| Pakistan is a vital country for the United States and its war on terrorism. As a resource,
Pakistan could in fact be the deciding factor for the war on terror and
other future endeavors. Pakistan is strategically located in South Asia
and borders Afghanistan, Iran, China and India. More importantly, it is
close to oil-rich Southwest Asia (also known as the Middle East) and
Central Asian States. Pakistan has the fifth largest military in the
world, fully armed with nuclear weapons. Ever since its independence in
1947, Pakistan has proven itself in the past to be an important U.S.
ally during the Cold War. After the events of September 11 th, Pakistan
has continued to be a key ally.
This
article reviews the challenges that Pakistan has faced since it became
independent in 1947 and the major political, economic, social and
cultural forces that have shaped the country. It concludes with a brief
perspective on Pakistan’s future.
A Brief History
The Indian Subcontinent and Birth of Pakistan
The Mughals, Muslims originally from Central Asia, ruled over India
(present day India and Pakistan) for over 2 centuries before they lost
to the British in 1857. During this period of Mughal rule, there was
tremendous cooperation between Hindus and Muslims in many spheres of
political, social, and cultural life. After WWII, British decided to
end their rule over India. At that time, the Indian Muslims under the
leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah demanded a separate homeland.
As a result, the British carved out Pakistan from British India with
its two wings, West Pakistan, the land west of India that is the
Pakistan of today and East Pakistan, the land east of India that is now
Bangladesh. These were the lands where the majority of population was
Muslim. Pakistan thus became independent on August 14, 1947. Soon
afterwards, about 11.5 million people migrated between India and
Pakistan and over half a million were killed by mobs during this mass
exodus, in stark contrast with the Hindu-Muslim cooperation that
characterized Mughal rule.
At the time of
partition, the British failed to decide the fate of princely states
that were part of British India as their protectorates. Kashmir was one
of those princely states whose majority of population was Muslim under
a Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh. Both India and Pakistan went to war
over Kashmir in 1948 and 1965.
A third war between Pakistan and India in December 1971 resulted in the separation of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh.
Pakistan, its Neighbors, and the United States
The relationship between Pakistan and the United States has had its ups
and downs for nearly half a century. Until 1965, the relationship had
been warm and cordial. In 1954, Pakistan was linked to the United
States by the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization (SEATO). Further bonds were forged in 1955 when Pakistan
became a member of the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO) and,
later, as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). In 1959 Pakistan and
the United States signed the Bilateral Agreement of Cooperation which
provided for assistance to Pakistan if victimized by aggression.
The U.S. and Pakistan relationship deteriorated after the
India-Pakistan war of 1965 when the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan
after Pakistan had used American-supplied weapons against India in the
war that was over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan in 1979. The war between them
lasted for ten years, during which one million Afghans and 15,000
Soviet soldiers were killed. During the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan, Pakistan risked its own stability by accepting 3.5 million
Afghan refugees between 1979 and 1987 and by serving as a conduit for
arms shipments from the United States to the Mujahideens (freedom
fighters). Pakistan has not yet recovered from the aftershock of this
deadly war. Much of the drug trafficking, smuggling, and terrorizing
can be attributed to this role in the Afghan crisis.
Pakistan, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia provided substantial support to the
Afghan freedom fighters (mujahedeen) as they fought against the Soviet
military. The Soviets were finally defeated by the Afghan freedom
fighters in 1989. There is no doubt that Pakistan played a critical
role in the historic defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
After the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan, the United States did
not pay attention to Afghanistan’s civil war until September 11, 2001.
The nineteen suicide attackers who hijacked the American airliner and
attacked the World Trade Towers and Pentagon belonged to the al-Qaida
organization that was based and supported by the Taliban-ruled
Afghanistan.
The Taliban and Wahabism Era
The Taliban (translated as “religious students”) came to power after
Soviet forces left Afghanistan and a civil war erupted between Afghani
warlords. The Taliban controlled about 90% of the Afghanistan’s
territory from 1996 until 2001 when they were ousted by the U.S. and
Afghani opposition forces (Northern Alliance).
Most of the Taliban's leaders were educated in Pakistani refugee camps
where they had fled with millions of other Afghans after the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s religious political parties
provided welfare services, education, and military training for Afghani
refugees in most of these camps. The religious schools (madrassas) were
run by inexperienced and semi-literate mullahs. Saudi Arabia provided
substantial financial support to these schools where the curriculum was
very close to the ultra conservative Wahabi tradition that calls for a
return to strict medieval “Islamic” practices.
According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, the devastation and
hardship of the war against the Soviet Union and the civil war that
followed have influenced the ideology of the Taliban. The young rank
and file Taliban were students in Afghan refugee camps with little or
no knowledge of mainstream Islam. The refugee students, brought up in a
totally male society, not only had no education in mathematics,
science, history or geography, but also had no traditional skills of
farming, herding, or handicraft-making.
In
such an environment, war meant employment and peace unemployment.
Domination of women was an affirmation of manhood. For their
leadership, rigid fundamentalism was a matter not merely of principle,
but of political survival. Taliban leaders repeatedly said, “if we gave
women greater freedom or a chance to go to school, we would lose the
support of our rank and file.”
The Taliban
leaders have been criticized repeatedly by Islamic scholars as being
poorly educated in Islamic law and history. Their implementation of
medieval Islamic law in Afghanistan and tribal-belt between Pakistan
and Afghanistan is a combination of Wahabi orthodoxy and tribal customs
rather than the mainstream Islam.
After
the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, most of the Taliban forces
moved into the semi-autonomous tribal belt (Federally Administered
Tribal Area) in Pakistan and have threatened to destabilize Pakistan
and the other countries in the region. The Taliban's relationship with
the Pashtuns in Pakistan has been a problem. A high percentage of the
Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns. Most of the Pakistani Pushtuns live in the
area bordering Afghanistan (North West Frontier Province &
Baluchistan) and sympathize with the Taliban.
In September 2006, Pakistan signed a controversial peace agreement with
the Taliban in the Swat Valley in the North West Frontier Province
(NWFP). Pakistan's army agreed to withdraw from the area and allow the
Taliban to govern the Swat Valley as long as they promised that there
will be no incursions into Afghanistan and no attacks against Pakistani
troops. Critics said the deal handed the Taliban a secure base of
operations.
In May 2009, the Pakistani
military launched a major attack against the Taliban in the Swat Valley
after they violated the peace treaty by occupying Buner district that
just 60 miles from the Pakistani capital. After securing the Swat
Valley, the Pakistani military has moved into semi-autonomous tribal
area of South Waziristan where the leadership of Taliban and al-Qaida
is currently hiding. To date, the Pakistani military has taken back
multiple Taliban strongholds. Air strikes, artillery bombardment and
rocket attacks by helicopter gunships are being undertaken extensively.
This Pakistani war against the Taliban and al-Qaida has been ongoing
(as of July 1, 2009) and has led to a humanitarian crisis. More than 2
million civilians (internally displaced persons) have fled the war zone
and are living in refugee camps.
Pakistan Today
Economic Development and Challenges
The economy of Pakistan is the 26 th largest in the world in terms of
purchasing power and 47 th largest in absolute dollar terms. Pakistan's
major exports are textiles, chemicals, food processing, agriculture,
surgical and sports goods and other industries. In 2005, it was the
third fastest growing economy in Asia.
Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth increased to 6-8% range
in 2004-06 due to gains in the industrial and service sectors. In 2005,
the World Bank named Pakistan the top reformer in its region and in the
top 10 reformers globally. Pakistan was also the second fastest growing
economy in the world, after China, in the same year.
Pakistan has steadily raised development spending in recent years,
including a 52% increase in the budget for development in FY07 that was
necessary to reverse the broad underdevelopment of its social sector.
Today, inflation remains the biggest threat to Pakistan’s economy. In
2008, following the surge in global petroleum prices, inflation in
Pakistan had reached as high as 25.0%. The central bank of Pakistan is
pursuing tighter monetary policy while trying to preserve growth. Since
the beginning of 2008, Pakistan's economic outlook has become stagnant.
Security concerns stemming from the nation's role in the war on
terrorism have created great instability, which led to a decline in
foreign direct investment (FDI) from approximately $8 billion to $3.5
billion for the current fiscal year. Concurrently, the insurgency has
forced massive capital flight from Pakistan to the Gulf countries.
Combined with high global commodity prices, the dual impact has shocked
Pakistan's economy with gaping trade deficits, high inflation and a
crash in the value of the Pakistani rupee, which has fallen from 60-1
USD to over 80-1 USD in just few months. For the first time in years,
Pakistan may have to seek external funding as Balance of Payments
support.
The People
About 97% of the 170 million people in Pakistan are Muslim. Pakistani
laws, culture, and traditions all reflect this. The population is made
up of different ethnic groups. One of these ethnic groups are known as
Mohajirs (meaning ‘emigrants’) who came from areas which are in today's
India when Pakistan was first created in 1947. The official language is
English but most Pakistanis can understand and speak Urdu as well.
Jewelry making in Pakistan reflects an ancient art, which reached
perfection during the Mughul period, in ornately engraved gold chokers,
bracelets, and earrings. Many tribal and mountain women pierce the
outer ridges of their ears, so they can wear several hoops and studs.
Basketry, woodwork, and carpet-making are still widely practiced
crafts. Pakistani hand-knotted carpets are famous throughout the world.
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The
ancient civilizations of Moen-Jo-Daro and Harappa were making clay pots
and bricks in the region of modern Pakistan in 5,000 BC. Amazingly, the
foot-driven potter’s wheel of that period is still in popular use
today. Potters and metal workers tend to draw on ancient artifacts for
their inspiration. More than half the working population is involved in
agriculture. Manufacturing, mining, and service industries are the
other large employers. Many people go abroad in search for work.
Interestingly, there are currently over 15,000 physicians in the U.S.
who emigrated from Pakistan. The most famous sporting achievement for
Pakistan was winning the Cricket World Cup in 1992 and most recently
ICC World T20 in England 2009. In 1995, Pakistan were the reigning
world-champions in four separate sports; cricket, field hockey, squash,
and snooker. The national sport of Pakistan is field hockey, but ‘the
people’s sport’ is cricket.
Pakistani
people are famous for their hospitality. If you entered a shop or a
business, you will be offered soft drinks or tea. You will not be
rushed as though you were a burden to someone else’s time. If you
entered someone’s home, you would not be allowed to leave until you ate
a meal with the host.
Most Pakistani
people dress modestly and are not obsessed with the youth-oriented
culture as are many people in the West. Welcoming others seems to come
naturally in Pakistani culture as has been explained by Greg Mortenson
in his book “Three cups of tea.”
A
common misconception about Pakistani culture is that it is backwards in
terms of treatment towards women. Pakistan, being a very liberal
country, is quite progressive in terms of Muslim countries: Pakistan
was the first Muslim country to elect a female prime minister. There
are more Pakistani women who graduate from medical school than
Pakistani men. Besides the Taliban-controlled areas and villages, most
women do not feel the need to wear the burka, or long headdress, nor
are they looked upon as subservient to men. In fact in recent years, it
is looked down upon when a Pakistani woman is less educated than her
husband.
Democracy
Democracy has never thrived in Pakistan since landowning has
traditionally been the social base from which most politicians emerge,
especially in rural areas of Pakistan. However, this trend is now
changing since a higher percentage of the population has moved into the
urban areas from rural areas.
It was
this new empowered urban middle class that showed its political muscle
for the first time with the organization of a lawyers' movement, whose
protests against the dismissal of the chief justice soon swelled into a
full-scale pro-democracy campaign, despite President Parvez Musharraf's
harassment and arrest of many lawyers. The movement represented a huge
shift in Pakistani civil society's participation in politics.
Pakistan’s Future
Several trends – in politics, economics, culture, entertainment, and
education – point to greater prosperity (in Western terms), increased
integration into the world economy and the community of nations, and a
rejection of religious extremism. According to a most recent poll
released on July 2, 2009, over 80% Pakistanis reject Taliban ideology
and view both the Taliban and al-Qaida as a critical threat to the
country, marking a turn in public opinion that stands to bolster U.S.
and Pakistan's offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaida. This recent
poll is not a big surprise since the people of Pakistan have
historically supported moderate secular democratic parties rather than
political parties that promote religious ideology.
The urban middle class that was previously excluded from Pakistan’s
political process is slowly gaining political control. This was seen in
2008 Pakistani elections in which candidates who were largely from
middle-class won most of the seats. This was a clear victory over the
forces of feudal landlords and military supporters that had heretofore
dominated Pakistani politics. Overall, the Pakistanis voted heavily in
favor of liberal centrist parties opposed to both mullahs and the
military. The religious parties won only a dismal 5 out of 272 national
assembly seats.
On the economic side,
Pakistan’s revenues have greatly improved in recent years, as a result
of economic growth, tax reforms and more efficient tax collection and
privatization of public utilities and telecommunications. Pakistan is
aggressively cutting tariffs and assisting exports by improving ports,
roads, electricity supplies and irrigation projects. It also has
doubled development spending from about 2% of GDP in the 1990s to 4%, a
necessary step towards reversing the underdevelopment of its social
sector.
If you travel to Pakistan today
you will see the effects of the boom in every major city: in vast
shopping malls and smart roadside gas stations, in the cranes of the
building sites and the smokestacks of factories, in the expensive new
cars and numerous cell-phone stores. In 2003 the country had fewer than
3 million cell phones; today there are over 50 million, while car
ownership has been increasing approximately 40 percent a year since
2001.
An incredible new world of media
has sprung up in Pakistan with an unprecedented openness in the past
few years. Music videos, fashion programs, independent news networks
from all over the world, cross-dressing talk-show hosts, religious
debates, stock-market analysis are shown 24 hours a day. There are also
remarkable developments in publishing. In nonfiction, Ayesha Siddiqa's Military Inc. and Zahid Hussain's Frontline Pakistan
are two of the most penetrating recent studies of the country and
essential for understanding the politics of Pakistan. There have also
been particularly impressive new works of fiction by Pakistani writers,
among them Kamila Shamsie's Kartography and Broken Verses, Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers, and Moni Mohsin's End of Innocence. One of Daniyal Mueenuddin's short stories, his wonderfully witty "Nawabdin Electrician," was published in The New Yorker of August 27, 2007.
In May 2009, Pakistan signed a multibillion dollar gas pipeline accord
with Iran. Under this agreement, Iran will provide 750 million cubic
feet of gas per day to Pakistan for the next 25 years.
China is interested in joining this strategic gas pipeline project and
wants to import about 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day from
Pakistan. It is estimated that such a pipeline would result in Pakistan
getting $200 million to $500 million annually in transit fees alone.
China and Pakistan are also working on a proposal for laying a
trans-Himalayan pipeline to carry Middle Eastern crude oil to western
China. Pakistan provides China the shortest possible route to import
oil from the Gulf countries. The pipeline, which would run from the
southern Pakistan port of Gwadar and follow the Karakoram highway,
would be partly financed by Beijing.
The U.S. has tripled non-security aid to $1.5B annually for Pakistan to
build schools, clinics and roads. The U.S. is also making efforts to
engage the Pakistani people, not just the rulers by improved public
diplomacy, educational exchanges and projects that will actually change
people’s lives.
All these positive
developments are a big boost to Pakistan and its people. The $1.5B
annual U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan was desperately needed for
the development of the infrastructure in the North West Frontier
Province, Baluchistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA).
Construction of schools, roads,
bridges, power grids, factories and mechanized farming will improve the
lives of millions of Pakistani people in these areas where religious
extremism has taken root because of poverty and lack schools and
colleges. Construction of modern schools for both boys and girls
instead of traditional madrassas will go a long way to eradicate
religious extremism in Pakistan.
It is
clear that Pakistanis have overwhelmingly rejected the military rule
and Islamist options and chosen instead to back secular democracy.
Pakistan’s remarkable economic progress during the past several years
confirms that it is not a failed state or “the most dangerous country
in the world” as the Western media would have liked to argue.
Further Reading
1. Kulke, H & Rothermund, D. A History of India. Barnes & Nobles, Inc 1986
2. Braibanti R. Strategic Significance of Pakistan. Special Report. June 5, 1996
3. Levy A, Scott-Clark C. Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. Walker & Company, 2007
4. Rashid, A Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale University Press, 2001
5. Harrison SS, Kreisberg PH, Kux D. India & Pakistan: The First Fifty Years. Cambridge University Press 1999
6. Coll, S. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. The Penguin Press 2004
7. Khan MA. We Have Learnt Nothing From History. Pakistan: Politics and Military Power. Oxford University Press 2005
8. Mortenson G, Relin DO. Three Cups of Tea. Penguin Books 2007
Mazhar Rishi
, M.D, M.B.A., is the Vice President of Children Creating Bridges
(CCB), a Pennsylvania-based non-profit organization. He currently
directs CCB’s Institute of Peace, Justice and Interfaith
Dialogue. He was born in Karachi, Pakistan and emigrated to the
U.S. in 1984. After completing his medical training at the George
Washington University and Jefferson Medical College, Dr. Rishi served
the U.S. Air Force both on active duty and active reserves and is
currently a Colonel in the US Air Force Reserves. Dr. Rishi has taught
both civilian and military medical students and physicians at several
academic institutions. In addition, he has written several
research articles and has received civilian and military awards for
teaching, research and service work. He is currently on the
faculty of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
(USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland and also practices pathology in Delaware
and Pennsylvania. Dr. Mazhar Rishi is dedicated to humanitarian work,
interfaith dialogue and peace activism. |
