http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Mar-2004/26/EDITOR/op1.asp
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Crisis of confidence **
M.A. NIAZI
At one end is the attitude contained in the phrase ‘collateral damage,’ when applied by a military spokesman to the innocent civilians, including women and children, killed in the Wana operation. At the other end is the common experience of all Indians visiting Lahore for the one-day series, of an effusive welcome, good sportsmanship of the crowds, and even shopkeepers on occasion refusing to accept payment. The contrast is not just geographical, though that is also worth thinking about. Are there centrifugal forces at work in the West and the East which will turn into fissiparous tendencies?
For over a year since 9/11, partly because of the ensuing 10-month eastern border stand-off, Pakistan declined to conduct extraordinary operations in the tribal areas, or to send troops to Iraq. The peace offensive launched by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Srinagar speech last April has freed forces from the eastern front. The pressure on South Waziristan has increased since then. It is simplistic to ascribe a cause-effect relationship, because the primary driving force behind the Wana operation is the US need to end the re-emerging Taliban resistance. The foreign fighters have come into the picture, as have the tribesmen’s reluctance to brook interference in their way of life.
But the ‘collateral damage’ phrase jarred. So did the tone used in a press briefing. It was as if the briefer was speaking of a foreign enemy. Granted, the foreigners skulking in the tribal areas are foreigners, but the bulk of those fighting the Army there are not. They are Pakistanis. Did this reflect merely the speaker’s lack of command, not so much of the English language, as of its nuances?** Did the speaker realise that the American military has never used ‘collateral damage’ to refer to its own citizens?** This is because such usage allows opponents to use the phrase against Americans. Al-Qaeda, for example, could use it to justify killing 3000 innocent civilians in 9/11. Or does calling the killing of tribal women and children ‘collateral damage’ imply the speaker no longer considers them Pakistanis? Has a mindset developed in the military which takes the same view of the tribesmen as their seniors once had of Bengalis? With Al-Qaeda perceived as an equivalent of the Mukti Bahini?
And what are the tribes thinking? **The government is claiming that a few tribesmen have been misguided into supporting a horde of foreign militants. It started with the Wazirs, but successive incidents have taken place which indicate the Mahsuds, the Bangash and even the Afridis have been affected. The sniping at Army officers, the attacks on military checkposts and camps, all indicate that the tribesmen are reverting to methods used against the British. So where do they place themselves? As Pakistanis? Or what? They are certainly not Pushtoon nationalists, or Afghanistani irredentists. Is the contagion spreading through the tribes?
A key might be sought in their past. The Pushtoons fought the Sikhs under the leadership of their maliks. The British won over the maliks, so the uprisings of that era, especially after the 1890s, fell into the hands of indigenous religious leaders, like the Mullah Powinda and the Faqir of Ipi. No such figure is leading whatever is going on, yet the support they gave to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban was due to religion. Is there a religious element to the emerging uprising?
The government’s casualty figures are disturbing.** The dead include 37 military personnel (and another 12 classified as missing), 16 civilians and 31 ‘militants’ (foreign and local, perhaps including the 22 whose bodies were not recovered.) The Pakistani military has suffered more combat deaths in the Wana operation alone than the US forces have suffered in Afghanistan in total. Is the Pakistan Army unable to deal with the tribesmen? These are no longer the tribal hordes the British kept on fighting for a century. They have grown wealthier, and have gone into businesses (often enough shady) their fathers and grandfathers would not have imagined possible. Many have settled throughout Pakistan, acquired education, gone into professions, and have grasped the opportunities offered by Independence; perhaps not as much as other Pakistanis, but still, more than could have been imagined five decades ago.
If, assuming for the sake of argument, the Army cannot deal with the tribals, can it deal with the Indians? The military has diverted some of its attention to civil affairs, including politics. One brigadier gave an estimate of 70-30 in 2000, at the height of the monitoring fad. Can even that 30 percent be afforded? Is the Army capable of defending the country against India?
That is a nonsensical question, but the extravagant affection being lavished on the Indian visitors might indicate that some people are asking it.** In Lahore, this writer could not find a single person who, during the 2002 stand-off, believed that our Army could beat the Indian Army.** As a one-time defence correspondent, this writer believed India could not take the risk because of a solid conventional defence, even if one precluded the nuclear dimension, but could find no takers for his arguments. Is that mentality at work? That the Indians have to be appeased, and one might as well start early? There are also the shopkeepers who have increased their prices to gull the tourists, who seem more confident.
The pro-Indian wave raises its own questions. Doesn’t it show that the peacenik NGOs’ worries about the school curricula spreading anti-Hindu hate are baseless? Is it a comment on the ineffectiveness of the curricula? Or a tribute to the average urban Pakistani’s independence of mind? (Independence of mind is a salient feature of the tribesmen too, though they show it differently). One Lahori explained the sudden love for Indians as being based on a dislike for the Army’s continuous meddling. Or has the Indian media onslaught, through cable mostly, worked? Just as the East Pakistani Hindus were accused of perpetuating an essentially Hindu Bengali culture?
And how about the final defeat in the ODI series, the only one-sided contest in a hard-fought series? This is the first time India has beaten Pakistan on Pakistani soil. India has yet to win a Test match in Pakistan; Pakistan has won two in India. Pakistan was an act of will, flying in the face of the rational analysis and conventional wisdom of the time. Similarly, its cricket team, against India, has risen above itself before its home crowds. The last match was a tame surrender, a failure of nerve. The top order crumbled before a 19-year-old youngster. Back in 1978, a 19-year-old youngster impressed, but the Pakistani line-up did not collapse against him. Kapil Dev went on to great things, as no doubt Irfan Pathan will, but in 1978, he overawed no one.
Where has our self-confidence gone? Has the government’s defence of its own actions since 9/11, couched in terms of scaring the populace with dire consequences if a bolder course was taken, broken this self-confidence? Have our people, constantly told from the highest level, put two and two together? That the US can make Pakistan do anything, and India is the USA’s strategic ally? Major non-NATO ally only came now, and so while more tangible, doesn’t sound as reassuring to the public.
Loyalty to the state is not built by emphasising weakness. But falsely claiming strength where there is weakness is misleading. The nation paid for such an exercise in 1971, and even to an extent in 2001. Bhutto was a master of setting national goals, while conceding weakness in a way itself inspiring. “We shall win Kashmir even if we have to fight for 1000 years.” This carried a warning that the struggle was not only long, but probably very hard. “We shall obtain nuclear technology even if we have to eat grass.” The message: the price will be very high. But in both cases, the inspiring message, the leader’s reassurance, is that the high price is worth it. Is that the kind of message we are getting now from the national leadership? **That is perhaps the most worrying question of all, because Pakistan is by no means as weak as its own leaders seem to think it. They sometimes emphasise that Pakistan is a nuclear state of 140 million, with a large and strong Army, and no Iraq, no Afghanistan. But their cooperation with the Americans, and now even the Indians, to the point of obsequiousness, send a different signal. **
Hopefully, all the worries expressed in the questions scattered above are baseless. But a perception is growing, which cannot be removed, except by a decisiveness and independence in policy that would reassure the ordinary citizen that the government serves only the national interest, and the people’s welfare.
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