Balochistan — to where from here?… Dr Muhammad Ali Ehsan
When terrorists strike, the response should be as ruthless as has come from the Pakistani military. So, any debate on military response is superfluous as the entire nation stands behind the military to support its action. The entire country was shocked when the train hijacking took place and what followed was an essentiality a military operation with the twin purpose of rescuing the hostages and going hard against the terrorists.
This incident has reignited intense debate on the issue of Balochistan, but unfortunately, the debate has revolved more around subjectivity and lacked the important element of objectivity. Pakistani politics cannot wish away the question of the full-blown insurgency it faces in Balochistan. Like East Pakistan, the problem in Balochistan is also political and warrants not a military but a political solution.
From an academic point of view, all politics like all our societies is governed by objective laws. Laws that have roots in human nature, with impartial principles, are based on knowledge, reason and empirical evidence rather than subjective opinions, emotions and feelings. Ideally, no political morality should proceed without prudence.
quires announcemDealing with the problem of Balochistan reent and demonstration of clear application of ethical principles and standards to this problem and a generation of a purposeful debate. This debate should be in both houses of the parliament with the state showing moral courage to allow the people to hear uncensored this debate. What can emerge from this debate is the availability of alternatives to deal with the problem and the determination of the right approach for the state to deal with this problem.
At this stage, there is a visible struggle for political power in the country. This struggle is being manifested in the struggle for and against the politics of the status quo. The policy of the status quo is principled on the concept of maintenance of power as it exists. It projects a rigid and uncompromising political position and the stakeholders involved join alliances not necessarily because they approve of each other’s politics but only because together the alliance can ensure the sustenance of the existing distribution of political power. The great tragedy with such a political arrangement is that it takes away from the people the possibility of driving a change by making alternative choices.
The two traditionally big political parties PML-N and PPP are allies in the government today and both in the end will be responsible for the good or the bad political decisions being made today. Such an arrangement only adds up to people looking more towards some other political alternative because people may want change and in PTI they find that readily available political alternative to drive any change. If policies of the status quo guide PML-N and PPP politics today, what should the policies guiding the politics of PTI be called – imperialism?
The support of the people and the political power of PTI is a reality. Locked in the struggle for political power with the other parties, PTI would like to continue to challenge the politics of the status quo to bring a change in the distribution of existing political power in the country. The party utilises the issues like Balochistan to further highlight the demerits of politics of the status quo and thus looks at the whole issue from a different lens.
The military in Pakistan carries a huge burden. Writing a poem at the start of the century, Rudyard Kipling mentioned a burden that America must carry and he called it “the white man’s burden”. He wished that Americans should help the native people they controlled in the Philippines to be civilised and educated. As the most powerful, disciplined and organised institution in the country, the military also needs to understand the burden it carries.
To do that it must take into effect the change like current age, society and politics. In the digital age misinformation or disinformation further fans insurgencies like the one in Balochistan. The military’s burden is not to allow this to happen. Chairman Mao’s famous dictum that “power lies in the barrel of the gun” had many buyers at that time as it came during the revolutionary age. In the digital age, transparency, impartiality, fair play and justice are rewarding societal principles. In this age, Pakistan military must not allow the policy of political status quo to be presented as a policy of preservation of political exploitation that is the heavy burden of responsibility that the military carries.
Are military’s interest tied to the continuity of the policy of the status quo? Is it because this policy in the short-term and immediate context guarantees state sovereignty, territorial integrity and overall national security? Is risk aversion the primary reason to support this policy? This country has been dismembered before and no military in the world would like to preside over any dismemberment. Is this the reason that the military comes down hard on any policy that seeks to change the existing distribution of political power in the country?
This mindset is similar to the Churchillian mindset during the colonial period. This mindset made Churchill refuse in 1942 to preside over ‘the liquidation of the British Empire’ and thus defended the status quo of the British Empire. But we live in a digital age.
The burden that the military carries is to walk away from the policy of maintaining and sustaining the current politics of the status quo. Let economists decide the economic future, the moralist’s moral future, the legalists the rules of law, and the politicians the power distribution to create the necessary balance and equilibrium in the political system to bring back stability in the country. Politics must be allowed to find its way.
It is wrong to reduce the political problems to economic ones. The solution to a political problem will come out from a political and not an economic jar. We must stop putting our hand in the wrong jar for we have for far too long looked at military and economic remedies to our political problems. This country deserves a fair and free election and the solution to all its problems lies in the establishment, nourishment and continuity of a healthy and robust democracy.
Courtesy The Express Tribune