The Governance Problem in Pakistan
I was saying earlier that if we want to see Pakistan’s ISI not undermining what we’re doing in Afghanistan that we would need to do something that changes their regional calculus regarding India. Patrick Barry says this misses some governance issues:
But just critical as a factor in explaining why ISI factions continue to bedevil the U.S. is Pakistan’s civilian government’s inability to exercise authority over the military. Even if there were better relations between Pakistan and India, you would still have to face the reality that neither the government nor the Military is able to prevent ISI elements from collaborating with insurgents who have come to threaten not just Afghanistan, but also Pakistan itself.
This is fair enough. But I think that in many ways it loops back to the regional situation. The outsize role the military plays in Pakistani society is closely linked to Pakistan’s long-running conflict with India. A Pakistan that didn’t see the struggle with India as of paramount importance wouldn’t just turn its a large and powerful military establishment in a direction that’s more favorable to our policy objectives, it actually wouldn’t need such a large and powerful policy military establishment.
Incidentally, when I observe that turning Pakistan’s regional calculus around would be integral to achieving maximalist American goals in Afghanistan, I mean that not-so-much in the spirit of saying I think Richard Holbrooke needs to work ’round the clock to accomplish that but rather in the spirit of raising doubts about the feasibility of maximalist goals. This is, after all, the land of “If India builds the Bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry—but we will get one of our own.” Pakistan is very committed to its position on the Kashmir issue, and thus to the conflict with India, and has been for decades.
63 Responses to “The Governance Problem in Pakistan”
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March 26th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
The conflict with India is what the Pakistani military uses to keep its inflated power over Pakistan. Every time it actually fights India, it gets its ass kicked.
Armies are no different the world over. The threat is to justify the budget, so ending it is not in the army’s best interest.
March 26th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Yes, of course. Because if the experience of the United States over the last 20 years has taught us anything, it’s that large military establishments fade away quietly once the threat they’re ostensibly protecting us from disappears.
March 26th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
it actually wouldn’t need such a large and powerful policy military establishment.
You seem to be implying that, as day follows night, there would therefore be a smaller military. Yet you’ve written several posts on the outsized size of our military and our inability to shrink it. Why would things be different in Pakistan? And if it wouldn’t shrink, in direct fashion, Barry’s criticism stands.
March 26th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I’ve asked this before, but let me ask it again. Which problem threatens American security more: Israeli occupation of the West Bank (plus the Gaza problem) or the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan? Which one should the State Department devote more attention to? Which one should the media, blogs, etc. discuss more?
March 26th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Matt,
I think there’s an important chicken-and-egg issue here. The Pakistani military, in order to maintain its power, needs conflict with India. Durable peace between Pakistan and India is the last thing the military wants to see. This explains why elements of the military are happy to cooperate with the Taliban, and with terrorists in India – they increase Indo-Pak tension, and underscore the need for a strong military.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
It drives me nuts that the US has put so much trust into the ISI, which has been such a troublemaker in the region for decades. The ISI is full of men who want to destroy India and return it to Muslim rule a la the Mughal Empire, which is a completely BS fantasy. It’s analogous to the vision for Iraq that the Neocon movement in the US had prior to the invasion in 2003. Their thirst is for power, and well, I think it’s slipping away and they are watching their own country and their own organization fall victim to an even more powerful force, which is the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba driven factions within Pakistan, such as the one that recently took over the Swat Valley. Pakistan may as well just re-draw the lines on its map and moderate elements of the ISI may as well flee the country on a job well done!
The Bush administration put so much faith and funding into these guys and now Obama is going to do the same. I know Obama is much more cerebral than Bush ever was, but I’m really questioning his move to help fund the ISI. They are a force that has been detrimental to the development of peace in the region due to their complete lack of integrity with respect to the US’s agenda. When they go out of their way to spend loads of money on protecting themselves from India, the US needs to step back and say “why are you doing that and not helping us? Help us or the aid is off and you guys are back in the stone age.”
On top of all these problems, Pakistan has goddamn nuclear weapons. What a bleeping headache. I can’t wait for the US to get out of foreign countries and stop wasting time and money on outfits that cause nothing but trouble.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
It’s an issue of alliances. Unfortunately for the U.S. agenda, Pakistan seems to only form alliances with those Afghan Pashtuns who tend to align in turn with international takfiri types, and who are the most backward domestically. All the other Afghan factions – Tajiks, Karzai’s Pashtuns, Afghan royalists, etc., hate Pakistan and Pakistan reciprocates.
Meanwhile, within Pakistan, the secular National Awami Party, which actually won the local elections, is anti-Taliban, but is associated in the minds of the Pakistani military with treason and separatism. The military seems to distrust the Taliban types a good deal less than it distrusts elected Awami politicians. Even if they regret Talib tactics, they see their fundamental strategic orientation as less dangerous.
What would solve alot of problems for Americans, Afghans and Pakistanis would be an ethnic and factional “diplomatic revolution”, where Islambad and the Punjabi political elite, the Pakistani military, and the anti-Taliban factions all became allies, and the Taliban insurgent types in both countries became the common enemy. But entrenched distrust militates against this.
The unfortunate historical reality is that previous historical Afghan governments (royalist and monarchist and Karzai)all appealed to pan-Pashtun sentiments by claiming Pakistan’s northwest frontier. The Taliban was one of the few governments that did not. So, Islamabad feels like the Taliban are its best investment. By the way, those Pakistanis driving that agenda also are behind the abuse of the Shiite population within the Indus valley regions of Pakistan.
Pakistani peasants in all regions are right to be angry. They just direct their anger to the wrong places. They really would be best off becoming militantly *leftist* not Islamist, overthrowing the feudal order and either forcing the wealthy to pay taxes or breaking their economic power. Now, they are not going to do this because I said so, but if Pakistan does end up letting things get out of hand and Islamist militancy leads to total war with India, they can’t say I didn’t warn them about the suicidalness of identity politics.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
I’m not convinced we should accept a persistent state of hostility between nuclear powers as the unalterable organizing principle of south asian affairs. The world has lived through one cold war; I wouldn’t give it odds on two.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Al, I don’t say this often to you, but when you’re right, you’re right. While we have been involved in a more peripheral role in the conflict over Kashmir, we are neither integral nor important to that issue. We relied too much on an alliance with the Pakistani military and the ISI during the Cold War that cared more about our potential as a bulwark against India (which we were rather unreliable on) than against standing against Soviet communism, but that’s long passed. The best thing we can do is first learn we can’t micromanage Pakistani elite politics and can’t rely on the military and ISI and go from there. Even though everyone in the world has a strong interest in making sure this doesn’t become a hot war, we have few tools at our disposal beyond providing good offices.
My guess is that if India can weather this worldwide economic downturn (and it’s better positioned than most major economies due to less exposure) and become a solidly mid-level state economically in 15-30 years, there is a chance Indians will feel confident enough that it won’t matter to them which country Kashmir belongs to. At that point, if Kashmir wants independence or to go to Pakistan, it won’t psychologically harm Indians as much and Kashmiris might instead want to stay in India instead to take advantage of greater economic opportunities. Then again, this could also mean enough Indians are solidly in the middle class enough that enough middle and upper-class young Indians become even greater hardline nationalists and want to press against Pakistan even more.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Isn’t the answer in that case to make our Afghanistan problem India’s Afghanistan problem? Come to think of it, isn’t it anyway?
March 26th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
рекомендую…
I was saying earlier that if we want to see Pakistan’s ISI not undermining what we’re doing in Afghanistan that we would need to do something that[...]…
March 26th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Reality Man,
I don’t ‘care’ what country Kashmir belongs to all that much. I think the Pakistani claim to it is very weak, and that giving it over to Pakistan would simply be rewarding aggression, but if it means that much to them, then whatever. The Hindus and Buddhist regions of Jammu and Ladakh should be separated off, though, as I would be concerned about their fate under Pakistani rule. By the way, Kashmiris overwhelmingly do not want to join Pakistan- the majority wants independence, and about a third wants to stay part of India, and only 3% want to join Pakistan.
Economically India appears to be doing decently well, however. (It looks like the go-slow approach to globalization, and the investment in agriculture, are paying off).
March 27th, 2009 at 12:01 am
What anybody in the US (who isn’t Kashmiri) cares about vis-a-vis Kashmir is irrelevant because we have no real say in the matter and the US has little leverage in it. Personally, I think having a Kashmiri buffer state between two nuclear powers that hate each other is probably the best possible solution. However, this proposal is worth than less than a cup of coffee since I’m not an Indian opinion leader, a Pakistani opinion leader or a Kashmiri opinion leader.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:16 am
I think you are missing some major aspects of Pakistani politics. Check out my post on the subject:
http://smartinfluence.blogspot.com/2009/03/helping-yglesias-and-berry-understand.html
March 27th, 2009 at 12:42 am
The naivete of many of you on the Kashmir issue boggles the mind.
You think that as soon as India cedes Kashmir to Pakistan, the muslim country will become India’s friend and all will be suddenly well and good.
Pakistan exists only as a thorn on India’s butt, and it will forever be so. If they get Kashmir, they will ask for Hyderabad, and then so many other small pockets in India which are predominantly muslim. Indian-Pakistani hostilities will not cease so easily. Even if Pakistanis give in writing that once they get Kashmir, they will not lay claim to any other part of India, such an agreement would not be worth the paper it would be written on.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Obviously, the commentors of this blog have no real knowledge of Pakistani dislike of India and the USA or its geostrategic aims. The ISI was a loyal ally of the USA throughout the Cold War until 1989, when the ISI trained mujahideen defeated the Soviets. A couple of years later, having no use for Pakistan, the US government declared Pakistan a state sponsor of terror, and suspended the delivery of 300 million worth of arms which Pakistan had already payed for, and Pakistan became a rogue state for a decade. The Pakistanis of course had to be used again after 9/11, and it’s not surprising that they some have wised up to the American act.
It is not in Pakistan’s interest for USA to succeed in Afghanistan, precisely because of the shifty, unreliable nature of American support. Unless America can convince Pakistan that it is a long-term ally, and not a short term commodity, it is the ISI’s prerogative to protect Pakistani national interest.
Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir is much stronger then India’s. During partition, the mahrajah of Kashmir, a hindu, acceded to India despite over 90% of the population being Muslim. To compare, the maharajah of Hindu-majority Hyderabad and Junagadh, muslims, joined Pakistan, but after Indian invasion, were forced to stay with India. Even Indians today are recognizing their hypocrisy on the Kashmir issue, from Karan Thapar etc. Moreover, China is interested in a strong Pakistan because a strong Pakistan acts as a counterweight to India, which is then forced to join the US in alliance.
The problem with India is that it is an aggressive expansionist country, that succeeded in splitting Pakistan by sponsoring terrorists, is sponsoring secessionists in Balouchistan, and was the originator of the suicide bomb through the Tamil Tigers proxy, an organization formed through Indian help. Also of note is the blind eye that the West gives to Hindu terrorists (RSS), open admirers of Hitler and Aryan supremacy, who within India bomb and remorselessly massacre Muslims and Christians, as in Gujarat. There is also widespread Naxalite violence, something the Indian PM has termed the greatest threat to the Indian state. All in all, a lot more complicated then Bad Pakistan, Good India.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:54 am
Here’s the bottom line: There’s NOTHING the US can do to change the regional calculus.
And the only reason we’re trying is because of a handful of terrorists who managed to “slip by” George Bush because he and his cronies were morons (if not assholes who actively allowed 9/11 to happen to justify their world crusade).
The cause isn’t worth the effort. Al Qaeda can be handled just fine without overthrowing states and trying to manage hundreds of millions of people in other countries and their stupid ass problems.
Pakistan and India are not terribly relevant to us, and Afghanistan is absolutely not worth anyone’s time of day.
Pull out of Afghanistan and let Pakistan and India sort out their own troubles and stop pissing off every one of a billion Muslims by bombing Muslims everywhere in the world and supporting scumbags like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:21 am
ссылки по теме…
Patrick Barry says this misses some governance issues: But just critical as a factor in explaining[...]…
March 27th, 2009 at 5:24 am
I have to say that Al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISI would still exist if there was no Israel, but they’d have no reason to threaten the United States, and they wouldn’t.
Israel puts a large part of the Muslim world at war with the West and compensating for that means trying to bribe Pakistan’s civilian government to oppose parties many, even most Pakistanis believe are fighting the good fight. It means trying to squeeze Iran’s economy. It means supporting dictators in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere – whose victims blame the US when they are tortured, with some justification. It means the only way to have an even moderately pro-US government in Iraq is to invade at a huge cost in money and thousands of dead US soldiers. It means millions of Americans taking off their shoes at airports, not able to bring a soda onto an airplane.
No discussion of US policy vis-a-vis the Muslim world that fails to consider Israel’s negative impact on US options can be worthwhile.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:02 am
The report says that the ISI wing is funding the Taliban. Presumably this is with some of the lavish funding we have been providing the Pakistanis to be our allies? Support for the Pakistani military should be cut drastically as long as this is going on.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
When you read posts like Muhammed’s above, you realize that gregor is unfortunately correct. There will be no solution to the India-Pakistan issue because there will be no end to the average Pakistani’s imagined grievance and India/Hindu obsession.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:30 am
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=zaid+hamid&aq=f
Watch any random video on the list returned by this search result, and you will conclude that Mohammed’s post above is typical of the thoughts of most of the main stream Pakistanis. For whatever reason, Pakistan has no interest in coexisting with India. It’s people have dreams of going back to the days of the Moghul empire when Muslims ruled India, and of sharia law from lahore to Kolkata and Karachi to Colombo.
To think of forcing India to cede to the demands of this neighbor would be essentially to ask Indians to commit harakari as a nation.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:42 am
It always amazes me why Americans assume other countries behave radically differently from their own.
The US needed its outsize military because of the Soviet threat and the Cold War. So, of course, now that there is no Soviet Union and a collapse of the enemy ideology (Communism), the US has wound down its military, right?
In the US case, the Soviet Union really did collapse and it really did withdraw from Eastern Europe so its a little hard for even the most diehard wingnuts to pretend that nothing has changed. Assuming India won’t collapse or lose its influence, its hard to see how improved relations with India will provide much leverage for the civvies to reign in the military.
Of course, I’m sure that civic institutions in Pakistan are much stronger than in the US, so the American example doesn’t apply, right?
March 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
gregor, you are mistaken. Pakistan does not have a problem living with India, it is India that has a problem co-existing with Pakistan. Mainstream Indian journalists like the head editor of India Today openly call for the breakup and dismemberment of Pakistan, and there is an aggressive fanatical media campaign against Pakistan. All you have to do is watch any cable tv channel in India. There is far more hatred in India of Pakistan. The truth about contemporary India is found in this piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKmMRTaFiWg
Many Indians do not just want to take over Islamabad, they want Makkah and Medina too. Open admirers of Hitler (Bal Thackeray et al) are gaining popularity in India, and just recently the grandson of Indira Gandhi, Varun Gandhi, called for the expulsion of all non-Hindus from India.
It is in Pakistan’s interest to stop the fascist Hindutva threat from overrunning it, and it is the ISI’s responsibility to the country to do so.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Not needing something is not the same as not having it. Especially if you’ve already got it and the need is to get rid of it.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Wow, so the ISI’s goal is to prevent India from taking over Makkah and Madina?
Are you deliberately trying to make Pakistani policy goals look ridiculous and delusional? Indian troll, perhaps?
March 27th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Gregor, Muhammed,
Isn’t it obvious that the rhetoric on both sides is a product of a cycle of political pandering and media hype? A politician in one country can point to statements by a politician in the other or violence of the other religious group, and use it as justification for his own radical agenda. Past history makes it a very profitable political ploy, but it doesn’t make it good policy.
It’s one thing to believe you are the more aggrieved party, or that you are in the right, and quite another to believe the other side is inherently evil. Assuming that the other side is inherently evil and will accept nothing other than your complete destruction is a guarantee that they will think the same thing about you.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Njori:
False equivalence. Perhaps due to your ignorance of poltics of the region.
Of course, there are hateful people everywhere, but the question is what is in the mainstream. Any objective study of the cuture and recent history of the region should convince anyone that Pakistan will never be able to live peacefully with India unless some radical transformation occurs in the Muslim country.
Some countries and cultures indeed have more people who have more evil intentions than others. It’s a fact of life.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Muhammed,
I think that if real peace between India and Pakistan is to come about, it should come by first recognizing that Muslim rule over India was a thousand-year tissue of horrors. A thousand years of temples desecrated, women raped, children enslaved, pilgrims massacred, peasants oppressed by usurious landlords. Remember the infamous pyramid of human skills built outside Delhi? Remember the hundreds of years of tyranny when decadent Muslim princes frolicked in their harems among the opium pipes, while Hindu peasants were worked to death in the fields? Remember the Sikh holy men who were flayed alive, blinded, and roasted to death by the Mughals? Today’s Muslims are not to blame for the past crimes that were committed in the name of their faith, but you also have no call to be playing the victim here.
And as for ’splitting Pakistan’, I assume you’re referring to the liberation of Bangladesh. We freed Bangladesh after you guys had butchered three million of your own fellow Muslims, because we decided that there’s a limit, and you could not be allowed to act like barbarians forever.
India has no desire to reconquer Pakistan. Why in hell would we want back a chunk of desert and mountains, inhabited by unpleasant and barbaric cultures like the Pashtuns. When that threat is gone, the people of India will feel safe enough and secure enough to treat filthy demagogues like Varun Gandhi like the scum they are. Varun Gandhi is in jail right now for his genocidal remarks, I believe. When can we expect the Pakistani jihadists to be in jail for theirs?
March 27th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Re: Some countries and cultures indeed have more people who have more evil intentions than others. It’s a fact of life.
Indeed, Gregor, indeed. It’s time to cast aside mealy-mouthed hipster political correctness. Not all cultures are equal, and only a fool would think so.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Hector, almost everything you’ve said here is completely inaccurate. This sounds like the kind of history lessons taught by far-right Hindutva types or people who are products of British-run colonial Catholic schools, in the propaganda against the “Muslim menace.”
The Mughals, despite their faults, actually were probably one of the most efficient empires in Indian history. So efficient, that the British essentially utilized and slightly improved upon the “feudal” infrastructure that you seem to be railing against. Mughals made North India prosperous, and if there was oppression of the peasants, it was done with almost 100% alliance with Hindu landlords. In fact, in places like Bengal, it was Hindu landlords oppressing their Muslim peasants.
So please miss me with all this revisionist history.
Most Indians don’t want anymore land and anymore Muslims. However, it is commonly expressed within Hindutva circles, that Pakistan belongs to India. You forget that most of the ruins and glory of the Indus civilization is in Pakistan and this glory belongs to Bharat according to the Hindutva types. Pakistan in the northern mountainous areas is a beautiful country, excellent for tourism so its not all hell in a handbasket.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Bang Gully says
Here is what al-Biruni, the Persian historian from the 11th century wrote about what Mahmud of Ghazni and his troops did in India:
“He ruined the prosperity of the country and performed wonderful exploits by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions. Those scattered cherish of course the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims. This is the reason why Hindu sciences have retired to far away places like Kashmir and Benares”.
And this was in the 11th century – the Muslims had another 600 years to continue their good work against the kaffirs before the British finally destroyed Muslim rule in India.
A Muslim historian like al-Biruni has no problem understanding why Hindus might hate Muslims for their atrocities. But Bang Gully knows better – it is all Hindutva propaganda!
March 27th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
From the memoirs of Tamerlane, Emir of Samarkand, about his sack of Delhi in the name of Islam:
“In a short space of time all the people in the Delhi fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground….All these infidel Hindus were slain, their women and children, and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors. I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death.
“One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives….on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and enemies of Islam at liberty… no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword.”
More propaganda, I suppose.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Jeez MY, for the last couple of days, you’ve done a really good job of lumping India and Pakistan together as entities that have equal culpability in the problem and equal security interests. And of course Pakistan is committed to the Kashmir issue– it is the one of the only unifying rallying points among Pakistanis, allowing leaders to use Kashmir as a distraction from their real problems like, say, terrorism.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I’ve read a lot about this mythical Muslim oppression of India. I believe you have mistaken the burnt down temples as Hindu, when in fact the destruction of Buddhism by the Hindu Sunga despots is perhaps the greatest crime in Subcontinental history. Hindu history is littered with unpopular kshutriya kings waging war against neighouring victims and laying waste to thousands and thousands of shudras. Each year it seems there is a new pogrom in which a thousand muslims and christians are murdered by Hindu fanatics in India. WHether in Gujarat, Orrissa, Nellie, Bombay, Muslims are scapegoated and slaughtered by Hindutva fanatics
Moreover, Al-Biruni stressed the commonalities between Islam and the subcontinent’s religions. The only reference that you gave, fedupindian, has no source, and when I did research the source it was at fanatic hindutva websites. Also, Mahmud of Ghazni accepted the Hindus/Buddhists as Ahl-al kitab, and destroyed very few temples. The reality is 90000 people have been murdered in Kashmir by the Indian army, thousands gang raped and dozens of mosques destroyed. See:http://www.kmsnews.org/databank/sacrilege-mosques-shrines
Time youlearned some real history.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Muhammed:
Good luck with anyone taking you seriously after calling India an expansionist/aggressive country.
And, if Pakistani troops hadn’t committed genocide in Bangladesh, I’m sure you’d still be able to call it East Pakistan.
By the way, who do you think has funded the Khalistani and Maoist separtists??
March 27th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Hector and FedUpIndian:
Your initial quotes of Timur and then lumping the rest of the 600 years of Muslim dominance in India are misleading.
The only difference between Timur and Mahmud of Ghazni and the various Hindu rajas that warred with each other over kingdoms was that Timur and Mahmud of Ghazni made it a point to smash idols for a religious reason, Hindu rajas killed, raped, and sacked temples as well…because massive amounts of gold and other treasures were hidden in or underneath the temples (the Brahmins had quite a racket going on, similar to the Catholic Church in medieval Europe)
In any case, Timur’s killings doesn’t mean that Muslim rule over Hindu India was hundreds of years of oppression, in fact scholars have pointed out India was one of the wealthiest areas of the world due to Mughal governance until the British came and systematically pimped the shit out of it.
I think Muhammed has also pointed out the hypocrisy by most Hindutva revisionists. No groups hands are clean in India unfortunately. One could make the argument that even in peacetime life is hell for the vast majority of India’ s lower castes….many of whom of course converted to Islam and still continue to to this day.
The very fact that millions of Indians are now Muslim and have been Muslim for a couple hundred years and have developed their own rich culture disturbs many of the Hindutva types. Hindutva types are very much like the “Angry White Males” that you find listening to Rush Limbaugh. Always angry at immigrants, liberal/leftists, minorities, how their culture is going down the drain, yadda yadda. They can’t accept that India isnt what they think it is and it probably has never been what they imagine it to be. It’s a very diverse part of the world and always has been.
March 27th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
India did not intervene in East Pakistan because there were massacres happening, it intervened because it wanted to destroy the Pakistani state. Pakistan acted responsibly in supporting Khalistan as India, which was barbarically treating it’s Sikh minority, and was the consequence of Indian support the mukti bahini in Bangladesh, as India . The Maoists are not supported by Pakistan, however. India initiated the Balouchi rebellion in the 1940’s, supports it to this day, and helped found the Tamil Tigers, supports the Caste maintaing king of nepal. Pakistan has of course committed crimes in the past, but to paint India as some sort of victimized angel is laughable.
Hector, Tamerlane did not sack a Hindu Delhi, he sacked a Muslim Delhi. You forgot to mention the fact Delhi was under Muslim rule at the time. Timur sacked anyone who disagreed with him, be it Baghdad, Ankara or Damascus, and the brunt of his fanaticism was felt by Muslims, not non-muslims.
March 27th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Muhammad, Bang Gully: Good job regurgitating the ISI position that India is expansionist and oppressive, and that all the Muslim rulers of India were oh so benevolent.
Happily no one believes you guys: Pakistan is still regarded as the largest producer of terrorists who kill innocent people, precisely as the facts demand it to be perceived.
All the empirical evidence and objective assessments confirm that Pakistan is always on the brink of being a failed state, and that India, the most populous democracy in the world is progressing economically just fine thank you, Mr. Yglesias’ weird obsession with putting India and Pakistan on the same footing notwithstanding.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Gregor –
What boggles my mind is how my comments on Muslim rule historically in India has anything to do with the goings of the ISI, a Pakistani intelligence agency. Last I checked the ISI doesn’t write academic papers on the subject of Mughal rule.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Yglesias should examine the tentacles the Pakistani Army has in the economy and then understand why even if it could be transported so an ocean lay between Pakistan and India, the Army would still dominate Pakistan.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy
By Ayesha Siddiqa
Oxford University Press
March 27th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Bang Gully,
Your politically correct attempts to whitewash Muslim oppression of Hindus are shameful. I agree with what the Sikhs said during the Indian Mutiny when it came time to choose a side: Better the British than the Mughals. And your ‘Hindutva’ line is oh, so stupid. I’m not even a Hindu, I’m a Christian; though a good part of my family is Hindu, there aren’t many ‘Hindutva’ supporters among them. Pointing out that Muslim rule in India was 1,000 years of oppression is not ‘Hindutva’, it is historical fact. The British, if nothing else, deserve eternal credit for liberating India’s peasantry from the rule of the Moghuls and their subsidiary Nawabs, Nizams, Shahs, and I know not what. It’s true that India stagnated economically under British rule, but at least their taxes were not going to finance some opium-addicted Nawab cavorting in their harem with young women and donkeys.
Muhammed,
Again, India liberated Bangladesh because you guys had proved yourself incapable of running it without butchering three million innocent Muslim Bengalis. The fact that, in retaliation, you would justify supporting the fascist terrorist Khalistanis, is truly shameful, but I suppose merely par for the course. Yes, of course Delhi was under Muslim rule at the time, because the Muslims had CONQUERED it with much bloodshed. Nevertheless, the fact is that Tamerlane conquered it in the name of his so-called “Prophet”.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Shorter Muhammed:
When India intervenes in genocide: BAD! EXPANSIONIST!
When Pakistan funds Sikh extremists: ALTRUISTIC!
But moving on, India doesn’t view Pakistan is an existential threat in the same way Pakistan views India. In fact, India believes it is competing with China… not Pakistan. Pakistan would like to think that every geostrategic move on India’s part is to threaten Pakistan (like the way India wants access to Afghanistan to get to central Asia for oil, but Pakistan thinks India is trying to encircle it). Pakistan is just a failed state trying to justify its existence.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Hector, Indira Gandhi and her gang invaded and destroyed the greatest temple in all of Sikhdom. To compare, it would be if Osama Bin Laden invaded and laid waste to the Vatican. As India has funded non-state actors in Sri Lanka, Balouchistan and Bangladesh, Pakistan has every right to do the same. Compared to the bloodshed that the Indian army has shed, what the Khalistanis did was child’s play. Muslim rule was preferred by most of the subjects to Hindu rule, in which barbarities such as Sutti and the Ashvamedha predominated. What is ashmavedha? The Hindu king would pick a horse, and let it go free for a year. Whereever it roamed, the King had free rein to conquer the area and subjugate the peasantry. Upon the return of the horse, there would be a ceremony culminating in the copulation between the horse and the King’s wife. If Muslim rule was so bad, why did so many Hindus support the reinstatement of the last mughal, and why are there so many Hindus today, if Muslims oppressed them for a 1000 years. To compare, there is no one worshipping the Gods of Thrace or Ionian Greece today, while there are millions worshipping the Brahmic Gods.
Natascha, if Indians didn’t worry about Pakistan, why do they night and day blame everything on it. The standard of living between the two countries is barely distinguishable.
Why is India so anti-Bangladesh now, blaming it for operating terrorist camps, never looking internally at the lack of justice within. Any glance at Indian TV shows its insecurity, foolishness, ignorance and fear of Pakistan.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Re: If Muslim rule was so bad, why did so many Hindus support the reinstatement of the last mughal, and why are there so many Hindus today, if Muslims oppressed them for a 1000 years.
If all the Muslim leaders had been like Aurangzeb, there probably wouldn’t be. Fortunately for the Hindus, many of the Nawabs were decadent p*ssies who prefered chasing women and donkeys about their harems in an opium-fueled stupor, rather than converting the infidel Hindus by force. Seriously, that’s one of the more idiotic statements I’ve heard.
As for that poetry-writing dilettante that called himself Bahadur Shah Zafar, Emperor of Hindustan, a bare quarter of India flocked to his preposterous banner during the Mutiny. Most of India, including my beloved South, stayed loyal to the British, reasoning that they had nothing to gain by reinstating the glorious Shariah dystopia of Nawabs, Taluqdars and Usurers. And for your information, some argue that the barbaric custom of Sati originated because Rajput princes were tired of seeing their women raped by Muslim warriors whenever a castle fell.
March 28th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Nice try, but the comparable standard of living (I see you’ve watched slumdog…) doesn’t mean India is competing with Pakistan and not with China.
Pakistan= failed state
Sorry, man.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Natascha, while I have watched slumdog, that has nothing to do with the comparable standard of living between the two. IF pakistan was such a failed state, why is the Indian media obsessing over it night and day. China will be competing with no one over the next few years, as liberal democracy gives way to authoritarian meritocracy
Hector, Aurungzeb was the greatest rule in Indian history. If the mughals had been more like him, they would have not let the Brits into India. Indeed it was Aurungzeb who bravely outlawed the barbaric practice of sati, sanctioned by the Rig Veda. If you believe that started out of Rajput response to Muslim invasion, you need to consult a history book.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
To think of forcing India to cede to the demands of this neighbor would be essentially to ask Indians to commit harakari as a nation.
It is funny, the US started out by trying to solve the problems posed by Afghanistan (about 32 million people). Instead of spending a few concentrated years doing so, it futzed around, and went into Iraq instead (about 28 million people). Meanwhile the mess in Afghanistan percolated steadily into Pakistan (about 150 million people).
And now people think that the solution is to try to push India (1148 million people) into doing something stupid.
I think Yglesias in particular has an excellent future as a politician (at least as far as the current crop of US politicians is concerned), with the strategy of “if we can’t solve this problem, let’s create a bigger problem”.
—–
Let’s review this a bit. Pakistan has no doubt sponsored any number of insurgencies and terrorist movements in India. The reason they have not succeeded, not even in Kashmir, is not because of some supposed Stalinesque brutality of India or exceptional competence in counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism; but because those movements simply do not have popular support. Even in Kashmir, no matter how much Muhammed deludes himself.
Let us not underestimate the ability of 5000 armed men with external support to significantly disrupt normal life in a country. But let us not overestimate the political significance of such a group. A nation is placed in danger by a determined 10 million, not a determined 5000.
The same holds for Afghanistan. If, and after a history of dithering and bumbling, it is a big IF: if the US can reduce popular support for the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan, then it doesn’t matter how much support they have in Pakistan, nor what happens in Pakistan.
I estimate it will take a unflagging effort – at least as long as it takes for seedlings to become yielding fruit trees. It need not be very expensive. If a competent Afghan security force – mostly police and some army – is assembled, then the US could subsidize it to the extent of a billion dollars a year, and that would be that. Rather cheap.
The goal is not to reform Afghan customs, or their practice of Islam, or to have land-reforms, or any such thing. It is simply to have a working system of law-and-order and justice.
Then get out.
A second goal would be to have Afghanistan be able to run as much commerce through Iran as it does through Pakistan. This would enhance the independence of Afghanistan from Pakistan. However, this requires a US reapproachment with Iran and thus the simultaneous solving of a lot of other chronic problems.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Let me hasten to add that an effort to decouple the Afghanistan problem from Pakistan does not mean that Pakistan ceases to be a problem.
The correct strategic understanding leads to Pakistan and Afghanistan to be considered together. But the main effective way of problem solving that we have is nevertheless to try to break up a problem into smaller decoupled or weakly-coupled parts. Divide and conquer! Problems that cannot be addressed this way, we typically find solutions once a millenium.
If the problem of a radically Islamic takeover of Pakistan and its nukes is in fact tightly tied to the Kashmir issue or to the issue of Afghan Taliban, then kiss the world goodbye.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Arun, perhaps you did not notice the half a million march in Srinagar against Indian rule. Kashmiris are fed up with the rape, burn and pillage tactics of the Indian army, and are standing up to it. All liberations take time and Kashmir is no different. God Willing, Kashmir will be liberated soon, as the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Eastern Europe was.
March 28th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Muhammed:
IF pakistan was such a failed state, why is the Indian media obsessing over it night and day.
Because Pakistani-sponsored terrorists are killing people in India. Whatever one may think about China, they are not playing that game.
Aurungzeb was the greatest rule in Indian history.
Bullsh*t. Akbar, Aurangzeb’s great grandfather is arguably the greatest ruler of the last thousand years. It was he who cemented the Mughal-Rajput alliance that upheld the empire, until Aurangzeb’s religious fanaticism led to the dissolution of Mughal strength.
Akbar evolved into a religious liberal, so offending the types of that time that would constitute the Taliban today, that they falsely accuse Akbar as “having turned mosques into stables and forbidding boys’ being named Muhammad”. That is, Akbar eschewed the usual Muslim ruler behavior and actually got along with the infidel.
Actually, the difference between India and Pakistan is made rather clear by this example. In India, Akbar is the great ruler, and Aurangzeb is the exemplar of a bad ruler; and in Pakistan it is the exact reverse.
Historically, Akbar valued humanity over the Sharia, Aurangzeb valued the Sharia over humanity. Akbar stood at the beginning of a creative period of Indian history; Aurangzeb stood at the end of that period.
In any case, contrary to the Taliban, Pakistani mullahs and the Indian Hindutva fringe, medieval history offers no solutions nor special insights into today’s problems. I advise those who think so to join OBL in his cave.
March 28th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Muhammad: many more millions marched all over India on various occasions protesting the price of onions. That does not mean they wanted to be “liberated”.
Cynic that I am, I used to doubt the Indian government position on Jammu and Kashmir. I suggest you look up British Lord Avebury. He changed my mind. How? He was even awarded “Sitara-e-Pakistan”, which is one of Pakistan’s highest civilian honors, for his advocacy of the Pakistani view of the Kashmiri cause. Then in the mid-90 or so, he actually visited Indian Kashmir and all the Hurriyat leaders; and he came away profoundly disillusioned. Find out more, why.
I’d also like to point out something for the American readers here, because I first learned it reading a paper from one of the US military colleges. It pointed out that at the height of the insurgency, the rate of killing in Jammu and Kashmir measured as homicides per 100,000 per year matched the mid-tier of large American cities (i.e., not as much as Chicago or Newark, but if I remember correctly, closer to Memphis, TN.) I would love to see an American protest of the insanely high rates of violence in its cities.
March 28th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
As for whose rights need protection:
“In its issue of May,1990, “Herald”, the monthly journal of the “Dawn” group of publications of Karachi, wrote as follows: ” In May,1988, low-intensity political rivalry and sectarian tension ignited into full-scale carnage as thousands of armed tribesmen from outside Gilgit district invaded Gilgit along the Karakoram Highway. Nobody stopped them. They destroyed crops and houses, lynched and burnt people to death in the villages around Gilgit town. The number of dead and injured was put in the hundreds. But numbers alone tell nothing of the savagery of the invading hordes and the chilling impact it has left on these peaceful valleys.”
Gen. Musharraf started a policy of bringing in Punjabis and Pakhtoons from outside and settling them down in Gilgit and Baltistan in order to reduce the Kashmiri Shias to a minority in their traditional land and this is continuing till today. The “Friday Times” of October 15-21, 1992, quoted Mr. Muhammad Yahya Shah, a local Shia leader, as saying: ” We were ruled by the Whites during the British days. We are now being ruled by the Browns from the plains. The rapid settling-in of Punjabis and Pakhtoons from outside, particularly the trading classes, has created a sense of acute insecurity among the local Shias.” ”
FYI:
Gilgit and Baltistan are Pakistani-held parts of the former princely state Jammu and Kashmir whose ruler Hari Singh acceded to India (that too, only when Lord Mountbatten advised Nehru that such accession was necessary if India was to render aid to repel an invasion from Pakistan in October 1947.)
March 28th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Muhammed,
Aurangzeb was the Hitler of India, and as Benedict XVI put it brilliantly in his Regensburg address, Islam is a gravely deficient religion. How old was Aisha again, when your so-called “Prophet” married her?
The fundamental problem with Islam, today as much as it ever was, is that they flatly deny the fact of the Incarnation and the Trinity, and therefore they fall into the monstrous and blasphemous error of Arianism. As spiritual error inevitably leads to moral error, it should surprise no one that the record of Islamic rule in India is nothing but a thousand years of uninterrupted oppression.
The British are to be praised, today and tomorrow and a thousand years hence, from liberating India from the rule of the decadent Muslim Nawabs.
March 28th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Lest anyone misunderstand – Despite being tolerant and religiously liberal, Akbar nevertheless belongs to the medieval world. He for instance, is said to have not permitted the introduction of the printing press into his realms.
I don’t know if this should signify, but the one Muslim ruler about whom there are folktales is Akbar. Most deal with Akbar and his (Hindu) courtier and wit, Birbal. Stories tied to the legendary musician Tansen are also tied to Akbar.
For your viewing pleasure:
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/MF50/
March 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
It is quite stupid to discuss which of the Mughal emperors were better rulers. They are all gone anyway, and even if such weighty question can be resolved, the resolution has absolutely no bearing on the current state of affairs.
Only a number of simple facts need to be recognized: (a) Pakistan has no desire to live on peaceful terms with India, as peace with its neighbor will not serve the interests of the dominant political and economic groups of Pakistan, and as a result, (b) Pakistan will continue to sponsor terrorist activity against India no matter what conditions India accepts, and, therefore, (c) it will be suicidal for India to accept any such conditions and (d) for Harvard educated bloggers to suggest that USA should force (or even encourage) India to accept any such peace treaty because it will serve the interests of the United States betrays an uncharacteristic ignorance of history, politics, and human behavior, not to mention a callous disregard for the fate of the billion people of the world’s largest democracy.
March 28th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
FYI:
http://specials.rediff.com/news/2009/mar/25sld1-kashmir-weeps-for-its-martyred-soldier.htm
March 28th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Arun, the people protesting the price of onions were protesting the price of onions. The people protesting Indian rule in Kashmir were chanting pro-Pakistan slogans, Free Kashmir slogans and pro liberation slogans. You have to know that that is a ridiculous comparison.
Hector, girls were married at young ages in the interest of survival. Very few people in those days lived past the age of twenty. None of the Prophet’s (PBUH) children lived past their teens. Moreover, the Prophet married women several years above his age as well.
Hector, no single Christian theological figure even understands the trinity. If I wanted to believe in three persons in one deity, I could believe in the 330 million in one deity of Hinduism, there really is no difference.
gregor,
Indians openly declare a stable Pakistan is not in their national interest. The editor of india today has called for Pakistan’s breakup, and you only have to listen to the retired RAW intelligentsia (bharat varma) who are savouring the breaking up of Pakistan. The ISI is doing it’s job in preventing this from happening, if it was not, they should be prosecuted for negligence and treason.
The Nawabs will get no support from this corner, but the one ruler who did not live the life of the Nawab, the pious and courageous Aurangzeb seems to get as much condemnation as the rest. Seems any Muslim ruler will be disliked because he is a Muslim.
It was the Sunga Dynasty that were the Hitlers of India, massacring and raping left and right. One look at pre-Islamic India shows it was a den of war, superstition and injustice.
It was men like Akbar and Shah Jahan who wasted away Mughal wealth for ludicrous excesses, while Aurangzeb tried to rein this in, but ultimately he came too late to save the empire. BTW, Aurangzeb’s military commander in chief was a Hindu. A better analysis of Aurangzeb can be seen here, since you seem to be repeating the myths of history books in Indian high schools.
http://www.albalagh.net/general/0093.shtml
March 29th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Muhammed,
I notice you still haven’t answered the question posed by Manuel Paleologue. “Show me just what Muhammed brought that was new, and I will show you only things evil and inhuman.” The reason, of course, is because Manuel Paleologue was right. Whatever is good in Mohammedanism is simply a distortion of Christianity, and most of the innovations are, frankly, bad ones. While I have nothing against Muslims as people, the innovations of Islam are simply pernicious nonsense, and this is the best assessment of Muhammed, as Dante Alighieri put it:
A cask by losing centre-piece or cant
Was never shattered so, as I saw one
Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.
Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
That maketh excrement of what is eaten.
While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
He looked at me, and opened with his hands
His bosom, saying: “See now how I rend me;
How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;
In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;
And all the others whom thou here beholdest,
Disseminators of scandal and of schism
While living were, and therefore are cleft thus.
A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us
Thus cruelly, unto the falchion’s edge
Putting again each one of all this ream,
When we have gone around the doleful road;
By reason that our wounds are closed again
Ere any one in front of him repass.
It’s no suprise that Aurangzeb was a bloody butcher of a man, given the fact that Islam is so gravely deficient.
March 29th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Muhammad:
Pakistani school textbooks are absolutely to be believed.
http://www.sdpi.org/archive/nayyar_report.htm
(Compiled by A. H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim
* The subtle Subversion: A report on Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan )
Aurangzeb wore his piety on his sleeve, and that always makes the Islamic leader great historically, no matter what his misdeeds. Akbar was not a pious man, and his willingness to talk to the Jesuits and Brahmins seriously (the Jesuits actually thought Akbar might convert to Christianity!) outraged the Muslim religious fundamentalists of his time. As I mentioned earlier, the very fact of folktales about Akbar means that apart from historians, the very people of his time gave him a vote of confidence. BTW, Akbar, unlike Aurangzeb, neither committed fratricide nor imprisoned his father. But then, I suppose anything can be excused as long as it is justified in the name of Islam.
Why this is relevant is because Pakistan is doing exactly the same thing today – justifying any and every atrocity in the name of Islam. Which is why to your type, civilization began in the subcontinent with the arrival of Muhammad bin Qasim or Mahmud of Ghazni. Yes, we know of the graffiti on the 3500 year old remains of Harappa – “This is what happens to the kafir”.
March 30th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
It is from Douglas Feith, so take with a grain of salt:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/opinion/30feith.html
“ON March 5, in the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, forces believed to be affiliated with the Taliban bombed the shrine of Rahman Baba (born around 1650), the most revered Pashtun poet. The attack evokes one of the grosser Taliban outrages from the pre-9/11 era: the dynamiting in 2001 of the enormous stone Buddhas in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley.”
…
“The bombers took aim at the poet’s shrine because it represented Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that has long been predominant in India and Pakistan. The Sufism of Rahman Baba generally stresses a believer’s personal relationship with God and de-emphasizes the importance of the mosque. It refrains from exalting violence and war and praises such virtues as tolerance, devotion and love. Its practice relies extensively on dance, music and poetry. Some of Sufism’s most esteemed poets and scholars are women.
The extremists are determined to destroy Pakistan’s moderate Sufi tradition — by claiming the exclusive right to fly the banner of Islam and asserting this claim through cultural, educational and violent means. Through intimidation, they silence musicians, still dancers and oppress women. As a result, artists and performers are leaving Pakistan’s Swat Valley and the North-West Frontier Province in droves. ”
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Parenthetically, Aurangzeb too was against Sufism and clamped down on the Sufis. It is tempting to see the above as a continuation of a historical movement.