Pakistan has been a long term ally of the West in its quest for strategic parity with its larger eastern neighbor India. Since independence in 1947 from colonial Britain, Pakistan's civil as well as military elite, largely sourced from the most populous and fertile province of Punjab remains India obsessed and challenges India on a number of issues ranging from Kashmir, Junagadh, Hyderabad, the status of Muslims within Indian union and so on. To that list, the issues of water, constructing dams as well as the balance of regional military forces and the nuclear issue are added, as and when circumstances arise. Trade and commerce, people to people contacts, are accorded low priority by Pakistan despite having received MFN status from the India government back in 1999 but never reciprocated. The reason for such interminable hostilities has been the mutually coveted territory of Jammu & Kashmir, declared to be Pakistan's jugular vein by Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Throughout the seven decades of the post-independence history of South Asia, regardless of the political colour or the structure of the regime in power in Islamabad, the engagement of the Pakistani elite with the world outside has been largely premised on doing the bidding of larger and more powerful states in lieu of their condemnation of India or receiving advanced weapon systems. From sending forces to fight the Korean war, to slaughtering Palestinians (the infamous Black September) at Jordan leadership's behest, to providing its good offices to the US administration in establishing diplomatic ties with China (PRC), to resisting Soviets via training and arming Mujahideen in Afghanistan, to subsequently fighting America's war against the Afghan Taliban, or to protecting the Saudi monarch by deploying its military; Pakistani elite has done it all for financial support, except pursuing what it needed to do foremost, namely institution-building and generating healthcare, education, and infrastructure for its unfortunate population.
A visible constant in Pakistan's evolution is the primacy given to politics and military with simultaneous neglect of economics in an environment of feudalism and bigotry taught through religious schools known as madrasas. The encouragement granted by Pakistan government to its madrasa educated pupils who make up a large part of its population to conduct military operations in neighboring states such as Afghanistan and India earned it an unenviable reputation.
Turkey, Malaysia, and China are the three countries with which Pakistan's current leadership has been able to make common political cause on Kashmir. It has had minor success with the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and Iran on this subject. The division of the Muslim states along sectarian lines makes the task tougher for Pakistan to navigate the treacherous and self-destructive politics of West Asia and find economic partners for its development. The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline never took off due to such concerns, nor did the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline gain traction.
Most of Pakistan's leadership has been invested heavily in West Asia on ethnic lines. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a Shia and a Sindhi, couldn't have been hanged by General Zia-ul-Haq, a Sunni and a Punjabi, had the powerful Shia monarch Shah Muhammad Reza of neighboring Iran not been ousted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in February 1979. Likewise, Nawaz Sharif, a Kashmiri-Punjabi and Sunni entrepreneur, escaped an identical fate at the hands of General Musharraf, a Sunni yet a Mohajir from Delhi; hence could negotiate his escape to Saudi Arabia. The relative social strengths of a Mohajir vis-a-vis a Punjabi or a Sindhi are palpable, while Pakhtuns and Baluchis are the worst placed socially.
Pakistan's extremely sorry state is epitomized in its former finance minister Ishaq Dar absconding since December 2017 while prime minister Imran Khan Niyazi is trying to fix the system. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has jailed two former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) besides the leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the former President of Pakistan Asif Zardari. He's sworn to bring about "Tabdeeli" (change) and usher in a "Naya Pakistan", a type of welfare state on the lines of Riasat-e-Medina of the Prophet Muhammad. Ironically, he is attempting to attain such a lofty goal with the same team that had been active under General Pervaiz Musharraf.
Imran Khan's stewardship of his state began in the backdrop of the external debt of 106 billion US dollars when external donor agencies refused it support, though, after painstaking negotiations, he's been able to secure six billion US dollars to repay existing loans. Imran made trips to the Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arab, UAE, and Qatar as well as to Turkey, Malaysia, and China to seek financial support to shore up the Pakistani rupee currently at Rs.160 to a US dollar. A full-blown insurgency in Balochistan and in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province is going on. Sindhi nationalists of the Jiye Sindh Mahaz as well as the secular-socialist PPP and Mohajir Qaumi Mahaz (MQM), renamed Mutahida Qaumi Movement, the Manzoor Pishtin led nationalist Pakhtoon movement, the Maulana Fazlur Rehman's Jamiatul-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) resists madrasa reform, along with the popular but uncivil hordes of Tehrik-e-Labbaik-Ya-Rasoolallah (TLYRA) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) all pose huge challenges to a cash depleted government.
The threat of the Paris based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to blacklist states derelict in checking money laundering to contain terrorist activities hangs on Pakistan, with jihadi elements of its society such as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Muhammad being on the UN radar. Imran Khan is a philanthropist and institution builder having built cancer hospitals and universities inside Pakistan. Yet, ultimately, he has to tow the agenda set by the Pakistan army. The current geostrategic situation doesn't favor him at all. He carries a huge millstone hung around his neck leading a country divided along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Imran is attempting to pursue trade with China in the Pakistani Rupee-Renminbi to avoid US dollar-denominated trade to escape US pressure. He's scared of using loans indiscriminately from Chinese banks under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) after witnessing the recent sorry fate of Sri Lanka which had to write off its sovereignty on its southern Hambantota port to China in lease for ninety nine years due to their inability to pay back the Chinese loans taken for development of the port. Social unrest due to Chinese food and other cultural practices in his conservative Muslim state have occurred. Large scale abuse of Pakistani women trafficked as brides to China has been recorded. Imran Khan does have a go-getter, can-do, and sometimes impetuous attitude. However, he's arrived on the scene at the wrong moment. He's popular among the Pakistani middle-classes residing mostly in urban centers but not deep inside rural Punjab, or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nor in rural Sindh where real sources of power lie. That power is shared by the PML and PPP respectively. Co-incidentally having "Niyazi" for a surname too is a huge liability since the humiliating, "Saqoot-i-Dhaka" (Surrender in Dhaka) on 16th December 1971, was made by a Niyazi (Amir Abdullah Khan Niyazi).
Imran Khan and Pervaiz Musharraf before him were both enlightened, middle class and highly pro-Pakistan leaders. Imran must succeed in saving Pakistan from failing as a state since its strategic location at the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and its nuclear weapon status call for its survival and endurance. He's been countering India's challenge of downgrading Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on Kashmir by utilizing all his energies and campaigning from all platforms but has been getting frustrated upon realizing that the world today is more focused on markets and big business and disinterested in moral rhetoric. But ahead of Imran, it is the Pakistan Army that needs to learn these lessons first. Then alone is there going to be any positive change in the fortunes of not just Pakistan alone, but also of South Asia as a region as a whole.
Throughout the seven decades of the post-independence history of South Asia, regardless of the political colour or the structure of the regime in power in Islamabad, the engagement of the Pakistani elite with the world outside has been largely premised on doing the bidding of larger and more powerful states in lieu of their condemnation of India or receiving advanced weapon systems. From sending forces to fight the Korean war, to slaughtering Palestinians (the infamous Black September) at Jordan leadership's behest, to providing its good offices to the US administration in establishing diplomatic ties with China (PRC), to resisting Soviets via training and arming Mujahideen in Afghanistan, to subsequently fighting America's war against the Afghan Taliban, or to protecting the Saudi monarch by deploying its military; Pakistani elite has done it all for financial support, except pursuing what it needed to do foremost, namely institution-building and generating healthcare, education, and infrastructure for its unfortunate population.
A visible constant in Pakistan's evolution is the primacy given to politics and military with simultaneous neglect of economics in an environment of feudalism and bigotry taught through religious schools known as madrasas. The encouragement granted by Pakistan government to its madrasa educated pupils who make up a large part of its population to conduct military operations in neighboring states such as Afghanistan and India earned it an unenviable reputation.
Turkey, Malaysia, and China are the three countries with which Pakistan's current leadership has been able to make common political cause on Kashmir. It has had minor success with the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and Iran on this subject. The division of the Muslim states along sectarian lines makes the task tougher for Pakistan to navigate the treacherous and self-destructive politics of West Asia and find economic partners for its development. The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline never took off due to such concerns, nor did the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline gain traction.
Most of Pakistan's leadership has been invested heavily in West Asia on ethnic lines. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a Shia and a Sindhi, couldn't have been hanged by General Zia-ul-Haq, a Sunni and a Punjabi, had the powerful Shia monarch Shah Muhammad Reza of neighboring Iran not been ousted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in February 1979. Likewise, Nawaz Sharif, a Kashmiri-Punjabi and Sunni entrepreneur, escaped an identical fate at the hands of General Musharraf, a Sunni yet a Mohajir from Delhi; hence could negotiate his escape to Saudi Arabia. The relative social strengths of a Mohajir vis-a-vis a Punjabi or a Sindhi are palpable, while Pakhtuns and Baluchis are the worst placed socially.
Pakistan's extremely sorry state is epitomized in its former finance minister Ishaq Dar absconding since December 2017 while prime minister Imran Khan Niyazi is trying to fix the system. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has jailed two former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) besides the leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the former President of Pakistan Asif Zardari. He's sworn to bring about "Tabdeeli" (change) and usher in a "Naya Pakistan", a type of welfare state on the lines of Riasat-e-Medina of the Prophet Muhammad. Ironically, he is attempting to attain such a lofty goal with the same team that had been active under General Pervaiz Musharraf.
Imran Khan's stewardship of his state began in the backdrop of the external debt of 106 billion US dollars when external donor agencies refused it support, though, after painstaking negotiations, he's been able to secure six billion US dollars to repay existing loans. Imran made trips to the Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arab, UAE, and Qatar as well as to Turkey, Malaysia, and China to seek financial support to shore up the Pakistani rupee currently at Rs.160 to a US dollar. A full-blown insurgency in Balochistan and in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province is going on. Sindhi nationalists of the Jiye Sindh Mahaz as well as the secular-socialist PPP and Mohajir Qaumi Mahaz (MQM), renamed Mutahida Qaumi Movement, the Manzoor Pishtin led nationalist Pakhtoon movement, the Maulana Fazlur Rehman's Jamiatul-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) resists madrasa reform, along with the popular but uncivil hordes of Tehrik-e-Labbaik-Ya-Rasoolallah (TLYRA) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) all pose huge challenges to a cash depleted government.
The threat of the Paris based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to blacklist states derelict in checking money laundering to contain terrorist activities hangs on Pakistan, with jihadi elements of its society such as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Muhammad being on the UN radar. Imran Khan is a philanthropist and institution builder having built cancer hospitals and universities inside Pakistan. Yet, ultimately, he has to tow the agenda set by the Pakistan army. The current geostrategic situation doesn't favor him at all. He carries a huge millstone hung around his neck leading a country divided along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Imran is attempting to pursue trade with China in the Pakistani Rupee-Renminbi to avoid US dollar-denominated trade to escape US pressure. He's scared of using loans indiscriminately from Chinese banks under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) after witnessing the recent sorry fate of Sri Lanka which had to write off its sovereignty on its southern Hambantota port to China in lease for ninety nine years due to their inability to pay back the Chinese loans taken for development of the port. Social unrest due to Chinese food and other cultural practices in his conservative Muslim state have occurred. Large scale abuse of Pakistani women trafficked as brides to China has been recorded. Imran Khan does have a go-getter, can-do, and sometimes impetuous attitude. However, he's arrived on the scene at the wrong moment. He's popular among the Pakistani middle-classes residing mostly in urban centers but not deep inside rural Punjab, or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nor in rural Sindh where real sources of power lie. That power is shared by the PML and PPP respectively. Co-incidentally having "Niyazi" for a surname too is a huge liability since the humiliating, "Saqoot-i-Dhaka" (Surrender in Dhaka) on 16th December 1971, was made by a Niyazi (Amir Abdullah Khan Niyazi).
Imran Khan and Pervaiz Musharraf before him were both enlightened, middle class and highly pro-Pakistan leaders. Imran must succeed in saving Pakistan from failing as a state since its strategic location at the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and its nuclear weapon status call for its survival and endurance. He's been countering India's challenge of downgrading Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on Kashmir by utilizing all his energies and campaigning from all platforms but has been getting frustrated upon realizing that the world today is more focused on markets and big business and disinterested in moral rhetoric. But ahead of Imran, it is the Pakistan Army that needs to learn these lessons first. Then alone is there going to be any positive change in the fortunes of not just Pakistan alone, but also of South Asia as a region as a whole.
