Christophe Jaffrelot, one of the world’s finest scholars on South Asia, talks about his new book ‘The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience’ in an interview with Aditi Phadnis. Edited excerpts:
Tell us about your new book about Pakistan
It is about instability and resilience in Pakistan society and politics.
The second tension, between democrats and autocrats, is also a constant over the last 60 or 70 years. I prefer these words to 'civilians' and 'military' - because some of these civilians are not democrats and some of the military are not autocrats. This tension goes back to what I have said before because the unitary nation-state project of Jinnah was not democratic: to get this unitary state he centralised power and ignored the fact that Bengalis were in a majority. If he had gone for democracy and followed the one man, one vote principle, power would have gone into the hands of the Bengalis and, therefore, the Mohajirs and even the Punjabis would have lost their position. Jinnah initiated this peculiar authoritarian culture on the civilian side, that Bhutto somewhat implemented. Bhutto was not himself a democrat. And we could see this in the 1977 election, when he rigged the election unnecessarily. This political culture that we can call Vice Regal, because it was inherited from the British in some ways, was still enforced by Nawaz Sharif in the 1990s.
But, of course, the most autocratic actors in Pakistan have been the military. While Ayub Khan, as early as 1958, who positioned himself as an enlightened dictator, and Musharraf did try to repeat this repertoire of a moderniser, some of these military dictators have not been enlightened at all, as General Zia showed. And they have recurrently provoked movements for the restoration of democracy, which reflected the resilience of anti-authoritarian forces in Pakistan.
First of all, in civil society and it is worth recalling that Ayub Khan lost power because people demonstrated on the streets in 1968-69 - trade unionists, students... And then among parties because there is a long tradition of progressive parties harking back to the NAP (National Awami Party) and the PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party) of the early 1970s.
Third, opposition forces have come from the media and the judiciary, which have been balancing forces - with ups and downs. Today, the media plays a major role and recently, under Iftikhar Chaudhry, the judiciary also was in a position to make a dictator fall.
Is this tension between democratic and autocratic forces still creating instability today?
We may have possibly left this kind of instability today, but not for very good reasons. Certainly, there are democratically elected leaders at the helm that the military is not trying to dislodge from power any more, but they are powerless, with the army running the country from behind. The CoAS (Chief of Army Staff) may not need to seize power any more: the façade of democracy is there, which is good for the image of the country and there is no need for the military to step in directly because the civilians in office have resigned themselves to their situation. So, maybe, we have entered a new phase in Pakistan politics. But for 60 years, the pendulum has constantly oscillated from one regime to another.
The third and last tension that the book explores is about religion: what kind of religious identity for Pakistan. On the one hand, you have Jinnah's project, which was articulated in terms of an Islamic state: it intended to give a homeland for the Muslims, it was based on a sense of the community's identity and interests, it was for Muslim-hood. Or Muslim-ness. Not Islam as a creed. And as a result, Jinnah's Pakistan was supposed to be a secular country where minorities would be taken care of. The three constitutions have recognised them as legitimate and as having rights.
This changed in 1974 when under the pressure of those who wanted an Islamic state, Jamaat-e-Islami, Maudoodi and others, the Ahmadis were declared apostates. This is the beginning of the end for Pakistan's secularism - three years before Zia's Islamisation policies. Bhutto plays the religion card the same way as others have played the Hindutva card - for political, electoral reasons. But, of course, the moment Zia takes over, it changes the rules of the game. And not only because of his own personal leanings but also because of the Afghan jihad, that changed the equations all of a sudden. Mujahideen, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam in the political arena and Maulvis in villages became important figures and got the funds from the CIA and from the Saudis...
The second half of the 1970s is really the turning point. Because after that, those in favour of Islamisation will have their own organisations as the rise of the number of madarassa suggests. Jihadi groups will become well-entrenched in power politics, ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and others. The LeT was born of the Jihad of Afghanistan in conjunction with Al Qaeda and then became part of the security fabric of Pakistan.
Since then, we have this big tension between those who want to preserve what's left of the secular agenda of Jinnah and ask for safety for the minorities; and those who want to build an Islamic state and who are not only after the minorities - the Hindus, the Christians, the Ahmadis and so on - but also the Shias. For decades, they have received the support of the ISI and the Army because they were useful instruments in the fight against India in Kashmir and in Afghanistan... However, here again, there are signs of a change - mostly on the army's side. The North Waziristan operation, the post-Peshawar reaction, including in Karachi, show that the army is certainly now after groups it has tolerated before. But at the same time, it has probably not severed its links with the LeT. The LeT has never attacked the army, so why should they attack the LeT - which has deep roots in society?
Did India miss an opportunity when Musharraf was in charge?
There was a time, in 1999, after (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee went to Lahore to meet Sharif when Musharraf as CoAS did not want this rapprochement to happen and derailed the process in Kargil. Musharraf made overtures after he became President. But it was too late on the Indian side. The resentment over Kargil was still there and Manmohan Singh was under pressure from the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).
I have come to the conclusion, very paradoxical, that you may only improve the India-Pakistan problem when you have a strong, possibly military ruler in Pakistan and a BJP government in India.
What about the China-Pakistan relationship?
This book is about domestic politics. But Pakistan would not have been that resilient, or even sustainable, without the US, the Chinese and Saudi Arabia. It has been repeatedly supported - and even bailed out - by one of the three. So, it will probably never fail, but it will also probably never be on its own either. This is the only country of 200 million people with a nuclear arm that is persisting to a large extent because of the support from outside - the US till the 1965 war and then during the anti-Soviet Jihad, and again after 9/11; the Chinese almost right from the beginning and Saudi Arabia (as well as other Gulf countries) from the 1960s onwards.
But despite all that, we saw some pretty adroit footwork by Pakistan when the Saudis asked for its help on Yemen... Pakistan neither said yes, nor said no...
That's interesting because it shows that Pakistan doesn't want to be taken for a ride by the Saudis in what is, in fact, a very complicated question for them.
First of all, if they alienate Iran, they have one more neighbour that is hostile to them at their border. And they can't afford that especially if they need the gas from there.
Second, the Sunni-Shia problem will also be exacerbated if Pakistan takes the Saudi side to that extent. And this sectarian problem is probably the biggest one for Pakistan. It is existential. They need to contain it.
Third, the Pakistani military is already overstretched. And last, this Saudi operation was technically not very well thought out.
On the other hand, given Pakistan's fragile finances, if Saudi Arabia cracks down on remittances...
Certainly: how far can Pakistan alienate the Saudis? One way out may be that officially, Pakistan doesn't do anything but helps unofficially. That's what has happened in Bahrain already. But it's clearly the next challenge, not just for Pakistan but the whole region. How will Saudi Arabia adjust to the new role of Iran? If at all? And if not, Pakistan may have to choose.
Fascinating as this is, we have to turn to India a little bit. What can you tell us about Narendra Modi about whom a lot is known - but actually, very little is known. The way he thinks, the way he behaves, his political strategies... Gujarat was not politically pluralistic. How does he respond to challenges of political pluralism?
There may be a kind of adjustment to the pluralism you are mentioning. An interesting and encouraging sign of this is the recent decision to appoint a CIC (Chief Information Commissioner). There are institutions that you can't ignore and the CIC is one of them. And it is part of this long Indian tradition of supporting the rule of law - at least on paper. Now the question is, is it a trend, is the next step the appointment of a Lok Pal? A related question is: what will happen to the land acquisition Act? Is there a recognition that peasants have a tough time or is the priority to industrialisation still there under pressure from big corporate houses? Or more precisely, will the government try to make access to land compatible with both, the industrialisation process and the defence of the peasants' interests? If decisions are made in this direction, then we will see the sense of pluralism - not only cultural, but also social - that you were mentioning, prevail.
But on Modi as a person, about whom we don't know much and we keep being surprised
What has been surprising in one year? Nobody anticipated such an active foreign policy, probably. Modi was not known for that - in spite of his many trips abroad. He was known for development, for Hindutva... he was not known for trying to project India on the global map.
But a nationalist leader wants to project his country internationally. Also, India needs investments from outside to "Make in India". Which is ironical because in Europe, we see Indian companies spending billions of dollars! Third, one reason Modi has to visit the world is that India is facing the rise of China with some unease. One can understand the kind of anxiety this rise is creating. You have the old Myanmar-China connection, this Pakistan-China corridor and a new Chinese presence in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, the Seychelles... It is one of the reasons Modi has spent time travelling in the region - Japan, Australia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Nepal are key partners vis-à-vis China.
But it is not easy to contain China, especially when you are also engaging China! And clearly, the government tries to do both - not only for solving the border disputes but also to intensify economic relations. Will China accept the engagement regarding the border dispute? Or will it just trade and further increase the Indian deficit? China trades with its best enemies, including Japan and Taiwan.
Tell us about your new book about Pakistan
It is about instability and resilience in Pakistan society and politics.
More From This Section
The first tension I study is between the Pakistan project - based on the motto one people, one religion, one language - and the ethno-linguistic diversity of the country. The idea was to give Muslims a homeland where Urdu would be the language and Islam the religion. That was clearly at odds with the ethno-linguistic regional identities of Pakistan. And, of course, the worst case scenario was with East Bengal and that resulted in a second partition. But Baloch, Pashtuns (for some time) and Mohajirs after the 1970s and 80s have also developed centrifugal forces. Pakistan has never been able to fully reconcile both: a nationalistic project and the recognition of regional identities. The federal structure was too weak. It works well in some cases. Groups like the Sindhis have merged with the nation, but the problem remains in Balochistan and Karachi. The 2008, 18th Amendment of the constitution was supposed to solve the problem, but it has not been implemented properly.
The second tension, between democrats and autocrats, is also a constant over the last 60 or 70 years. I prefer these words to 'civilians' and 'military' - because some of these civilians are not democrats and some of the military are not autocrats. This tension goes back to what I have said before because the unitary nation-state project of Jinnah was not democratic: to get this unitary state he centralised power and ignored the fact that Bengalis were in a majority. If he had gone for democracy and followed the one man, one vote principle, power would have gone into the hands of the Bengalis and, therefore, the Mohajirs and even the Punjabis would have lost their position. Jinnah initiated this peculiar authoritarian culture on the civilian side, that Bhutto somewhat implemented. Bhutto was not himself a democrat. And we could see this in the 1977 election, when he rigged the election unnecessarily. This political culture that we can call Vice Regal, because it was inherited from the British in some ways, was still enforced by Nawaz Sharif in the 1990s.
But, of course, the most autocratic actors in Pakistan have been the military. While Ayub Khan, as early as 1958, who positioned himself as an enlightened dictator, and Musharraf did try to repeat this repertoire of a moderniser, some of these military dictators have not been enlightened at all, as General Zia showed. And they have recurrently provoked movements for the restoration of democracy, which reflected the resilience of anti-authoritarian forces in Pakistan.
First of all, in civil society and it is worth recalling that Ayub Khan lost power because people demonstrated on the streets in 1968-69 - trade unionists, students... And then among parties because there is a long tradition of progressive parties harking back to the NAP (National Awami Party) and the PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party) of the early 1970s.
Third, opposition forces have come from the media and the judiciary, which have been balancing forces - with ups and downs. Today, the media plays a major role and recently, under Iftikhar Chaudhry, the judiciary also was in a position to make a dictator fall.
Is this tension between democratic and autocratic forces still creating instability today?
We may have possibly left this kind of instability today, but not for very good reasons. Certainly, there are democratically elected leaders at the helm that the military is not trying to dislodge from power any more, but they are powerless, with the army running the country from behind. The CoAS (Chief of Army Staff) may not need to seize power any more: the façade of democracy is there, which is good for the image of the country and there is no need for the military to step in directly because the civilians in office have resigned themselves to their situation. So, maybe, we have entered a new phase in Pakistan politics. But for 60 years, the pendulum has constantly oscillated from one regime to another.
The third and last tension that the book explores is about religion: what kind of religious identity for Pakistan. On the one hand, you have Jinnah's project, which was articulated in terms of an Islamic state: it intended to give a homeland for the Muslims, it was based on a sense of the community's identity and interests, it was for Muslim-hood. Or Muslim-ness. Not Islam as a creed. And as a result, Jinnah's Pakistan was supposed to be a secular country where minorities would be taken care of. The three constitutions have recognised them as legitimate and as having rights.
This changed in 1974 when under the pressure of those who wanted an Islamic state, Jamaat-e-Islami, Maudoodi and others, the Ahmadis were declared apostates. This is the beginning of the end for Pakistan's secularism - three years before Zia's Islamisation policies. Bhutto plays the religion card the same way as others have played the Hindutva card - for political, electoral reasons. But, of course, the moment Zia takes over, it changes the rules of the game. And not only because of his own personal leanings but also because of the Afghan jihad, that changed the equations all of a sudden. Mujahideen, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam in the political arena and Maulvis in villages became important figures and got the funds from the CIA and from the Saudis...
The second half of the 1970s is really the turning point. Because after that, those in favour of Islamisation will have their own organisations as the rise of the number of madarassa suggests. Jihadi groups will become well-entrenched in power politics, ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and others. The LeT was born of the Jihad of Afghanistan in conjunction with Al Qaeda and then became part of the security fabric of Pakistan.
Since then, we have this big tension between those who want to preserve what's left of the secular agenda of Jinnah and ask for safety for the minorities; and those who want to build an Islamic state and who are not only after the minorities - the Hindus, the Christians, the Ahmadis and so on - but also the Shias. For decades, they have received the support of the ISI and the Army because they were useful instruments in the fight against India in Kashmir and in Afghanistan... However, here again, there are signs of a change - mostly on the army's side. The North Waziristan operation, the post-Peshawar reaction, including in Karachi, show that the army is certainly now after groups it has tolerated before. But at the same time, it has probably not severed its links with the LeT. The LeT has never attacked the army, so why should they attack the LeT - which has deep roots in society?
Did India miss an opportunity when Musharraf was in charge?
There was a time, in 1999, after (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee went to Lahore to meet Sharif when Musharraf as CoAS did not want this rapprochement to happen and derailed the process in Kargil. Musharraf made overtures after he became President. But it was too late on the Indian side. The resentment over Kargil was still there and Manmohan Singh was under pressure from the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).
I have come to the conclusion, very paradoxical, that you may only improve the India-Pakistan problem when you have a strong, possibly military ruler in Pakistan and a BJP government in India.
What about the China-Pakistan relationship?
This book is about domestic politics. But Pakistan would not have been that resilient, or even sustainable, without the US, the Chinese and Saudi Arabia. It has been repeatedly supported - and even bailed out - by one of the three. So, it will probably never fail, but it will also probably never be on its own either. This is the only country of 200 million people with a nuclear arm that is persisting to a large extent because of the support from outside - the US till the 1965 war and then during the anti-Soviet Jihad, and again after 9/11; the Chinese almost right from the beginning and Saudi Arabia (as well as other Gulf countries) from the 1960s onwards.
But despite all that, we saw some pretty adroit footwork by Pakistan when the Saudis asked for its help on Yemen... Pakistan neither said yes, nor said no...
That's interesting because it shows that Pakistan doesn't want to be taken for a ride by the Saudis in what is, in fact, a very complicated question for them.
First of all, if they alienate Iran, they have one more neighbour that is hostile to them at their border. And they can't afford that especially if they need the gas from there.
Second, the Sunni-Shia problem will also be exacerbated if Pakistan takes the Saudi side to that extent. And this sectarian problem is probably the biggest one for Pakistan. It is existential. They need to contain it.
Third, the Pakistani military is already overstretched. And last, this Saudi operation was technically not very well thought out.
On the other hand, given Pakistan's fragile finances, if Saudi Arabia cracks down on remittances...
Certainly: how far can Pakistan alienate the Saudis? One way out may be that officially, Pakistan doesn't do anything but helps unofficially. That's what has happened in Bahrain already. But it's clearly the next challenge, not just for Pakistan but the whole region. How will Saudi Arabia adjust to the new role of Iran? If at all? And if not, Pakistan may have to choose.
Fascinating as this is, we have to turn to India a little bit. What can you tell us about Narendra Modi about whom a lot is known - but actually, very little is known. The way he thinks, the way he behaves, his political strategies... Gujarat was not politically pluralistic. How does he respond to challenges of political pluralism?
There may be a kind of adjustment to the pluralism you are mentioning. An interesting and encouraging sign of this is the recent decision to appoint a CIC (Chief Information Commissioner). There are institutions that you can't ignore and the CIC is one of them. And it is part of this long Indian tradition of supporting the rule of law - at least on paper. Now the question is, is it a trend, is the next step the appointment of a Lok Pal? A related question is: what will happen to the land acquisition Act? Is there a recognition that peasants have a tough time or is the priority to industrialisation still there under pressure from big corporate houses? Or more precisely, will the government try to make access to land compatible with both, the industrialisation process and the defence of the peasants' interests? If decisions are made in this direction, then we will see the sense of pluralism - not only cultural, but also social - that you were mentioning, prevail.
But on Modi as a person, about whom we don't know much and we keep being surprised
What has been surprising in one year? Nobody anticipated such an active foreign policy, probably. Modi was not known for that - in spite of his many trips abroad. He was known for development, for Hindutva... he was not known for trying to project India on the global map.
But a nationalist leader wants to project his country internationally. Also, India needs investments from outside to "Make in India". Which is ironical because in Europe, we see Indian companies spending billions of dollars! Third, one reason Modi has to visit the world is that India is facing the rise of China with some unease. One can understand the kind of anxiety this rise is creating. You have the old Myanmar-China connection, this Pakistan-China corridor and a new Chinese presence in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, the Seychelles... It is one of the reasons Modi has spent time travelling in the region - Japan, Australia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Nepal are key partners vis-à-vis China.
But it is not easy to contain China, especially when you are also engaging China! And clearly, the government tries to do both - not only for solving the border disputes but also to intensify economic relations. Will China accept the engagement regarding the border dispute? Or will it just trade and further increase the Indian deficit? China trades with its best enemies, including Japan and Taiwan.