The Deep State

Grand narrative and its perpetuation

There is a grand narrative of Pakistan that the ‘deep state’ has constructed over the last 65 odd years. It is a narrative that is nationalistic but it draws heavily on religion, language, ethnicity, and a reading of history that is almost linear starting with the arrival of Muslims in South Asia. There are clearly elements of truth in it, as all grand narratives have, but, equally clearly, it lacks the nuance and subtlety that is required for grand narratives that can become a culture of a place and represent the reality of multiplicity and complexity that exists in any society.

Challenges to the grand narrative have been many. Starting with the linguistic challenges of the 1950s we have had nationalistic, ideological, progressive, ethnic, religious, sect and caste based challenges all along and these challenges continue. But the grand narrative continues to survive, largely due to the pernicious and, often, vicious nature of suppression exercised by the deep state, but also due to the fragmentation of alternative narratives.

The deep state is vicious. Let there be no doubt about that. Any persons or groups of people who poses a challenge to the grand narrative favoured, built and believed in by the deep state stand vulnerable, are expendable and have been/are paying the price for it. Be it the nationalists in Baluchistan and/or Sindh, religious minorities or individuals who have challenged even small parts of the grand narrative.

The case of the nationalists is the clearest. They have been challenging the unitary narrative of Pakistani identity and culture and this has been seen as a grave existential threat by the deep state. And the deep state has reacted predictably. Rather than engage the alternative narratives to enrich the official one, the state has chosen to suppress alternative voices by terming these as treason and by killing and/or hounding people standing up for these alternatives.

But it is not just the nationalists who have paid the price. Every person or group that has been outside of the mainstream of the grand narrative has either paid the price or stands exposed and can only think of him/herself as a minority. The progressives in the country, women, religious minorities, other sects, other ethnicities: the list is a long one. It is a mistake to even think that the ‘people’ around whom the grand narrative is build are not so exposed either. A Sunni Punjabi nationalist male is also going to be hounded by the deep state if he chooses to challenge the grand narrative: the people in the Punjab do not feel any safer than people anywhere else in Pakistan.

And even the people in power should understand that the deep state does not work for them, it is they who are working for the deep state. And they are serving the interests of the deep state. The day they stop serving these interests, it does not matter whether they are the Prime Minister or the President, are from Sindh or from the Punjab, they will get the boot, or worse.

In fact no individual, even if they are in the ISI and have been helping keep the narrative going by making challenges and challengers disappear, is non-expendable for the deep state. Musharraf became expendable while he was a general and a President. He cannot even come to the country he once ruled. And it is not just the political and judicial set-up that he has to fear, he has to be afraid of the very institution, or elements in it, that he used to serve. How many assets, that the ISI developed, have later been killed by the agencies themselves when they became expendable. How many retired officers have been sacrificed when their utility was not there? Even the generals serving today should know that they ride tigers: it is the tiger who has the control, they are just the pretty face visible to the public.

The power of the deep state should not be underestimated. They used to work more behind the scenes but over time as their intrusion into the society has gone up they have been forced to come to the front. The missing persons case, in particular, has brought the pernicious role of and power of the deep state in front of all to see. For many years the judiciary, executive, and legislative branches of the state were not even willing to acknowledge that such a phenomenon as missing persons existed even though the families of hundreds of such people were on the streets even then. And now that the existence of these cases has been acknowledged and the role of the agencies, in a large number of such cases, has been established, despite efforts of the three branches of the state, and despite a lot of support from the media, the deep state has refused to deal with these cases in any transparent or cooperative manner. And the representatives of the deep state, the generals, have not even acknowledged the problem rather than come to the aid of the pillars of the state that they are supposed to serve. The grand narrative, of security threats and all, of course, is used to refuse cooperation and deny transparency.

The deep state does not act alone. It has allies that they use for some period and for specific issues. And most political parties and leaders have served as allies at one point or another. The Jamaat with General Zia, Muslim Leagues of various hues with various military dictators, the various fringe groups that have been trying to force particular versions of Islam down our throats, and a number of other smaller parties as well. As long as these groups serve the interests of the deep state, they are given freedom to pursue their own agendas as well. The Jammat’s control over student politics, the rise of the MQM, rise of the extremists in the Punjab, formation of extremist groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are all parts of the story. Given this nexus how can minorities or people challenging the grand narrative in any way, ever feel safe in the country? Even if the deep state does not consider them to be a direct threat, groups that deep state supports will definitely come after the ‘deviants’. And given the weakness of state institutions, in the face of the deep state and these fringe groups, those who stand outside of the mainstream can never be safe.

The only way the deep state can be confronted is if there are broad coalitions that go across state institutions, political parties, media and the civil society of the country and force the deep state to retreat so that it can be put under the control of state institutions that are supposed to control them. But the deep state will resist all such attempts. It will try to identify, isolate and destroy challenges, as it has been doing. The only way to counter this is by making all dealings more open and transparent. Intrigue is harder when large number of people are involved and dealings are done in the open. Today our institutions and those who lead them stand too divided and fragmented (look at the judiciary/government relation) to be able to form these broad coalitions and hence we stand victim to the continued intrigues of the deep state and their allies. But if we are going to move forward broad coalitions are the only way to go.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]