Pakistan cannot and will not able to achieve its national security at the cost of human security. It has tried to realise this dream from the last sixty years, but unfortunately ended up losing the both. Against this backdrop, the prevailing state of affairs in Pakistan suggests that the challenges to our security and sovereignty are getting more and more serious and adverse with the passage of time. These views were expressed by different speakers at a two-day international seminar entitled “Securing a Frontline State: Alternative Views on Peace and Conflict in Pakistan”. The even was jointly organised by Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Pakistan, and Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, in the media partnership of local English daily. In his keynote address, Dr Yunas Samad of Bradford University, UK said that national security in Pakistan had become subservient to the idea of military security, at the cost of other dimensions of security. Delineating upon the Pakistani path towards becoming a military security state, he emphasised that it was primarily because of our “India-centric” approach from the outset.
Alluding to a souring fact, he underlined: “Pakistan is rapidly isolating itself in the world due to its reliance over militant policy to achieve its national interests. The roots of adoption of militant as s tool of state policy lie in the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s” he asserted. He said the US was “getting wary of Pakistan due to latter’s links with militants” and it would be difficult for Pakistan to be at loggerhead with a super power. He also observed that Pakistani position in Islamic world was also problematic, for the Arab states which were at the crossroads in the backdrop of “Arab Spring” thought the Pakistanis were crazy people and extremists, and they were apprehensive of them. He said they were even wary of large number expatriates living in those states. He suggested that the need for re-evaluation and re-orientation of our national security policy was overwhelming and the state must have more civilian input in its geo-political strategies.
Dissecting the militant ideology and discourse, he said that militancy emerged as social movements in the world and they were becoming independent in terms of finances and recruitments. He illustrated that militants in a society, would only promote intolerance and bigotry. Referring to a sobering factor behind the recent surge in militancy in Pakistan, he proclaimed: “American presence has become magnet for radicalisation and it has blurred boundaries among different militant organizations working in the region.” He proposed that Pakistan should come out of “the hole” and position itself prudently in emerging regional order. “Pakistan should use its links with militants as tool of soft power and enable US withdrawal from Afghanistan”, he suggested. Linking the rise of violence with the underlying factors of poor governance, illiteracy, unemployment in Pakistan, he underscored that use of violence for achieving power, self-esteem and sometimes civic facilities had become order of the day and normal state of affairs in Pakistan. Explaining different kinds of causes of insecurity in Pakistan, Dr Abid Suleri, the SDPI executive director, said the developmental challenges in Pakistan were chronic and endemic. He lamented that Pakistan in its history, never tried people-centric paradigm, rather security paradigm always overtook the former. He observed: “State security cannot be achieved without addressing human security.” He said that decades’ long negligence in terms of human security is playing out today in our streets and cities in the form of ubiquitous violence: urban violence inKarachi and ethno-nationalist movement in Balochistan is case in point.
