MAKING SENSE OF PAKISTAN FARZANA SHAIKH Making Sense of Pakistan Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex Copyright © 2009 Farzana Shaikh All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shaikh, Farzana. Making sense of Pakistan / Farzana Shaikh. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-231-14962-4 (alk. paper) 1. National characteristics, Pakistani. 2. Pakistan—Civilization. 3. Pakistan—Social conditions. 4. Pakistan—Foreign relations. 5. Islam and state—Pakistan. I. Title. DS379.S445 2009 954.9105—dc22 2009007314 ∞ Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in India c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. CONTENTS Preface 00 Introduction 00 1. Why Pakistan?: History and Ideology 00 Community 00 Nation 00 Power 00 2. Who is a Pakistani?: Culture and Identity 00 Migrants and Natives 00 Sectarian myths and the politics of exclusion 00 Non-Muslims and the mirage of citizenship 00 3. The Burden of Islam: The Sacralization of Politics 00 Holy battles 00 In the name of Islam 00 The lure of Shariatization 00 4. The Dilemmas of Development: The Uncertainties of Change 00 Free and Unequal 00 Culture of Corruption 00 The Puritan Backlash 00 5. Between Crescent and Sword: Professionalizing Jihad 00 Forging an Islamic army 00 Jihadis and juntas 00 The wages of sin 00 6. Demons from Abroad: Enemies and Allies 00 Standing up to India 00 America’s sullen mistress 00 Taking charge of Afghanistan 00 Epilogue 00 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the preface to my first book published twenty years ago I reflected on the challenge posed to South Asian Muslims confronted with the contradictions of their faith and with the uncertainties that plagued its role in shaping the demand for Pakistan. This book returns to the theme by carrying the story forward and demonstrating the conse- quences for Pakistan of those unresolved contradictions. As before I feared I had set myself an impossible task, but as before I soon found myself buoyed up by the support of colleagues, friends and family without whom this project could not have been realized. This is especially true of those in Pakistan. Many gave generously of their time; others helped open doors for me that may have remained shut: to all of them I extend my heartfelt thanks. Some, however, deserve special mention. In Islamabad and Rawalpindi Dushka Saiyid and Syed Mushahid Hussain provided me with invaluable contacts and sources. I am also deeply indebted to General (retd.) Mahmud Ali Dur- rani, General (retd.) Asad Durrani, General (retd.) Malik Iftikhar, General (retd.) Muhammad Rafi Khan, who agreed to spend long hours with me discussing changes in military thinking over several generations. I want to thank the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Islama- bad and its ambassador to Pakistan in 2003, Janis Kanavin, for mak- ing available to me his embassy’s premises for a series of dialogues on Islam and Islamic education with Hafiz Muhammad AnwaruI Haq Haqqani of the Dar ul Uloom-e-Haqqani in Akora Khatak, and with Hafiz Fazl ur Rahim and Muhammad Yousaf Khan of the Jamia Ashrafia in Lahore. Among others in Islamabad who extended their warm hospitality and who shared with me their views on Pakistan were Tasneem Beg, Parwaiz Iqbal Cheema, Roedad Khan, Rifaat Hus- sain, Shaheen Rafi, Tariq Rahman, Ahmed Salim, Ikram Sehgal and Mohammad Waseem. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In Lahore my greatest debt is to the late Qamar F.R. Khan, a true model of generosity and matchless courage. In Lahore, I also wish to express particular thanks to Dr Mubarak Ali, the late Farrukh Aziz, Air Marshal (retd.) Zafar Choudhry, Brig (retd.) Rao Abid Hamid, Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan, Kamil Mumtaz, Abbas Rashid, Ahmed Rashid, I.A. Rehman, Rashid Rehman and Fareeda Shaheed, who all patiently fielded my questions on the many causes of Pakistan’s mis- fortunes. In Karachi, the city of my birth and of much of my educa- tion, I benefited from discussions with Arif Hasan, Adrian Husain and Sohail Lari. Amjad Awan, Nina Aslam, Mariam Bhutto and Nigar Khan helped ease my many practical difficulties. In London, Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s accomplished former high commissioner to the UK, kindly offered to share her insights. My sisters, especially Anwara, bore the stress of my endeavors with unfailing humor while making sure that every resource was put at my disposal. The support of colleagues at institutions in the UK, the United States, Europe and India has been invaluable in helping me stay the course. I wish particularly to thank the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London for electing me as an Associate Fellow of its Asia Programme and for giving me the opportunity regu- larly to share my ideas on Pakistan with its distinguished membership. I also want to acknowledge my debt to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for inviting me as a Visitor to the School of Social Science in 2006–07, and especially to Professor Joan Scott, whose enthusiasm for my work on Pakistan was a real stimulus. At the Insti- tute I learnt greatly from the wisdom of Lakhdar Brahimi and from the critical insights of Steve Feierman, Kristen Ghodsee, Rosalind Morris, Susanna Hecht, David Scott and rest of the ‘Third World Now’ semi- nar group. I want to thank Professor Simonetta Casci and Professor Georg Kreis of the universities of Pavia and Basle, respectively, for giving me the opportunity to rehearse some of the ideas that have since found their way into this book. In India the professional integ- rity, unflinching support and friendship of Mushirul Hasan of Jamia Millia Islamia, who made possible my contacts with Indian collea- gues, has been a source of inspiration and immense encouragement. I also owe an equal measure of debt to Professor T.N. Madan, whose keen interest in my work on South Asian Islam over the years has been a privilege. Few authors could dream of a more supportive editor than Michael Dwyer of Hurst publishers, who patiently put up with a string of vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS missed deadlines, but whose thoughtful comments and meticulous edit- ing of the final manuscript serves as a testimony to his innate gracious- ness. The acute observations of an anonymous reader were invaluable in helping me both to broaden the book’s narrative and tighten its argument. My greatest debt, however, lies closer to home. Patrick and Emile—my dual anchors—ensured that this book saw the light of day even if in the process I fared less well as wife and mother. From the start their involvement with this project was sustained and intense. Patrick read the manuscript more than once bringing to it his gifts as an outstand- ing scholar, logician and master of the written word. To Emile and his new found passion for intellectual inquiry I owe the good fortune of having avoided the tedium that could so easily have stood in the way of getting the job done. To these two mighty sources of support, I dedicate this book. viii For Patrick and for Emile INTRODUCTION More than six decades after being carved out of British India, Pakistan remains an enigma. Born in 1947 as the first self-professed Muslim state, it rejected theocracy; vulnerable to the appeal of political Islam, it aspired to Western constitutionalism; prone to military dictatorship, it hankered after democracy; unsure of what it stood for, Pakistan has been left clutching at an identity beset by an ambiguous relation to Islam. This book—a work of interpretation rather than of historical research—addresses the political, economic and strategic implications of Pakistan’s uncertain national identity. Such uncertainty has had profound and far-reaching consequences: it has deepened the country’s divisions and discouraged plural definitions of the Pakistani. It has blighted good governance and tempted political elites to use the lan- guage of Islam as a substitute for democratic legitimacy. It has dis- torted economic and social development and fuelled a moral discourse that has sought to gauge progress against supposed Islamic standards. It has intensified the struggle between rival conceptions of Pakistan and set the country’s claim to be a Muslim homeland against its obli- gation to act as a guarantor of Islam. More ominously still, it has driven this nuclear-armed state to look beyond its frontiers in search of validation, thus encouraging policies that pose a threat to its sur- vival and to the security of the international community. That Pakistan should face a particularly acute challenge in forging a coherent national identity will scarcely surprise those who have long pointed to its artificiality as a nation-state. Indeed, at independence, the country was largely bereft of the prerequisites of viable nation- hood. The exceptional physical configuration of the new state, in which its eastern and western territories were separated (until 1971 and the secession of Bangladesh) by more than a thousand miles of 1 MAKING SENSE OF PAKISTAN Indian territory, was an immediate handicap. So was its lack of a com- mon language. Its choice of Urdu—spoken by a small minority—to serve as a national language was fiercely resisted by local regional groups with strong linguistic traditions. They expressed powerful regional identities that separated the numerically preponderant Benga- lis of the country’s eastern province from their counterparts in the west, where Punjabis dominated over Sindhis, Pashtuns and Balochis.