Wars have reversed the order of nature for millennia. Herodotus, a 5th-century Greek historian, is the father of history. In his epic work, The Histories, he writes, “In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.” This poignant reminder of the true cost of war conveys the devastating impact on families and communities. Above all, it highlights the consequential imperative of peace and the immense responsibility of those who lead us to ensure it.
The most profound thing that came out of the six-hour huddle of the recent Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) was General Asim Munir’s words: “For how long will we continue to fill the gaps of governance with the blood of our armed forces and martyrs?”
An agonizing question, it was a true indictment of the abject failure of governance. However, it compartmentalized government as an independent domain. Herein lies the crux of our dilemma. Ruled for over three decades by military governments, the intransigence of our civilian governments, otherwise autocratic in their own right, made them vulnerable to manipulations. In his farewell speech, Gen. Qamar Bajwa conceded the telltale reality of the military meddling in politics for decades.
The National Action Plan, forged with a rare national consensus, was to combat terrorism through judicial reforms, strengthened law enforcement, and measures against terror financing. It also called for reconciliation efforts in Balochistan alongside necessary kinetic operations.
The National Counter Terrorism Authority, founded in 2009, was envisioned as the lead counterterrorism agency. Since its inception, it has faced budget constraints and bureaucratic obstacles. Like the NAP, its dismal performance is rooted in implementation, not in its conception.
A prerequisite of able governance is political legitimacy. It ensures the all-important consent of the governed. The dearth of this legitimacy has resulted in political alienation and a profound sense of estrangement from the political system and its processes.
PTI did not attend the PCNS huddle, and political parties were headed by constitutionalists such as Mahmood Achakzai, Akhtar Mengal, and Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch. What could be a greater detriment to the PCNS’s stated aim than the non-participation of political parties with their largest support base in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the two provinces wracked by ever-escalating violence and militancy?
In his Pakistan Day speech, the president reminded us that the objective of Pakistan’s creation was a welfare state based on equality, justice, and the rule of law. A Pakistan Institute of Development Economics 2024 report reveals that 70% of Balochistan’s population lives below the poverty line, followed by 48% of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Sindh and Punjab present a dismal picture, too, with 45% and 30%, respectively. 78 years on, this stark reality, compounded by the justice system and the rule of law that we have, is a scathing indictment of our negating the very objective of the creation of Pakistan.
Claims of enemies fermenting unrest and terrorism in Pakistan are true. Enemies being enemies, the question remains: Did our ruling dispensations deny them the feeding ground and enabling environment? Ajit Doval’s threats regarding India’s designs to disrupt Pakistan’s sovereignty in Balochistan are an integral and very public part of the Modi/Doval doctrine.
Nearly two decades back, US military scholars and training programs at NATO’s Defense College were wargaming the rearrangement of Pakistan’s borders. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors on strategy for military journals and US foreign policy, retired to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the US Defense Department. In the June 2006 issue of The Armed Forces Journal, he writes, “Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of a separate country. Greater Balochistan and NWFP (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) should be incorporated into Afghanistan because of its linguistic and ethnic affinity.”
Michel Chossudovsky has authored the international bestseller America’s War on Terrorism. Using the Kosovo Liberation Army as an example, he warns that “a similar civil war scenario has been envisaged for Pakistan. US intelligence is experienced in abetting liberation armies. Greater Albania is to Kosovo what Greater Balochistan is to Pakistan.”
Robert Kaplan is the bestselling author of 22 books on foreign affairs. In his Forbes article “Rearranging the Subcontinent,” published in 2014, he expresses the same views. He notes that “geography has been the predominant factor in determining the fate of nations.” Will bad governance and lack of political legitimacy in Pakistan lead to economic mismanagement and chaos? A 2005 National Intelligence Council-CIA report predicted a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan, pointing to the impacts of economic mismanagement as one cause of political breakup and balkanization.
Economic mismanagement is a term used by the US-centric international financial institutions to describe the results of not fully abiding by the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program. This is a proven harbinger of triggering hyperinflation and pushing indebted countries into further poverty. It also coerces the fire sale of natural reserves and SOEs in the garb of reforms.
Quoting again from Chossudovsky’s The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, “In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. The reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics.” IMF bailouts have been and remain our ruling dispensation’s claim to fame.
Oblivious to our being on an economic ventilator and despite our vulnerability of a 3,323 km border with an ever-hostile India, described as one of the most dangerous ones in the world, we chose to be willing pawns in geostrategic games. The result compromised our 2,611 km western border, too. It wrought destruction and destitution in Pakistan.
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee, which started as a peaceful forum to raise the issue of missing persons, was treated with the usual contempt and disdain. Dominated and led by young, educated women activists, it now holds sway over the whole province. In a conservative (self-centered) Sardar-controlled province, this is a radical departure from what our power elite has handled for decades with its carrot-and-stick policy.
Peaceful dissent and the latitude to air grievances are the safety valve of democracy. To sum it up, an ancient proverb comes to mind. It says, “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others windmills.” Contrasting mindsets, the former, fearful of change, tries to suppress them, causing an inevitable implosion. Seeing it as an opportunity, the latter harnesses the same to its great benefit. Pakistan still bears the pain of dismemberment brought about by the wall mindset. Is it not imperative to create a windmill now?
If you want to submit your articles and/or research papers, please visit the Submissions page.
To stay updated with the latest jobs, CSS news, internships, scholarships, and current affairs articles, join our Community Forum!
The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Mir Adnan Aziz is a freelance contributor.