Pakistan's Slide Into Misery

Sumit Ganguly

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2002

Summary:  Three new books detail 50 years of misrule in a country ill served by its overweening military. Now Pervez Musharraf seems bound to repeat these mistakes.

Sumit Ganguly is Professor of Asian Studies and Government at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947.

The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies. By Dennis Kux. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001, 470 pp. $22.95 (paper).

Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan. By Mary Anne Weaver. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002, 284 pp. $24.00.

Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. By Owen Bennett Jones. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, 316 pp. $29.95.

Late this summer, General Pervez Musharraf -- Pakistan's self-appointed president and chief executive -- delivered yet another devastating blow to the country's democratic prospects. At an August 21 press conference, Musharraf announced 29 new amendments to the constitution that vastly strengthened the powers of the military and the executive. Among other prerogatives, these amendments gave the president (who will be Musharraf for at least the next five years, thanks to the fraud-ridden "referendum" held in April) the power to dismiss Pakistan's legislature -- effectively making all of parliament's actions subject to his approval. Another innovation, the National Security Council, formally institutionalized the already pervasive role of the military in the country's politics.

Musharraf's fiats were just the latest in a 45-year-long saga of military assaults on Pakistan's body politic. For most of its history, the country's military -- often with the complicity of other key elements of the Pakistani state, such as the civilian bureaucracy and even, on occasion, the judiciary -- has seemed intent only on maintaining its own prospects and prerogatives. This single-minded determination has brought the country several coups, ill-considered alliances, and disastrous military operations against India.

Musharraf himself came to power in one such coup, in October 1999. The general took office promising to restore order, instill probity in public life, and promote social justice. But his dictatorial predecessors had made similar pledges, and Pakistan's military regimes have never delivered long-term economic prosperity or political stability. Instead, they have consistently skewed the distribution of wealth and income, made the development of honest and effective political parties nearly impossible, undermined the independence of the judiciary, and exacerbated the underlying weaknesses of the Pakistani state. And so far Musharraf's rule has offered no exception to this depressing trend.

This time, however, Washington cannot afford to ignore the mismanagement in Islamabad. Pakistan's sorry status quo and uncertain future are of critical significance. As the United States seeks to uproot the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban, it remains acutely dependent on Pakistan's stability and well-being, not to mention its cooperation. Moreover, the long-running tensions between India and Pakistan now have significance far beyond the subcontinent, thanks to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both sides. The United States is thus very concerned indeed to ensure that their recurrent tiffs do not spiral into full-scale war. And if the world hopes to stanch the growth of fundamentalist Islam, turning Pakistan toward democracy and away from venal, autocratic rule will be imperative.

Key to that effort will be learning how Pakistan got to where it is today, and how to leverage U.S.-Pakistani ties to improve governance from Islamabad. Fortunately, three authors who have spent significant periods of time in Pakistan have recently produced books that should be useful to the process. In his comprehensive account of U.S.-Pakistan relations, Dennis Kux, a former U.S. diplomat, touches on many of the central developments in the latter country's coup-ridden history. Journalist Mary Anne Weaver's new book focuses on the interplay between Pakistani politics and society. And Owen Bennett Jones, another journalist, seeks to uncover the deep sources of Pakistan's critical ailments. Each book has its merits, but Jones' work is far more analytically probing than the other two and gives a clearer picture of how Pakistan has arrived at such a parlous state.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

The root causes of Pakistan's economic and political woes lie in its feudal society and the winner-take-all approach to governing that has been practiced by successive civilian and military leaders. The party that brought Pakistan independence, the Muslim League, lacked internal democracy. Once partition and statehood had been achieved, the league, dominated by upper-class landed gentry from the former United Provinces of British India, displayed scant interest in forging a state that would promote popular participation and equity. Although they sought to free the Muslims of South Asia from Hindu domination, Pakistan's leaders failed to address the new state's own ethnic diversity. This was a critical shortcoming, for contrary to the political rhetoric of Pakistan's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the region's Muslims never constituted an inchoate, monolithic nation. Instead, a variety of Muslim communities existed throughout British India, and these communities were riven by sectarian, ethnic, and class cleavages.