Voicing optimism about the country’s future, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani on Monday said that Pakistan must be envisioned as a pluralist state of instead of being construed as a monolithic ideological nation.
In an interview with Editor-in-Chief of Indian Express Shekhar Gupta, Haqqani said that there was consensus in the country over democracy and almost everyone wanted the democratic process to continue.
Haqqani, who is now a professor of International Relations at Boston University, was in India for a conference.
Haqqani said, “We have had five years of democratic rule and this is the first civilian government that will complete its term and have another election and hand over power hopefully to another civilian government. But the key thing is that this is the first civilian government in history that has not arrested its opponents, that has not filed cases against them, which has not persecuted or prosecuted people. In fact the people who have been prosecuted have been people from within the government.”
Furthermore, he defended Pakistan when an accusation was leveled that Pakistan was an extremist state.
“Pakistan is not a jihadi state,” he said, adding that Pakistan had a problem of jihadis who could only use force since they could not win in an election.
Moreover, he said that the state apparatus had used extremism as an instrument of policy because of a sense of insecurity.
Furthermore, Haqqani said, “The whole idea of Pakistan was that Muslims should have some sense of security. If Muslims cannot pray in a mosque because of the sect they belong to then we have defeated the purpose of the creation of Pakistan and we need to review all that.”
Commenting on the Memogate scandal where Haqqani was directly accused of being involved in sending a controversial memo to the United States government, he said, “Well I have had a difficult time but let me just say the good news is that I have not been charged with anything, I have not been convicted of anything, no trial has taken place, nothing, just judicial smoke and mirrors.
“We treason is always a matter of what people see. I think I am a better patriot than the people who have accused me of treason because I offer a better alternative vision for Pakistan. I say that Pakistan needs to go beyond its old paradigms, instead of being an ideological state it needs to be a state that is responsible for its people. It’s a state that needs to be at peace with its neighbors rather than trying to win wars that it has never been able to win,” he said.
