Pakistan: A Possible Future

Copyright © 2019 K. Tausif Kamal.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-8409-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8408-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8410-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019917835

Archway Publishing rev. date: 01/02/2020

Other Works by the Author

K. Tausif Kamal, U.S. Immigration Laws: How to Apply

(Chapel Hill, NC: Professional Press, 1994),

US Library of Congress: ISBN-13-978-1880365885.

Dedication

For the agonized people of Pakistan.

And for my late mother, Bilquis Jehan Begum, the most amazing, loving woman in my life.

Contents

Foreword

CHAPTER 1     Crisis Galore

CHAPTER 2     Moving Forward

CHAPTER 3     Introspection: Assault on the Constitution

CHAPTER 4     Correcting the Constitution

CHAPTER 5     Pakistani Welfare Nationalism

CHAPTER 6     Reforming the Institutions

CHAPTER 7     Fighting Terrorism and Extremism

CHAPTER 8     Strategizing the Economy

CHAPTER 9     Modernizing the Environment

CHAPTER 10   Changing State Policy

CHAPTER 11   Food for Thought

CHAPTER 12   Conclusion

Epilogue

References

Foreword

Pakistan is world’s sixth largest country with a population of 212 million people and a land mass of 881,913 square kilometers, including a coastline of about a thousand kilometers on the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman. It’s also the world’s second largest state in terms of population- after Indonesia. Its landscape is as diverse as its ethnic people, areas ranging from the stunning mountainous beauty of the northwest province of Khyber Pashtun Khwa province (KPK) and the Gilgit-Hunza (GB) regions in the northeast to the fertile plains of Panjab province and rugged hills of Balochistan province to the deserts of Sindh province. Islamabad is the capital city, but Karachi is its biggest city. It’s a nuclear-powered country with the world’s sixth largest army and a per capita income of about $1,500 per year.

Rich in history and tradition, Pakistan is home of one of world’s oldest civilization, the 1,700 BC Mohenjadaro (a UNESCO’s World Heritage site) and Harrapa civilization in Sindh and Panjab provinces that are part of the overarching Indus Valley civilization of the country. Majestic River Indus is the country’s artery. Originating in the northern mountain ranges it, along with its five tributaries, flows through the plains of Panjab and Sindh into the Arabian Sea, providing a lifeline of water for fertile agriculture. Karakoram mountain rage in the north has some of world’s highest peaks including the second highest K-2 peak (28,000 feet) and scenic beauty in Swat, Hunza, Gilgit and Baltistan region.

Pakistan was established on August 14, 1947, after the bloody partition of India by Britain as a result of demand for a separate and independent homeland for the Muslims of India by the Muslim League Party, which was spearheaded by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, its founding father. ¹ It has had an eventful, unstable political history because of wars with India, military coups, and experiments in democracy.² In the 1971 war with India, its eastern wing separated from the country and created an independent and sovereign country, Bangladesh.³,⁴.⁵

In 1958, its first military coup was executed by General Ayub Khan, who then ruled as president. Subsequently in 1977, the popularly elected Prime Minster Z. A. Bhutto was deposed and hanged by General Zia ul Haq who brought a rigid Islamist rule. In 1988, Benazir Bhutto became its prime minister, the first Muslim woman in the Islamic world to achieve this status, but tragically, she was assassinated in a terrorist bombing in 2007. General Parvez Musharraf seized power in 2001 through a coup overthrowing the democratic government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. After a series of judiciary’s improper removals and disqualifications of elected prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Yusuf Gilani, general elections were held in 2018, and they installed chief of PTI party, Imran Khan, as the current prime minister.

Pakistan is basically an agricultural country producing and exporting cotton, wheat rice, sugarcane, and other crops. However, it’s gradually transforming itself into a partially industrialized nation. Its national language is Urdu, though it has four regional languages—Panjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, and Pushto.

CHAPTER 1

Crisis Galore

T his book is not about Pakistan’s past but rather about its future—a possible future, not a guaranteed future. As such, it’s not intended for just the cognoscenti but for the people at large.

Viable or Not

Pakistan is a country full of riddles, says noted historian of Pakistan Ayesha Jalal in her book The Struggle for Pakistan. As she puts it, It is a state which was created out of confusion and contradictions, and a state yet to build up a nation within. ¹ Yes, the enigma of Pakistan endures and continues, though a bit falteringly.

Even after a span of seventy years of Pakistan’s existence as a nation-state, the fact that questions of its continued viability are still being raised is an indication of the politically shaky grounds the country stands on. In the scholarly words of Jalal, The logic of its creation and the causes of its survival are two questions that need to be answered by scholars of generations. True that the logic of its creation is yet to be conclusively established: it’s still being debated. But the second query about the causes of country’s survival is akin to begging the question. After all, the country has survived through wars, natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, famines, wars, the separation of half of its region, near bankruptcy, destructive religious fanaticism, bloodthirsty terrorism, military coups, Indo-Pak wars, and political dysfunction.

The country’s constitution is under siege, a far cry from being a unifying and inspiring lodestar for its besieged citizens. However, the lugubrious landscape of the nation does not necessarily spell its doom. Its continuity against unfavorable odds demonstrates its resiliency and survival skills. Having reached another inflection point in its national journey, we must ask if the country will be able to successfully navigate the machinations of its rulers ensorcelled by power and pelf?

Through a certain kind of resiliency and remnant nationalism, Pakistan has continued on its dogged and, as some would say, foolhardy existence as a nation-state, even though beset by formidable challenges that are topped by some burgeoning existential threats highlighted below;

Five Existential Threats

1. Terrorism: Both the domestic and cross-border variety of terrorism is a huge threat for the country’s political sovereignty, and this existential threat that is not going away. The former has caused thousands of deaths and destruction and destabilized the country while the latter has triggered hostilities with Pakistan’s neighboring nations. It has ignited border hostilities with Afghanistan and Iran and wars with India.

2. Ethnic uprisings: Broadly speaking, there are four ethnic uprisings in various stages. The Baloch uprising is the hottest one with its BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army) and other wings. The nonviolent Pashtun resentment in FATA and KPK is captured by the growing PTM (Pashtun Tahafuz Movement). Ethnic discontent in Sindh is simmering in its urban areas by the MQM Party (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) and the Sindh nationalist groups in rural Sindh.

3. Population growth rate: Pakistan’s 2% growth rate of its population is among the highest in the world. even twice that of its teeming neighbors, India and Bangladesh. Its estimated that its population will double by 2050, a recipe for existential disaster given its limited resources. ²

4. Water scarcity: So severe is the country’s water problem that currently its listed as being in a water crisis. Available water per capita on an annual basis has been reduced from 1,500 cubic feet in 2009 to 1,000 cubic feet in 2018. Its predicted that Pakistan would face a drought level water crisis by the year 2025 if drastic steps are not taken to resolve it. ³

5. Debt and poverty: Pakistan is drowning in debts and liabilities. Its total public debt, which includes external debt of about $100 billion, is about 70 percent of its annual GDP. About forty-five million of its people are barely living below the poverty line and earning less than two dollars per day. Its economic indicators are reaching a tipping point when one looks at the continued viability of the state. ⁴.⁵

CHAPTER 2

Moving Forward

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

—Winston Churchill

T hough Pakistan is not exactly going through hell, there is no doubt that its going through a very tough time, and as stated, its only path is forward. Standing still, stuck in the wet concrete of the past, and conducting business as usual is not an option. For future survival Pakistan must strive forward and change along the direction of a non-revisionist, nonviolent, peaceful, tolerant, moderate, market-oriented, modern nation-state. Innovation, reformation, ¹ new ideas, and new ways of looking at things along with incremental and pragmatic approaches are all needed, and this book outlines such an attempt. ²

Blueprint for Possible Success

Chapter 1 (Crisis Galore) highlights the core problems facing the country, while chapter 2 (Moving Forward), chapter 3 (Introspection: Assault on the Constitution), chapter 4 (Correcting the Constitution), chapter 5 (Pakistani Welfare Nationalism), chapter 6 (Reforming the Institutions), chapter 7 (Fighting Terrorism and Extremism), chapter 8 (Strategizing the Economy), chapter 9 (Modernizing the Environment), chapter 10 (Changing State Policy), chapter 11 (Food for Thought), chapter 12 (Conclusion), and the Epilogue point to a balanced, pragmatic, and possible way to achieve the objectives of growth, prosperity, and viability of a transformed modern Pakistan state.

No Revolution

Some say that the decay in the country and its institutions is total, and since the cancer has engulfed the entire system, a complete transplantation of a successful model from a foreign nation is needed. But the country might not be able to survive this radical surgery given the precarious condition of the patient. A better analogy is to repair the decadent national denture one tooth at a time so that the country can begin to bite again. Some institutional teeth may just need cleansing. Others may need filings in the cavities, and other seriously rotten institutions may require root canals. Still, those beyond repair would have to be extracted, and new institutional models may need to be implanted in their places.

In the same vein that the country’s institutions are beyond repair, its socioeconomic system and political order are beyond redemption, some call for a full-fledged revolution in the country, a complete rejection of the constitution, and an overthrow of all social and economic institutions resulting in a massive, fundamental transformation of society. Some blame the half-hearted, haphazard application of the so-called Pakistan ideology (read Islamic) for the ills of the country. However, the era of revolutions and ideologies seems to be on the wane. The last full-scale revolution was Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1970s, and look what it has done to the lives of people there. Furthermore, this era of ideologies seems to be over as witnessed by the failure of socialism in Russia and elsewhere.

Effective Democracy

Pakistan is in the process of discovering that holding periodic elections do not constitute democracy. Elections are no doubt its important facet, but they are the means, not an end. A restrained but effective democracy is the call of the hour for Pakistan.⁶ The goal of a democracy, restrained or not, is to have a representative government that is responsive to the needs of the people, that delivers the public good, that provides progress and prosperity, and that serves the interests of the citizens and the state. How the country can move forward and possibly meet this overriding challenge is recommended in the following chapters. These measures include streamlining Pakistan’s various institutions and governance in a phased approach; adopting a dynamic, motivational, and aspiring nationalism (Pakistan welfare nationalism); implementing new constructive and rewarding foreign and security policy; modernizing the social environment; executing a market-oriented economic strategy; and eviscerating the scourge of terrorism and extremism.

Pakistani democracy is a very fragile plant that needs constant vigilance and nurturing. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Zibleth (How Democracies Die) contend, Democracies die not only though military coercion but also at the hands of its elected rulers. ⁷ This maxim has been so true in the case of Pakistan. Saplings of democracy along with people’s hopes and aspirations for its growth have not only been quashed by military coups and generals’ greed but have also been subverted by elected rulers. It’s a lesson that must be learned by the civilian rulers as well.

For a democratic order to sustain itself and flourish, constitutional rule and strong institutions, though essential requirements, are not enough without the prevalence of the values, practices, and norms of democracy. ⁵ As the democratic norms in a society, including free debates, discussion of issues in the marketplace of ideas, tolerance of dissenting views, and a respect for law and the rights of others, wither away, so does democracy. Pakistan’s greatest challenge would be to build a tolerant, progressive, multiethnic order based on political and social equality of all citizens, guided and spearheaded by visionary and sincere political leaders. As the renowned intellectual and commentator Charles Krauthammer cautioned, "Politics is the moat, the walls