UC Berkley’s 19th South Asia Conference

The highly acclaimed Center for South Asia Studies at the University of California at Berkeley held its 19th South Asia Conference during two days in February (13-14) at the International House on Campus. And since it is not possible here to detail the activities of the entire affair and all the excellent papers presented, this report unfortunately will have to be “filtered” to cater to Pakistani-American interests. The selective nature here becomes all the more important because out of all South Asian countries, it was certainly Pakistan that happened to be the “flavor of the week” in the American news media complete with several stories on nuclear proliferation. Extremism, terrorism emanating from Pakistan and fortunately the peace talks with India (the only positive angle presented) had also made it to the headlines here recently.

Panels that were presented offered much diversity. Urbanization in South Asia got a look from both the Anthropological and the City Planner viewpoint. Historians studied Complicity and Conflict which included sub topics such as Child Marriage and along with these there were some focused groupings on Pakistan and India itself. And it is one particular panel here on Pakistan that will remain the focal point of this report, since both the focus and expertise represented within the trio of speakers, deserves attention.

On the topic of “Trying to Hang on and Hold Things Together: Challenges to the Integrity of Pakistan and the Longevity of Its Current Leadership” a panel made up of Charles H Kennedy (Chair), Saeed Shafqat and Peter R Lavoy generated much interest and enthusiasm.

Dr. Charles H. Kennedy is currently Professor at the Department of Political Science at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He is both an expert on Pakistan and quite popular amongst many in the Pakistani-American community. His analyses are often both accurate and sympathetic towards the Pakistani people. At this panel that he chaired, his subtopic of “A Dummy’s Guide to Guided Democracy: Musharraf and the Pakistani Military Governance Paradigm” may have seemed somewhat non-serious but it was quite in the realm of the realistic. He pointed out the similarities between the military rule of the past and that of today and the pattern that this rule usually follows. He offered a ten point roadmap which is usually repeated in Pakistan which is:
1) There is an excuse made for the coup and the predecessor dismissed for a number of reasons
2) Steps are taken to avoid legal hurdles (P.C.O.)
3) Things are made legal for the short term (asking superior court judges to take another oath as in 1999)
4) Eliminate political opposition (amend Anti Terrorism Ordinance to charge Nawaz Sharif)
5) Arrange to become President (From CMLA or CEO of the country and the holding of referendums
6) Re-invent local government (create friends and displace enemies)
7) Intimidate the civil bureaucracy and the superior judiciary by putting embedded military officers to shadow them 8) Rewrite the Constitution (through the L.F.O. this time)
9) Orchestrate Elections (PML (Q) wins)
and
10) Implement this system itself (the most difficult part).

Dr. Kennedy said that it was difficult to predict if the current system will last for very long. He ended his presentation by mentioning that we should not look at this scenario as the Pakistani Military lengthening its hold on power but that “the goal is to leave power” with a agreeable environment which is a very difficult thing to do.

The second presentation was by Saeed Shafqat the Quaid-e-Azam Distinguished Professor at Columbia University in New York. Speaking on the topic of “Experimenting with Democratic Governance: The Impact of the Local Government Ordinance, 2001 on the Pakistani Bureaucracy,” Dr. Shafqat started off by describing the Local Government Ordinance of 2001 as a “radical change” from the past. He added that one has to look beyond President Musharraf, at the Military as an institution after 1970 to study this change and the new realities that have emerged for the Bureaucracy after Pakistan moved towards the restoration of Democracy. He said that after 1985 onwards there was an increasing politicization of the Civil Service and its most significant arm, while the office of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) held considerable power. According to him the local bodies election of 2001 have offered quite a challenge to this power. He added that the government at the District level is the lynchpin of the Administration and that the DC’s office was a part of the system that the British had introduced to the area in the 1850’s. This office and its basic functions had remained pretty much intact till now. He said that the Military now is no longer interested in a partnership with the civilian office of the DC which it considers to have become an instrument for the politicians and the very nature of the Civil Service has been challenged. The idea was that those elected via the Local Bodies elections would be more neutral than the DC. But according to Dr. Shafqat in the 2002 elections, tensions appear to have come into the picture in the provinces of Punjab and Sind and that the Local Bodies Ordinance has shaken the foundations of government at the district level. He said that the Civil Service has responded to this challenge in a number of ways.
1) Being in a state of denial
2) Showing Frustration and
3) Flight from Service and
4) A large number is returning to the ranks and readapting.

He concluded that the relationship between the Civil Service and the Politicians is continuing. “This partnership that the military is trying to break is not breaking,” he said.

Peter R. Lavoy is currently Director of the Center for Contemporary Conflict and Assistant Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School (Department of National Security Affairs) in Monterey, California. Peter commented that events were unfolding very fast with regards to Pakistan these days and that we could also just tune in to CNN and see what was happening from where we sat. Peter came prepared with two small (toy) replicas of Pakistan’s Ghauri a Shaheen missiles which he put on display. His talk was on “The Domestic Politics of Pakistan’s Nuclear Policy”. He said that one of the primary reasons for the possession of nuclear weapons by any country was to deter other countries from using nuclear weapons against them (an argument used throughout the Cold War). In the case of Pakistan he said that there were a number of political uses that he could see. “The real father of the bomb in Pakistan was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,” he said, while pointing out how various individual leaders and governments in Pakistan had used the country’s nuclear program to further their immediate aims from Z. A. Bhutto to Musharraf today. He added that the common belief was that these nukes would deter India from attacking. He pointed out the many uses that Pakistanis had made of their nuclear capability such as 1) Added protection while a low intensity conflict against India in Kashmir and flare ups like the Kargil war went on 2) As a last resort weapon to prevent the defeat of its Military. 3) As an addition to conventional military force which deterred India from attacking in 2003 4) As an instrument of nation building 5) As a tool to draw attention to the Kashmir Dispute 6) For financial gains 7) As a symbol to induce National Unity in which he added that “Z.A. Bhutto was excellent at this.”

What made for very interesting listening was that according to Lavoy, the military rulers of Pakistan have been much more reserved in their comments on the nuclear dimension in their country than civilian leaders. “Zia depoliticized the nuclear issue,” he said. But on the other hand Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were extremely vocal about it and out to outdo each other in public forums while emphasizing their own contributions to the nuclear program to enhance their public support. He added that President Musharraf does not do this. “As a professional Military officer he has a different mindset,” he said. On the topic of A.Q. Khan he said that what was done was extremely serious and that the pardon was in all probability granted so that there would be no public trial, more information was awaited on what more A. Q. Khan could share and to avoid domestic unrest. The coming “Spring Offensive” against the Taliban and Al Qaida/OBL was also mentioned. He said that President Musharraf has very little wiggle room on the subject of nuclear weapons in Pakistan.

Other panels that one can only mention in passing due to space constraints here were “Criminality and Postcolonial Subject to Order” from the Department of Anthropology here at UCB chaired by Lucinda Ramberg (who presented a wonderful paper on the “Devdasi” tradition in the Indian State of Karnataka). And along with Anand Pandians “My Thieving Monkey Heart” the paper of much interest was presented by Tahir Naqvi on “Our Crime to Commit: Urban Space and Subjects in Karachi’s Democratic Transition” in which he studied the phenomenon of violence and the MQM. Another Panel titled “Sites and Memory: Practices and Representation of the Muslim Past” included a paper by Manan Ahmed (University of Chicago) titled “Death of Muhammad b. Qasim in History and Memory” in which he compared Arab/Muslim historical information to the narrative preserved in the memory of Sindhi folklore. And last but not least under the panel on the topic of “Transnational South Asia” Lalaie Ameeriar presented a paper on “Women, Faith and Bodily Practice: Pakistani Muslim Women in Toronto.”

In conclusion it is also time to bring some good news to Pakistani-Americans here. It appears that the “short list” has finally arrived from Pakistan as to the choices from amongst which one person will be the first academic to hold the new Quaid-e-Azam Chair of Pakistan Studies at U.C. Berkeley. And on a final note, Pakistan currently being in the eye of the storm (so to speak), it is still great to see that the region is being studied in such detail at institutions in America. It highlights the issue that "What have you done for me lately?” cannot always be the bedrock of the relationship between the sole superpower and the countries of the developing world. And Pakistan cannot always be looked at from the prism of its Military. Muslim Extremism/Fundamentalism was brought to the region with the direct help of the United States which provided these groups with the financing and training to defeat the Soviet Union. The effort succeeded and then backfired without the consent of the Pakistani people. One can only hope that this time a solution to the problem will not bypass but include them.