WHO WILL FIGHT THE TALIBAN IN PAKISTAN?

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

The short answer is: probably no one! The Pakistani political and religious establishment is too compromised, too corrupt, too effete and has lost all credibility to stand up against the Taliban. The civil society is practically non-existent and so doesn't count for anything. The ordinary man on the street has hardly any stake in the current system and therefore is unlikely to put his life on the line for its preservation. The military is either sympathetic to the Islamists or too scared of them.

And yet not many Pakistanis are willing to admit that there is now a real possibility of a Taliban takeover of the Pakistani state. One reason is that in true subcontinental style, everyone expects someone else to save him from the depredations of the Taliban. Not only is there a touching, almost blind, belief in the power of the state to defeat the Taliban, there is also a somewhat misplaced confidence that the people of Punjab, Sindh, and even Balochistan, will never accept the Taliban version of Islam. But the problem is that neither the state nor the society seems to posses the vitality, strength, commitment and resoluteness that is needed to take effective and aggressive counter-measures against the marauding Taliban. Indeed it is nothing short of delusion to rely solely on the assumed strength of the Pakistani state and the inherent aversion of the Pakistani society to the Taliban for ending this scourge.

    A couple of years ago I was having a conversation with a Pakistani friend about the growing attraction of radical Islam in Pakistani society. This friend, who has done pioneering work in documenting the origin and growth of jihadist militias in Pakistan, tried to explain to me that my fears about talibanisation in Pakistan were over-blown. He said Pakistani society will never accept the Taliban brand of Islam. According to him, Pakistani Pakhtuns were very different from Afghan Pakhtuns because of their long interaction with British and also their exposure to other cultures in Pakistan. The Baloch, he said, were not enamoured by radical Islam and gave more importance to ethnic nationalism which protected their identity than to pan-Islamism that sought to subsume it. The Punjabi and Sindhi society was deeply influenced by Sufi saints that dissented against the doctrinaire Islam of the mullah.

It appeared to me that my friend was putting a lot of faith – perhaps a little too much – in the store of the outright rejection by the Punjabis and the Sindhis of the stone-age tribalism and barbarism that the Taliban represented. I couldn't help pointing out to him that the cultural values, social mores, and philosophical syncretism that he thought would act as a bulwark against the spread of radical Islamism were all based on and drew inspiration from the teachings of a long line of great Sufi poets and saints, the last of whom walked these lands some three hundred years ago. Since then there has been neither any ideological and philosophical challenge nor any impelling societal rejection of those who advocate a literalist, if obscurantist and extremely intolerant, interpretation of Islam. I wondered if the Sufi influence was now wearing thin and being replaced by religious dogmatism towards which more and more people in Pakistan seemed to be gravitating.

Interestingly enough, the immense popularity of Sufi syncretism in Punjab and Sindh grew partly because it represented dissent against the established religious and political order of those times. In the past doctrinaire Islam symbolised the established order; today it represents dissent, empowerment, and a revolutionary break from the rapacious social, economic and political system that is unjust, unfair, unequal, and unable to even show any light at the end of the tunnel. The liberal interpretation of Islam is now the preserve of the Pakistani elite and establishment.
The hard line and literalist Islam represents the huge underclass of Pakistan which sees Taliban as deliverers. Ironically, the descendants of Sufi saints today comprise the ruling class of Pakistan, and the Islamist insurgency (talibanisation) is, in a sense, a revolt of the underclass against the current system, and by extension, against the Islam propagated by the Sufis.

Despite this, many people
think – not just in Pakistan but also in India – that Punjab at least will never accept talibanisation and will react very violently to the Taliban. But the sooner people disabuse themselves of this notion the better because when the Taliban mount pressure, Punjab will simply capitulate and collaborate. This is so for three reasons: one, the Taliban will not be seeking a 'no objection certificate' from Punjab before they impose their version of Islamisation. The acceptance or otherwise of the Punjabis is quite immaterial. Those who resist the Taliban will simply be butchered and the others will fall in line; two, Punjab has no history or culture of resisting invaders and marauders from the North-West. The only Punjabi ruler who fought and defeated the Pakhtuns was Maharaja Ranjit Singh; finally, a huge section of the Punjabi population actually identifies with and subscribes to the Taliban type of Islam. Over the last few decades, Punjab has become more orthodox and fundamentalist. The signs of this tectonic change in Punjabi society can be seen everywhere, only one needs to admit this reality.

Adding to the power of the Taliban is the prevarication and ambivalence of the political class on the issue of Islamisation. Not a single politician or political party is willing to stand up and speak in favour of secular laws over Islamic laws. Even members of the only political party to openly oppose the Nizam-e-Adl regulations in Swat – MQM – take the position that as Muslims they are all in favour of Shariah and that their opposition is to the manner in which Islamic laws are sought to be imposed by the Taliban and to an extent the Taliban interpretation of Islamic laws. The irony is that parties like the ANP that claim to be secular have used their secular credentials as a license to accept and even promote Talibanisation and not had to face opprobrium for taking such a retrograde step. What the Pakistani politicians can't seem to understand is that their failure to take a clear position on the issue of Islamisation effectively lends legitimacy to the stance of the Islamists. After all, if everyone is willing to live under Shariah then the only question that remains to be decided is who will decide the version of Shariah to be imposed. How this question gets answered – through democracy or by force of arms – is altogether another matter.

Even if the people and the politicians were to somehow reject the Taliban, they would have to depend on the Pakistan army to fight and defeat these barbarians.
But the army doesn't seem inclined to fight. Perhaps this is because the rank and file of the army has come around to the view that only the Taliban
can ensure an end to the craven subservience of the military top brass and the political establishment to the US. There are also suspicions backed by some evidence that the army is playing a double game on the issue of Taliban. While it makes a show of fighting them, it also appears to be facilitating them and using them to for achieving political and strategic objectives.

Pakistan today resembles the Mughal state in its last days. No one ever imagined that the Mughal state would simply disappear, even though it was losing territory and authority all the time. The Mughal nobility was least bothered with the withering away of the state. The nobles shamelessly indulged in power games to win the favour of the emperor and be appointed the Wazir while foreign invaders were knocking on the door of Delhi. Then it was Delhi, today it is Islamabad. The adversary then were the Pakhtuns led by Ahmed Shah Abdali, today it is the Pakhtuns (and a smattering of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Chechens, Punjabis and others) led by a Taliban confederacy.

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    <1325 Words>                    24^th April, 2009

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THE TASTE OF GRASS

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    Many years ago, when the Americans tried to dissuade the Pakistanis from developing a nuclear bomb, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared that Pakistanis will eat grass but have the bomb. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan overnight transformed Pakistan into a frontline state against communist expansionism. The US found it expedient to turn a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear program in return for using Pakistan as the staging post for setting up a bear trap for the Soviets in Afghanistan. This allowed Pakistan to become a nuclear weapon state without having to develop a taste for grass.

Today, once again, many strategists in Pakistan are convinced that they indispensible for the US in its War on Terror. They advocate that Pakistan needs to use its pivotal position to not only dictate terms to the US but also squeeze the Americans to cough up the billions of dollars needed to keep Pakistan afloat. According to these people, Pakistan should negotiate with the US from a position of strength and not as a supplicant. Pakistan they feel is ideally placed to extract concessions from the US on Kashmir, on a civilian nuclear deal similar to the one signed with India, on a Marshall plan type economic reconstruction program, on consulting with Pakistan on the future political setup in Afghanistan, on limiting the Indian presence in Afghanistan, and on providing Pakistan with the latest in military technology. The Pakistanis even want a say on the manner in which the US is conducting its war efforts, more so when it comes to US drone strikes on terrorist targets inside Pakistani territory.

    Propelling this list of demands is the conviction that the US is in such dire straits in the Af-Pak region that it will concede to most, if not all, of Pakistan's demands. All that is required is a bit of tough bargaining backed by a little brinkmanship which includes stopping US logistics supply through Pakistan, withdrawal of air bases and other facilities like over-flight rights and if necessary, shooting down the US drones. And the biggest trump card that Pakistan holds, or so they believe, is the threat to disengage from the US-led war.

    Clearly, by trying to play hardball on its continued cooperation in the War on Terror, Pakistan is playing a dangerous game of poker and that too with a country that invented this game. But what the Pakistanis have not calculated are the consequences of the US calling its bluff? What if the US actually decides to withdraw from the region and tackle the Islamist menace in a more indirect, and insidious manner?

Contrary to what most Pakistanis think, a US pullout from the region will not restore peace and order in the region. Unless the Pakistanis are looking forward to the Taliban type of peace (of the graveyard!), the reality is that if the Americans leave, Pakistan will collapse like a house of cards. To be sure, terrorism, or if you will, talibanisation will not end with US withdrawal. Instead a US withdrawal will embolden the Islamists into going all out to capture control of the Pakistani state. After all, after having forced two superpowers to concede defeat, the Islamists will naturally see Pakistan as ripe for the picking, especially since the Pakistan army seems to have no stomach for fighting the Taliban. What are the chances of the Pakistanis being able to withstand the onslaught of the Taliban? Or will they simply fold up and allow the Taliban to take control of the country?

Even if the Pakistanis succeed in keeping the Taliban at bay, what will become of the Pakistani economy without the American aid? Can Pakistan realistically expect to stay afloat without American and, by extension, Western assistance? And what are the chances that the Americans, after being forced out of the region by Pakistan and nursing the wounds of a war gone wrong in part because of real and/or imagined Pakistani perfidy, will not turn the economic screws real tight on Pakistan? In the event, are the Pakistanis ready to develop a taste for grass? Or is it the case that the Pakistani strategists advocating defiance of the US are hallucinating under the effects of grass (of the smoking variety) and are therefore unable to distinguish between smoking grass and eating grass.

Perhaps the Pakistanis are banking upon their all weather friend China taking care of them. May be they are depending on the Islamic bloc, especially Saudi Arabia, to bail them out. But can hand-outs from the Chinese and Saudis mitigate the pain that a break with the US will inflict on Pakistan? It is important not to forget that while the Chinese have never denied the Pakistanis anything, they have always charged a price for everything. What is more, these days the Chinese have been pretty tight-fisted in giving budgetary support to Pakistan.

The Saudis, on the other hand have ostensibly given lunch after free lunch to the Pakistanis either in the form of free oil, or by supplying oil on deferred payment which is the same as giving free oil since the deferred payments weren't expected to be ever realised. In addition, the Saudis often underwrote Pakistan's budget. But being great tradesmen, surely the Saudis must expect something in return. It couldn't have been just Islamic solidarity that made the Saudis open their coffers to the Pakistanis. Dark, but unsubstantiated, rumours suggest a nuke angle to the Pakistan-Saudi relationship. In any case, today even the Saudis appear cut up with the ruling dispensation in Pakistan. Some suggest that this is because the Saudis don't want to bail out President Asif Zardari because he is a Shia, and would like to see him replaced by the Sunni Nawaz Sharif. Whatever the reason, the Saudi refusal to come to Pakistan's assistance means that the US has become indispensible for Pakistan's economic survival.

While preaching defiance in newspaper columns, public speeches and TV talk shows is very popular, indeed sexy, practising defiance is a totally different ball game. Defiance becomes even more difficult for a people who not only are used to living beyond their means, but also wear it as a badge of honour. Talk of defiance doesn't sit well with hand-stitched Armani suits, Rolex watches, Bally shoes, imported cigarettes, bullet-proof BMWs, expensive SUVs, holidays in Europe, sending children to universities in US, UK, and Australia, keeping apartments in London's Park Lane, villas in the French Riviera, shopping in Dubai and Singapore, the list is endless.

Other than the Taliban, who have a very low level of living, very little requirements, and an almost primitive lifestyle, how many well-heeled Pakistanis are ready to surrender all their creature comforts and undergo the hardship and make the sacrifices that defiance inevitably entails. Perhaps the Pakistani ashrafia (elite) is taking comfort from the Iranian example where the Bazaris who supported the ayatollahs defiance of the US did not see much of a change in their life-styles. But Iran had oil. What does Pakistan have except its nuclear arsenal? And if the Pakistanis try to use this as a negotiating tool, will the international community bite?

Unless the Pakistanis realise the horrendous repercussions of defiance, and take all the measures that they should be taking to slay the monsters of fanaticism that they have themselves created, they will probably end up eating grass. There are no easy options left. Pakistan can either extend unflinching cooperation to the US, or else develop a taste for grass.

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    <1250 Words>                    17^th April, 2009

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SAARCONOMICS OF A TALIBANISED PAKISTAN

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    Two member states of the SAARC region – Afghanistan and Pakistan – are tethering on the brink of collapse. They face a clear and present danger of either being taken over by the barbaric Taliban, or else a bloody and devastating civil war to prevent such a takeover. The baleful impact of the 'descent into chaos' of the 'Af-Pak' region will not be limited to only these two countries. The rest of the world, particularly India and other South Asian countries, will have to contend with the frightening fallout of a meltdown of the state structures in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Until now, the attention of policymakers has centred on the strategic and security dimension of the deteriorating situation in the Af-Pak region. The enormous cost being incurred by the Western powers to fight this war is no more than a statistic for most South Asian countries which have so far not had to pay a price in a war that will decide the future of this region. But perhaps the time has come to start counting the direct and indirect costs of a conflict that not only doesn't have any closure in sight, but is becoming unmanageable with each passing day.

The brunt of the economic impact of an imploding Pakistan will be felt by India. Other SAARC states are relatively insulated from the fires raging in 'Af-Pak'. Given that intra-SAARC trade is still very low – around 5% - the exposure of most of the SAARC countries to disruption of their trade with Pakistan is limited, almost negligible. The bilateral trade numbers tell their own story: Nepal exports slightly over $3 mn to Pakistan, less than 0.5% of its exports; Sri Lanka's exports to Pakistan are around $100 mn and comprise less than 1% of its exports; Bangladesh exports to Pakistan are around $60 mn, less than 0.5%; and Indian exports of $ 1.5 bn constitute less than 1% of its total exports. Whatever these countries import from Pakistan can easily be sourced from elsewhere.

Any loss of trade with Pakistan could get compensated by the possibility of winning Pakistani customers for products in which countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India compete with Pakistan – textiles, garments, sports goods, agricultural exports like Basmati rice etc. There is also a good chance that some of the capital that is flying out of Pakistan in search of safer destinations could find its way to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, where even today many Pakistani industrialists are reported to have set up operations. Moreover, FDI destined for Pakistan could be redirected to other SAARC countries.

If Pakistan collapses, the rest of the world will pump in money and material into other countries of the region to bolster them against the marauding Islamists and making them the bulwark against further spread of the Taliban virus. India and Bangladesh in particular can expect to benefit from the munificence of the West to combat radical Islamist forces within and without. Of course, 'blank cheques' issued for strategic purposes by Great Powers are a double-edged sword. The corrupting influence of endless free lunches has a bad habit of inducing a culture of dependency in the recipient country, which starts to believe that the world owes it a living. The resulting moral, political, economic and intellectual distortions eventually either pushes the country towards radicalism, or else transforms it into a mercenary state, something that Pakistan is witnessing today.

The negligible impact of disruption of trade with Pakistan, the possibility of capturing Pakistan's market share, the prospect of inflow of billions of dollars in military and economic programs will however be small comfort when compared to the cataclysmic effects of an anarchic situation on India's western border. The immediate impact will be a massive increase in defence and security expenditures. India will have to develop capabilities to pre-empt and deter terrorists from striking at the homeland. Although expensive, investing in a robust national security architecture is essential if India is to prevent more 26/11 type attacks. Incidentally attacks like 26/11 cost much more (some estimates put a number of over Rs 3000 Cr. in terms of damages to property and loss of business) than what it takes to put in place systems that prevent such attacks.

More worrisome than the spectre of unbridled terrorism that will flow from a 'failed' Pakistan is the real possibility of a sea of refugees streaming across the Radcliffe line to escape the internecine fighting in their country. Whether India hosts these refugees in its territory or whether India adopts a forward strategy and carves out safe enclaves for these people inside what is today Pakistan, the end result will be the same: an end of the Partition arrangement reached in 1947, an arrangement that despite all the heartburn it caused has been a blessing for India. The economic strain that will be caused by such a catastrophic political development will be quite unbearable.

Even worse will be the horrendous impact of the political instability on the business and investment climate. If Pakistan goes under, India's attractiveness as a safe, secure and profitable investment destination will become history. Even domestic investment will become skittish and could seek safety outside of India, leading to capital flight. The travel and tourism industry will be devastated. The IT sector will see a huge downturn. Export oriented industries, already under strain because of the global downturn, will see a massive loss of business because buyers will be chary of doing business in India. Rising security expenditure coupled with anaemic economic growth will burn a huge hole in the fiscal position of the government forcing it to cut back on social sector spending as also in infrastructure development projects. The spiralling effects of this on the national economy, and indeed national politics, will put paid to all the progress made in the last decade and a half.

Clearly, a 'failed' Pakistan will be India's worst nightmare come true, and this even without taking into account the horrible prospect of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of fanatics who live for dying, whether by the bullet or by incineration. Unfortunately, post 26/11, a deeply hurt India is revelling in Pakistan's discomfiture and ignoring the consequences of Pakistan either failing or falling into Taliban hands.

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    <1050 Words>                    15^th April, 2009

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PASHTUN TRIBALISM YIELDS TO ISLAMISM

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    The Pashtuns have always taken their religion a little too seriously but were never fanatical in their religiosity. A Pashtun's tribal identity never really conflicted with his Islamic identity. If anything, the two basic pillars of the Pashtun social structure were the Masjid and the Hujra, the former being the domain of the Mullah and the latter of the Malik (tribal chiefs and elders). Unlike Punjab where the Mullah was tolerated because he performed essential religious rituals, in Pashtun country, the Mullah enjoyed a more exalted status, only a rung or two below the Maliks and Khans.

Today, however, a radical social transformation is sweeping through both Punjab and the Pashtun lands. While in Punjab, the mullah mafia is now a force to reckon with; in the Pashtun belt the tribal order (which was weakened by decades of settled living and external influence) is wilting before the onslaught of radical Islamism. In Pushtun society, the traditional Mullah and the tribal elite are increasingly becoming irrelevant, and are being replaced a new elite comprising warlords (most of who hail from very humble backgrounds) and radicalised, half-educated, obscurantist mullahs.

    This emerging Pashtun social system is based not on tribal affiliation but on Islamist affiliation. All the old values, rules and codes that guided the old tribal system are either being thrown out of the window or have simply become redundant. The old rules are being mutated and twisted to serve the interests and justify the actions of the emerging elite. For instance, the obligation to grant sanctuary to anyone who seeks refuge legitimizes providing safe havens to the Arab, Chechen, Uzbek, Uighur and every other Islamist warrior in the world. Similarly, the obligation to avenge a wrong – Badal – has become a justification for recruiting jihadis. And of course, the 'legendary' Pashtun resistance to foreign domination (much of it manufactured and motivated) has become a propaganda tool to paint the Taliban as freedom fighters waging a war for national liberation against 'foreign occupation'.

In the past too, Pashtuns have fought against their adversaries to defend their obligation to provide refuge to anyone who seeks it. Revenge has also long been an article of faith for Pashtun tribesmen, and there are innumerable instances where clans and tribes have nursed enmities and strived to settle scores for generations. And yet, it is equally the case that the famed code of Pashtunwali has been observed more in its violation than in its practise. This is because one of the unacknowledged attributes of Pashtun society has been its pragmatism. The Pashtun proclivity for striking a deal with one enemy to settle scores or gain advantage over another enemy has been an abiding characteristic of these people. What more settled societies call treachery, the Pashtuns call survival. In their scheme of things, switching sides and selling out an ally is par for the course since all alliances are tactical and therefore temporary. Everything is fungible, provided the price is right.

But in the last couple of decades all this seems to have changed. One indication of this change is the fact that despite a huge bounty on the head of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders, they have still not been sold out by their hosts. Another indication is that long standing tribal rivalries and hierarchies have been subordinated to the imperatives of the Islamist insurgency. Unlike their predecessors who always kept a line of communication open with their enemies so that they could strike a favourable deal at an opportune time, the new Pashtun elite comprising of Islamist militants are totally rigid and uncompromising. So much so that efforts to drive a wedge in the ranks of the militants, have met with very limited success.

The moment one warlord is seen to be softening his stance towards the enemy (Americans or Pakistan security forces) he loses the support of the most committed and lethal Islamist cadre. Deals by a militant warlord with the Pakistan army have also failed, partly because they have not saved the warlord from being targeted by the American drones, and partly because of the failure of the Pakistan army to provide him with the material, monetary and military support he needs to fight his rivals, much less protect him from his enemies. This is what happened in the case of the Islamist warlords like Mullah Nazir and Gul Bahadur, who after breaking ranks with Baitullah Mehsud have recently once again joined hands with him. The assassination of Haji Namdar, a militant commander who struck a deal to provide safe passage to logistics convoys of NATO is another example of the failure of the anti-terror front to divide the ranks of the Islamists.

The closing of ranks by the Islamists is quite normal for combatants with a common cause, ideology or enemy. What is unexpected, however, is the manner in which the centuries old tribal structure has simply collapsed before the Islamists. What has happened to the famed Pashtun obligation for revenge? Why is it that when Islamists kill tribesmen, there is no retaliation against them, but when the security forces or the Americans draw blood, there is a stream of recruits to avenge their dead? How is it that instead of the tribal militias taking revenge for depredations by the taliban, it is the Islamists who are exacting badal by decimating anyone and everyone who resists or obstructs them?

Clearly, local affinities – 'me against my brother'; 'me and my brother against my cousins'; 'my cousins and my family against my neighbours'; 'my neighbour, my cousins and me against my village'; 'my village against the other village'; 'my tribe against the other tribe'; and so on and so forth – have been wiped out by an Islamic affinity that transcends clan, tribe, ethnic, linguistic and national divides. No wonder, Islamist militants who have no common clan or tribal affiliation, are able to dictate terms to entire clans and tribes and yet face no major resistance. The Pashtuns used to boast, somewhat speciously, that assured retaliation ensured a balance of terror that helped to maintain law and order in the society. But with the Pashtuns so meekly kow-towing to the diktat of the Taliban, this balance of terror is nowhere visible.

The famed xenophobia of the Pashtuns too seems to have become a thing of the past. The rising influence of non-Pashtuns like Arabs and Uzbeks in the affairs of Pashtuns is only one sign of the growing dominance of Islamism over tribalism. The clinching evidence in support of this proposition comes from the acceptance by the Afghans of Pakistani overlordship through their proxies, the Taliban. Today, even as the Pakistanis try to convince the rest of the world of the Pashtun aversion to foreign interference, the Pakistani establishment feels that it can interfere with impunity in Afghan/Pashtun affairs by keeping alive their Taliban option.

Indeed, this raises the question that if the Pashtuns are so antagonistic to external forces, then what makes the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani establishment believe that they will be able to call the shots in the 'Af-Pak' region if and when the Americans quit? The answer perhaps lies in the use of Islamism by the Pakistani establishment. While the impact of this pernicious ideology and strategy on Pakistan itself is now being felt, it has already devastated the very foundations of the Pashtun society. The reverberations of this transformation will be felt for many decades throughout the region and even rest of the world.

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    <1250 Words>                    10^th April, 2009

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JIHADI GANGRENE REACHES PAKISTAN'S HEART

By

SUSHANT SAREEN

    The rapidly spreading jihadi gangrene
seems to have finally reached Pakistan's heart – Lahore. But despite two very high-profile terror attacks in the city in the month of March – the targeting of the Sri Lankan cricket team and the attack on the police training school – the seriousness of the malady afflicting Pakistan doesn't seem to have registered on the denizens of the country. The people, the political establishment and the permanent establishment remain in denial on the real source of threat to the existence of the Pakistani state, if not the Pakistani nation. What is worse, even when perpetrators of the terror attacks accept responsibility for their actions, doubts are cast over the authenticity of these claims. It is almost as if the Pakistani people don't want to accept that the Islamic warriors that they have nurtured, supported and sponsored for so many years have now turned upon them.

A Nazi mindset that treats non-Muslims as untermensch and refuses to believe that Muslims can also engage in the worst forms of barbarity against fellow Muslims, has left most Pakistanis desperate to find an American, Israeli or Indian hand behind all the terror attacks. After all, how can a 'patriotic Pakistani' like Baitullah Mehsud – a certificate handed to the man by none other than the current chief of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha – kill other equally patriotic Pakistanis?

Part of the problem is of course the warped definition of patriotism in Pakistan. Mass murderers, religious fanatics and self-acknowledged terrorists like Baitullah Mehsud, Mullah Fazlullah, Sufi Muhammad, Gul Bahadur, Mullah Nazir, Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi are all 'patriotic' Pakistanis simply because they spout venom against India and Hindus (also America, Israel, and every other non-Muslim country), and are willing to massacre non-Muslims. That these same people might also be responsible for bombing Pakistani security forces, beheading kidnapped Shia military personnel (the Sunnis are generally spared beheadings), ambushing military convoys, burning down girls schools, lashing, raping and murdering women workers and students doesn't bother most Pakistanis so long as these people are unequivocally anti-India and ready to ally with the Pakistan army in confronting India. Such is the anti-India neurosis that an individual who justifies the actions of these terrorists on grounds of unaddressed grievances, revenge, national liberation struggle, lack of development and gainful employment, social injustice, and what have you, will demand instant retribution on the terrorists if it is insinuated that the terrorists might be acting on the behest of the 'hated' Indians or Americans.

Part of the problem is also that even if the Pakistani authorities correctly identify the culprits, there is very little they can do to punish them. The writ of the Pakistani state not longer runs in large swathes of the territory of the country. For instance, the Pakistan army has already ceded control of North and South Waziristan to Baitullah-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the newly formed Shura Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen (SIM). The Swat Valley and rest of the Malakand division has for all practical purposes emerged as an independent emirate. The army has declared victory in Bajaur and stopped military operations (it wasn't politically sell-able for them to capitulate before the Taliban yet again without first declaring victory). The Taliban writ runs in most districts of NWFP and their influence is now extending to the Pashtun areas of Balochistan. They are also reported to be making inroads into Punjab.

The relentless advance of the Taliban has certainly been aided by the fact that the Pakistan army seems to have neither the heart nor the stomach for fighting them and has all but thrown in the towel in the trans-Indus areas. Of course a show of sorts is still being put up to convince the world that Pakistan is seriously combating the Islamists. But this is at best a rear-guard containment action rather than any serious effort to destroy the Islamists' bases and sanctuaries. At worst, it is a cover for the sinister moves of the ISI which is now actively engaged in supporting the Taliban's war effort.

This double-game is partly a tacit admission of the ideological and military dominance of the Taliban. But more importantly it is an outcome of the hubris of the Pakistan army. The top brass of the Pakistan army suffers from the delusion that it can contain the Islamist contagion as and when it decides to do so. Until such time, the Pakistan army would like to use the Islamists for fulfilling its grand strategic objectives, namely dominance over Afghanistan, defeat of the Americans, and destruction of India.

This very flawed and self-destructive strategic outlook has led to a situation in which the war front has steadily advanced and expanded from the frontier regions to the heartland – the Punjab, which a senior Pakistani police official describes as 'Pakistan's controlling authority'. In other words, not only Pakistan's extremities but also its head and heart are being attacked by the Islamic insurgents. Shockingly, despite being in the midst of a war, Pakistanis are still debating whether this is a war they should be fighting at all. They have worked themselves into a psychosis where, if a referendum is held today, an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis will vote in favour of making peace with the Islamists (Taliban) regardless of the terms of such a peace deal, much less its consequences on their relations with America and rest of the world. It of course goes without saying that the Pakistanis have completely shut their minds to the devastating impact of any defiance of the US on their country's economy, its security, its society, its politics, and its very existence as a nation state.

Pakistan's biggest problem is no longer that the state is fast losing the ability and capacity to reverse the tide of talibanisation. The problem really is that the national security state is still focussed on the imagined threat from India instead of the clear and present threat from within. Not surprisingly, the Pakistan army is not willing to redeploy its troops from the eastern border with India, which is quiet and stable, to the western border with Afghanistan which is highly disturbed and is destabilising the entire region. It is almost as if the Pakistani security establishment is more bothered about protecting is backyard – Afghanistan – from growing Indian influence even if this is at the cost of the house burning down!

The alarming rise in the power of the Islamists is now being felt in areas that were believed to be insulated from this baleful force. Aiding and assisting the Pashtun Taliban are the Punjabi Taliban, most of who hail from South Punjab but have a network spread across the length and breadth of the province. They have already demonstrated their ability to strike whenever, wherever and at whatever they choose to target. With the army already having backed off from confronting the Islamists, it is now the turn of the police and paramilitary forces to come into the crosshair of the Taliban guns. And it won't take long for the Taliban to subdue a demoralised, outgunned, and under-motivated police force. After that it will be the turn of the politicians, businessmen, media professionals and civil society activists.

Clearly, the Taliban are on a roll in Pakistan. As of now, even on the horizon there is nothing to challenge them ideologically and theologically or obstruct them militarily from imposing their domination over the Pakistani state and society. But time is running out so fast that unless a forceful counter-Taliban movement gets underway within the next few days and weeks, it might be too late to save Pakistan from being consumed by a monster they created to consume their neighbours.

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    <1285 Words>                    3^rd April, 2009

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