Jamal Hussain
On September 30, 2016, Huffington Post has printed excerpts from the book “Why Can’t We Just be Friends” by Hussain Haqqani published by Juggernaut Books Publishing House an Indian concern. The extract in essence attempts to malign the Pakistan Army by repeating the oft quoted mantra that the Pakistan Army needed to create a threat to justify its large size. Before commenting further on Haqqani’s anti army rant, a look at his career profile would be useful.
Hussain Haqqani began his political career as a student in Karachi University when he joined the Islami Jamiat e Talaba, the student wing of Jamat e Islami (JI) and rose to become the president of the student union. At the national level his political life started when he became a supporter of Zia ul Haq the military dictator. On the demise of Zia in 1988 he worked in the political campaign in an alliance led by Zia’s protégé Nawaz Sharif and was considered the architect of the smear campaign unleashed against Benazir. When Nawaz Sharif was elected as the Prime Minister, Haqqani became Sharif’s special assistant and until 1992 when the Nawaz Sharif’s government was dismissed, Haqqani functioned as his spokesman and was elevated as the Pakistani High Commissioner in Sri Lanka.
When Benazir Bhutto, the arch enemy and nemesis of Nawaz Sharif regained the slot of the Prime Minister, Haqqani now became her spokesman with the rank of a minister of state-wow, what a brilliant switcheroo. After the fall of Benazir’s second stint as the PM in 1997, Haqqani founded a consulting company Communications Research Strategies (CRS) and later on started a career in the academic field. In 2008, when the PPP under Zardari took over the reins of government in the country, Haqqani was appointed as the Pakistan ambassador in USA, the topmost slot in the nation’s diplomatic field. Following the Memogate scandal in 2011, Haqqani was forced to resign and subsequently has taken up permanent residence in the USA. Currently he is a Senior Fellow and Director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. In USA’s academic circles he is considered the leading Pakistani South Asia expert.
The chequered and multifaceted career of Hussain Haqqani has colours of rainbow that would make a chameleon proud. His ability to switch sides from one extreme to the other can only be marvelled at but for the destructiveness it leaves in its wakes. To Haqqani, self-preservation and self-promotion takes precedence over all else. While he has been able to fool the political bigwigs of Pakistan at will, the Pakistani military has seen through his shenanigans that has made Haqqani turn his ire towards the armed forces of Pakistan, especially the Pakistan Army. He has firmly ensconced himself with India and his current broadsides against the Pakistan Army should be viewed from this perspective.
Hussain Haqqani’s postulation about Pakistan being a security state is a fair assumption but his blaming the Pakistan Army squarely is myopic that displays his pathological hatred towards it and belies his credentials as an academic. He suggestion that the inheritance of a large army from British India on independence was the sole reason for the artificial creation of a national threat to justify its size ignores the nation’s history.
The state of Pakistan was carved out of the British India purely on a sustained political struggle, without recourse to arms or violence. Unfortunately, events immediately following the independence of the two sovereign states sowed the seeds for the need for a strong military. The mass scale slaughter of refugees trying to migrate from the Indian parts of the subcontinent to Pakistan and vice versa created a schism, that is yet to be healed. The Muslims attempting to cross over to Pakistan were under vicious attack by violent mobs. In their hour of need, their Muslim brethren who were a part of the British Indian Army and had opted for Pakistan came to their rescue. Wherever possible, these brave officers and soldiers protected and escorted the convoys/groups travelling on trains, bullock carts and trudging on foot towards the Pakistani border. The role of the heroic men belonging to the armed forces has left an indelible impression on the national psyche that still looks at its armed forces as their ultimate defender.
The Kashmir War that had erupted in 1947 further solidified the need for a strong military to safeguard the hard-won independence. The Indian attempts to assimilate the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir based on a dubious document allegedly signed by the Kashmiri Maharaja was challenged by Pakistan on principles that governed the division of the subcontinent. The annexation of Kashmir by India against the will of the Kashmiris had to be countered. The Army units Pakistan had inherited from British India were still in the process of regrouping and the all the three services, Army, Navy and Air Force were headed by British commanders. Quaid e Azam’s orders to deploy the Pakistan Army to prevent the Indian takeover of Kashmir was ignored by the British C-in-Cs. To expect a British commander to militarily lock horns with Lord Mountbatten, the exalted Royal who represented the British Crown and as the Governor General of India was the titular head of the Indian armed forces, was unrealistic.
An irregular force comprising armed men from FATA was eventually launched along with a sprinkling of volunteers from the Pakistan Army. They managed to secure one third of the state before a truce was declared and UN Resolution 47 at the behest of India was signed that promised a plebiscite in Kashmir to determine whether the Kashmiris elect to join Pakistan or India. Nearly seventy years have elapsed since then and on one pretext or the other the plebiscite has not been held. Six of the major rivers that are the lifeline of Pakistan emanate or traverse through the Indian Held Kashmir before entering Pakistan. with the Kashmir Valley under their control, Pakistan’s jugular vein is in their hand and it can turn Pakistan into a veritable dessert by stopping the flow of the rivers. Had the Pakistan Army even at its formative stage been released in time to fight alongside the irregular forces, the Kashmir Valley, very likely would also been liberated along with the rest of Azad Kashmir and the Northern Area. With the prize Kashmir Valley as a part of Azad Kashmir, a Kashmiri settlement with Jammu and Ladakh remaining with India and the rest with Pakistan was a distinct possibility.
The Indian leadership had opposed the partition of the subcontinent tooth and nail and when it could not be prevented, their leaders had publicly vowed to undo it within a decade. The states of Hyderabad and Junagarh were annexed through a military intervention soon after the partition and in 1961, the Indian military marched into the handful of Portuguese exclave in Goa and made it a part of the Indian Union. All these takeovers through blatant military intervention occurred with the world body watching as silent spectators. With this history can Pakistan be blamed for fearing that they were next in line in the Indian expansionist designs. Could any leader in Pakistan ignore the need to have a very strong military to ensure the country’s survival? The brazen role of the Indian military in the breakup of Pakistan’s eastern wing has only strengthened the perception that without a powerful military, the national survival would be at stake.
The timing of the release of the Huffington Post excerpt is important. With the failure of the Indian government to pin the Uri massacre on Pakistan and the embarrassment it was facing on the farcical surgical strikes, Cyril Almeida’s column provided them an opening to try and convince the world about the complicity of Pakistan in the Uri attack; the Huffington report has given them another string in their bow. This strategy helps them divert the international and local attention and focus away from the serious Indian security lapses and the ongoing atrocities in the Kashmir Valley by the Indian forces.
With the full spectrum nuclear deterrence in place one hoped Pakistan could exercise the luxury of reducing the size of its armed forces. The manner the world operates, however, dictated otherwise. As long as serious unresolved territorial disputes remain, armed conflicts remain on the card. While an all-out war or even a limited conflict against Pakistan is ruled out because of the nuclear factor, India has adopted the proxy war strategy by actively supporting insurgency movements in the provinces of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the city of Karachi. Even in neighbouring Afghanistan, Indian support to terror syndicates waging a war against Pakistan have been exposed and there are credible reports of Indian financing and providing arms to groups that are considered a threat to the world order. Pakistan is currently engaged in a full scale subconventional war against non-state actors in Balochistan, FATA, KPK and Karachi that are financially, militarily and politically supported by India. And at the same time it cannot afford to lower its guard against any foolish misadventure by India. The Indian threat to cut off water as the upper riparian from the rivers that belong to Pakistan according to the Indus Water Treaty is a non-military threat that can ruin Pakistan and can only be countered by maintaining a strong and powerful land, air and naval forces along with a credible nuclear deterrence.
With his track record, Hussain Haqqani can be crowned as the chameleon king. He knows where his bread is buttered and given his current spat with the Pakistan Army his tirade against them should be viewed accordingly. He is voluntarily playing in the hands of the Indians and the factions in USA that for reasons they can better explain maintain a rabidly anti Pakistan stance. Are we going to see another Haqqani reversal if his current benefactors turn against him? One hopes that should it take place Pakistan keeps him at an arm’s length, notwithstanding his glib talks, fancy degrees and brilliant writing skills.
