No turning back on the turning away

In his January speech, General Musharraf argued that he was already working on restraining religious extremism and gave a chronological listing of his government’s efforts in this respect. New restraints on the use of mosques for political purposes and a new ‘madrassah strategy’ was also announced and is now slowly being implemented. But the timing of his crackdown is clearly linked to external factors. Pakistan’s well-wishers at home and abroad have called for the regulation of mosques and madrassahs and for the banning of ‘‘extremist’’ groups, for many years. General Musharraf took no decisive steps in that direction until the September 11 attacks on the US and the massing of Indian troops on the Pakistan border.

It appears to be a pattern with General Musharraf that his definitive actions are often reactive. His decision to take over the reins of power was a reaction to Nawaz Sharif’s action to remove him from the office of chief of Army Staff. Withdrawal of support from the Taliban resulted from US demands in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Now, action against militant groups is a response to demands by the international community. Even if General Musharraf’s heart is in the right place on issues that matter to the world and Pakistanis, his hesitation to act without pressure creates doubts about the credibility of his actions.

Soon after Musharraf’s January 12 speech, I had written, ‘‘The militant Islamists could try and undermine General Musharraf’s new initiatives by launching terrorist attacks inside the country, as well as in Jammu and Kashmir or India’’. Several such attacks have since taken place. But the Musharraf regime’s ability to disarm the Islamic militias has been severely handicapped by its inability to seek the cooperation of legitimate Islamic, or for that matter even secular, political groups. It has managed to antagonise traditional religious political parties without disarming Islamic militias. Instead of making the war against terrorism a battle for Pakistan’s survival, Musharraf has inadvertently allowed it to be cast as America’s war being fought with Pakistan’s help.

Pakistan’s Islamists have never been able to do well in electoral politics. Their strength in recent years was the direct result of covert state patronage and the decision by successive rulers to assign them a role in their regional strategy. An uninterrupted political process would have allowed extremes to be subsumed and marginalised.

Over the last several decades, Pakistan has fallen victim to the cult of the Islamic warrior, instead of glorifying the Muslim scholar or intellectual. There is little effort, for example, to highlight the position of Razi, the philosopher, while the nation is in thrall to Ghauri and Abdali, the conquerors. A serious effort at re-orienting the nation’s priorities would have to address this anomaly in an age where knowledge is power. But to do so seriously, Musharraf—the general—may also have to step down from his own pedestal of a military commander. And that is something Pakistan’s military leaders have always been reluctant to do.

Pakistan has degenerated into semi-anarchy in pursuit of strategic objectives of dubious value. But the restoration of the writ of state will need rehabilitation of all institutions of state. The moves to disarm all privates militias needs to be extended to ethnic as well as Islamic militant groups. If General Musharraf wants his moves to be seen in the context of revitalising the Pakistani state, he must allow a review of the military’s worldview that led to the strategic decisions he now claims he is reversing. If the militarist-militant alliance is to be broken, democracy and constitutional rule will have to be restored in Pakistan. Else, terrorists will continue to boldly challenge a state apparatus that lacks both legitimacy and broad public support.

(Husain Haqqani is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He served as adviser to prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and as Ambassador to Sri Lanka)