January 18, 2001

Will Zia’s legacy prove more powerful than Musharraf?
The general and the ghost

If General Musharraf braves the odds to reach an accord with India, will that too be considered un-Islamic, almost heretical? Why not?

There is a spectre haunting General Pervez Musharraf — the ghost of the late General Zia ul-Haq. To cement his rule, the former dictator took two crucial decisions. First, he undertook to ‘Talibanise’ Pakistan. (The term did not exist at the time, but it fits well enough.) Second, General Zia did all he could to support the ‘mujahideen’ battling the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Well, the chickens have come home to roost, and General Musharraf is in the henhouse. I have just one question: is Pakistan’s chief executive capable of controlling the forces operating within his country?

I am not debating the general’s intentions. He may mean well, or he may be just biding his time until the Pakistani economy recovers enough to withstand American pressure. But is he — assuming any agreement is possible — in a position to deliver what he promises?

I think the general is discovering the limits to his powers. Pervez Musharraf began, after kicking out Nawaz Sharif, by confessing his admiration for Kemal Ataturk. That name is anathema to Islamic fundamentalists; the father of modern Turkey was the man who pulled down the Caliphate, did his best to destroy the domination of the ulema, and made his country as secular as possible. To liken oneself to Ataturk is tantamount to blasphemy. Today, you won’t find Musharraf making the same mistake!

The simple fact is that nobody in Pakistan can afford to earn the tag of ‘opposing Islam’. He will be damned by every cleric in the country. I am not sure that even General Musharraf’s own soldiers, the younger officers and the enlisted men, would stand for a ‘secular’ polity. Nor, for that matter, is he permitted much freedom in forging ties with India.

Remember that for almost a quarter of a century, there has been a state-sponsored boom in madarsas across Pakistan. The education imparted in these schools is deficient in science, maths, or the liberal arts. But the one subject imparted to, one might say ingrained in, their alumni is a virulent form of Islam. It is these young men, the ones in their late teens and early twenties, who are entering the Pakistan Army’s lower rungs. Forget the militants for a minute, can Musharraf control his own young lieutenants if they perceive him as being ‘anti-Islamic’?

How is ‘anti-Islamic’ to be defined? Permit me to quote the doyen of the militants, Osama bin-Laden: “To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible.” Append ‘Israelis’ and ‘Indians’ to ‘Americans’, and you have a fair idea of what is being taught in Pakistan’s madarsas.

If General Musharraf braves the odds to reach an accord with India, will that too be considered un-Islamic, almost heretical? Why not? Surely the fate of President Sadat, the man who made peace with Israel, is not forgotten?
Let me now turn to the second part of the Zia legacy, the aftermath of the turmoil in Afghanistan. The words quoted above were spoken by Osama bin-Laden in 1998, when he arrived in that troubled country. The occasion was the birth of the International Islamic Front for Jihad, a clearing house for fundamentalist groups across the world, including, of course, Pakistan.

Who are these groups? I can name only some of them. There is Al Qaeda, the outfit founded in 1987 by Osama bin-Laden himself. There is Jaish Muhammad, a Jordanian group that accuses the Hashemite dynasty of being too cosy with Israel and the United States. There is a radical organisation called the G.I.A., which operates in Algeria and possibly some other nations in the Sahara. There are also various outfits in Europe which offer young Muslim men the chance of training for jihad in Afghanistan.

The European nations were sufficiently worried to organise a trans-national search. They found one common link: each of the groups in Europe had been placing calls to Pakistan. For at least five years if not more, various law-enforcing agencies in Europe and North America have been amassing evidence against Pakistan. The grim conclusion is that two-thirds of global terrorism and three-quarters of the narcotics trade use Pakistan as a base of operations. (Drugs are a major source of the Taliban’s income.)

Yet again, I am not sure what, if anything, poor Musharraf can do to halt all this. Pakistan has been awash in arms — from small arms to anti-aircraft missiles — since the days of the conflict in Afghanistan. I doubt that the Pakistan Army has the firepower to take out the militants even if it wants to. Don’t forget that many of those terrorists are themselves Pakistanis; two years ago, one intelligence estimate calculated that at least one quarter of the Taliban’s ‘officer corps’ consisted of Pakistanis. All those young men are now looking for other avenues.
As for the drugs trade, Musharraf would have to take on the bureaucracy as well as the militants. The business could not flourish without the cooperation of civil servants, policemen, and customs officers. If Karachi is one of the biggest clearing-houses for drugs it is because the rot goes all the way up to the top.
Which of these does Musharraf take on first? The madarsas and the stream of indoctrinated young men they churn out annually? The Islamic Front for Jihad that promotes terrorism in the name of religion? The drug barons? But they are so closely linked that to take on one is to battle all of them.

Yet what is the alternative? Pakistan is bankrupt, and requires loans even for a hand-to-mouth existence. That money will dry up if the Americans and the Europeans suspect that he can’t rein in the militants and the drugs trade.
I have refrained from mentioning Jammu & Kashmir so far, and the truth is that it is not germane. The people there are clearly tired of the violence, and nobody pretends any longer the terrorists are actually Kashmiris. If militancy winds down in Kashmir, the terrorist groups based in Pakistan will simply wage their jihad in another troubled area in India. (Possibly the North-East?)
Which brings me to my original question: Is Musharraf capable of reining in the terrorists? Or will the dead Zia prove stronger than the living Musharraf? And if Musharraf lacks control, what is the point in talking to him?

 

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