amendment was a culmination point of the “consensus” between “Islamists” and ethno-nationalist forces, besides retaining Islamic characteristics of the state. NWFP was renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, doors on new provinces were closed, and Pakistan was virtually transformed into an ethnic federation.

The wiser course of foreign policy should have been to take into account the question of Pakistan’s survival against the fact that international boundaries divide its ethnic groups among the surrounding countries. The case of Kashmiris, in this sense, is not that different from Pashtuns and Baloch, which share tribal links inside Afghanistan and Iran. Punjab and Sindh are ethnically/racially related to the other side of the divide.

The decision-makers should have linked the existence of Pakistan with history. After all, there are traces of a state — vibrant, thriving and greater than what we have right now — before the Arab invasion. But historical links were cut off beyond the destruction of the Rai Dynasty. For Pakistan, as a state, history ended on 712 AD. This narrow and skewed vision of history serves only some racial interests, which take pride in plunder and destruction of rich heritage of Pakistan from foreign invaders.

Of course, the “reformed” constitution does not resolve problem of identity. The extent of autonomy the provinces have secured has left the impression as if Pakistan is a confederation of four “states.” Centre cannot question their commitment to socio-economic development process as they brazenly violate the Constitution vis-à-vis establishing local governments. It is not free to manage its scarce water resources to the benefit of far off regions if smaller provinces gang up against construction of water reservoirs.

Centre needs to take stock of the situation whereby forces from inside act to the benefit of neighbours for racial reasons. A paradigm shift whereby Pakistan is taken as an heir to the Indus Valley civilisation, as magnanimous as that of Babylon or Egypt, would open the door of new politics. It would change the attitude of the state to its people as well as its neighbours. A civilisation-based identity is essential to find a proper place under the sun in the face of fast changing geopolitical realities.

The state, for the sake of its survival, has to infuse a sense of unity among its people to hold diversity together. Democracy is not enough to that end if the guidelines of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, which he spelled to the first Constituent Assembly, are not incorporated into the Constitution. We need to de-emphasise racialism/sectarianism, and strengthen bonds among people through promotion of equality and good governance. They may belong to any race or religion but their rights and duties originate in the reality of being citizens of Pakistan.

The writer is Director at the Center for Policy and Media Studies