The Prevailing Western View On Pakistan Part 2 of 2

BALKANIZING PAKISTAN- A COLLECTIVE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY BREAKING PAKISTAN TO FIX IT

by Michael Hughes

The argument for Balkanizing Pakistan or, more specifically, fragmenting the Islamic Republic so it’s easier to police and economically develop, has been on the table since Pakistan’s birth in 1947 when the country was split out of a British laboratory. And lately, the concept is looking more appealing by the day, because as a result of flawed boundaries combined with the nexus between military rule and Islamic extremism, Pakistan now finds itself on a rapid descent toward certain collapse and the country’s leaders stubbornly refuse to do the things required to change course. But before allowing Pakistan to commit state suicide, self-disintegrate and further destabilize the region, the international community can beat them to the punch and deconstruct the country less violently.....

                               A f t e r

And lately, the concept is looking more appealing by the day, because as a result of flawed boundaries combined with the nexus between military rule and Islamic extremism, Pakistan now finds itself on a rapid descent toward certain collapse and the country's leaders stubbornly refuse to do the things required to change course. But before allowing Pakistan to commit state suicide, self-disintegrate and further destabilize the region, the international community can beat them to the punch and deconstruct the country less violently.

To quell any doubts about Pakistan's seemingly uncontrollable spiral into darkness, just recently, Foreign Policy Magazine ranked Pakistan as the tenth most failed state on earth and it would seem its leaders are hell bent on securing the number one slot - an honor it can add to their already dubious distinction as the world's largest incubator of jihadist extremism. Afghanistan will never see peace or prosperity with a neighbor like Pakistan and the U.S. will always be threatened by terrorist plots spawned in Pakistan's lawless regions - like the most recent Times Square bombing.

The most popular approach to fragmentation is to break off and allow Afghanistan to absorb Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which would unite the Pashtun tribes. In addition, the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh would become independent sovereign states, leaving Punjab as a standalone entity.

Balkanization is based on the premise that the weak central government in Islamabad is incapable of governing Pakistan's frontiers, which have become the number one source of regional instability. The governing Punjabi elite have neglected the other three major ethnic groups - the Sindhis, Pashtuns, and Baluchis, primarily because a majority of Pakistan's budget is spent on the military rather than economic development, schooling or infrastructure. Only 2% of Pakistan's GDP, for example, is spent on education despite the fact Pakistan's literacy rate stands at 57%.

Minority groups have also been underrepresented in institutions such as Pakistan's military - which is the country's most powerful entity. Punjabis who represent 40% of the population constitute 90% of the armed forces. Pakistan's own history provides a prime case study of what happens when an ethnic group can no longer tolerate political and economic disregard. After a quarter century of strife the Bengalis rebelled, seceded and founded Bangladesh in 1971.

If the Balkanization solution is ever put in motion, accusations will surely fly that it's yet another example of U.S. imperialism and neoconservatism run amok. However, this would be a diplomatic and multilateral effort, plus, it is more about reversing the iniquities of British colonialism than it is building some new world order. 

Inherent Instability

Pakistan's problems began when the British drew its boundaries haphazardly, which was primarily a product of incompetence and haste than maniacal design. According to an article in the New York Times last year, British colonial officer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe was given six weeks to carve a Muslim-majority state from British India although he had never even been there before. Radcliffe's private secretary was quoted as saying that Sir Cyril "was a bit flummoxed by the whole thing. It was a rather impossible assignment, really. To partition that subcontinent in six weeks was absurd." It would be a comical anecdote except for the fact that hundreds of thousands of people died in the ethnic cleansing that followed as a direct result of British carelessness.

Pakistan's border with Afghanistan - the poorly-marked Durand Line - had been drawn in 1893, also by the British, but it was never meant to be a long-term legally-binding boundary. The faux demarcation split the Pashtuns in half. By reinstating the original natural boundaries, Pakistan's western provinces would be returned to Afghanistan and the Pashtun tribes would be reunited. Such a move would also remove a strategic advantage for the Afghan Taliban, who can easily blend in amongst fellow Pashtuns on the Pakistani side of the border today.

The British did not only gift Pakistan with lethal boundaries, according to renowned Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan inherited a "security state" from British rule, described by scholars as "the viceregal tradition" or "a permanent state of martial law". Intellectual Christopher Hitchens asserted Pakistan has been a fiefdom of the military for most of its short existence. As was once said of Prussia: Pakistan is not a country that has an army, but an army that has a country. Hitchens also said the country was doomed to be a dysfunctional military theocracy from day one - beginning with the very name of the country itself:

But then, there is a certain hypocrisy inscribed in the very origins and nature of "Pakistan". The name is no more than an acronym, confected in the 1930s at Cambridge University by a NW Muslim propagandist named Chaudhri Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Indus-Sind, plus the suffix "-stan," meaning "land." In the Urdu tongue, the resulting word means "Land of the Pure." The country is a cobbling together of regional, religious, and ethnic nationalisms, and its founding, in 1947, resulted in Pakistan's becoming, along with Israel, one of the two "faith-based" states to emerge from the partitionist policy of a dying British colonialism. Far from being a "Land of the Pure," Pakistan is one of the clearest demonstrations of the futility of defining a nation by religion, and one of the textbook failures of a state and a society.

Pakistan deteriorated throughout the decades because of its focus on building the military and developing Islamic extremist groups to use as weapons in their eternal obsessive struggle against India. It's true the U.S. helped Pakistan build these groups since the beginning of the Cold War, but America learned on 9/11 they had created a Frankenstein monster that now needed to be slain.

Many analysts have suggested India is less of a national security threat to Pakistan than its homegrown terrorist groups, many of which have openly declared their mission to topple the state, which would allow jihadists to secure nuclear materials. Yet, based on its strategic decision to foster extremism and its recent public support for Taliban rule in Afghanistan, it appears the biggest existential threat to Pakistan is its own political and military leaders.

The Prevailing Western View On Pakistan Part 1 of 2

Balkanizing Pakistan- A Collective National Security Strategy Breaking Pakistan To Fix It

by Nayyar Hashmey

In the upcoming post, Michael Hughes, a virulent Islamophobe, discusses the prospect of fragmenting Pakistan by an international force. For obvious reasons he avoids defining contours of such a force. The subject as writer himself says has been from its very outset, on the agenda of powers that helped create it.

This agenda has been very much a part of the overall schematics which a disintegrating British Empire then decided to meet her future imperialistic goals, but with a different cast.   

Before I put up this essay by Hughes, here now are some aspects of this so called balkanization, [presently being theoretised yet definitely programmed to cast the area in a new shape].

The author starts his essay with a thesis that Pakistan was created by world powers to meet their own hegemonic interests. Though partly correct, for the British did not want a huge Indian subcontinent with its vast human and natural resources, a huge land mass and geographically the most strategically placed region in Asia and thus had all the potentials to become a super power, the British had from the very beginning sensed the prospects of such a power and had endeavored as their futuristic goal, to keep the two major religious communities at daggers drawn. In this regard, the several hundred years rule of Muslim Mughal emperors was cited as the tyrannical rule of Muslims against the majority Hindus in the Indian subcontinent which was then called Hindostan.

Some time true but many times concocted excesses by Muslim rulers against their Hindu subjects were exploited to poison the minds of Hindu masses. Thus by design a big gulf was created between the two principal communities when the British preferred Hindus over Muslims in respect of employment, education and industrial development. Unfortunately the Muslim intelligentsia as well as the clergy strongly despised the western education and took it as a sin as it was from the frangi kafirs [the infidels from the west]. This created a big gap between Muslims and the Hindus resulting in Muslims’ backwardness in almost every sphere of life.

The power struggles between the Mughal rulers of Delhi versus the local Hindu Rajas both of whom fought wars to retain supremacy, further exacerbated such differences. The story of a Muslim Chieftain Afzal Khan versus Shiva Ji Rao which according to history books was stabbed by the latter when he had invited Afzal Khan to a dinner turned a story of wresting power from each other into a story of enmity between the Hindus and the Muslims.

The traditional attitude of Hindu clergy also played its own role to amplify these differences. The strong caste ridden character of Hinduism and its interpretation by Hindu priests especially against the low caste indigenous communities as well as the Muslims [whether they were converts from Hinduism or were the settled Indians who had come from neighboring countries like Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, and central Asia] as the shoodras or the untouchables.

The Hindu clergy exercised a policy of apartheid against Muslims particularly during the post Muhghal British India thus widening the gulf between Muslims and Hindus - resulting in outbreak of communal riots in different parts of India. One of this kind took place after the publication of the book Rangeela Rasool by its Hindu publisher Raj Pal who was sentenced [on 18^th Jan. 1927] to eighteen months imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 1000/- for provoking enmity between the Hindus and Muslims. The book was found to be a scurrilous satire on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). On 6^th April 1929, a Muslim youth Ilam Din stabbed Pal to death. The Lahore High Court found him guilty and sentenced him to death on 1 July, 1929. Three months later the sentence was carried out in
Mianwali jail.
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Persistent processions and demonstrations on the one hand and assurances by notables of the Muslim community on the other that peace and order will not be disturbed if his body was returned to his family and buried in Lahore, the authorities were convinced to comply with that demand. Ilam Din received a hero’s burial and was given the honorific title of Ghazi Ilam Din Shaheed by the Muslims. During this period Hindu and Muslim relations were very hostile.

Some Anand, originally from Lahore, a journalist and author of ‘Lahore, Portrait of a Lost City’ provides some further clues. He remarks: the Hindu and Muslim communities lived like two streams, flowing side by side but never meeting at any point. To keep away from the Muslims’ “polluting touch” the Hindus had set up many barriers in their daily life. My mother for example, would never allow any Muslim to enter her kitchen. No cooked food was accepted from them. I remember how, if any of our Muslim neighbors even sent any special dish for my father, it never went beyond the dining table, a place where she did not take her own food. While eating she would never allow any of her Muslim friends or neighbors to touch her. During my childhood such inhibitions were generally not observed by male members of educated Hindu families. [Women have always been more conservative in these matters]. Some decades earlier these rules formed a strict code of conduct for all, no matter how educated or enlightened a person might be.

The Hindus had always complained of Muslim fanaticism but they never understood that the walls they raised themselves could have not resulted in any other attitude…

Some Anand continues: It took many centuries for the Hindus to realize how absurd and harmful their anti Muslim prejudices were. In this respect the first current of change was felt during the Khilafat movement in the early twenties. Though the spirit of Hindu-Muslim amity received many reverses in later years, at the social level the urban elite had changed its code of conduct for the better. This was due in part, to Western education. What this change meant was evident in my father’s attitude. When he was young, my mother used to recall, he would come back to change his clothes if a Muslim touched him while walking in the bazaar, but during my childhood in Model Town Lahore, father had several Muslim friends and he considered my mother’s inhibitions a sign of backwardness.

It was in these environments during different stages of history that the British exploited differences between British India’s two major communities.

Jaswant Singh’s Book, Jinnah, India-Partition, independence, gives further insight to Hindu-Muslim politics in pre-partition India.

The British exploited these differences to an extent that in 1940 the Muslim community felt compelled to move the 1940 Lahore resolution for an independent homeland for Muslims of British India.

The British imperialist designs and the stubbornness of All India Congress not to accommodate Muslim League in United India’s political and administrative structure did contribute to formation of Pakistan, this by no mean justifies, however, the writer’s contention that the creation of Pakistan as an independent homeland for Muslims was solely a British project. Though the British in the beginning did support the idea of a separate homeland for India’s Muslims, in fact they never wanted an independent, sovereign and powerful Pakistan. The real objective was to use Pakistan as a lever to extract concessions from All India Congress, which is why they tried their utmost to make Pakistan a weakling — to serve the imperial interests of Great Britannia. 

Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins have in their book ‘Freedom at Midnight’ elaborated how far the British viceroy Lord Mountbatten went to woo the All India Congress and all that at the expense of Pakistan and the Muslims. Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had always demonstrated his yearnings for a united India but the gulf that had already emerged from thousands years of living together but living in two different streams made the Muslims of India to seek some sort of identity. Now if the western writers including Hughes think that Pakistan is merely a product of religious frenzy fanned up by British to augment their own imperial interests in the post WWII scenario and now it is again in the interest of the same imperial forces to balkanize it, is entirely a wrong thesis, a thesis that might serve the interests of neo-imperialists but in no way suits the people of Pakistan.

The mess to which Pakistan has been thrown in to – by the same imperialists forces [but in collusion with the Pakistani politicians and the military playing a subservient role to the wishes of their masters in London and Washington, no doubt supports Hughes hypothesis but Hughes and those of his ilk should not forget, similar hypotheses were proferred, projected and propagated as words of eternal wisdom when the former Shah was in such a firm saddle. That Khomeini and his followers will be defeated in the same manner and style as they had been able to during Dr. Mosaddeg’s premiership proved those last words of wisdom were nothing but a figment of imagination that in a nu blew up in the air.

The Shah had to leave his imperial throne seeking asylum from one place to another. So things might appear as very bad, very sad and very depressing in Pakistan but we Pakistanis, the people of this country do see light after this night of darkness for the elites, the feudal lords and the privileged classes of Pakistan did not care for us then as they do it now BUT the people who throughout history have demonstrated a resilience to bear all bumps and jumps will definitely stand up to save their homeland. Light is bound to appear one day.
 If Hughes tries to recommend fragmentation of Pakistan through an international force, it is in fulfillment of the same old agenda which was set in 1947, i.e. fragment first India, then Pakistan and finally fragment the whole of South Asia so that it remains a tattering group of small states [and this includes Indian Union too for even in its present geography the state is too big to be acceptable to the Am-Brits’ ultimate imperial interests.

Next: Part 2 of 2

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21st century ‘Great Game’: Reko Diq and Beyond

WE, the paid mercenaries doing master’s bidding but not invited to dine, at the table

Ikram Sehgal

Rudyard Kipling’s 19th-century “Great Game” encompassed mostly the region mow comprising Pakistan and Afghanistan and adjacent areas. It remained an area of turmoil in the 20th century. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent events that led to the ouster of Soviet forces and the emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the last decade of the past century brought things to a head.

Who Is Selling This Gold Mine?

The mine is expected to produce 200,000 tons of copper and 250,000 ounces of gold annually

$260 Billion Gold Mines Going For A Song, Behind Closed Doors

by Ikram Sehgal

Reko Diq is a remote location in the north-west of Chagai, a sparsely populated district in north-western Balochistan. The weather in the desert there ranges from searing summers of 40-50°C to freezing winters of down to –10°C, with precipitations (winter rain and some snowfall) of less than 40mm. Periods of high wind and dust- and sandstorms have a demobilising impact on local activities and trade. Access to Chagai district is from the Zahidan-Quetta highway.

The Indus Civilisation

"BORING NO MORE"

HORNED GODDESS ... depiction. It's dated 6,000 BC and has been found at Mehrgarh site, in the then Ancient Balochistan, the earliest phase of Pakistan’s Indus Valley Civilisation."

by Nayyar Hashmey

Since start of humanity’s civilized settlements on this planet, man has always tried to trace its origin. Consequent to this endeavor, archeological excavations were undertaken all over and conclusive evidence on many ancient civilizations gathered. In this regard, holy scriptures of Muslims, Jews, Christians and other religions / beliefs were a big source to educate and guide researchers about those ancient people and their civilizations

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In Holy Quran there is a complete discourse over such ancient civilizations; civilizations which prospered and then perished during different time periods of ancient history. In Bible’s old and new testaments too, there is a mention of such civilizations. The three holy books carry details of the life and time of prophet Abraham that period related to civilization in Mesopotamia in present day Iraq. Places like Ur, Babel and Nineveh belong to the same region. That period probably dates to 4000-5000 BCE. It has been a common belief that Mesopotamians were the oldest, and the successive ones were the people in the ancient Indus Valley.

The archeological excavations, however, done at Harappa and Moenjo Daro in present day Pakistan reveal the people in Indus Valley were no less advanced and culturally rich than the civilizations in Mesopotamia or Egypt. But many things remained unexplained and so remain till this day.  Even today there is no conclusive edict about the Indus script. There is also a school of thought which considers these signs as a depiction of certain figures only and no alphabets at all. Contrary to this there are many who believe the script is agglutinative and hieroglyphic, much older than the one found in Egypt and Sumer. The ancient Indus script was to some extent deciphered by famous Pakistani archeologist Dr. Ahmed Hassan Dani, yet a full understanding of the language is still puzzle to all archeologists.

Fortunately new studies are on the way. Many excavations have been done in recent times especially by US and European teams. In their pursuit they have dug out places, some by chance, many by man’s inquisitive approach to find its anthropological origin and thus discovered many such sites where remains of ancient civilizations lie buried for centuries. This includes the Indus Valley Civilisation as well.

Researchers like Andrew Lawler hint on the changing views of scientists about the Indus. These views throw new light on how does IVC compare to its other contemporaries (Mesopotamia and Egypt) and of what might have happened to it all. These things are undergoing stark and important reconsideration, says Lawler. The scientists consider it to be “BORING NO MORE” and indeed the emerging new understanding of the Indus Civilisation, suggests that it might have been a power house of commerce and technology in the third millennium BC”.

In June last year, in a cover story Andrew Lawler (Science vol 320, p 1278-1285), says a fellow blogger Dr. Adil Najam (pakistaniat.com) in a post on his site, “Much has been written about the Indus Civilization including fascinating and detailed reports in the National Geographic etc. but the Science report is different because it highlights, how our scientific in this case archeological – knowledge on the subject is not only expanding, but changing. As says Lawler, “Boring No More, a trade savvy Indus Emerges.”

Striking new evidence from a host of excavations on both sides of the tense border that separates India and Pakistan has now definitively overturned that second class status. No longer is the Indus the plain cousin of Egypt and Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC. Archeologists now realize that the Indus diversified its grand neighbors, in land, area and population, surpassed them in many areas of engineering and technology and was an aggressive player during humanity’s first globalization 5000 years ago.

The old notion that the Indus, people were an insular, homogenous egalitarian brunch is being replaced by a view of diverse and dynamic society that stretched from the Arabian Sea to the foothills of Himalaya and was eager to do business with peoples from Afghanistan to Iraq. And the Indus people worried enough about the privileges of their elite to build the thick walls and to protect them.

“This idea that the Indus was dull and monolithic – that’s all nonsense”, says Louis Fram, another archeologist at the City University of New York. According to Fram, who has worked in Pakistan, there was a tremendous amount of variety.

“These people were aggressive traders, there is no doubt about it, adds [Gregory] Possehl of the University of Pennsylvania], who has found Indus style pottery made from Gujarat clay at a dig in Oman. Shehnaz Sheikh Vice Chancellor, Shah Bhitai University, takes the assertion a step further, arguing that “the Indus people were controlling the trade; they controlled the quarries, the trade routes and they knew where the markets were”. Thus ends Adal Najam his highly interesting post. But the story goes still further.

An example of modern-day dental work

Tiny holes found in teeth suggest even prehistoric man may have had to fear the dentist's drill.

In 2000-2003, teams led by archeologist Andrea Cucina visited the area around Mehrgarh. There they found signs of human settlement dating back to a period 9000 years BC. Surprisingly they also found remains which show dental decay which might have been treated 8,000-9,000 years ago.

It is some of the earliest evidence of dentistry. 

“It is very tantalising to think they had such knowledge of health and cavities and medicine to do this” says Professor Andrea Cucina of the University of Missouri-Columbia

The people of that time and area were extremely sophisticated not only in controlling the anguish and pain to human body; they also cultivated crops and made intricate jewellery from shells, amethysts and turquoise. But before this discovery was made, no one was aware they also had dentistry skills.

Cucina, from the University of Missouri-Columbia made the discovery when he was cleaning the teeth from one of the men in year 2000.

Under a microscope, the scientists discovered the holes were too perfectly round to have been caused by bacteria. But they did see concentric grooves left by what they think was a drill with a tiny stone bit. Although no drill has been found, archaeologists discovered beads of the same 2.5mm diameter as the holes found in the teeth, indicating the people did have the capacity to do delicate work.

The physical anthropologist who carried out the examinations, Professor Cucina said the work could have been done to treat tooth decay, and suggested some plant or other material, which would have since decayed, could have been inserted into the hole.

The archaeologist discovered perfect tiny holes in two molar teeth from the remains of different men.

Through their breakthrough work, the two world renown archeologists (Jean-François Jarrige and Anrea Cucina) have enabled us know the Mehrgarh man, who has thus proved his advancement in the dental surgery right at the start of humanity on this planet. Researchers now agree that Indus Civilisation originally started to develop in Mehrgrah and its surroundings and these people later moved around the river Indus because of its fertile delta.

Now rivers have always been the centres to attract human settlements; as means of transport and above all a continuous source of nourishment as water has always been, now and then too a sustainer of life (human beings, animals and plants). This very fact seems to have motivated rather forced the people to migrate to much fertile lands around Indus which later turned into a highly developed Indus Valley Civilisation of Moenjo Daro and Harappa.

Mehrgarh... The Lost Civilisation [Part 1 of 4]

            The people of Mehrgarh in ancient Pakistan were the First to start a community life in human history.  They knew the art of making fabric “just” 9000 years ago and had an organized social life when the humanity at large was ‘housed’ in caves.

        The First Urban Settlement in Human History

by Mahmood Mahmood

             The origin of man on this earth is one of the most mysterious and intriguing questions boggling the human mind. The search for the origin of man’s endeavors, therefore, and any traces of these activities is rightly considered a step forward in the solution of the jigsaw puzzle of human endurance and survival.