M B Naqvi

The writer is a well-known journalist and freelance columnist

mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

Saturday's (January 12's) speech by President Pervez Musharraf certainly represents a courageous new beginning by a general. Perhaps only a general could have done so. However, he has to pay the price of forfeiting the support of the much-hyped lobby that was puffed up by the so-called establishment far beyond its true strength. While Musharraf has to prosecute the new initiatives resolutely, he would need to mobilise the support of true modernists, liberals and other progressives many of whom would insist on strict rule of law, free and transparent elections and genuine democracy. Support of timeservers, careerists and habitual like-minded (with the ruler of the day) is neither here nor there. The general-President has also to anyhow cope with unrelenting American and Indian pressures for curbing Islamic fanaticism during the electioneering, polls and effecting amendments in the much-mangled constitution for legalising his own status.

It is a bagful to do, no doubt. Curbing Islamic extremism by a non-democratic military government - all the predecessors of which have fomented it - can only be a tricky business. The kind of politics on which the permanent (or invisible) government of this hapless country has relied on was based on heavy emotionalism: the Kashmir dispute was exploited and an anti-India psychosis was promoted that gradually yielded it the Jihad in Kashmir, nuclear capability, militarisation of the society, sectarian terror, growing breakdown of law and order, Jihadi culture, drugs and Kalashnikovs everywhere - not necessarily in this order. Indeed, a pathological anti-Hindu sentiment was promoted as a glue that was to hold Pakistan together and counteract the regional nationalists' campaign against an unnecessarily strong centre sans democracy. Now, this military government is embarking on undoing all that - if only it correctly understands the concomitants of what is required to be done and how best to go about it.

It is not an impossible task. But for that there should be some accountability of those who put the country on a course that yielded the current unsustainable situation. External manifestations of what they achieved were two: Taliban rule in Afghanistan and (violent) Jihad in Kashmir, while a Jihadi culture and almost perpetual military rule inside the country were the harvest in the domestic sphere. The Americans however, press-gauged Pakistan into a global anti-Taliban and anti-Al Qaeda campaign and put paid to Taliban rule.

Indians have thought it to be the right time to force the issue of Kashmir insurgency. US President George Bush and British PM Tony Blair have bought the Indian line hook, line and sinker: what is going on in Kashmir is terrorism and it is being supported by Pakistan. The line also included that last year's December 13 and October 1 terrorist attacks on Indian Parliament and Srinagar Assembly were masterminded by terrorist groups based in Pakistan. India made the suspicion of Islamabad's complicity the basis for an intended punitive military campaign and massed 700,000 troops on Pakistan borders. The west did not overtly endorse all the Indian charges but it also did not express any clear disbelief of Pakistan's possible culpability. Many Pakistanis subscribe to the conspiracy theory that holds India's BJP government to be in cahoots with the US, Britain and others with the aim of knocking the stuffing out of Islamic extremism and its backers.

This unsustainable situation has long been in the making; it was the logical culmination of the militaristic mindset that has ruled Pakistan ever since 1953. Pakistanis began talking seriously of isolation in the wake of 1998 nuclear test explosions and Kargil operations, complete with the fourth military takeover. After the U-turn in Afghanistan policy and Islamabad's joining of the World Coalition against Terror, it was supposed that Pakistan was no longer isolated. But look again. Early in January, with the possible exception of China, which other power stood behind Pakistan? The latter's isolation on the question of Jihad in Kashmir is complete. Not that the world ignores the Kashmiris' wishes and desires for Azadi. Only, it does not approve the methodology Pakistan has employed in sympathising with Kashmiris.

Credibility of the change demands one consequential, if specific, measure: ridding Pakistan politics of the blight that is inaccurately expressed as 'agencies' or ISI. Insofar as ISI is concerned, it has earned such a bad name that it has to be disbanded altogether. It is the mother of many evils; its hysterectomy is indicated. If counter espionage does require a separate military agency, in addition to the federal government's civilian one, let them set up another. But it should have nothing to do with domestic political matters. Nor should it trespass into the field of external relations. It should not do things that ISI has been doing: such as running a foreign policy of its own, raising a battalion of columnists in the print medium or engaging in political skulduggery of its own. In short, no military agency, ISI or MI, should have anything to do with political matters. Period.

There are also grounds for a major rethink. How and why it is that 54 years after independence Pakistan remains an unstable state where democracy has not worked. It has the melancholy distinction of having indulged in what was a civil war and suffered a crushing military defeat - and was dismembered. Its economy is on a life-support drip, requiring much foreign support. It is in no shape to bear the burden of the war that India may still be threatening. Indians know this and are more confident in bullying Islamabad rulers. The militaristic thinking that helped convert the peaceful Kashmiris' protest movement into an insurgency circa 1990 was based on arrogance of power: 'now that we have acquired the nuclear capability, we can do anything in Kashmir and, thanks to it, India can do nothing but writhe in pain'. Indians by their challenge on the borders have shown that they are no longer overawed by Pakistani Bomb. They have their own, only larger. Both are back to square one of 1965. New thinking is therefore a must.

The new initiatives - obviously based on new thinking - have to be thorough-going and all their concomitants have to be implemented, if they have to succeed. Having made the departure from old postulates, there is no option but to ensure their success. The task is to transform the society as it now is into, at the very least, what it was before General Ziaul Haq's Islamisation of an otherwise quite Islamic country began. Zia's net contribution was to define Islam in orthodox (sectarian) terms. If we have to undo his mischief, we must think of what can replace it and how it is to be done.

If sectarian terror is to be fought against, all that sustains sectarianism - and indeed all religious intolerance - has to be replaced with tolerant pluralism. Let all beliefs flourish and co-exist side by side peacefully and in amity. Tolerance has to extend to all religions and other forms of beliefs. How to set up such a tolerant and plural society is the urgent task General Musharraf has undertaken. He should mobilise reliable support and go on acting courageously.

The political conditions that encourage and favour tolerance and pluralism have to ensure, maximum and secure freedoms for all citizens without discrimination. Political institutions and procedures must not prefer one religion over others and the state or government ought not to be allowed to interfere with the people's beliefs or observances. The resources of the state must transparently be devoted to improvements in people's living conditions in an ambience where popular wishes are freely expressed and the government has to implement them.