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| Musharraf might have bitten off more than he can chew | | |
M L Kotru |
History has an uncanny knack of repeating itself. For the sake of the Pakistani people, I hope, this will not be so this time over. Given the high-handedness of General Pervez Musharraf’s senseless killing of the octogenarian Baloch leader, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the most important of the three tribal chiefs of Pakistan’s largest province Balochistan, on August 26, things look quite ominous. Never mind the military dictator’s shabashi to the army contingent that killed Bugti and his loyal band of 40-odd men in their cave hideout.
Was it a repeat of General Zia’s feat when he got Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto hanged on the basis of flimsiest evidence of Bhutto having masterminded the murder of a minor politician? I hope it does not turn out to be something like that. For nemesis did catch up with the then military ruler soon afterwards when he was killed in an air accident the cause of which will forever remain undisclosed, unless someone linked to the operation, and still around, chooses to tell it all.
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The history of decolonisation and partition continues to have a profound effect on contemporary political life in Pakistan. Right after its birth as a separate State, Pakistan has had many disputes, amongst others, with India and Afghanistan. A sense of vulnerability has always been a consuming passion with successive Pakistani regimes. Even the separation of East Pakistan from the country, giving birth to Bangladesh, has not helped these regimes come to terms with the existing realities. In their effort to secure their interests the rulers have always tended to be clever by half. This needs to be looked at in the mirror of existing relations between Pakistan and India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan and the USA, Pakistan and the rising tide of extremism in the country.
The Muslim League in Pakistan came to power after Independence without having gone through all the highly instructive troubles of a long, wrenching and full-scale freedom struggle. The League had evolved not so much as an anti-colonial force but more as a movement against the Congress Party, with its main aim being to carve out a state for the Muslims.
Because of this history, Pakistanis today still use the word ‘partition’ almost as a synonym for independence. And this lack of struggle against the British has shaped post-independence history of the country in a number of ways, including the structures of government that was set up in 1948. Pakistan inherited an Army and bureaucracy, which though native was thoroughly steeped in the arrogant ‘koi hai’ legacy of their colonial masters.
Pakistan also was saddled with the Durand Line, which the British had bullied the Afghans into accepting. The Durand Line divided the two large populations of ‘Pushtu’ speaking Pukhtoons between the two countries. And there has always been a large presence of Pakhtuns in Balochistan as well. Additionally Pakistan has continued to rule the Pakhtun region via the same unimaginative bureaucrats, guided by laws established for ruling the region by the British Viceroys. And these new rulers have continued their colonial predecessor’s arrogant attitude towards the Pakhtuns living in the country itself, in Afghanistan and those settled in Balochistan along with the province’s three main tribes, - the Bugtis, the Mangals and the Marris.
In the post-independence decades and after three wars with India, Islamabad had made half-hearted efforts to sort out the Kashmir mess with India and at least on two occasions; after the Simla accord and following the current round of negotiations between the two governments, have looked nearer a solution. Whether the present initiative, by far, the most constructive in many respects, succeeds remains a million-dollar question.
In Afghanistan, the Soviet invasion led to the US deciding to utilise Pakistan and gave the then military ruler just the kind of opportunity he would have wanted. As a convenient conduit for Western aid to the Afghan mujahideen, General Zia happily took charge to control and direct the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. Apart from the ISI emerging as a most potent force in the country as a consequence of its involvement in the US-backed operations in Afghanistan, Gen. Zia suppressed the domestic Opposition, encouraged the existing madrassas, and those that followed, to train Jihadis.
The war against the Soviets in Afghanistan thus not only boosted the fundamentalists but also inundated Pakistan with narcotics. General Zia cynically used the Islamic card to shore up his wobbly rule. He resurrected the Hudood Ordinance, which imposed severe medieval punishment for consuming alcohol, fornication, property theft and other infractions. Nizam-e-Mustaffa became the watchword.
After 9/11, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif had had separate spells as Prime Minister, the first unceremoniously deposed by Sharif. And Sharif himself thrown out by the man, whom he had designated as the Army Chief, General Pervez Musharraf – a repetition of Zulfiqar Ali’s decision to supersede senior Generals to anoint the more amiable Gen Zia-ul-Haq as the Army Chief. General Musharraf sought to root out the Taliban from Afghanistan, which he did with the active military intervention of the Americans. He even sought to re-organise the ISI.
Simultaneously, he upped the stakes for India by ensuring a regular flow into Jammu and Kashmir of idle Jihadis from Afghanistan and by reinforcing the fundamentalist Jihadi factories. Musharraf may have for the moment supported George Bush in Afghanistan but he has been very reluctant to act against the fundamentalist outfits and the training centres run by them.
With the fundamentalists and the pro-democracy movement and the principal parties led by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif baying for his blood, it is somewhat odd that Musharraf should have chosen this hour to stir up a hornet’s nest in Balochistan. The killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti can only spell trouble for him.
The killing has been condemned by all sections of public opinion in the six-party fundamentalist alliance, which is supporting Musharraf’s hand-picked government. The top leader of his principal ally, the Muslim League Quaid, Ch.Shujaat Hussain, himself a big Punjabi landlord, has criticised the killing.
Bugti was no ordinary tribal chief. He had been the Governor and Chief Minister of the Province, commanded unchallenged respect among the dominant Bugti tribe served as the country’s Interior Minister. Educated at Lahore’s famed Aitchison College and at Oxford, he cut an impressive, domineering presence. By killing him, Musharraf has probably bitten off more than he can chew. The next few weeks will show how dexterous the Commando-turned-Army Chief-turned-President of Pakistan really is.
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