Unprofessional by design

If the Pakistani state had stuck to Jinnah’s vision for it, we wouldn’t be known as a rogue state in the comity of nations today. Quaid-e-Azam’s vision was clear and unambiguous. To save the Muslims of the subcontinent from the dominion of the Hindu majority, he obtained a separate country comprised of the Muslim majority areas. Therefore, Pakistan was created on democratic grounds.

The people who have cloaked Pakistan in the garb of Islam to isolate it from the world are those who not only undermined the efforts of the workers of the Pakistan Movement but also put the Muslims on the path to destruction, those Muslims who wanted an independent country where they, being the majority, could create a welfare state and could be free of Hindu exploitation. These Muslims wanted to use their material resources as per their right for their own benefit and wanted to live according to their culture. Those who now have control over this unfortunate country in the name of Islam, they weren’t just non-participants in the movement but were its worst opponents.

More or less all maulvis of the era were opposed to the creation of Pakistan based on one argument or the other. There was one Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani who ended up supporting the Pakistan Movement. All maulvis uptil now use him as a cover and have run over Pakistan talking of Islam. Now the situation is such that those common Muslims, for whose independence and economic rights Quaid-e-Azam had wrested this country, are enslaved to these maulvis. Muslims in India have suffered less at the hands of the Hindus than what Pakistani Muslims have suffered at the hands of these maulvis. They have obliterated our cultural life and shackled it in Mullah-ism.

Due to the promotion of sectarian hatred, Muslims have been killing Muslims. I can say for sure that Hindus haven’t spilled as much Muslim blood in India as this land has absorbed thanks to these maulvis’ incitement. The Quaid wanted us to live in peace and brotherhood after separation from the Hindus, whereas we spill Muslim blood not only in our own homeland but are also party to it being spilt in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, we started this game of blood and fire on our own soil. It was General Yahya Khan who, despite his own transgressions, started the transformation of Pakistan’s professional army into a religious one. His minister, General Sher Ali Khan invented the Pakistan Ideology (nazaria-e-Pakistan). The state then bankrolled the creation of a class of custodians for this ideology who subsequently made – and are making – life hell for anybody talking of justice and democracy. At first, East Pakistanis were declared agents of Hindus and infidels and then massacred. Now, Yahya was being aided by the same maulvis who opposed the creation of Pakistan. These mullahs and Yahya Khan led to the Quaid’s Pakistan being dismembered.

When Bhutto helped the defeated army stand on its feet in what was left of Pakistan, the generals did democracy in and hanged Bhutto in one fell swoop. And following the footsteps of the transgressor Yahya Khan, the so-called Mard-e-Momin finished off the remnants of the professional character of the army and, in the name of the jihad culture, turned the army from a professional defence institution into a religious group.

The US, too, used jihad instead of Afghan nationalism as a rallying cry in the fight against the Soviet Union. It then collected bandits and gangsters from around the world in our tribal areas and pushed Afghan warriors, who are traditionally of a religious mindset, into the war with the Soviets after blessing them with weapons and money. All the smugglers of Afghanistan and our tribal areas look like maulvis. But that’s where the association with Islam ends. They are as related to Islam as any person involved in illegal activities can be.

Pakistan’s innocent madrassah students were also shoved into this war in the name of Islam. These youths sacrificed their lives while the administrators of these madrassahs filled their abodes with the inflow of dollars. It was seen that maulvis who couldn’t afford cycles now roamed around in cars worth 50 lacs complete with a coterie of armed guards. This war increased the power and influence of these maulvis manifold.

After the return of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s so-called “jihadi” generals concocted a new doctrine, that of strategic depth, which was basically founded on a defeated mentality and a morbid fear of being forced to retreat. The principle implicit in this doctrine of war is that if we lose ground in a war against India, we must have a safe place to retreat into and where we can be protected and store weaponry. This cowardly doctrine assumes or accepts that the land of Pakistan is not defendable. To counter the Indian onslaught, we need some other land. I am amazed at these “jihadi” generals who fail to see strategic depth in their own land. Sometimes, I am forced to think that if these generals were to get hold of Afghanistan, they will start looking for strategic depth in Central Asia. Where do they want to fight this war?

These deviant generals, by changing the professional character of our army and by empowering terrorists in the name of jihad, have allowed these terrorists to form barracks within Pakistan and challenge its sovereignty. Turning the army into Islam’s army as opposed to an army that is supposed to defend the nation has resulted in the fact that our jawans and officers now fancy themselves mujahideen of Islam. When they are sent out to fight these terrorists, they also raise the Naa’ra-e-Takbeer. Our soldiers are also trained to fight under its banner. Consequently, many officers refuse to fight these terrorists on the ground that they cannot open fire on their Muslim brothers. It has happened many times that our officers have surrendered without even putting up a fight. We are still in this quandary. When sending out troops to fight against terrorists, we do not know how many will fight and how many will lay down arms. These mullahs have impaired the fighting abilities of our exceptional army because of their rhetoric.

The truth is that there is no such thing as an ‘Islamic’ army anywhere in the world and the mullahs and jihadist generals have weakened the professional essence of our army. Our crisis isn’t only political or economic; it’s also strategic. The nuclear bomb which we got for national defence after starving ourselves is now a bomb on which the terrorists stake their claim in the name of Islam. The world is atremble thinking about the fact that if somebody in Pakistan’s defence system lets these terrorists have their way in the name of Islamic solidarity, then what will happen?

The writer is one of Pakistan’s most widely read columnists.