Dr Farrukh Saleem

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist

farrukh15@hotmail.com

Run a Pakistan-wide survey asking Pakistanis to rank their priorities on Kashmir, education, health, employment, the defence budget and a war with India. Odds are that employment, health and education will be chosen way ahead of Kashmir. A similar survey of our civilian or uniformed leaders will put Kashmir at the very top. That has indeed been our real national dilemma.

When our strategic assets came under American threat our commander-in-chief had agreed to put "Pakistan first" (ahead of Afghanistan). Can a lesser threat persuade us to rearrange our priorities on Kashmir? Privately, a number of our civilian politicians agree that Pakistan must be put ahead of Kashmir. Publicly, 'political sagacity' somehow stands in their way of being honest either with themselves or their poor constituents. The hypocrisy gets them at the end (and the military takes over). The civilian leadership has long been buying the military line on Kashmir and, as a consequence, continues to pay for their mistake quite dearly.

The military soul is split right now. The mind favours Pakistan but the heart remains lost somewhere in Kashmir. Our "Kashmir first" stance has meant an allocation of Rs157 billion for defence (38% of tax revenue) and Rs316 billion for debt servicing. The two put together an amount to 113% of our entire tax collection. That's where the vicious cycle begins. Our civilian politicians take over and discover that there is no money left in the treasury to satisfy the real demands-employment, health and education-of their constituents. They fail. And, this failure is then used up by their uniformed counterparts as a justification to snatch power away from them.

Non-uniformed politicians remain glued to the "Kashmir first" policy and the cycle just repeats itself every three to five years. Unemployment, illiteracy, the defence budget and Kashmir are all parts of the same equation. We are illiterate and we have unemployment because we have a defence budget that is too big for an economy our size. Bangladesh, an economy comparable to our own, spends $559 million on defence per year while we end up spending close to $3,000 million. No one is saying that half of the six hundred and twenty thousand active duty troops should be laid off (simply because the private sector is not vibrant enough to absorb them).

Pay them each Rs4, 000 a month for an accumulated annual payroll of Rs30 billion (remember, the current allocation is Rs157 billion).

Over time, everything in this country has become India-centric. We are not even trying to be Pakistan all we are is 'not India' (or at best a pathetically poor refuge for subcontinental Muslims). Somewhere along the way of becoming 'not India' we dumped our institutional capacity to learn from past follies or to implement any meaningful reform.

Our Afghan folly's cost must have been a billion dollars. Cost of our Kashmir stance $35 billion. Our nuclear walk another $10 billion. September 11 impregnated sense into our Afghan policy. The $35 billion Kashmir toll would now have to be written off. Next to see the light of the day would be our nuclear dance. The bomb hasn't done a thing for us. It didn't save us from the Kargil humiliation. It couldn't salvage our "strategic depth" in Afghanistan. Neither can it play any role in our current confrontation with India. To be sure, every single reform is being externally imposed. To be certain, the new U-turns are all in the interest of common Pakistanis (as oppose to Pakistani leaders as has always been the case).

Here's, however, the real problem: Every reform policy means potential victims and potential beneficiaries. Moving away from our long-held "Kashmir first" position shall hurt army the most. The long list of potential beneficiaries, on the other hand, includes everyone and anyone who does not wear an officer's uniform, lives below the level of poverty, is illiterate and malnourished or is not an arms supplier. Unfortunately, as long as the potential victims of a reform policy hold the reigns of power in a country reform is unlikely to take roots.

For a quarter century, Bangladesh remained undisputedly Pakistan. That is something Kashmir never was. We will die for Kashmir but let go off Bangladesh. The Taka was once worth Rs0.60. It has since appreciated by a hundred percent. The revenue receipts in Bangladesh stand at Taka 27,239 crore while the allocation for defence is Taka 3,534 crore; less than 13% of revenue. How many times has India invaded that Muslim country?

In September, they all came and told us that our president was "brave and courageous". Now they come and extract promises under duress from the same man. At least every other minute our general is required to renew his pledge of being against "terrorism in all its forms and manifestation". They, however, remain unconvinced as if the general were playing a double game of some sort.

To be sure, American, Indian and British interests vis-a-vis Pakistan are converging fast. Pakistan beware, a new coalition is in the making. We, somehow, continue to look at ourselves and see a pious, moral state. The world around us sees something very different. Somebody I know has a rather interesting way of looking at things. He looked at the 11-page 'Kathmandu Declaration' signed by Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (the Declaration calls for a "comprehensive and a sustained fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestation") and questioned as to which country is the declaration directed at? Which of the seven Saarc member states is, in the eyes of the world, considered a terrorist? Then there is the 'New Delhi Declaration' signed by Blair and Vajpayee, again calling at ending terrorism. Is India the terrorist or is it Britain? Who is the Delhi Declaration's target?

When President Musharraf somersaulted on Afghanistan he represented the feelings of over 90% of Pakistanis. On Kashmir, the same majority shall now favour a "Pakistan first" once again.