Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Shivram Hala who wrote (9524)	11/11/1999 1:17:00 PM
From: JPR	Respond to of 12475

Shiv: That article that I posted is from DAWN opinion page. It is obviously very slanted and is meant to elicit the thread response. Mushhead is the Mastermind behind the Kargil fiasco. He is in one way or another responsible for the abrogation of Lahore peace process. His words and deeds are at variance. He is rabidly and compulsively anti-Indian and hostile. He runs around the Islamic world seeking moral and material support. He doesn't seem to understand that there are only four countries - India, USA, China, north Korea - that matter to him. India and USA are the only two countries he has to negotiate with, if he wants peace in his country. Thank you for your input. My feeling is that the military takeover was in the books & works, when Musharaff went to Sri lanka. The denial of landing of his plane was used as a ruse to dismiss Sharif. The Sherif's imminent dismissal of musharaff and appointment of his crony Zia were well known to pakistani military circles and anticipated from the time Clinton asked the Pakistani military not to interefere with the civilian administration. That this coup was carried out very rapidly without bloodshed is an indication of a contingency plan, known only to the military high command.

To: Shivram Hala who wrote (9524)	11/11/1999 7:16:00 PM
From: JPR	Respond to of 12475

The tangled crisis of identity A Must-Read piece dawn.com National, not sectoral, interests The tangled crisis of identity By Sultan Ahmed 11 November 1999 Thursday 02 Shaban 1420 By M.B. Naqvi THE new military regime is being showered with unsolicited advice on how to cope with the various challenges facing the country. In most such cases the assumption is that the Pakistan military is somehow better able to lead the country in rising to the challenges it faces. Most such advisers, however, have some axe to grind. But a clearer realization of the hard talks facing the nation is anyway necessary. The fact of the matter is that no single problem of a crucial nature has been solved in all these 52 years and a crisis of confidence assail most Pakistanis. This country is not a traditional civilizational entity like China, India or Iran; it has never been so. The people of those countries have no difficulty in being simple Chinese, Indian or Irani; they have no identity problem as such. On the other hand, Pakistanis have had much difficulty in deciding whether they were Muslim first and Pakistani afterwards, or Pakistani first with a nationalism that can be shared with Hindus, Parsees, Christians and others and Muslim secondarily (in a political sense). This dilemma gave rise to a troubling identity crisis This dilemma gave rise to a troubling identity crisis. It caused much controversy and division throughout the life of the unhappy republic. Ideological presumptions behind each position have caused several polarizations because economic and social elites, led originally by a bureaucratic coterie that had cornered power quite early, later allied themselves with Islamic ideology protagonists against semi-secular democrats in order to prevent both democracy and election which could bring radical reform in their wake. Democratic debacles followed and no radical social or economic reforms, barring the cosmetic one of Ayub Khan and the largely unimplemented land reforms of Z.A. Bhutto, have taken place to this day. Military rulers' record is dismal, except for Gen. Yahya Khan's breaking up of One Unit and holding of the first free general elections in 23 years; indeed they themselves saw the destruction of much of what they sought to build, though not entirely, because the privileges of the original elites have survived nevertheless - indeed these have become more substantial even as the elite groups have also been updated and expanded through cooption. That is the heart of all crises that have kept destabilizing Pakistan. Let no one feel too depressed that the victory of the rapacious economic and social elites has been decisive and final. True, it was natural to believe this to be the case. After all, the polarizations between the status quo-wallas, mouthing Islamic slogans and pursuing reactionary social and economic policies (impoverishing the majority) and in politics pursuing the policy of over-centralization, and regional nationalists - a mixed bag of progressives, reactionaries and genuine democrats - has so far favoured the former. But the latter forces are far from having been vanquished, certainly not finally. The issue is still the sum and substance of Pakistan politics. Regional and linguistic nationalism of East Pakistanis could, with outside help, defeat and dismember Pakistan. In this same on-going struggle in the residual Pakistan lurk many dangers for the state. The ruling elite's economic policies, especially of development, have led the country into insolvency and a debt trap. Today Pakistan needs a net inflow of 6 to 7 billion dollars every year just to go on ticking at a basically 3 per cent GDP growth rate (that is almost swallowed up by population growth). Who will go on pouring in that much of money year after year and why? The only unchanging goal of Pakistan's foreign policy is somehow to go on ensuring this inflow of dollars by keeping the Americans pleased - a task that has grown increasingly difficult by the ruling establishment's commitment to the causes of Kashmir, nuclear programme and Afghanistan. These policies are justified with the use of Islamic rhetoric, all of which are integral to Islamabad's outlook that necessarily favours a strong-centre policy by ignoring actual popular aspirations. The central pillar of the foreign policy - not just Kashmir but the US goodwill too - can now be seen as having become somewhat wobbly. Mrs Madeline Albright, the US secretary of state, in response to Gen. Pervez Musharraf's goodwill gesture to India of withdrawing Pakistani troops from the recent forward positions along the international frontier with it, has asked Pakistan to withdraw its troops from similar positions along the LoC in Kashmir. India has not been asked to do the same. President Bill Clinton waived quite a few sanctions on India, including the sales of dual-use technology - India's most needed import. A similar gesture toward Pakistan included just two items relating to exports - which were being promoted by American special interest groups. Earlier the US and India had agreed to form a joint working group to fight cross-border terrorism in Central Asia and South Asia. This American tilt toward India is unmistakable and has been in the news for sometime. It has been correctly perceived by Pakistan's establishment as its defeat. On the merit of the case, there is nothing in the Indo-American cooperation that Pakistan should consider injurious to its interests. The two countries are democracies and India is one place where its chattering classes have been dying for a closer relationship with America. The new BJP government in India was anyhow expected to clinch what deals it could make with America and seize what opportunities there were of getting closer to Washington - for mutual benefit, of course. But since Pakistan has become overly dependent on American goodwill with a view to ensuring an adequate supply of foreign aid to this country, even a minor shift toward India sends shivers down the spines of our establishment. As it happens, the Pakistanis have conducted their political affairs in a way that was studded with frequent military takeovers and other crises and have actually earned the image of a broken-back state or what some call a failed state. The latest military takeover does not make it any easier for the Americans to go on acting like a generous uncle to Islamabad rulers. Although as a rule it is hard to take American pronouncements at face value and their strong dislike of military governments is certainly very new, it must be recognized that supporting Pakistan so soon after the recent coup is sure to be somewhat distasteful to the American government. However, there are other reasons why the Americans will before long work closely with the Musharraf regime, his military background notwithstanding, because the Americans as the main guardians of the international financial system cannot afford to see a populous and nuclear state collapse. And Pakistan would certainly be heading in that direction if it was not bailed out - naturally with more loans (and hard conditionalities). The eventuality should not be in doubt. But the process will neither be easier nor can the Americans and other western states be expected to permit Pakistan to continue blithely with policies hitherto followed either in Kashmir or Afghanistan and certainly not those relating to the nuclear and missile programmes. These are challenges for the government of Gen Musharraf and, one feels, the Americans will eventually facilitate the regime to cope with these, whether they like it or not. So long as the regime sticks to its preferences' there is actually little that most Pakistan citizens can do; the crucial role will be of donors. But the bigger challenge is to the state of Pakistan as shown by intense internal polarizations and unresolved crisis of identity that is now creating a crisis of confidence in the social structures as well as the state. How can the people of the country overcome these crises of the state is the crucial question. Here the key role belongs to the majority of the population and the political instrument(s) they throw up.