But are fantasies of parity with India and paramountcy over Afghanistan realistic policies? For 67 years, Pakistan has developed one element of national power-the military one-at the cost of all other elements of national power. The country’s institutions, ranging from schools and universities to the judiciary, are in a state of general decline. The economy’s stuttering growth is dependent largely on the flow of concessional flows of external resources. Pakistan’s GDP stands at $245 billion in absolute terms and $845 billion in purchasing price parity-the smallest economy of any country that has so far tested nuclear weapons.
Twenty-two per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and another 21 per cent lives just above it, resulting in almost half the people of Pakistan being very poor. It is little comfort for Pakistanis living in poverty when they are told that poverty across the border in India or Afghanistan is even starker.
Soon after independence, 16.4 per cent of Pakistan’s population was literate compared with 18.3 per cent of the much larger population in India. By 2011 India had managed to attain 74.04 per cent literacy while Pakistan’s literacy rate stood at 57 per cent. What was atwo percentage points difference in literacy rates has expanded into a nearly 20 percentage points difference in 67 years. In 2009, Pakistan allocated 2.7 per cent of its budget for education-the school life expectancy is seven years.
A staggering 38 per cent of Pakistanis between the school-going age of five and 15 are completely out of school. With a population of 180-190 million out of which 60 per cent fall in the working age category of 15-64 and another 35 per cent under 14 years of age, Pakistan has a demographic dividend which can also turn into a demographic nightmare. The low literacy rate and inadequate investment in education has led to a decline in Pakistan’s technological base, which in turn hampers economic modernisation. Textiles is the country’s major industry but despite being a major cotton-producer, Pakistan has been unable to become a leader in value-added textile products.
With one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world of around 9 per cent, a GDP growth rate of 1.7-2.4 per cent and population growth rate of 1.5 per cent, Pakistan needs foreign as well as domestic investment in addition to drastic changes in local laws, all of which need broad political consensus and stability, both of which are lacking.
With almost 40 per cent of its population urbanised, the Pakistan government spends around 2.6 per cent on public healthcare. As a result, social services are also in a state of decline. On the other hand, Pakistan spends almost 6 per cent of its GDP on defence and is still unable to match the conventional forces of India, which outspends Pakistan 3 to 1 while allocating less than 3 per cent of GDP to military spending.
Over the decades, Pakistan has managed to evade crises and failure status primarily because the international community has bailed it out. But now the rest of the world sees Pakistan as ‘jihad central.’ Training camps nestled in the tribal areas have trained and equipped militants who have gone on to fight in the name of Allah in different regions of the world. Foreign fighters trained in Pakistan have reportedly been in action in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria and China’s Xinjiang region. It is no longer possible to keep Pakistani jihadis as a strategic reserve only to cause damage to India.
Instead of securing parity with India and paramountcy over Afghanistan, jihadis have only created greater internal crises and disruption within Pakistan. It might be a difficult decision but Pakistan must recognise the heavy cost being exacted by its pursuit of regional influence through asymmetric warfare. Fighting some jihadis while embracing others is self-defeating. Thirty years of escalated jihadism since the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan has caused erosion of the writ of the Pakistani state and decline in capacity of state institutions, especially the coercive apparatus.
Even with sporadic military operations, Pakistan’s tribal areas will remain host for some time to a wide range of militant organisations with local, regional and global agendas. Pakistan’s most populous area, Punjab, is now the main recruitment area not only for the Pakistani army but also for assorted jihadi groups. The growing presence of jihadis in south Punjab and northern Sind and even Pakistan’s financial hub, Karachi, does not augur well for Pakistan’s economy.
Pakistan’s jihadis are already exercising virtual veto over Pakistan’s relations with India. The Mumbai attack proved Lashkar-e-Toiba’s ability to undermine the initiatives of a civilian government for normalisation of India-Pakistan relations. They could, in future, force the Pakistani military’s hand in a similar manner. Pakistan needs to get out of denial that there are any jihadi groups that can be trusted or considered allies of the state. However useful they might have been for external purposes, non-state actors will always be a danger for the state internally. Instead of increasing Pakistan’s strategic options, as they were designed to do, the jihadis are now limiting Pakistan’s foreign policy choices.
Instead of doubling down on its jihadist misadventure, Pakistan could plot its course out of the disaster. To do so, it would have to change the defensive national narrative about Pakistan’s creation, raison d’etre and prospects of survival. So far, any discussion of the nation’s origins that does not conform to the ‘ideology of Pakistan’ has been treated not as history but as an attack on the country’s foundation.
A LOOK BACK TO LOOK AHEAD
After mobilising support for the demand for Pakistan, and establishing it as an independent country, successive Pakistani leaders have chosen to keep alive the divisive frenzy that led to Partition. If Pakistan was attained with the slogan ‘Islam in danger’, it has been built on the slogan ‘Pakistan in danger’, creating a constant sense of insecurity among its people, especially in relation to India and internal demands for ethnic identity or pluralism. This might be the time to revisit the ideas of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Bengal’s Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who had opposed the conjuring of this ‘ideology of Pakistan’.
Suhrawardy had told Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly in March 1948 against building Pakistani nationalism around the notion of Islam being under threat. According to him, the rhetoric used to mobilise Muslims for the creation of Pakistan was no longer needed after independence. “You are raising the cry,” he said, “of Pakistan in danger for the purpose of arousing Muslim sentiments and binding them together in order to maintain you in power.” Suhrawardy warned against transforming Pakistan into a state “founded on sentiments, namely that of Islam in danger or of Pakistan in danger”. He declared that “a state which will be held together by raising the bogey of attacks” and “friction” with enemies “will be full of alarms and excursions”. Suhrawardy’s words seem almost prophetic today. He said, “You think that you will get away with it but in that state there will be no commerce, no business and no trade. There will be lawlessness and those lawless elements that may be turned today against non-Muslims will be turned later on, once those fratricidal tendencies have been aroused, against the Muslim gentry and I want you to be warned in time.” He also defined the two key issues for the new country.The “fundamental aspect of the foundations of Pakistan”, he asserted, should be “the goodwill of the people and of the citizens of Pakistan within the state” and “the mutual relationship between the Dominion of Pakistan and the sister dominion, Indian Union”.
If the Pakistani establishment decides to turn the corner, it would have to stop treating Pakistan’s anti-jihadists as its enemies and gradually embrace a new national narrative for the country. Confronting the jihadists comprehensively would make Pakistan more secure, paving the way for greater prosperity and a place under the sun. Refusing to confront and marginalise them will only lead to recurrent tragedies like the one in Peshawar, followed by grief and outrage.
http://www.hudson.org/research/10885-state-of-delusion
