These days you would find a large number of self-styled defence experts, news anchors, former diplomats and civil servants, and so-called public intellectuals, condescendingly lamenting that the Mullah-Military nexus in Pakistan is the source of all the evil there. Some of them call it the ‘unholy alliance’ also.
The question is so what? These duffers are intellectually so bankrupt that they are unable to comprehend that you cannot have a ‘made-to-order’ Pakistan at your doorstep, can you? You do not have the luxury to choose your enemies. You have got to deal with Pakistan as it is and as you get it.
In any case, who the hell are you to dictate what the system or society in Pakistan should be? By God, you are not the guardian of Pakistan and Pakistan is not your recalcitrant daughter whom you are reprimanding for being in a relationship with some shady character of the mohalla instead of a bright, decent guy in the IT sector. I mean, who gave these guys the right to pontificate, to give ‘updesh’ to Pakistan about what they should be and how they must conduct themselves?
OK, Pakistan has been sponsoring terrorism for over three decades; they are poor; they are starving and they are desperate; there is fundamentalism in every corner; there are powerful mullahs; and there is an extremely powerful and corrupt military with its fingers in every proverbial pie as well as every tandoori raan. The question is what the heck can you do about it?
Can you get every mullah killed by the so-called ‘unknown gunmen’? No! Leave that for Bollywood films. Can you erode whatever popularity they enjoy amongst the people? No! Can you get the Pakistani military to start behaving like ‘propah’ gentlemen who only fight fair in battles obeying the laws of combat laid down by Bheeshm Pitamah in the Great War of Mahabharat to a tee? No! Can you get them to stop meddling in domestic politics? No! Can you erase all the anti-India sentiments that run in Pakistani society? No! Leave all that for your sweetest dreams in some drunken stupor.
Then why are they lamenting the Mullah-Military nexus? Do they mean to tell us that had this nexus not been there, Pakistan would have been behaving like the most disciplined boy in the class and rivers of mutual love would have been flowing between the two countries? Why don’t these people have the moral courage to accept that India-Pakistan relations are characterized by some of the most complex factors in human history? We have a lot in common, but we also have differences too.
Nothing will be gained by criticizing Pakistan’s Army chief, General (now Field Marshal) Asim Munir, who in mid-April, had urged Pakistanis to pass down the ideology that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic. In a public speech, Munir doubled down on the differences between Hindus and Muslims, as he invoked the Two-Nation Theory, the cornerstone of Pakistan’s creation and identity. The question is so what? Why are these self-styled experts rattled? You cannot remain in denial mode all the time. Two nations were created on religious lines because, like it or not, for whatever goddamn reason, they could not live together. We cannot undo history nor can we go back in time. By God, how naive, how utterly juvenile, how amateurish these self-styled defence experts, news anchors, former diplomats and civil servants, and so-called public intellectuals could be! Does their wishful thinking never end? Stop behaving like the Tau of a mohalla! You cannot dictate the moral make-up of the Pakistani society. Learn to face reality. We have a hostile neighbour and its hostility is like a pedunculated tumour, the roots of which go deep. If you cannot deal with Pakistan as it is, get lost.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Pakistani mullahs and their military have every damn right to be whatever they are. They cannot and they would not improve merely because they have been doing bad things to us that are immoral. It is incumbent upon us to teach them a lesson that they never forget. It is our responsibility and our right to break every bone they have for what they do. But, to expect that they should or they would reform to make us happy is plain and simple bullshit. Pakistan is a very difficult question in the exam. You cannot demand that the question be changed to an easier one that you can solve. Since these guys are reluctant or rather loathe admitting that they do not have the intellectual mettle to solve that difficult question, they criticize the question itself and want it changed.
A recent article in The Print, titled ‘Pakistan needs a different kind of Islam. One that doesn’t hate Hinduism’, went to the absurd limit of suggesting “For Pakistan to live in peace with India, it will have to reimagine its foundational ideology of religious antagonism. And for that to happen, Islam has to become tolerant of other faiths.” This is stupidity at its best. My dear daydreamers, the world has neither been, nor is, nor will it ever be the way you wish it to be. It is an imperfect world, characterized by immense hatred amongst people for myriad reasons. From 3,500 BC until the late 20th century, there had been as many as nearly 14,500 wars of the human race in which some 1.64 billion people have been killed. In more than 5,500 years, mankind has known peace for just about 300 years, that is, 5.5% of the time.
Now, why have people been fighting wars and suffering all their horrors for thousands of years? Had they been getting bored? Had they been desirous of some physical exercise? Had they been bored of their women and wanted to loot women of other countries? Had they gotten so terribly poor that they were compelled to rob others? No! None of these have ever been the prime movers of wars that cost mankind terribly. This is not the place to educate people about the causes and philosophy of war but, suffice it to say that there is indeed something primeval in human nature that makes us go to war and we have always been prepared to pay the extreme price for it.
For God’s sake, we must stop treating Pakistan like a spoilt, naughty kid at best and a deviant, pervert at worst, who could perhaps be ‘reformed’ if we counsel him properly, cane him suitably or break a few bones in his body. We are not on a mission to reform them; we are not out on dispensing correctional justice. Our job is to deliver retributive justice for any wrong that they commit. Period.
The harsh reality of world politics is that they will remain what they are. It is utterly stupid to think that they would change for us. Maybe, just maybe, someday the Pakistani people get so sick of the perennial shortages and extreme poverty there and decide that they must have a government that would devote all its energies to the welfare of the people instead of tormenting India, sponsoring terrorism, or fighting with India. The fact is nothing happens by people wish for anything. Every government everywhere has always been promising the dumb people the moon; has their lot ever changed? No! In any case, it is for the Pakistani people to decide what they want. It is for them to rise in revolt against the Mullah-Military nexus and overthrow them. Yes, an op-ed was written with the title ‘Will Pakistanis Liberate Themselves from the Rule of the Military-Mullah Alliance?’ What role these self-styled defence experts, news anchors, former diplomats and civil servants, and so-called public intellectuals could have to play in this upcoming ‘Age of Transformation’? Are they trying to awaken, rouse or instigate the Pakistani people? Are they playing the role of the apocryphal shepherd who would lead them into light? Shove it, man. I remember, back in September 2018, Imran Khan had appointed Atif Mian, an MIT-educated Pakistani-American economics professor at Princeton University, to a newly formed 18-member economic council. He happened to be an Ahmadiya. Two days later, the government decided to withdraw the nomination of Mian from the economic advisory committee, because ‘the government wanted to work with all sections of society, including Islamic clerics’. Our self-styled experts went to town on this, stating “Imran Khan had the chance to stand up to the mullah-military nexus. But instead, the world got the same old whine from a brand new bottle.” What is your problem, man? Had Pakistan, by the removal of Atif Mian, been plunged into an economic abyss; or, conversely, had he not been removed, rivers of honey and milk would have started flowing in Pakistan? Why do you bother? It is their prerogative whom they appoint or remove. What is your problem if they are discriminating against Ahmadiyas? Should we punish Pakistan for that? You see, we may be morally superior to them, but it does not give our self-styled experts the right to start taking classes in morality in Pakistan.
Being intellectually deficient, these people have fallen into the ridiculous habit of clambering on a high moral pedestal they have made for themselves and then start wailing like widows (vidhwa-vilaap). That’s how the slightly clever amongst them who write worthless articles or papers to soup up their CVs, have been telling us that Pakistan has ‘mainstreamed’ jihadis. (I rather like the word ‘mainstreaming’ though—sounds pretty intellectual!) Or, that the Mullah-Military nexus has provided Islamism with regional perspectives and encouraged it to exploit the concept of jihad. Pure, unadulterated rhetoric. OK, they have bloody well done it. So, what can these guys do about it? Can they nuke the shit out of Pakistan and send it back to the Stone Age? No! Some others tell us that the emergence of the religious right as a political force in Pakistan is an outcome of state patronage. Or, that that the political and social survival of both its armed forces and the religious Right is based on the persistence of a dialectic relationship between secular modernity and Islamic ethos that can be traced back to the country’s creation. OK, so what can you do about it? Can you roll back the clock? Still, others tell us that unlike some of his predecessors, Munir is believed to have a jihadist mindset reinforced by an orthodox ideology that sees India as an ideological as well as a geopolitical rival. So, should we issue an Office Order dismissing Munir with retrospective effect? Another self-styled expert said, “You have to know why he’s doing what he’s doing because the series of events is illogical. It’s illogical even for Pakistan.” OK, so should we organize classes for the millions in Pakistan to understand some basic logic? Do these guys even understand what they blabber? People all over the world do a million illogical things and put up with a billion illogical things. The human race cannot be made rational by their vidhwa-vilaap.
Let us get one thing clear. We are not miracle workers. We are not even Mandrake the Magician. We cannot wish a ‘good Pakistan’ or gesture hypnotically; and lo and behold, there will be a ‘good Pakistan’ before us to cuddle with, play cricket with and exchange film actors with. We have to face reality. The ugly truth is that we have a hostile neighbour who, for all the reasons in the world, shall remain hostile to us. Hostility with India is Pakistan’s raison d’être (reason for being). Stop whining about the roots of the hostility, deal with it.
