Adil Najam
Mohammed Hanif, the brilliant author of the engrossing book “The Case of Exploding Mangoes†(I have been planning to write about it ever since I first read it many months ago; and I will) – known to many for his stint at Herald before he joined BBC’s Urdu Service – has just written a most cogent and readable op-ed in The Times of India which is wroth reading; whether you agree with it or not. It is a good argument as well as a good read. And I say that even thought there are more than one points here that I might quibble with. But before we quibble, lets give Mohammed Hanif the floor – and a full and proper hearing. Here is the op-ed he wrote in The Times of India, in full:
Ten Myths About Pakistan
Living in Pakistan and reading about it in the Indian press can sometimes be quite a disorienting experience: one wonders what place on earth they’re talking about? I wouldn’t be surprised if an Indian reader going through Pakistani papers has asked the same question in recent days. Here are some common assumptions about Pakistan and its citizens that I have come across in the Indian media.
1. Pakistan controls the jihadis: Or Pakistan’s government controls the jihadis. Or Pakistan Army controls the jihadis. Or ISI controls the jihadis. Or some rogue elements from the ISI control the Jihadis. Nobody knows the whole truth but increasingly it’s the tail that wags the dog. We must remember that the ISI-Jihadi alliance was a marriage of convenience, which has broken down irrevocably. Pakistan army has lost more soldiers at the hands of these jihadis than it ever did fighting India.
2. Musharraf was in control, Zardari is not: Let’s not forget that General Musharraf seized power after he was fired from his job as the army chief by an elected prime minister. Musharraf first appeased jihadis, then bombed them, and then appeased them again. The country he left behind has become a very dangerous place, above all for its own citizens. There is a latent hankering in sections of the Indian middle class for a strongman. Give Manmohan Singh a military uniform, put all the armed forces under his direct command, make his word the law of the land, and he too will go around thumping his chest saying that it’s his destiny to save India from Indians. Zardari will never have the kind of control that Musharraf had. But Pakistanis do not want another Musharraf.
3. Pakistan, which Pakistan? For a small country, Pakistan is very diverse, not only ethnically but politically as well. General Musharraf’s government bombed Pashtuns in the north for being Islamists and close to the Taliban and at the same time it bombed Balochs in the South for NOT being Islamists and for subscribing to some kind of retro-socialist, anti Taliban ethos. You have probably heard the joke about other countries having armies but Pakistan’s army having a country. Nobody in Pakistan finds it funny.
4. Pakistan and its loose nukes: Pakistan’s nuclear programme is under a sophisticated command and control system, no more under threat than India or Israel’s nuclear assets are threatened by Hindu or Jewish extremists. For a long time Pakistan’s security establishment’s other strategic asset was jihadi organisations, which in the last couple of years have become its biggest liability.
5. Pakistan is a failed state: If it is, then Pakistanis have not noticed. Or they have lived in it for such a long time that they have become used to its dysfunctional aspects. Trains are late but they turn up, there are more VJs, DJs, theatre festivals, melas, and fashion models than a failed state can accommodate. To borrow a phrase from President Zardari, there are lots of non-state actors like Abdul Sattar Edhi who provide emergency health services, orphanages and shelters for sick animals.
6. It is a deeply religious country: Every half-decent election in this country has proved otherwise. Religious parties have never won more than a fraction of popular vote. Last year Pakistan witnessed the largest civil rights movements in the history of this region. It was spontaneous, secular and entirely peaceful. But since people weren’t raising anti-India or anti-America slogans, nobody outside Pakistan took much notice.
7. All Pakistanis hate India: Three out of four provinces in Pakistan – Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP – have never had any popular anti-India sentiment ever. Punjabis who did impose India as enemy-in-chief on Pakistan are now more interested in selling potatoes to India than destroying it. There is a new breed of al-Qaida inspired jihadis who hate a woman walking on the streets of Karachi as much as they hate a woman driving a car on the streets of Delhi. In fact there is not much that they do not hate: they hate America, Denmark, China CDs, barbers, DVDs , television, even football. Imran Khan recently said that these jihadis will never attack a cricket match but nobody takes him seriously.
8. Training camps: There are militant sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan but definitely not in Muzaffarabad or Muridke, two favourite targets for Indian journalists, probably because those are the cities they have ever been allowed to visit. After all how much training do you need if you are going to shoot at random civilians or blow yourself up in a crowded bazaar? So if anyone thinks a few missiles targeted at Muzaffarabad will teach anyone a lesson, they should switch off their TV and try to locate it on the map.
9. RAW would never do what ISI does: Both the agencies have had a brilliant record of creating mayhem in the neighbouring countries. Both have a dismal record when it comes to protecting their own people. There is a simple reason that ISI is a bigger, more notorious brand name: It was CIA’s franchise during the jihad against the Soviets. And now it’s busy doing jihad against those very jihadis.
10. Pakistan is poor, India is rich: Pakistanis visiting India till the mid-eighties came back very smug. They told us about India’s slums, and that there was nothing to buy except handicrafts and saris. Then Pakistanis could say with justifiable pride that nobody slept hungry in their country. But now, not only do people sleep hungry in both the countries, they also commit suicide because they see nothing but a lifetime of hunger ahead. A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi because she can’t feed them: this is what we have achieved in our mutual desire to teach each other a lesson.
So, quibble if you will. But do tell us what you think about the argument that Hanif is making.
Mother India (Grandma of Bangladesh) need to get better in not “discriminating” (cast system included) her childrens or her childrens would not stop falling apart or crying at her door time after time.
The message is also universal whereever its applicable:
Means, If the “shoe” fits, wear it!
@ Ayesha
100% accurate observation
Potohar = most anti-India because Potohar = richest recruiting region for the Pak army and many armies before that!
By the way, imagine if the Taliban had taken over Gujjar Khan the way they have taken over Swat and burning schools, flogging and beheading to their sick hearts’ fill. Can’t imagine? Try harder (and also think why it is so hard to imagine that). Eid, shab e barat, basant everything will stop. load shedding, inflation, drone attacks, iftikhar choudhry all will be forgotten about and a 100,000 troops would be sent to Gujjar Khan and ensure that every last Taliban and Taliban sympathiser is neutralized. There will be no problems with lack of commitment or low morale. Why? since you have family either side of the ‘border'(!!!), you should be able to put your finger on it. those who have family on only one side, can they imagine why?
Good article. I had seen it earlier and nice to see it posted here as well. The only point I disagree with is point 7. I don’t know why there is a tendency on the part of Punjabi analysts to always bunch the other three provinces together. The reality is that the other three have differing approaches amongst them just as often as they have differing approaches with Punjab.
So, in my very vast interaction with Punjabis and Pukhtoons, as I have family on both sides of the ethnic divide, you may just be more likely to come across an anti-India pukhtoon as you are an anti-India Punjabi. I personally have observed that anti-Indian sentiment is greatest in the Potohar area of Punjab and a lot less in say southern Punjab, with central Punjab being divided on the issue. So I think the bunching together here is a bit simplistic, but the rest of the article is pretty good and Hanif is in any case a phenomenal writer!
Dear “exploding mangoes”, you do know that this book si a work of FICTION?
Sometimes the silliness of comments is mind-boggling!
@bonobashi
excuse the woffle… but
did you check whether who you thought were pakistani ‘officials’ were really officials? the media tends to love a motley bunch of jokers when it comes to speakers from/for pakistan who are neither officials nor members of parliament. who makes better tv: sane normal fellow, or somebody strictly following the official line (conceded possible role of non-state actors from first minute), or raving mad lunatics (e.g. gen hamid gul – a zia favourite madder than his master.. forced out of the army after zia). remember zia had 11 years to fill the army command with jokers.
as for moments of rage or madness suffered by otherwise sane and moderate people, that is exactly what the extremists want. for these moments to become frequent enough or for one to last long enough for the moderates ending up advancing the extremists’ agenda.
26/11 and the subsequent blind rage amongst Indians has given new life to so-called politicians in Pakistan who had been consigned to the political sewer by the brave electorate in the feb 18 last. the noise of indian sabre rattling had this scum crawling out of the sewers and gutters with such glee. for example, sheikh rashid, a loud minister with musharraf, even lost his bond money failing to get the minimum number of votes from his home constituency. he is neither a member of parliament nor an official. yet he was a favourite with indian media shouting like a mad man that he is. except he is no fool.
since gen kayani decided that feb 18 was going to be a hands-off election as far as ISI was concerned, all the war mongers and supporters of extremists and terror are left out of parliament. they can only wait for days like 26/11 to find a voice again. we had baitullah mehsud (suspected of having benazir killed, and fighting an ongoing war against the pak army) saying that if India attacked he and his men would alongside the pak army on the eastern front. old zia time retired army officers saying that ‘we only had a misunderstadning with baitullah mehsud types which could be sorted out since they were at heart all patriots’! getting rid of a durrani – the national security advisor – a sane voice, was a win for the hawks taking advantage of all this hysteria.
we have three kinds of camps in parliament and mainstream politics now when it comes to extremists: those who would rather appease, those who’d easily be cowered, and those who know that nothing less than fully committed force will work. the former two need to see that it’s better to go down fighting since these terrorists will not change their minds nor curtail their evil ambition.
it is critically important to keep one’s head when all around are losing theirs. moral support amongst the moderates of the world counts for a lot. but it is as important to know, understand and respect one’s friends to know exactly how best to help them as it is to know one’s enemies. the alarming facts is, not only do lots of moderates lump together friend and foe out of ignorance but while the extremist reads our mind very well we haven’t really made the effort to understand his. he knows excatly what buttons to press in order to make most of do exactly what he wants. this is not because he is some kind of genius. it’s simply because doing the right thing can often be complicated and a challenge, while doing evil never is. it is and always has been far easier to take a life than to save one.
know the terrorist. know the moderates even better. so that you can isolate the terrorist. give the moderates unambiguous moral support if further co-operation will create more complications than help. dictators especially hate moral censure and thrive on groups that can cause societal trauma to render people unable to agitate for their rights (who better than extremists and terrorits to do the job)
we can either destroy each other, or save each other. each one of us has to decide. those who think ‘we are big they are small’, or ‘we are strong they are weak’, their view of both victory and salvation (synonyms really) is too limited and myopic.
as one of my pakistani friends said in an email when i pointed him to this developing thread: “wouldn’t it be great if the ISI was reading this stuff, even if it’d be worrying to know that they were so screwed up as to do that. somebody should email it to the 12 smart alecs in rawalpindi cantt”