11-21-2008, 10:24 PM
Book Review
LONG WAIT FOR DELIVERANCE
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->LONG WAIT FOR DELIVERANCEÂ
Pakistan: Engagement of the Extremes By Ashutosh Misra, Shipra, Rs 450
In his preface to this book,<b> Kanti Bajpai laments that Indians, though much agitated by happenings in Pakistan, never bother to write a book on them. </b>Ashutosh Misra, by that account, is an exception. Given this, one wonders why a rare effort of his kind should have been marred by such slipshod editing. Paragraph after paragraph is repeated in a span of a few pages and chunks of the text are made completely unreadable by proofing errors. That Misra and his publishers felt nothing about going ahead with the publication of such a dated manuscript, and did not feel the need to change the conclusion in January 2008, when Bajpaiâs preface was added, is even more curious. Events are traced only till early 2007, when the real problems for Pervez Musharraf had not even surfaced. Although Misra anticipates the turn of events correctly â Musharrafâs âdealâ with Benazir Bhutto for example â the tumultuous changes in Pakistan since early this year make his recollections of Musharrafâs dalliance with the Islamists appear like ancient history.
<b>Misra recalls the coming together of the two extremes in Pakistan â the Islamists and the military â during the Musharraf era, and how the convergence of interests at this time, leading up to their growing confrontation, has shaped the countryâs present destiny. But he does not stop to explain why the two are regarded as âextremesâ. Readers are expected to deduce from a diffuse introduction that the Islamists and the military in Pakistan ascribe to two radically different positions. While the first considers power as a means to an end â the spread of ideology â the latter sees ideology as a means to consolidate state power (now synonymous with military power). </b>
The Musharraf era is obviously not the first time the two âextremesâ came together. There had been a convergence of interests in the time of Ayub Khan, when he needed to invoke Islamic zeal to unite the country during the 1965 war with India, although he disbanded Islamist parties during his martial rule. Following him, Yahya Khan co-opted the Islamists into the State machinery to counter nationalist agitation in both East and West Pakistan. Before Zia-ul-Haq embarked on his mission to build a theocracy that brought the Islamists centre stage, and even afterwards, Islamists were variously entertained by the secular regimes, each to its specific advantages.
What makes the Musharraf era distinct from the others is the coming together of the Islamists under the banner of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a conglomeration of six parties (five Sunni and one Shiite) that went on to secure an unprecedented number of seats in the national assembly. Participation of the religious parties in the âdemocraticâ political set-up of Pakistan is not unique. Since the parties see âdemocracyâ as the most effective way of spreading their influence and keeping the moderates at bay, they have espoused the democratic cause and even participated in the government. These parties have also, almost unfailingly, objected to military control over state power, despite the fact that they have always depended on the army for their survival. This is no better illustrated than by the dealings of the MMA with the Musharraf regime that Misra elaborates on.
The template on which the give-and-take occurred between the Islamists and the military in the time of Musharraf was thus no different from what it was like before and continues to be. The military continues to use the Islamists, as and when necessary, to mould domestic and international support for itself, while the Islamists, willy-nilly, remain dependent on the army for their political reach. Had Musharrafâs rule, his sinful wooing of the religious parties during his crucial political tests (the April 2002 referendum, the legal framework order of 2003 and the confidence vote of 2004) strengthened them enough for them to become powerful determinants of Pakistani politics, as Misra suggests, they would not have fared so miserably during the 2008 elections when the military under General Ashfaq Kayani (despite Musharrafâs presence) withdrew itself from any active political role. By the time the results came out, Misra had, of course, finished his manuscript.
Given the larger focus and the turn of events, Misraâs reflections appear limited. There is no doubting his intense research though, particularly his ability to show how well <b>the MMA has manipulated the army to realize its goals in the North-West Frontier Provinces, in Balochistan and in Sindh. In each of these places, it capitalized on anti-American, and anti-Musharraf, sentiments to wrest power, then used it to push through Islamic ideals: the enforcement of the sharia, the hisbah bill and policies curbing womenâs independence.</b>
Many of these moves heckled Musharraf â whom Misra calls an enlightened moderate â and brought him on the path of confrontation with the Islamists. <b>It was not a moderate Musharraf alone who had to cut the religious parties short. A diehard Islamist like Zia-ul-Haq, too, could only espouse the sharia to a limited degree. As Frederic Grare, a noted expert on the sharia, has pointed out, Zia-ul-Haq created a sharia federal court but exempted the decrees of martial law, the tax system, and the overall banking system from conformity with the sharia. It amounted to a stupendous let-down for the Islamists, who soon quit his ministry.</b> The <b>logic of state management obviously imposes its own limitations on the full realization of Islamic ideals, and this fact will continue to keep Islamists at loggerheads with whichever authority assumes charge in Islamabad.</b>
<i>{Unless the Islamists in the Army themselves takeover the state}</i>
Misra draws attention to the Islamistsâ ability to make mischief. <b>But the army too should not be absolved of that sin. If the Islamistsâ link with the jihadis is to be feared, more so the armyâs. After all, the Islamist threat has been held out to the international community to justify army rule as the only way to deal with it. Despite the ascendancy of a civilian government in Pakistan, the discretionary powers still rest with the army. These are bound to be used whenever domestic and international pressure mounts on the army to clean up its act.</b> Or, as usual, the civilian authority fails to bring Pakistan to its deliverance.
CHIROSREE BASU
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LONG WAIT FOR DELIVERANCE
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->LONG WAIT FOR DELIVERANCEÂ
Pakistan: Engagement of the Extremes By Ashutosh Misra, Shipra, Rs 450
In his preface to this book,<b> Kanti Bajpai laments that Indians, though much agitated by happenings in Pakistan, never bother to write a book on them. </b>Ashutosh Misra, by that account, is an exception. Given this, one wonders why a rare effort of his kind should have been marred by such slipshod editing. Paragraph after paragraph is repeated in a span of a few pages and chunks of the text are made completely unreadable by proofing errors. That Misra and his publishers felt nothing about going ahead with the publication of such a dated manuscript, and did not feel the need to change the conclusion in January 2008, when Bajpaiâs preface was added, is even more curious. Events are traced only till early 2007, when the real problems for Pervez Musharraf had not even surfaced. Although Misra anticipates the turn of events correctly â Musharrafâs âdealâ with Benazir Bhutto for example â the tumultuous changes in Pakistan since early this year make his recollections of Musharrafâs dalliance with the Islamists appear like ancient history.
<b>Misra recalls the coming together of the two extremes in Pakistan â the Islamists and the military â during the Musharraf era, and how the convergence of interests at this time, leading up to their growing confrontation, has shaped the countryâs present destiny. But he does not stop to explain why the two are regarded as âextremesâ. Readers are expected to deduce from a diffuse introduction that the Islamists and the military in Pakistan ascribe to two radically different positions. While the first considers power as a means to an end â the spread of ideology â the latter sees ideology as a means to consolidate state power (now synonymous with military power). </b>
The Musharraf era is obviously not the first time the two âextremesâ came together. There had been a convergence of interests in the time of Ayub Khan, when he needed to invoke Islamic zeal to unite the country during the 1965 war with India, although he disbanded Islamist parties during his martial rule. Following him, Yahya Khan co-opted the Islamists into the State machinery to counter nationalist agitation in both East and West Pakistan. Before Zia-ul-Haq embarked on his mission to build a theocracy that brought the Islamists centre stage, and even afterwards, Islamists were variously entertained by the secular regimes, each to its specific advantages.
What makes the Musharraf era distinct from the others is the coming together of the Islamists under the banner of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a conglomeration of six parties (five Sunni and one Shiite) that went on to secure an unprecedented number of seats in the national assembly. Participation of the religious parties in the âdemocraticâ political set-up of Pakistan is not unique. Since the parties see âdemocracyâ as the most effective way of spreading their influence and keeping the moderates at bay, they have espoused the democratic cause and even participated in the government. These parties have also, almost unfailingly, objected to military control over state power, despite the fact that they have always depended on the army for their survival. This is no better illustrated than by the dealings of the MMA with the Musharraf regime that Misra elaborates on.
The template on which the give-and-take occurred between the Islamists and the military in the time of Musharraf was thus no different from what it was like before and continues to be. The military continues to use the Islamists, as and when necessary, to mould domestic and international support for itself, while the Islamists, willy-nilly, remain dependent on the army for their political reach. Had Musharrafâs rule, his sinful wooing of the religious parties during his crucial political tests (the April 2002 referendum, the legal framework order of 2003 and the confidence vote of 2004) strengthened them enough for them to become powerful determinants of Pakistani politics, as Misra suggests, they would not have fared so miserably during the 2008 elections when the military under General Ashfaq Kayani (despite Musharrafâs presence) withdrew itself from any active political role. By the time the results came out, Misra had, of course, finished his manuscript.
Given the larger focus and the turn of events, Misraâs reflections appear limited. There is no doubting his intense research though, particularly his ability to show how well <b>the MMA has manipulated the army to realize its goals in the North-West Frontier Provinces, in Balochistan and in Sindh. In each of these places, it capitalized on anti-American, and anti-Musharraf, sentiments to wrest power, then used it to push through Islamic ideals: the enforcement of the sharia, the hisbah bill and policies curbing womenâs independence.</b>
Many of these moves heckled Musharraf â whom Misra calls an enlightened moderate â and brought him on the path of confrontation with the Islamists. <b>It was not a moderate Musharraf alone who had to cut the religious parties short. A diehard Islamist like Zia-ul-Haq, too, could only espouse the sharia to a limited degree. As Frederic Grare, a noted expert on the sharia, has pointed out, Zia-ul-Haq created a sharia federal court but exempted the decrees of martial law, the tax system, and the overall banking system from conformity with the sharia. It amounted to a stupendous let-down for the Islamists, who soon quit his ministry.</b> The <b>logic of state management obviously imposes its own limitations on the full realization of Islamic ideals, and this fact will continue to keep Islamists at loggerheads with whichever authority assumes charge in Islamabad.</b>
<i>{Unless the Islamists in the Army themselves takeover the state}</i>
Misra draws attention to the Islamistsâ ability to make mischief. <b>But the army too should not be absolved of that sin. If the Islamistsâ link with the jihadis is to be feared, more so the armyâs. After all, the Islamist threat has been held out to the international community to justify army rule as the only way to deal with it. Despite the ascendancy of a civilian government in Pakistan, the discretionary powers still rest with the army. These are bound to be used whenever domestic and international pressure mounts on the army to clean up its act.</b> Or, as usual, the civilian authority fails to bring Pakistan to its deliverance.
CHIROSREE BASU
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