Pakistan: A Failed State?

Many scholars and political commentators have addressed Pakistan's apparent failure as a nation-state by focusing upon the East-West Pakistan divide, military-bureaucracy ruling alliance, the continuity of colonial form of governance, core-periphery relations, etc. In his controversial New Delhi speech, Najam Sethi argues that contemporary Pakistan is embroiled in: (1) the crisis of identity and ideology; (2) the crisis of law, constitution and political system; (3) the crisis of economy; (4) the crisis of foreign policy; (5) the crisis of civil society; and (6) the crisis of national security.

If Sethi's diagnosis has some merit, Pakistan is a potentially failed state.
This article, however, argues that the crisis of Pakistani nation-state rest essentially in a failure of her dominant discourse (ideology; worldview), which not only allows the reproduction of elitism but fails to prepare our youth to deal with the political, economic, and cultural complexities of the world we live in.

Soon after Pakistan's inception in 1947, Pakistani ruling elite constructed a discourse around the notion of an Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The proponents of this discourse have incessantly argued that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam which provides the only true basis of our national identity. The critics argue that Pakistan was an accidental product of a struggle to safeguard the rights of Muslims in the pre-Partition India. They further maintain that no Pakistani should feel insecure and be treated as a second class citizen in view of his/her class, gender, ethnolinguistic background, religious preference, or any other basis of collective identity. This view is in tune with the vision of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah who asked all Pakistanis to live and work cooperatively irrespective of their color, caste or creed because they are "first, second and last" the citizens of Pakistan with "equal rights, privileges and obligations." Jinnah indeed believed in a secular Pakistan. In addressing the people of Pakistan, he unequivocally said: "You may belong to any religion or caste or creed–that has nothing to do with the business of the State. . . ."

In spite of Jinnah's secularist vision, the Pakistani ruling elite (the army-bureaucracy-bourgeoisie alliance) has invariably taken refuge under the perceived, constructed, or real internal and external threat to the national ideology and/or security to legitimize: (1) an authoritarian centralized system of governance; (2) too much reliance upon the coercive state apparatus; and (3) intolerance of opposition, counter-hegemonic struggles, and sectionalism. These developments have fostered not only numerous corrupt and unresponsive regimes, but exacerbated difficulties for our national cohesion. Instead of constructing national cohesion through the development of a sense of belonging and loyalty to the state (not necessarily to the incumbent government), the Pakistani ruling elite has often resorted to the rule of danda to deal with the problems of inequality, marginalization, and conflict resolution. The bloody conflicts in Baluchistan, East Pakistan, and more recently in the province of Sindh (particularly in Karachi) provide considerable evidence of the ineptness of a highly centralized and authoritarian state to deal effectively with citizenship rights, local-central relations, and other issues of national integration.

In contemporary Pakistan, the tension between secular and theocratic forces has become much more severe, primarily due to the growth of so-called "fundamentalism," which I prefer to call "Neem Mullahism." There is an element of truth in the famous Urdu proverb: Neem Mullah Khatrah-e-Emaan (which means that a partially/poorly educated Mullah is a threat to the religious faith). Neem Mullahism unequivocally stresses that:

1) Islam needs to be imposed with or without the power of the state as a solution to the existing crisis-prone everyday life in Pakistan and elsewhere; and

2) a struggle in the name of Allah would ensure each Mujahid a secure place in the immortal world of happiness and luxury in the heaven.

This view has at least two major flaws:

1) Neem Mullahs want to impose a particular interpretation of Islam;
and
2) the word Jihad is used in a narrow and corrupted sense, and the actions of the so-called Mujahideens violate the human rights of other people (both Muslims and non-Muslims).

Since most Pakistanis are not adequately educated, they often fail to distinguish between ideology and reality and remain emotionally vulnerable to Neem Mullahism. In contrast, most college and university educated Pakistanis tend to reject the worldviews of Neem Mullahs suggesting that the proliferation of Neem Mullahism is likely to turn Pakistan into a hotbed of enhanced internal conflict and violence. This situation calls for the need to:

(1) institutionalize a separation of state and religion, and
(2) foster an alternative discourse that prioritizes the values of humanity, freedom, justice, and peaceful coexistence.