Publisher : Random House.
Pages : 358.
Price : Rs 699/-.
“Pakistan At The Crossroads” is a diverse collection of articles from reputable scholars who have a deep understanding and knowledge about that country. They have assessed Pakistan’s politics, economics and the challenges faced by its civil and military leaders domestically and diplomatically. Contributors examine the handling of internal threats, tensions between the civilians and the military, strategies of political parties, police and law enforcement reform, trends in judicial activism, the rise of border conflicts, economic challenges, financial entanglements with foreign powers as well as diplomatic relations with India, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and the United States.
In addition to the ethnic strife in Balochistan and Karachi, terrorist violence in Pakistan in response to the American led military intervention in Afghanistan and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) through drones, has reached unprecedented levels. There is growing consensus among state leaders predicting that the nation’s main security threats may come not from India but from its own spiralling conflicts. This realisation may not sufficiently dissuade the Pakistan army from targetting the country’s largest neighbour.
The book is Edited by Christophe Jaffrelot, who is research director at the Centre d’Erudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). In his introduction he says Pakistan is paying the price for the support it gave jihadists for decades — since the 1970s — to bleed India in Kashmir and acquire some “strategic depth” in Afghanistan.
Also Read: Book review: Purdah to Piccadilly –A muslim woman’s struggle for identity
In the chapter on “India and Pakistan : Improbable war, Impossible peace”, Frederic Grare, a non resident senior associate in the South Asia programme of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, believes the two neighbours will alternate between periods of appeasement and occasional crisis. While the chances of a major conflict are limited, the prospects for peace are almost nil. The overall dynamic of the relationship is increasingly in Pakistan’s hand. The international community, starting with the United States and China, has always preferred to bail out Pakistan. Short of the establishment of any real democracy in Pakistan wherein civilians will excercise real control over the military, any long term rapproachment with India will remain elusive.
In the opening chapter titled “The Military and Democracy” Aqil Shah, an Assistant Professor of South Asia politics at the University of Oklahoma, writes that military prerogatives are obviously not the only impediment to democracy. The prospects of continued democratisation are complicated by myriad political, economic and security challenges. Rampant political corruption, poor governance, growing inflation, chronic energy shortages and almost dwindling essential public services reduce public trust in government and encourages politics of system blame. A continuing major source of democratic vulnerability is a military that is only conditionally loyal to the democratic rule and continues to exercise non-democratic prerogatives that restrict the autonomy and authority of democratically elected leaders. In the foreseeable future there will be an unstable equilibrium of its civil-military arrangement in which civilian supremacy becomes a euphemism for the military’s formal and active participation in politics and national security, observes Shah.
“Operational Dynamics of Political Parties in Pakistan” says political parties have kept a modicum of democracy in place in Pakistan as a source of legitimacy through the Parliament. They structure the political conflict by rationalising the message of contending forces providing a sense of order to the fluid situation, contends Mohmmad Waseem, Professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Philip Oldenburg, a political scientist specialising in South Asia, says the Supreme Court in Pakistan has had very strong support for what it is doing. It is possible that the judiciary may still figure out how it can get the contestants in the tug-of-war to follow the rules that it has shaped to a considerable extent. In the chapter on “The Judiciary as a Political Actor” Oldenburg says the judiciary can play a not so insignificant part, at least, in putting Pakistan on the road to an effective and genuinely democratic government.
Avinash Paliwal, who is Defence Academy’s Post Doctoral Fellow at Kings College, London, says that India’s policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan has evolved rapidly since 2001. His chapter on “Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations Since 2001:There are no End Games” despite having signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Karzai government in 2011, India remained reluctant in providing lethal weaponry to Kabul when requested. Will Kabul be able to develop a credible deterrence at an asymetric level in its dealings with Pakistan still remains to be seen. There seems to be no end game in sight for India and Pakistan in Afghanistan.
The co-authors of “Pakistan-China Symbiotic Relations” Farah Jan and Serge Granger emphasise Sino-Pak alliance was structured on a common goal, the containment of or encirclement of India, but the interests and motives for both were different. The motivation for Pakistan is rooted in its insecurities vis-a-vis India, and China seeks to maintain its strategic position of being dominant economic and military power in the region. Beijing follows the strategy postulated by Deng Xiaoping which is as follows: Observe calmly; Secure our (Chinese) position; Cope with affairs calmly; Hide our (Chinese) capacities and bide our time; Be good at maintaining a low profile; And never claim leadership; Make some contribution. This is real politic par excellence, the co-authors added. While Farah Jan is a teaching associate at Rutgers University, Granger is Associate Professor at Sherbrook University, Canada.
As regards “US-Pakistan Relations Under Obama” Jaffrelot says Pakistan aspires to become a pivotal state as they want to strengthen relations with European Union, Russia, the Muslim world, ASEAN and especially China to escape the United States. Although Beijing is certainly an all weather friend of Pakistan it is not clear if it is prepared to support its protege at least financially as much as the US does today. In 2008 when Islamabad went bankrupt, the Chinese refused to bail it out.
