What is the best way forward?
I have already conjectured that this failed state, built on a faulty (if excusable) premise, is likely to suffer partition under the weight of internal contradictions, and external meddling. I stick with that prognostication (not hope).
That said, there is the question of what is the best way to attempt to keep the country together. In the West, we keep mentioning "Democracy and human rights" as the way out of "the slide to militancy and anarchy". And yet, the lessons of History, and the recent learnings of Iraq, are different.
Peoples repeatedly, in Russia under Putin as in Iraq (in al Anbar) under Patreus, have welcomed an autocratic return of the rule of law, and shunned the chimera of week-kneed democracy.
So, next time we hear a pundit say that Pakistan must return to Democracy, we have to remind ourselves that eventually maybe, but the first need of our Pakistani brethren is for stability and development.
Pakistan is a unique country, and not really a nation, looking to be a state. Pakistan is a Military trying to stay in control, together, and relevant; it is a feudal system, self-consciously non-egalitarian, and struggling to preserve its privileges; it is also an Islamic republic, one seeking the approval of its mullahs, and of its Saudi controllers; but most immediately, Pakistan is a playground of US geopolitical interests. Unfortunately, Pakistan is only lastly a people possessed of a poorly-enunciated national view.
The best way forward for this aspiring-state is to first reconcile these competing interests. The only desirable, stable way forward will:
- Sideline the Mullahs from statecraft
- Keep the Military relevant, and strong
- Allow the Fuedals to be secure, united, and on the side of the military,
- Promote US agenda-- fight terror, keep peace in the region, AND
- Serve the long term interests of Democracy
Note that, unfortunately but wisely, we have to put the interests of Democracy last.
One way to constitute a polity to meet these requirements is:
- Institute a Presidential system
- Give the Military-Generals electoral-college votes
- Rotate the PM'ship between the provinces
- Initiate public works that improve infrastructure and generate employment
- Make education a top state priority
- Fight terrorism along current lines
Pakistan can't accomplish all this by itself. It has strong competing power-centers (Islamists and a politicized military), it has institutions that are unequal to the purposes of nation-building (weakened judiciary, discredited constitution, week local-self government, and largely disenfranchised masses), and tremendous foreign intervention (Chinese, Saudi). Pakistan is all set to break-up and be carved-up.
However, we have here spelled one way to try and put the humpty-dumpty together again.
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2 comments:
nicely written hersh!
would be interesting to see after untimely death of Benazir Bhutto.
a senior colleague of mine holds a conspiracy theory which seems to be coming true every years- that " Indian sub-continent's emergening leadership needs to wiped out and keep the situation shaky.examples??
-- rajiv gandhi , was sure to come to power is killed
--congress leader- rajesh pilot- killed in road accident
--congress leader - madhav rao scindia - killed in plane accident
-- BJP ( a right indian opposition party)'s leader pramod mahajan - killed in his own drawing room by his own brother.
All of these above were sure to be PM or have a national position.
according to me , pakistan is a state which born under poor birth chart and right from the start has had problems.
they do not know whether to lean to middle east or to Asia.
If we go by the logic of its creation that Pakistan should have been happy and contented..but that jannat ( heaven ) is elusive as ever.
I am not a paki basher as that my own father's birth place. He was born is Sialkot and migrated with his 5 siblings, father and a mother who was carrying the 6th sibling.
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