Why “hawks” carry the day in India (PO)

M D Nalapat

Although many within the subcontinent point to the simillarities, the reality is that by the dawn of the 21st century, at the least the Indian and Pakistani militaries have developed two very different cultures. Especially from the 1970s, the effort in Rawalpindi has been to look westwards, at the Arab countries, Turkey and Iran to bring together the elements of a Pakistan identity. India and its culture and history have been left behind, even while elements of it - such as Mohenjo Daro and Taxila - show that the land of Pakistan has hosted civilisations that were world leaders two millenia ago. Since the period of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, there has been a steady congruence between the culture of Saudi Arabia and the ethos of the Pakistan army, even though in Pakistan as a whole Sufi remnants remain strong. Even these days,in the local cultures, there is an emphasis on Pirs and Makhdooms, concepts alien to Saudi Wahabbism.

Even had he been denied any assistance from Washington, General Zia would still have sought to help the Afghan mujahideen. Indeed, there is evidence that units of this Pashtun militia were formed in Pakistan soon after the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The plan of then US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezesinski to defeat Moscow by the giving of assistance to the mujahideen was based on advice given by GHQ Rawalpindi to contacts in the Pentagon in the beginning of 1980. Of course, Brezezinski may never admit to following any advice not given by his friends from Europe!.

Why colonial law for “free” citizens? (PO)

M D Nalapat

 Until General Zia-ul-Haq sought to align Pakistan culturally with Saudi Arabia in the 1970s by changing the laws of the land in a way that became closer to that country, Pakistan too had the same system of British colonial law as India. In the satisfaction at the “European” standard of such laws, what is forgotten is that the laws passed by the British in their Indian colony were not the same as those that were enacted for citizens of the UK. Instead the laws passed in India were designed for colonial subjects, and hence gave disproportionate power to the state authorities and very little rights to the citizen. Because of the potential for generating bribes and patronage that such British-era laws bring, political leaders in India have thus far refused to liberalise the laws in a manner that ensures that citizens of India cannot get persecuted by the state,the way they were under the British Raj.

In India, an Income-tax officer has the power to take away property and even liberty on the basis of a subjective decision, as was the case when the British were masters of the subcontinent. Several of the actions of the Income-tax department have been kept outside the purview of the court system, so that the citizen needs to appeal only to other officials to get redress. Thanks to such vast powers, it is easy for the government of the day to intimidate people, especially those with High Net Worth. Of course,even relatively poor and honest taxpayers can get harassed by the Income-tax department, especially if the order to do so has come - orally of course - from powerful politicians and the officials who toady to them. In India, there are many former Chief Ministers (of Indian states) who are in politics. Almost all of them have become super-rich, but only those who fall foul of the present governmnent have been subjected to searches and seizure of wealth. The others remain protected by their connections. Recently,there were raids on the residence of the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand state,Madhu Koda, an individual who has no contacts with India’s influential media fraternity. According to the authorities,about $1 billion was recovered, in the form of foreign bank accounts. While the figure may look large,the reality is that Madhu Koda is a poor man when compared to the immense wealth acquired by some other former Chief Ministers,several of whom are in office under the very dispensation that arrested Koda (because he was a political inconvenience to the government). Had every former Chief Minister been raided and investigated, it would have been a matter for congratulation. However, what the nation saw was a few being punished, while the many escaped.

Stealthy Kayani goes after Zardari

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Say this for Pakistan’s army, their after-shave works reducing the critical faculties of U.S. "experts" on Pakistan within the CIA, the State Department and the Department of Defense to blobs of helpless jelly.

Since the jihadization of the military by Pakistan’s former President General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1970s, officer corps within the force has continued as a force multiplier for the numerous terror groups headquartered in urban and rural communities across the country.

Except for Jehangir Karamat, Pakistan’s former chief of Army Staff, who accepted his 1998 dismissal at the hands of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, no chief of Army Staff since Zia-ul-Haq (1976-1988) has accepted any role for the elected civilian government of Pakistan in matters considered by the military to be within its purview. These include the portfolios of defense, foreign affairs and now the prime minister’s office, as well as subjects such as assistance to terror organizations, and the nuclear deterrent. Such an arrangement has had the tacit acquiescence of every NATO country including those who specialize in delivering sermons on democracy and human rights.

Despite the control of the armed forces over most areas considered key to the functioning of a government in any major country, both India as well as the United Kingdom are enthusiastic in insisting that Pakistan remain within "value-based" fora like the Commonwealth, and back every loan application of that country in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund despite the kleptomania of its higher echelons, which admittedly is a trait shared by Pakistan with several countries in the world including India.

Except the United States, no country in the world has lavished more treasure on Pakistan including the two runners-up in its “Santa Claus” sweepstakes - Saudi Arabia and China.

The Danger of Pakistan's "Hidden Taliban"

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Attendees at the numerous parties held in Lahore, Islamabad or Karachi would find it difficult to accept that Pakistan is heading toward Talibanization. Alcohol and the attentions of the opposite sex are there in profusion, while the passports of those present would testify to their global footprint.

Unfortunately, the gilded individuals whose aftershave has so charmed legions of otherwise hardnosed U.S. officials – be they spies, military or civilian – have almost no influence over the base of that country's social pyramid.

At the base, two generations of indoctrination have created a perception that what is needed to bring progress, absent all their lives, is the practice of the "pure" version of their faith. Of course this is only possible once the "impure" have been driven from office through terror and intimidation.

This idea was fostered by General Pervez Musharraf in an agreement with the so-called “Pakistan Taliban” – a formulation that ignores the unity of command and operation between those functioning on either side of the Pakistan-Afghan border drawn by British colonial overlords in 1893 and dividing the Pashtun people.

The Pakistani Army's Phony War on Terror (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India - Pakistan's U.S.-approved chief of army staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, wanted a less unpredictable personality than Asif Ali Zardari as president of the country. But the crafty equestrian from Sindh insisted on the job, aware that the absence of high office would almost certainly mean either a death sentence or a fresh stint in jail, as Zardari faced several corruption charges.

Since then, "the chief" has seethed as Zardari admitted publicly that the jihadis fighting India in Kashmir were terrorists, and further, that he himself saw no threat from India, thus destroying the army's rationale for consuming more than one-third of the budget. By the time Pakistan's new president said that, like India, Pakistan was committed to a "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, Kayani had made up his mind that Zardari had to go, and was searching for an opportunity to get him out.

The chief's undiplomatic descriptions of his nominal superior to his intimates have been many and acid, but his personal relationship with U.S. policy gurus has thus far ensured that Washington saw nothing untoward in the clear divergence of views and interests between the chief and the president – or in the chief's private musings about replacing the president. This was Pakistan, after all.

Mumbai 11/27 – the date that marks the midpoint of the three-day terrorist siege in the city – may have shaken the complacency of U.S. and EU policymakers about Kayani's suitability to lead an army touted as the linchpin of the allies in the war on terror.

Pakistan's moment of truth (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Founded as it was by a bacon-friendly, whiskey-drinking Muhammad Ali Jinnah, by the end of the 1950s – once almost all non-Muslims had been driven out of Pakistan – the country remained only loosely tethered to the lifestyle encouraged by the ulema, the body of Koranic scholars that has appeared as the indispensable intermediary between believers and God in the Islamic world.

Led by officers trained under the British, the Pakistan army in particular remained secular, although it had used religion in 1947-48 to try and pry loose Kashmir from India, the country to which its maharaja had acceded.

All this changed with Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s fateful appointment of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq as chief of army staff, superseding seven officers, all of whom were better qualified for the job. Bhutto chose Zia on the basis of the fawning missives he used to receive from the general, and the deferential – indeed cringing -- manner in which Zia introduced Bhutto to his men during a prime ministerial visit in 1975.

Such suppleness of spine convinced Bhutto that in Zia he would have a servile henchman. Instead, a year later, the general displaced Bhutto in a coup and executed him shortly thereafter.

Zia, at that time the only Wahabbi general in the Pakistan army, swiftly introduced changes in the institution to bring it in sync with the extreme philosophy of Ibn Wahhab, whose toxic creed had been backed by first the United Kingdom and subsequently the United States as a counter first to Turks, then Arab nationalists and finally, the Soviets. Zia aligned his country firmly with other Wahabbi states, and began to fill the officer ranks of the army with recruits from the numerous Islamic seminaries, or madrassas, that had begun to proliferate in Pakistan during the 1960s.

Punjabis Re-Assert Supremacy in Pakistan (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Since the 1980s, about six years after Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq took control from Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistan army has been less a symbol of national unity than an instrument to ensure the supremacy of the Punjabi element in all reaches of Pakistan society.

Today, the army is replicating in the northwestern frontier what has always been the case in Baluchistan and Sindh -- frank control over local government through the use of bullets. Although the Pashtun and Baloch elements have been allowed some representation within the officer corps, ultimately it is the Punjabi element that decides policy.

Since2003, when they turned against Pervez Musharraf because of the Pakistan coup master's proclivity to cling to his post as Chief of Army Staff, the Punjabi element has moved closer to China, countering moves by Musharraf to align his country firmly with the United States in the ongoing War on Terror. From 2003 onwards, under cover of the need to confront Indian control in Kashmir, they have continued to give assistance to the jihadis. They have blocked U.S. moves to get the Pakistan army to mount an effective defense against the Taliban sheltering in almost every city in Pakistan, including Islamabad, where a cluster has set up base about five miles from the U.S. Embassy complex.