Pakistan has some serious problems within the country, which everyone reads about almost every other day. But Pakistan has even more serious political problems and which we don’t read about since they don’t come with suicide vests, or vehicles rigged with explosives. These are problems more serious than the scandal of fake degrees currently raging between legislators and the media. These are problems more serious than can be addressed by any international aid package.
This is because these are problems that have plagued Pakistan since its birth and have nothing to do with money, faith, the excess, or lack, of both. These are problems that have been the creation of the peculiarities of psychology and its impact on Punjab. Well at least the western portion of Punjab, the one that forms the province in Pakistan. And the best enactment of these problems has been the recent public performance of the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi. His tone, tenor, language and demeanour, caught India’s External Affairs Minister by surprise. Caught the whole atmosphere of Indo-Pak relations by surprise and seems to have injected a dose of dismay and pessimism in the mien of improving relations. The fault lies with India and the inability of its South Block leadership to understand the problems in Pakistan and play the game with psychology rather than the sophistry of North Block.
The President of Pakistan surprised his country by signing along the 18th Amendment even when it curtails presidential powers, thus cementing his democratic credentials. Despite that he remains the object of ridicule and derision within the educated influential sections. The Prime Minister of Pakistan is a Makhdoom by inheritance and as with his ilk the principal challenge of the 21st century is to keep the flock numbers increasing. There are competitors and none more so than the Pakistani Foreign Minister, also a Makhdoom by inheritance and also from Multan, so the competition is really serious. More so when he thinks his educational and intellectual credentials are better than his Prime Minister.
The catch here, however, is that arbiter of these gents’ fortunes is an entity that is not governed by votes, or the will of the people. It is General Headquarters Rawalpindi and in this case the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Kayani specifically. He is up for an extension of his tenure and has let it be known that it won’t be asked for. The US / West has let it be known that they want one for him, so he needn’t ask directly. Some Pakistanis think he is good enough for an extension, for reasons that are military or non-military. The President has a call on this, as does the Prime Minister, constitutionally. Everybody expects it to happen and for a period of extraordinary longevity.
Which basically means that the Chief is going to be around when the polity of Pakistan implodes as it does cyclically. Since Punjab is hurtling towards that political eruption, so hedging the bets has begun. Which is what the Pakistani Foreign Minister was doing through the talks with India and has been doing after as well. The Army is once again going to be the arbiter of political fate, so he has begun to sing the tune that sounds best to military ears. Even a fake degree would’ve shown the way to this analysis, so it is surprising that all the educated intelligent leaders and thinkers should harbour expectations from a dialogue process that is secondary to events underway in Pakistan. Regional security depends on it and there are global security concerns, but relations with India are best with an Army rider to them. Sooner India realises this straightforward fact better it is for its own nerves.