Military intervention

While the threat of Martial Law is looming large, it is being argued that the biggest threat to democracy in Pakistan is its powerful army. This argument seems quite convincing owing to the history of military intervention after brief intervals. However, military intervention is not the disease. It is only a symptom. The problems are much deeper that requires a perceptive understanding of the social structure and milieu of the society in Pakistan.

Absence of land reform

The military in Pakistan, especially the high-ranking officers, represent the landed aristocracy of Pakistan. A major chunk of the political elite also come from the landed aristocracy or real estate barons. Electoral democracy in Pakistan, thus, has been reduced to the competition between political elites of this affluent class thriving on the votes of toiling masses.

The present economic crisis and high prices of essential commodities in Pakistan are also linked to landlordism and hoarding. Pakistan is an agriculture-dependent country. Some appreciable efforts have been made there to redistribute land, but the hurdle came from an unexpected quarter. The federal judiciary reviewed the 1977 legislation imposing the ceiling of the landownership at 100 and 200 acres for irrigated and unirrigated lands, respectively. The Supreme Court Shariat Appellate Bench declared the legislation “against Islam”. The judiciary in a developing society has the additional responsibility of becoming a vehicle of social transformation, welfare and even wealth re-distribution. The concentration of lands in the hands of a few must be a concern of Pakistan’s judiciary. It should have approached the matter with the well-established Islamic principle of Ijtihad. However, the Bench preferred to apply an orthodox and conservative interpretation of faith.

Weak socialist movements

Pakistan has had a history of a strong intellectual base of Socialism/Marxism. But the repression following the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case and thereafter, the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 did not allow this ideology to become a mass movement. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan sealed the fate of Socialism in Pakistan and led to the spectacular rise of rightist forces resulting in the weakening of progressive voices, for example socialist and feminist movements.

Socialist movements across the globe have played a significant role in ensuring land reforms and championing the causes of the landless labourers, workers, and poor people against landlords and the bourgeoisie. The weakening of the left movements in Pakistan has been a great loss for the country’s people.

Religious extremism

Islam has a normative value in structuring or restructuring society in a country like Pakistan. However, history shows the ruling elite can misuse religion to promote their interests. As Samuel Johnson observed: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Islam has become the last refuge of Pakistan’s political and military elites. They use it effectively for political gains and to undermine democracy.

The emergence of the right-wing poses a major threat to Pakistan’s democracy. Some extremist religious organizations like Hizbut Tahrir seriously believe and preach that democracy is the system of kufr. Therefore, in a society like Pakistan, it is a challenge to provide a normative justification for democracy in the light of the brand of Islam legitimised there. A universal Islamic theory of democracy is conspicuously missing.

Consequently, it is not just Pakistan, but lareg numbers of people in many Muslim countries ho are today reeling under authoritarian regimes.

Imran Khan, a phenomenon

Imran Khan has emerged as the most popular leader in the history of Pakistan. His greatest contribution to Pakistan’s democracy is that he has brought common people, especially the youth, into political spaces and hence deepened the base of democracy.

Undoubtedly, he has been the darling of the masses since his cricketing days. The emergence of the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tahreek-e- Insaf (PTI) has brought in a new idioms and grammar of politics in Pakistan. He has successfully challenged the domination of the powerful military and opposed its undue interference in democratic politics. However, Imran Khan has a tough challenge ahead. The euphoria he generated for transforming Pakistan into what he calls the Riyasate Medina may lead to acute disappointment among citizens as realising the ideal State of Medina in Pakistan seems to be an impossibility. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the Imran Khan-led PTI has successfully confronted the army and tried to reclaim the democratic space in Pakistan.

Imran Khan has also tried to liberate Pakistan from the strangulating grip of the USA. He wanted to follow an independent foreign policy. He took some bold decisions, including his visit to Moscow on the eve of the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. This annoyed the United States. The removal of Imran Khan from power is also explained by many as the regime change policy of the United States. The track record of Donald Lu as the master of regime change and his appointment as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, and the unfolding of events in these regions also testify to this argument.

Imran Khan is the first political leader in Pakistan who openly challenged the powerful army and reminded it of its atrocities in 1971. Only a mass leader like Imran could have done it. The popularity of Imran Khan, even after fifteen months of repression, can be understood from the fact that the Shabaz Sharif government is still trying to keep elections in abeyance. However, it is too early to predict the outcome of the standoff between the deeply entrenched army and an emerging mass leader. Imran Khan is today standing on the wrong side of Pakistan’s history.

Neighbouring countries like India should support Imran Khan’s struggle for democracy as dealing with a responsible government in the neighbourhood will be easier than with a military dictatorship. 

(The author is a professor in the Department of Political Science at AMU Aligarh)

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Recently, the Imran Khan led Pakistani government had approved of the construction of Lord Krishna Temple in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and had granted Rs10 crore for that purpose to the Hindu Panchayat. But the religious section and some political leaders of Pakistan objected to the construction of the temple on the ground that a new temple cannot be built in Pakistan as it is an Islamic country and Pakistan aspires to emulate the Riyasat of Madina. Jamia Ashrafia even issued a Fatwa declaring the construction of a Hindu temple in Pakistan haram.

Bowing to the pressure Imran Khan government halted the construction work and referred the issue to the Ideological council. Ironically, the court refused to halt the construction on the ground that the Constitution grants religious rights to the religious minorities including Hindus and Imran Khan-led government’s approval of the construction of the temple was not against the Constitution. However, the pressure of religious bodies brought the work to a halt.

It was an ideological debate that was raging in the country and both the supporters and opponents were presenting their arguments. But the issue took an ugly turn when a video of a four-year-old boy addressing Imran Khan and telling him that if the temple was built in Islamabad, he would kill each and every Hindu. The child’s father was beside him and apparently, he tutored his kid to threat the Hindus as he proudly approved of his minor son’s threat.

This incident has sparked off protests and reactions from both Hindu and secular and sane Muslim communities. This is in sheer violation of not only of the Constitution of Pakistan but also of the Islamic principles.

The Hindus had been demanding the temple in Islamabad for a long time and the government of Pakistan had conceded to their demand within the purview of the law of the land. The matter was now with the Ideological Council and the issue would have been decided according to the law. But that a Muslim, tutors his four-year son to issue threats to kill Hindus shows the moral degradation of the Muslims of Pakistan. The Quran asks Muslims not to leave the path of Justice in the enmity of a community. The Quran also asks Muslims to inculcate among their children good morals and values and treat the minorities with respect and love. The wellbeing and protection of the minorities is the responsibility of the Islamic state. No Muslim can threat the members of the minority community in any manner. If he does so, he will be booked under the Islamic Law.

This is not the first incident of the show of hatred against Hindus and India. In October 2019, during a programme in Karachi, the Jamiat-e- Talaba-e-Pakistan had encouraged students to spew venom against India.

This incident has once again demonstrated the fact that the ideology of violence has spread its tentacles deep down in the Pakistani society and small children are filled with hatred of other religions. This hatred is causing immense harm and damage to its own society as Pakistani Muslim society is divided into sects and sub-sects, each baying for the blood of others. Hatred does not harm others but the hater itself.

Let’s recall that around two months back, anti-Muslim comments were being made in the social media by some communal minded Hindus in the Gulf states. The governments of the gulf countries took strict action against them. Some Arab Muslims also posted communal comments against the Hindus. The government arrested those Muslims as well and booked them against the same laws. This prevented other Muslims to show hatred of the Hindus. This was done in the interest of their own Arab society because if the Islamic governments had allowed Muslims to post obnoxious and hate filled comments against Hindus, it would first harm their own collective moral character which would be harmful for their own society in future.

By allowing Hindus to say what they want against Muslims in India and allowing Muslims to say or do what the Muslims want against Hindus or other religious minorities in Pakistan, the governments in both the countries are actually pushing the Hindu and Muslim societies in India and Pakistan to the mire of moral and social degradation. The result was that when an 8 year old Muslim girl was raped by Hindus in Jammu last year, the common people had rally in support of the rapists and in Pakistan when Mumtaz Qadri was sentenced to death for killing a Muslim politician, Salman Taseer, he was made into a saint by the common Muslims.

Therefore, if Imran Khan really wants to prevent the spread of hatred and culture of violence among the Pakistani children and youth, it should order the arrest of the man at whose behest, his son threatened to kill Hindus. It would be in the interest of the Muslim community of Pakistan and would also save the global Muslim community of the embarrassment the viral video has caused to them. But can we expect this from a Prime Minister who openly said that Osama bin Laden was a martyr and not a terrorist?

Courtesy: https://www.newageislam.com/

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A question would naturally arise in the minds of curious observers of Pakistan’s politics that what prompted Imran Khan to make a sudden volte-face when the stellar success of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the general elections of 2013 was anything but a pleasant surprise for the PTI leadership.

Imran Khan and his political party were accustomed to winning only a single seat in the parliament right up to the general elections of 2008 which the PTI boycotted. In the parliamentary elections of 2013, however, Imran Khan’s PTI mustered 35 National Assembly seats and completely wiped out the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province’s Pashtun nationalist party, Awami National Party (ANP), and formed a coalition government in the province with the tacit approval of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), because PML-N could have easily formed a coalition government in the province with Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s support.

These facts prove beyond doubt that the demonstrations and protests by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from August to December 2014 were based on political opportunism rather than any genuine grievances against the government of Nawaz Sharif.

Imran Khan came forward with a very broad and disjointed agenda: from electoral reforms to the resignation of the prime minister to seeking justice for the victims of the Model Town tragedy on 17 June 2014 in which 14 workers of Tahir-ul-Qadri’s Minhaj-ul-Quran were killed by the Punjab police in Lahore.

When the government agreed to the demand for electoral reforms, Imran Khan began insisting on the unacceptable demand of prime minister’s resignation; and when people and media criticized him for being unreasonable and causing disruption to the normal functioning of the state, he immediately occupied the high moral ground by drawing attention to the Model Town tragedy.

Evidently, Imran Khan’s “wish list” was only a smokescreen to hide his real motive, which was to permanently banish Nawaz Sharif and his family from Pakistan’s politics by sending them into another decade-long exile to Saudi Arabia with the help of Imran Khan’s patrons in Pakistan’s security establishment.

Truth be told, Imran Khan’s PTI played the same spoiler role in Pakistan’s politics which the elusive Tamarod Movement had played in Egypt in June 2013, before the military-led coup against Mohammad Morsi’s government by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Apart from a small number of loyalists of Egypt’s military, Tamarod was mainly comprised of a few thousand football enthusiasts, known as “the ultras,” who claimed that they had purportedly collected “millions” of signatures endorsing the ouster of Mohammad Morsi of Muslim Brotherhood, who had only had an year-long stint in power in Egypt’s more than sixty-year political history.

Similarly, Imran Khan’s PTI’s demonstrations in 2014 were not spontaneous uprisings. Those political protests were cleverly planned and choreographed by Pakistan’s military that has a history of staging military coups in Pakistan.

Those protests should be viewed in the backdrop of the Euromaidan demonstrations in Ukraine in November 2013, the Rabaa square massacre in Egypt in August 2013, and the mass protests and the ensuing military coup against the government of Yingluck Shinawatra in Thailand in May 2014, months before the announcement of street demonstrations against the government of Nawaz Sharif by Imran Khan.

Apparently, the “scriptwriter” of 2014 protests first realized the potential of PTI’s zealots to stage a sit-in when they blocked NATO’s supply route in Pakistan’s northwestern city Peshawar. It must have then occurred to Pakistan’s security establishment that Imran Khan’s PTI’s highly motivated youth supporters were very much capable of staging months-long demonstrations against the government of Nawaz Sharif.
Notwithstanding, there were actually two groups of perpetrators that carried out an assault on democracy and constitution during the mass demonstrations against the government of Nawaz Sharif in 2014. Imran Khan’s PTI is a nation-wide political party which has a mass following; however, Tahir-ul-Qadri and his Minhaj-ul-Quran religious organization is a subversive outfit which is as dangerous as the Taliban.

The Taliban carry out subversive activities against the state; and in the same manner, Tahir-ul-Qadri’s Minhaj launched a concerted assault on the paramount institutions of the state: the Parliament and the Prime Minister House.

Evidently, the August to December 2014 protests were carefully planned and choreographed. The role played by Imran Khan and PTI was only secondary; the primary role was played by the establishment’s stooges: Tahir-ul-Qadri, Sheikh Rasheed, Chaudhry Shujaat and Pervaiz Elahi.
Imran Khan’s PTI is a broad-based political party which represents the urban middle class; by their very nature, such protesters are peaceful and nonviolent. Left to his own resources, the best Imran Khan could have done was to stage a sit-in at Aabpara Market for a few days.

Both violent charges of the demonstrators in August 2014, the assault on the Red Zone in Islamabad as well as the charge on the Prime Minister House, were led by the Minhaj-ul-Quran workers. Those hooligans were a bunch of highly organized and trained religious zealots who were equipped with sticks, slingshots, gas-masks, cranes and anything short of firearms, which apparently their organizers forbade them from using in order to keep the demonstrations legit in the eyes of public.

The role played by Imran Khan and PTI in the assault on the Constitution Avenue was simply meant to legitimize the assault: the peaceful protesters, women and kids, music concerts and populist demagoguery, everything added up to creating excellent optics; but the real driving force in the assault on democracy was Tahir-ul-Qadri and his Minhaj-ul-Quran, which is a religious cult comparable to the Rajavis of Iran and their Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or the Gulenists in Turkey.

Although Imran Khan did eventually manage to win the elections last year and formed the government in the center, those elections were anything but fair. Many of the stalwarts of Nawaz Sharif’s political party were sent behind the bars before the July 2018 general elections, and Nawaz Sharif himself was barred from taking part in the elections by a verdict of Pakistan’s apex court in July 2017, and was subsequently also given a ten-year imprisonment sentence, though the latter decision is subject to appeal.

In Pakistan’s context, the national security establishment originally meant civil-military bureaucracy. Though over the years, civil bureaucracy has taken a backseat and now “the establishment” is defined as military’s top brass that has dictated Pakistan’s security and defense policy since its inception.

Paradoxically, security establishments do not have ideologies, they simply have interests. For instance, the General Ayub-led administration in the 1960s was regarded as a liberal establishment. Then, the General Zia-led administration during the 1980s was manifestly a conservative Islamist establishment. And lastly, the General Musharraf-led administration from 1999 to 2008 was once again deemed a liberal establishment.
Similarly, the Egyptian and Turkish military establishments also have a liberal outlook, but they are equally capable of forming alliances with conservatives if and when it suits the institutional interests of military. In fact, since military’s top brass is mostly groomed in urban milieus, therefore its high-ranking officers are more likely to have liberal temperaments.

The establishment does not judge on the basis of ideology, it simply looks for weakness. If a liberal political party is unassailable in a political system, it would join forces with conservatives; and if conservatives cannot be beaten in a system, it would form an alliance with liberals to perpetuate the stranglehold of the “deep state” on its traditional domain, the security and defense policy of a country.

The biggest threat to nascent democracies all over the world does not come from external enemies, but from their internal enemies, the national security establishments, because military generals by their very training have a chauvinistic mindset and a hawkish temperament. An additional aggravating factor that increases the likelihood of military coups in developing democracies is that they lack firm traditions of democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism which act as bars against martial laws.

All political parties in Pakistan at some point in time in history were groomed by the security establishment. The founder of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was groomed by General Ayub’s establishment in the 1960s as a counterweight to Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League in the East Pakistan province of Pakistan, which is now a separate country Bangladesh.

Similarly, Nawaz Sharif was nurtured by General Zia’s administration during the 1980s to offset the influence of Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan People’s Party, which was deemed a “security risk” by the military’s top brass. And finally, Imran Khan was groomed by General Musharraf’s establishment to counterbalance the ascendancy of Nawaz Sharif, who had fallen out with the establishment after the Pakistan Army’s Kargil Operation in the Indian-administered Kashmir in 1999.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Courtesy: Countercurrent.org
 

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Dear Modiji,
Jai Sri Ram!

Since this letter is for your eyes only, I can greet you in the name of Lord Ram. This is called blasphemy in Pakistan.

I am very grateful to you for cancelling the talks between our foreign ministers. You saved me from being called a stooge of India and from political death.

I understand fully well that the cancellation of the bilateral talk will ensure your victory in the coming elections. Had the talks been held, the Congress would have sent you bangles to wear. Your party had done that to the Congress Prime Minister! A photo of the bangles going viral would have subverted your election campaign. 

The photo of the two foreign ministers shaking hands would have sullied your masculine image. In every Indian city and village, you would have been called spineless. Moreover, some of your party men would have attacked your woman minister for shaking a man’s hand!
I am glad you kept your diplomats out of drafting that cancellation statement. Their polite words would not have served our common purpose. By insulting me in that official statement, you raised my political stock. I am now seen as a strong leader and you are seen as a hero for calling me names.

You will recall that your sudden visit to a corrupt Pakistani Prime Minister’s home gave me a big boost. My party won the election by calling Nawaz Shariff a stooge of India. You are a true friend! Hindutva helps me as much it helps you. 

My Spiritual Guide-cum-wife understands politics in our countries. She has asked me to help you just as you helped me. So, I will launch an anti-India tirade before your elections next year. That will bring you victory. The rabid communalists in our two countries can keep both of us going for years.

Your continuation is in Pakistan’s interest. The rabid communalists in our two countries can keep both of us going for years. These two rival formations need each other. Ours cannot increase its base without its counterpart across the border. The rival communal groups clash in public but depend on each other for survival. If Hindutva retreats in India, Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan will find it tough here. They have never won elections here but now they are encouraged by developments in India and I had to co-opt them.

You understand the importance of religious confrontation even better than your TV channels that pit a saffron-robed Hindu against a skull-capped Mulla to shout at each other in every talk show. The viewers may criticise it but they all enjoy the human version of the cock-fight. 

You wisely adopted the Pakistan Model by altering its colour. We share a long experience. The Islamic fundamentalists running the terrorists have been key players on our political pitch. Now fiery Hindu leaders have cropped up in India. Imitation is the best compliment. 

Both of us are blessed by Allah whom Gandhi also named Ishwar. The Pakistani voters were not turned on by my second wife who wrote a disgusting book about me. Indian voters were not turned off by your conduct during the Gujarat riots.

I have a lot to learn from you. Because in my country the capitalists had supported my rival, I had to talk about the poor Pakistanis. But now that the elections are over I need to win over the capitalists. And I am going to offer them cheap land and other facilities to make them see in me a new hope as the Indian capitalists saw in you. We in Pakistan face some nuisance created by the liberals and progressives who survived decades of military dictatorship. I want to establish a democracy of fear. 
 

Hating secularism

We are one in our shared hatred of Nehru and his secularism. He defeated Pakistan in an ideological battle which forced our military to attack India. Allah inspired India to ditch secularism and inch closer to Pakistan which has ended Pakistan’s isolation. You have convinced our people that Pakistan chose the right path after independence since India is following Pakistan’s footsteps and aspires to be a theocratic state. You have enabled Pakistan to shed its inferiority complex. We feel proud when India is called a Hindu Pakistan.

While living in Britain, I saw the world applauding India for not being Pakistan and condemning Pakistan for not being India. My country always lost on the invisible ideological battlefield. Once I too wanted Pakistan to be secular and democratic like India. On returning to Pakistan and plunging into politics, I corrected my error. I realised the importance of religion in politics. I married my Spiritual Guide and developed a fellow-feeling for you. Now I understand why our Gen. Zia unsheathed the sword of Islam.

Now I understand why our Gen. Zia unsheathed the sword of Islam. In order to confront the secular India, he had to push Pakistan closer to the Arabic Islamic kingdoms. That was the only way of discarding the inclusive Indian heritage and composite culture. Our military sharpened Pakistan’s identity by entering into a strange pact with the Islamic fundamentalists! 

My theocratic nation distanced itself from a secular India. But thanks to your political revolution, Islamic fundamentalism and Hindutva have emerged as comrades-in-arms. You learnt a lesson from Pakistan. Your party came to power attacking Pakistan in election speeches but then presided over India’s defeat in the battle of ideas. India’s surrender has vindicated Pakistan, making us your ideological Guru! 

This growing ideological convergence between Pakistan and the new India was first observed by our poetess Fahmida Riaz who recited in India her famous poem beginning:Tum bilkul hum jaise nikle…(You turned out to be just like us.)

I have noted with great satisfaction that since the last parliamentary elections, India continues its path-breaking journey, politically marginalising a minority and letting small mobs do what the law-bound public servants cannot do. Some policemen and law enforcement officers, by becoming accomplices of the ruling party, ward off punishment postings. Some are ideologically fired to promote a sectarian agenda. Just like us, I must say.

Pakistan flaunts an alliance between the army and Islam; India has linked democracy to an authoritarian Hindutva. I notice that democratic India still holds seminars on pluralistic traditions and multi-layered identity. These pose no political thereat to you and you carry on threatening your opponents. You claim you have information on everyone. I am told your minions track the sleeping habits of the dissident academics and income-tax returns of the media houses that refuse to fall in line.

In all this I see India extending a hidden hand of friendship. My nation now understands India better. For years Pakistan suspected India of trying to undo the Partition, the gift of the departing British. Mahatma Gandhi opposed the Partition and even offered the Prime Ministership of an undivided India to Jinnah in order to abort the birth of Pakistan. That would have killed any chance of your becoming the Prime Minister. We fully understand and appreciate your party’s antipathy towards the Father of your nation.

After the Partition, your political party kept fantasising about Akhand Bharat(Greater India). Now I realise that Pakistan’s fear of Akhand Bharatwas unfounded. This empty slogan (jumla) was not worth taking seriously. India led by you would never think of undoing the Partition. Your party depends on Pakistan for its existence. It secretly thanks Jinnah for securing a separate nation for Indian Muslims. He fulfilled the dream that was first dreamt by the ancestors of your Hindu political family. Of course, praising Jinnah openly is not permitted in your party.

I am convinced that you would rather have a pure Hindu Bharat than an Akhand Bharatpopulated by the others posing a demographic danger. So, I would campaign to free my Pakistan from the false fear of a foreign conspiracy to merge Pakistan into India. 

As we both know, Pak-bashing gets votes in India as India-bashing helps us in Pakistan. A dissident Indian poet sings that if there is tension on the Indo-Pak border, it must be election time in India! We must enter into a mutually beneficial agreement to fool our stupid voters.
 

Stupid voters

Please help me win a coming provincial election just as our President Parvez Musharraf enabled you to win the Gujarat elections when you ran the poll campaign attacking “Mian Musharraf”. So, do not mind if I go after you in my poll campaign. 

In order to strategize together to perpetuate our political power, my Garib Nawaz Centre has opened a secret communication channel with your Mahabharat Foundation in New Delhi and a joint plan is being formulated. 

At the beginning of 2019, I would start threatening India on a daily basis. You will naturally shoot down every Pakistani brick with a stone! Bilateral tensions will peak. In that emotionally surcharged political atmosphere, you will rally the nationalists. You will call the Opposition leaders traitors for having doubted the surgical strikes inside Pakistan. In every public meeting, you will call them MiaorBegum! 

If you desperately need one more surgical strike, you have my permission to do it. We will mark a forest area by covering some small trees with military uniforms. The resultant dust will fill the Indian airwaves every night during your poll campaign.

Once your elections are over and I have crushed the residual Opposition in Pakistan, we will begin the next phase in our bilateral relations. Birds of a feather must flock together! Washington fraternised with Moscow when communism collapsed in the former Soviet Union. After returning to power on the strength of a tirade against me, you will start talking about a “changed Imran”. I will stop lobbing bricks and start praising India for something or the other. I will ask my Talibanic friends not to attack India. You will issue an appropriate fiat to your party men.

I will invite Baba Ramdev to hold a mass yoga session in Lahore. Your slave TV anchors will praise you for popularising Hindutva even in Pakistan! I will allot Baba Ramdev a plot in Pakistan and offer a huge industrial project to any Gujarati capitalist named by you. 

The video clip of Baba Ramdev offering a copy of the Gita to me will encourage your minister to renew her demand to declare the Gita the Sacred Book of India! 

You will exempt our Multani Mitti (soil from Multan) from import duty and announce a special visa system for Pakistani Muslims married to Indian Muslims. I will ensure that it causes a wave of jubilation in Pakistan. I will get seven Indian fishermen released from our jails and invite you for a cricket match in Lahore. You will invite me to a Gujarati Garbadance in Ahmedabad. I will get seven Indian fishermen released from our jails and invite you for a cricket match in Lahore.

You come from a state that produced your Father of Nation as well as our Father of Nation. You aspire to be named the Father of New India and I wish to go down in history as the Father of New Pakistan. Those two leaders were weak and wiry. We both are impressively well-built and muscular. You have publicised your chest size and I plan to get my chest measured.

By executing our joint plan, we will emerge as two statesmen. The two of us will then hold a joint video press conference to announce a historic first-ever breakthrough in the Indo-Pak relations! You have adopted the Punjabi custom of hugging, so a virtual image will be projected showing the two of us engaged in a jhappi!

That image will arouse global interest. Both of us will be praised by the world for making peace. The Nobel Peace Prize will come to us unasked. We rewrote history, so now we must go down in history as great souls!

Gratefully yours,
Imran Khan

L K Sharma has followed no profession other than journalism for more than four decades, covering criminals and prime ministers. Was the European Correspondent of The Times of India based in London for a decade. Reported for five years from Washington as the Foreign Editor of the Deccan Herald. Edited three volumes on innovations in India. He has completed a work of creative nonfiction on V. S. Naipaul  His two e-books The Twain and A Parliamentary Affair form part of The Englandia Quartet.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/
 

The post Imran thanks Modi, and eyes joint Nobel Peace Prize appeared first on SabrangIndia.

But what is mightily interesting is that the new prime minister of Pakistan has started using religion right at the start of his career. Perhaps, he already knows that he will not be able to deliver on issues of employment and corruption which he had made into the central focus of his election campaign. A mark of a good leader is his foresight and perhaps Imran, knowing fully well that he will eventually fail, has started opiating his people right from the very beginning!

His promise to bring the welfare state of Medina to Pakistan has made the Muslim world sit up and take notice. Commentators, even seemingly progressive ones within Pakistan, have come out in total defence of Imran Khan and his concept of New Pakistan. Only time will tell if Imran Khan lives up to his expectations.

However it is his invocation of Medina which should be the focus of critical scrutiny now. The important question to ask is whether any nation, including a Muslim nation, can have as its role model, not a country which is modern and progressive but an oasis of 7th century Arabia. Not just Imran Khan but legions have invoked this part of the earth and there must be a reason for doing so.

From revivalists to the modern Islamists, all have revisited and reconstructed the city of Medina to suit their own political program. While for Maududi, this Medina was the start point of a triumphalist Islam, where the state first starts enforcing the Sharia, for Husain Ahmad Madani, the Medina charter was the best guarantee for minority rights, especially for the Muslims of India. For Imran, Medina becomes the modern welfare state where the rights of weak will be protected. But what is this Medina charter that we are so fond of referring and in what way can this fulfil our present requirement?

One of the first impression that one gets from the Medina charter is that it is overflowing with the notion of blood money. Now the very concept of blood money is problematic. A murderer can go scot free if he has the ability to pay blood money. The whole idea is that if one has money, then he can get away with anything. There are scores of example in Saudi Arabia where people, especially from poor migrant communities, are forced to accept blood money so that they can write off their case in courts. The very existence of the concept of blood money is predicated on class and status asymmetry within society: those who have money will be able to pay blood money and thus rescued from the clutches of the law while those who do not will have to face the music. The very notion therefore flies in the face of modern notion of equality before law. One is not quite sure, if in the deeply unequal society of Pakistan, this is the model which needs to be followed.

Another clause within the charter of Medina relates to women. Complaints of individual women will be taken up only with the consent of their families or respective kinship groups, according to the so called revolutionary charter. Historians have rightly noted that the charter did not want to disturb the existing social balance of forces which treated women as chattel. Now it is up to Pakistan to decide whether it wants to continue the same tradition and treat women as the property of men and communities or whether they want to treat women as individuals in their own right. We hear so much from Muslim apologists that Islam gave revolutionary rights to women. While this may be hyperbole, Muslim societies can always chart a new course in terms of gender equality through modern jurisprudence. What one finds disconcerting is that western educated leaders Imran Khan also talk of the Medina model knowing fully well that it will take women of Pakistan into dark ages. Women in Pakistan have fought hard battles to win some of their existing freedoms and they should not take lightly the supposedly pious words of their leader.

The fledgling Medina state has at times been eulogised as a shining example of pluralism and co-existence. While pluralism is certainly a positive thing, a closer scrutiny of the charter of Medina reveals that it pluralism is not a principle which should be followed for its intrinsic merit. Rather pluralism in this case is dependent on the supremacy of the Muslims. Muslims have been given exalted place within the charter and it is their version that is sought to be imposed on other inhabitants of Medina. One clause within the charter says that all Muslims are friends to the exclusion of all non-Muslims while another says that a Muslim should not help a non-Muslim. It is this kind of Islamist exclusionism which informs the incipient society in Medina. But then perhaps, this is what appeals to those in Pakistan. A look at the oath of office of the prime minister tells us that Pakistan has no place for any other religion and that the whole oath is designed to reinforce the concept of Islamic supremacism.

 The prime minister of Pakistan has to believe in the ‘unity and oneness of Allah, the books of Allah, the Quran being the last of them, the Prophethood of Muhammad as the last of the Prophets and that there can be no Prophet after him, the Day of Judgment, and all the requirements and teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah’. Now if this is the oath that the prime minister takes, then it is understandable why Medina would continue to appeal. After all, the first experiment to establish Islam took place in Medina and the first country which got created specifically in the name of Islam was Pakistan. As Venkat Dhulipala suggests in his book, Pakistan was indeed imagined as a new Medina. The similarities perhaps do not end here. Islamic Medina was grafted on an earlier city which had its own code and style of life. Similarly, Islamic Pakistan was foisted on a population which had for centuries followed their own customs and traditions. After Islam came into the scene, both places got changed beyond recognition.  

The need to create a welfare state within a feudal Pakistan is most welcome. But a welfare model should not hark back to seventh century Arabia where there was no welfare but just charity and no conception of individual, minority or gender rights. If at all, Imran Khan is serious about establishing a welfare state, he should look at modern solutions like the ones being experimented in Western Europe.

Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

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Can the next leader of Pakistan lead the country out of corruption, poverty, and war?

Photo of Imran Khan by Awais khan via Shutterstock
 

The July 25 general elections in Pakistan heralded a seismic shift in Pakistan’s politics few would have envisaged a mere six months ago. The Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI)—led by the charismatic former cricketer Imran Khan—bagged 115 out of the 272 directly contested seats in Pakistan’s Parliament. That’s the most of any party. Khan is thus Pakistan’s prime-minister-in-waiting, an achievement that marks the pinnacle of his two-decade-long political career.

Khan’s rise to power, however, is not without controversy. The run-up to the polls was marred by some of the most extensive pre-election rigging Pakistan has ever witnessed in its turbulent history. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the ruling party before the elections, was expected to further strengthen its hold on power in the 2018 polls.

Instead, it found itself as the runner up to the PTI after becoming the target of dubious political maneuvering and of uncertain judicial decisions that resulted in the party’s leader, Nawaz Sharif, and his daughter jailed on the eve of the elections.

In the past, the military has usually been responsible for such political machinations. Since Khan benefitted from this onslaught against the PML-N, his party came to be seen as a stooge of the military, a claim that has tarnished the PTI’s reputation in some quarters and that has raised questions about the health and the sustainability of Pakistan’s democracy.

Khan will thus come into office with the knowledge that many segments of Pakistani society are challenging his legitimacy to rule. Despite these allegations, however, Imran would not have been able to acquire such a commanding lead in the National Assembly had he not been generally popular amongst Pakistan’s masses.

His narrative of being anti-status quo and his promises to eradicate corruption in Pakistan resonated strongly with the millions of young, literate, and unemployed Pakistanis who chase increasingly elusive dreams of upward mobility. Imran’s own unique blend of a Western past and his conservative socials views also makes him popular with voters across Pakistan’s political spectrum. Pakistan’s liberals, for instance, remember Imran the cricketer as a flamboyant celebrity and playboy who broke bread with some of the biggest names in the Western World.

The Khan of today, on the other hand, decries Western feminism for having “degraded the role of a mother,” and has publically spoken out against repealing some of Pakistan’s most orthodox laws. Whether he succeeds in uniting the different strands tugging at Pakistan’s social fabric, however, remains uncertain.

The PTI promises a significant break from Pakistan’s political past and the chance to try a new, untested, and so far untainted political party. The problems the PTI faces, however, are the same ones that have been plaguing the country for decades, including a burgeoning foreign and fiscal debt crisis, rising unemployment, a faltering foreign policy, climate change, and the perennial threat of extremism and terrorism.

Pakistan’s fiscal and foreign debt crisis possibly poses the biggest challenge for the incoming government. Pakistan’s currency has depreciated nearly 25% in value over the past few months. With imports continuing to increase and exports failing to catch up, there seems to be no respite for Pakistan’s falling foreign reserves. The precarious situation could force Pakistan into another agreement with the IMF, a possibility PTI’s candidate for finance minister, Asad Umar, claimed is likely.

The structural problems plaguing Pakistan’s economy thus demand a fundamental rethink of the country’s economic policy and a shift away from the neoliberal growth model that the country has followed since the 1990s. The PTI, however, adheres to the tenets of this model, which casts doubt over its ability to substantially alter Pakistan’s economic trajectory.

The PTI also faces an uphill battle to protect Pakistan’s interests on the global stage. In June, for instance, Pakistan was placed on the Financial Assistance Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list” of countries that have failed to curb money laundering and the financing of terrorist outfits.

This move was a result of declining relations with Washington, which has threatened to punish Pakistan for its alleged support of extremist groups operating in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, moreover, claimed in a recent interview that the US would deny IMF funding to Pakistan if the latter used these funds to pay back “Chinese loans.”

Recalibrating relations with the United States will thus be the biggest foreign policy challenge for the PTI. The new government will also have to rethink its approach towards Afghanistan to assuage fears that Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban. This will pose a significant dilemma for Khan, who has historically voiced support for peaceful negotiations with the Taliban and who opposed the Pakistan military’s operation against the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s northwestern regions. While in power in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, moreover, the PTI funded the Darul Uloom Haqqania, a religious seminary notorious for educating many members of the Taliban. These precedents have led to many of the detractors of the soon-to-be prime minister to dub him “Taliban Khan.”
The PTI will thus have to battle both personal ideological inclinations and strategic interests to improve Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan. This will also require making peace overtures to New Delhi, a move that will bring the party into direct conflict with Pakistan’s military. The military, for its part, has historically opposed any peace deal with India, and has traditionally enjoyed a veto on Pakistan’s foreign and security policies.

Imran Khan’s promises of a naya (new) Pakistan thus face significant hurdles even before the cricketer-turned-politician has set foot in his new office. Pakistan, after all, has suffered from decades of poor governance and a weak democratic structure. But Khan came to power carrying with him the hopes of millions of Pakistanis who have witnessed extreme violence, poverty, and uncertainty in their lives, and who want to break the hold traditional political parties have on the organs of power in Pakistan.

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Female members of Imran Khan’s party claim that Pakistan’s new leader has their interests at heart. Does he?

Image Courtesy: BANARAS KHAN/AFP/Getty Images
 

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During the campaign for a much hyped “Naya (new) Pakistan” Imran Khan had promised that his party would create 10 million new jobs and build 5 million homes for the poor if they win. He also made a claim that the rich Pakistani   diaspora had assured him that they would step in with substantive investment and expertise to reconstruct the country.  In his first press conference (even as the entire election results were still to be announced), Imran Khan announced that he wanted Pakistan to become the country that his leader “Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had dreamed of” (Dawn 2018b). He said that he wanted to “share the kind of Pakistan” he envisioned—“the type of state that was established in Madina, where widows and the poor were taken care of “(Ibid).

If it i was Nizam-i Mustafa (the system of the Prophet Muhammad) that Imran referred to, there was already an experiment undertaken by a nine-party popular movement begun by the Jamaat-i Islami in 1977 to overthrow the secular government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and establish an ‘Islamic system’ of government in Pakistan. The movement broke done after the military coup of Zia-ul-Haq and, then, Pakistan witnessed another decade of authoritarian military rule under the facade of ‘Islamisation’ drive.

One does not know if Imran was still aware of the ‘dream’ of Jinnah which the latter had categorically made clear on 11 August 1947 in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan:
“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your Mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan, You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the state… we are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed or another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state… you should keep that in front of us as our ideal, and you will find, in course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus, and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual but in the political sense as citizens of the state (Jinnah 1947).

Does PTI’s “Islamic Republic” allow room for such an egalitarian society? What is the status of minorities in Pakistan even after 70 years? The Ahmadi community, for instance, announced their boycott of the July 25 elections to protest the ‘discriminatory’ move to have a separate voter list for them. Imran did not hide his bias on their status. He had openly rejected any idea of repealing the Second Amendment to the Pakistani Constitution which declares the Ahmadis as non-Muslims.

In his first press conference, Imran brought to light the plight of the poor, women and children. He says: “Farmers are not paid for their hard work, 25 million children are out of school, our women continue to die in childbirth because we can’t give them basic healthcare, we can’t give the people clean drinking water. A country is not recognised by the lifestyle of the rich, but by the lifestyle of the poor. No country that has an island of rich people and a sea of poor people can prosper” (Dawn 2018b). It may be recalled that in a pre-election interview Imran said that “The political class here doesn’t change that much. You can introduce new actors but you can’t change the political class wholesale. This is why I give the example of Mahathir Mohamad, who changed Malaysia with the same political class by giving them clean leadership” (Dawn 2018a). This was obviously an indication that Imran’s PTI does not envisage any fundamental change in the political economy of the State of Pakistan.  The ruling political class has always been characterised by a combination of military-bureaucratic-political forces.

There is already a feeling everywhere that Imran and his PTI could be the natural ‘selection’ of the military. Given such a spate of criticisms across a wider political spectrum, within and across the world, it remains to be seen how he would negotiate between these state apparatuses.  In an interview Imran was asked to speak on the military’s influence in setting Pakistan’s foreign policy. He said: “The army will get involved where there are security situations. If you look at the US policy in Afghanistan, a lot of the US-Afghan policy was influenced by Pentagon. Even when Barack Obama didn’t want to continue the war in Afghanistan, he did it because he was convinced by Pentagon” (Dawn 2018a).  Imran also said: “When you have democratic governments that perform and deliver, that is their strength. We have had military influence on politics in Pakistan because we have had the worst political governments. I am not saying it is justified but where there is a vacuum something will fill it.” He also said: “Under crooked and corrupt governments, people welcome the military with open arms. In 1999 when Musharraf’s martial law was declared, people were celebrating in Lahore – Nawaz’s political centre! – because governance had failed” (Dawn 2018a).

Imran has also been criticised for his ambiguous position on Islamic forces in Pakistan. Many even suspected if he was ‘soft’ on such issues. During the election campaign, he declared that there should be “a dual policy: one is dialogue and the other is military action. I have been labelled ‘Taliban Khan’ just because I did not agree with this one-dimensional policy that Pakistan implemented under American pressure.” Imran said: “the war in Afghanistan was a classic example of how military solutions alone did not work. “The US has been there for 15 years with a military option but has failed. If there is consensus among the American and Afghan governments and allies that they want unconditional peace talks with Taliban, it means the military option has failed” (Dawn 2018a).

The most challenging test of Imran’s policy regime could be Pakistan’s relations with India which witnessed a setback during the last few years. His anti-India rhetoric had already raised suspicions that a political dispensation under Imran would be more ‘aggressive’ in dealing with India. In the interview with Dawn, he said that his rival “Nawaz Sharif tried everything, even personal [gestures] calling him [Modi] over to his house. No one got in his way. But I think it is the policy of the Narendra Modi government to try and isolate Pakistan. They have a very aggressive anti-Pakistan posture because Modi wants to blame Pakistan for all the barbarism they are doing in Kashmir. What can one do in the face of this attitude?” (Dawn 2018a).

In his post-election speech, Imran, however, appeared to be more soft-spoken though he still harped on sensitive issues like Kashmir. He said that it would be “very good for all of us if we have good relations with India. We need to have trade ties, and the more we will trade, both countries will benefit”(Dawn 2018b). Everyone knows that it was Pakistan that was still hesitant on the issue of strengthening trade ties with India. It is yet to accord the most favoured nation (MFN) status to India even as it maintains a negative list of more than a thousand items which are not permitted to be imported from India.  New Delhi keeps reminding that its granting of MFN status to Pakistan should not be treated as a mere gesture and hence reciprocity is called for. Referring to Kashmir, Imran said that “Kashmir is a core issue, and the situation in Kashmir, and what the people of Kashmir have seen in the last 30 years. They have really suffered…Pakistan and India’s leadership should sit at a table and try to fix this problem. It’s not going anywhere.” In a more conciliatory tone Imran said:  “We are at square one right now [with India]. If India’s leadership is ready, we are ready to improve ties with India. If you step forward one step, we will take two steps forward. I say this with conviction, this will be the most important thing for the subcontinent, for both countries to have friendship” (Daily Pakistan 2018). A major question is if Pakistan will allow the democratic process to take the lead on both sides of Kashmir. Azad Kashmir is still a democratic-deficit zone which Imran does not want to concede when he talks about issues in the Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir. One major cause of the perennial crisis in Kashmir is the continued support the militants get from Pakistan which India considers as a critical factor stalling the peace process.

The most crucial tests of Imran Khan would be his handling of Pakistan economy and the burgeoning threats from Islamic forces. The economy has already been facing several problems—from resource crunch to worsening balance of payment situation. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has already warned that “the current account and budget deficits are gloomy.”  According to the IMF, the country’s current account deficit stood at 4.8% of total national income ($16.6 billion), which was 83% higher than the government’s official estimates. The IMF has also warned that Pakistan’s official gross foreign currency reserves could fall to $12.1 billion–barely enough financing 10 weeks of imports.  The IMF also asked Pakistan to improve its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regimes. They also sought to devalue the currency to minimise damages to the external sector, and levy more taxes to control the growing budget deficit. It said that surging imports have led to a widening current account deficit and a significant decline in international reserves despite higher external financing. FY 2017/18’s current account deficit could reach 4.8% of GDP, with gross international reserves further declining in the context of limited exchange rate flexibility.  This is equal to $16.6 billion – and far higher than $12.1 billion deficit that Pakistan has experienced in the previous fiscal year (IMF 2018).

The World Bank’s latest estimates also paint a dismal picture for Pakistan. It says that “Pakistan remains one of the lowest performers in the South Asia Region on human development indicators, especially in education (etc)…  Infant and under five mortality rates represent a similar story. Gender disparities persist in education, health and all economic sectors. Pakistan has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates in the region. Nutrition also remains a significant cross-cutting challenge, as 44% of children under five are stunted. The spending on health, nutrition, and education, now totalling 3 per cent of GDP, significantly lower than most other countries. Increased allocation will only be possible after increasing government revenues. The tax-to-GDP ratio, at 12.4 percent, is one of the lowest in the world and it is still half of what it could be for Pakistan.”

The Fund-Bank estimates have a particular importance for Pakistan given its long-term dependence on the external sources and its high spending on defence and arms build-up, besides its financing of various forces. Remittances constitute a major share of Pakistan’s foreign exchange.  According to latest reports, remittances have declined by 19.82% compared to the situation the previous year (it was $1.609 billion in September 2016 but in 2017, it has been reduced to $1.29 billion) (Times of Islamabad 10 March 2017; Dawn 10 June 2017). Like other countries in South and Southeast Asia, Pakistan too will have to bear the burden of declining remittances due to the localisation drive underway in the GCC countries.

Most importantly, Imran has to address the situation arising out of the rise of terrorism and fundamentalism in Pakistan. He must be aware that it has much to do with the emergence of an oligarchic power structure (civil-military-religious nexus), which had its beginnings in the 1960s, but got accentuated in the 1970s after  General Zia-ul-Haq  came to power((Seethi 2015).  It was during the rule of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in the 1990s that the Islamic forces like Taliban branched out, within and across the boundary in Afghanistan. An major  factor that has significantly assisted their growth is the making of a vast number of jobless families, people without any means of existence and without expectations, as a consequence of lopsided policies in agriculture and industry. As  Hamza Alvi wrote, every tractor displaced at least a dozen families of sharecroppers. Hundreds of thousands of them were without a source of livelihood. Under these circumstances, the advent of the well-financed madrasas, who took over their children, gave them free tuition, accommodation and food, appeared to be a great miracle (Alvi 2010). Over years, the armed groups, many of them with battle-hardened Taliban, are in the forefront of a sectarian carnage in Pakistan, which have been on the increase — killings of members of rival sects, Sunnis vs Shias, Deobandi Sunnis vs Barelvi Sunnis, etc. (Seethi 2014). Over the years, these militant bands assumed new forms and carried new nomenclatures. Islamic militant outfits such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammed are various forms of Jihadism in the making, seeking to take over the State by military means, mainly relying on the discontent of the middle class. Instead of conceptualising a workable policy with a view to dealing with such militant groups, successive governments have pandered to them. The high cost of this great lapse is that Pakistan has become the killing fields of South Asia.

In Pakistan, the State’s monopoly of force is dented by a variety of armed Islamist groups that have schemes of their own. The ruling dispensations have not so far recognised that the more they try to acquiesce to these religious extremists, the harder and more uncompromising they tend to become. It remains to be seen how Imran Khan’s ‘Naya’ Pakistan is going to address this crucial question.

References
Alvi, Hamza (2010): “The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism in Pakistan,” LUBP, https://lubpak.com/archives/5589
Dawn (2018a): “You can’t win without electables and money: Imran,” 5 July, https://www.dawn.com/news/1418060/you-cant-win-without-electables-and-money-imran
Dawn (2018b): “Imran promises wide-ranging reforms: All policies for the people” Dawn.com  26 July 26,  https://www.dawn.com/news/1423029/imran-promises-wide-ranging-reforms-all-policies-for-the-people
Daily Pakistan (2018): “‘Will run Pakistan like never before,’ Imran Khan vows to eradicate corruption and live a simple life in victory speech,”  https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/lifestyle/well-spoken-indias-rishi-kapoor-praises-imran-khan-on-his-election-victory-speech/
IMF (2018):Pakistan: IMF Country Report No. 18/78, FIRST POST-PROGRAM MONITORING  DISCUSSIONS,  https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjrz9ngk73cAhXEQo8KHSD_CiUQFjAAegQIBRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imf.org%2F~%2Fmedia%2FFiles%2FPublications%2FCR%2F2018%2Fcr1878.ashx&usg=AOvVaw2lXQHNabxWLsLYV6XASIcX
Seethi, K.M. (2014): “Pakistan School Killing: South Asia’s Killing Fields,” Tehelka, , 19 December.
Seethi, K.M. (2015): “Political Islam, Violence and Civil Society in Pakistan,” Indian Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol.8. No.1.
The World Bank (2018): The World bank in Pakistan:  Overview 17 April, http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/pakistan/overview

The author is Professor, School of International Relations and Politics, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala. He can be reached at kmseethimgu@gmail.com

First Published on https://countercurrents.org
 

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