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DEADLY CONNECTION DEADLY CONNECTION THE COST OF BECOMING A FRONTLINE STATE Ashish Shukla VIJAYA BOOKS In Loving Memory of Late Asmita Shukla (Bitti) Preface Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his associates from All India Muslim League (AIML) successfully persuaded the departing British, on the basis of a highly communal and divisive Two Nation Theory, to divide British India and help them achieve a separate homeland out of it. Since British were very much willing to accept such demand, due to their own vested interests in the region, Pakistan came into existence in August 1947. Pakistani establishment, from day one, not only refused to acknowledge the common cultural heritage of the Indian subcontinent, popularly known as Ganga- Jamuni Tahjeeb but overemphasized on the point of being different from India. Statements of some of the leaders of the Indian National Congress, nothing more than the occasional emotional outbursts unsubstantiated by Indian state’s policy and activities in the region, were interpreted in a way that they were looking for an opportunity to swallow the entire Pakistani state. Due to this very attitude, Pakistan soon acquired a negative identity and started its journey with a fundamentally false assumption that described India as the enemy number one and an existential threat to its survival. Now it needed some sort of parity vis-à-vis India to overcome the fear psychosis. All these false assumptions and perceived threats converted Pakistan into a security state that, instead of devoting its energy to serve the people, invested heavily to build an all-powerful army capable of defending the territorial integrity of the state. This inadvertently led to the strengthening of the military institution, particularly the army, and prevented the growth of already weak civilian institutions in the state. Military once in power, after the first military coup in October 1958, appointed itself the guardian of the Pakistani state and proclaimed not only to defend the territorial integrity of the state, for which the institution is ideally established in every state, but the ideological frontier, too. Since then onwards, in order to gain legitimacy from the people, Islam– not the welfare policies and services to the people–was repeatedly evoked by the civilians and the military rulers. None tried to curb and control the activities of religious right-wing and extremists forces in the society. Instead, they were encouraged and actively supported by the establishment to take upon the enemies of Pakistan and bleed them with thousands cuts. More than six decades have elapsed, since the inception of Pakistan, but the Pakistani leaders miserably failed to meet the modest expectations and aspirations of their fellow Muslim citizens, for whom the state was carved out, let alone satisfying the religious minorities who stayed back because of the repeated promises made by Jinnah to them. The condition of religious minorities in the country finds a reflection in a couplet by a young Pakistani poet which says “Jane kab kaun kise maar de kafir kahkar, Shahar ka shahar muslman bana firta hai” (No one knows when one of them will be killed by anyone after being termed a non-believer, everyone in the city is moving with a tag of being Muslim.) In Pakistan, it is the military which calls the shot, whether from the front or behind the veil of civilian governments. On a number of occasions, it has been proved that army holds a veto on Pakistan’s India policy, Afghanistan policy, US policy and nuclear policy. Nothing substantial can be changed without a clear nod from the military establishment. One can understand the power of the military with the fact that it hardly took a few hours to remove an elected civilian government in 1999, which had a two third majority in the National Assembly. With the fourth military coup, General Pervez Musharraf, who, at present is facing several severe charges, at home, including the murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Judges detention case, took charge of the country, first as the Chief Martial Law Administrator and then as the President of Pakistan and ruled the country like his personal fiefdom during one of the most crucial phases of Pakistan’s history. It was during his tenure when al-Qaeda successfully targeted the symbols of economic growth and military power of the United States—the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. The event shook the world and as per the realist thinkers guided a structural change in the international system. Richard Armitage, US’ Deputy Secretary of State, threatened Pakistan to bomb back to Stone Age, if it refused to cooperate with the Washington. In such an atmosphere, Musharraf agreed to all the demands put forward by the United States and joined “War on Terror” as a frontline state. Musharraf’s decision was widely criticised by the right-wing forces at home who blamed him for selling country’s sovereignty to the Americans. However, after closely analysing the situation one would definitely come to conclude that it was the best decision at that point of time. Musharraf’s cooperation ended Pakistan’s international isolation and supported the already collapsing economy in a great way. There are reports that since 2001, Pakistan received more than $20 billion in the form of direct economic and military aid. But these facts represent only one aspect of the cooperation. In fact, despite having some positive gains, Pakistan’s post 9/11 cooperation with the United States has largely been negative. It is not to suggest that in Pakistan everything has gone from bad to worse. Indeed, in recent past, Pakistan has captured the attention of national and international media for some good things. After Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s regime, it was the only civilian government in the history of Pakistan which successfully completed its full term in office. It conducted a largely free and fair elections, amid severe threats from Taliban and other extremist groups and repeated attacks on secular political parties, and transferred the power to another elected civilian regime. This is nothing less than a watershed or a rarest in the rare event in the history of Pakistan. For a country which has been under military boots, almost half of the time since its inception, general elections and a peaceful transfer of power can be considered a great relief and a significant achievement in itself. However, this has not helped much to improve Pakistan’s image internationally. Pakistan of today is known to the outside world as the most dangerous spot on the world map. This very book is primarily based on my M. Phil. Dissertation which was submitted to Jawaharlal Nehru University. The book exclusively focuses on Pakistan-US counterterrorism cooperation and its impact on Pakistani society during 2001 to 2010. —Ashish Shukla Acknowledgements My first and foremost gratitude goes to Professor Uma Singh for her valuable guidance and support without which it would not have been possible to complete the book. I owe thanks to the Department of Political Science, Banaras Hindu University, especially Prof. Sanjay Srivastava who always helped me choosing the right direction. I am deeply indebted to Saurabh Mishra, Alok Pandey, Pallavi Mishra, Abdul Hafeez Gandhi, Sumit Kumar, Mukesh Srivastava, Shashi Kant Pandey, Mukut Nath Verma, Rajeev Kumar, Manisha Mishra and Jai Dev Pandey for their moral support and timely pieces of advice. This work would not have become reality without the love and blessings of my immediate and extended family members: Savitri Shukla, D.D. Shukla, R.D. Shukla, C.P. Shukla, Shakuntala Shukla, Anurag Shukla, Kapil Shukla, Sudha Shukla, Pradeep Shukla, Pawan Shukla, Pratima Shukla, Prakhar Shukla, Alok Shukla and Anand Shukla. Besides, I am thankful also to following friends for their patient encouragement: Divya Anand, Jyoti Chandra Chaurasia, Pankaj, Anuj Kesari, Ashutosh Payasi, Shantanu Gupta, Lal Bahadur Pushkar and Yugank Goyal. Lastly, Vijaya Books and Vikas Printers, particularly Yogesh Sharma who worked hard to get this book published in a very short time. —Ashish Shukla Abbreviations AIML All India Muslim League ANP Awami National Party APNEC All Pakistan Newspapers Employees Confederation ARD Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy CENTO Central Treaty Organisation CIA Central Intelligence Agency CII Council of Islamic Ideology CJ Chief Justice COAS Chief of Army Staff CRS Congressional Research Service EU European Union FATA Federally Administered Tribal Areas FC Frontier Constabulary GHQ General Headquarters GWOT Global War on Terrorism HAG Harvard Advisory Group HeI Hizb-e-Islami HRCP Human Rights Commission of Pakistan