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Fascist
apologists would notoriously boast that Mussolini made
the trains run on time in Italy (itself a dubious
claim), and this, in substantial measure, has been the
perennial justification for dictatorships, military
rule and other authoritarian forms of government. It
is an argument that has, in different forms, been
advanced in support of General Pervez Musharraf's
junta in Pakistan as well; champions - both domestic
and foreign - have argued that the General is the only
one who 'can deliver' in the country, and hence the
only one Western governments can 'do business' with.
But the Musharraf regime's, and the Pakistani Army's
'capacity to deliver' -certainly to its own people -
has been found to be entirely lacking in the aftermath
of the devastating earthquake that has rocked parts of
Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and the North West
Frontier Province (NWFP), killing tens of thousands,
and flattening out entire townships and villages at a
stroke. As one Pakistani commentator noted, the Army,
"the avowed vanguard of Pakistani society - was leaden
on its feet and seemed overwhelmed by the
catastrophe." Three weeks after the quake, while
hundreds of non-governmental entities - including,
prominently, several jihadi groups (which, according
to Pakistan's official position, do not, in fact,
exist, have been 'banned', and have had their
infrastructure 'dismantled') - have made their
presence felt in relief efforts in some of the
remotest areas of the affected region, the Army and
governmental apparatus is still to come to grips with
the basics.
Even
in Muzzafarabad - the town most easily accessed -
heavy machinery for the clearance of the debris of
collapsed buildings is still to be delivered, and a
large number of bodies remain trapped under rubble,
with people using spades and shovels and whatever
primitive equipment they can get their hands on to
clean up the mess. The bulk of official efforts, in
any event, remain concentrated in the main towns such
as Muzzafarabad, Bagh and Rawalkot; but entire
villages in wide areas have been flattened by the
earthquake, and access and relief to these remains
acutely inadequate. Sources in PoK complain bitterly
of the 'complete human failure' and fear that it will
result in a second tragedy, potentially greater than
the earthquake itself, as the bitter Kashmiri winter
sets in on a people without shelter. In the meanwhile,
international organisations have criticised government
agencies for obstructing relief efforts and for
discriminatory and selective distribution of relief
material - including, crucially, a large number of
tents that have been brought in by many donor
agencies. Stories of a black market in tents - run by
Army officials - have been doing the rounds in the
media, and one prominent observer has noted that the
distribution of tents is "being used for power and
patronage by military and civilian authorities that
control the territory". These are all matters of
detail - and evidence of the Army's incompetence, bias
and corruption will continue to pile up as more light
is brought to bear upon the course of relief efforts
and the utilisation of the millions of dollars for
relief and rehabilitation that have poured into the
Government's coffer's since the earthquake. What is
crucial, however, is an attitude of mind. The Pakistan
Army has never regarded PoK or the NWFP as anything
more than an area of strategic importance.
The
people of these regions have always been of little
consequence. Unsurprisingly, in the wake of the
earthquake, there was hardly any effort to rush
immediate help to the victims - rather, tens of
thousands of troops were moved up to reinforce the LoC,
with convoys driving through and past devastated towns
and villages, indifferent to the enveloping suffering
of the people. This reveals a deep pathology in the
Pakistani military mind, and it is fairly certain
that, if the scale of devastation and dislocation
experience in PoK had rather occurred across the LoC,
in J&K, Pakistan would have sent in its Forces - no
doubt masquerading as 'irregulars' - to grab as much
territory as was possible. It is beyond the capacities
of this mindset to imagine that India would not do the
same. The competence of the military regime to bring
relief to the victims of the earthquake is undermined
further by the chronic inadequacies of institutional
development and the state's outreach in the affected
regions. When entire areas are held with an exclusive
focus on grand strategy, military tactics and
political power play, without thinking of the human
beings, there is, naturally, no planning for the
people. This, of course, is happening in some measure
all over Pakistan - and is characteristic of all
dictatorships - but it is a chronic problem in PoK and
the NWFP, where institutional development has been
systematically crippled in a perverse policy to keep
the people in thraldom in the pursuit of Islamabad's
inchoate quest for 'strategic depth'. The communities
of PoK and NWFP have been entirely dehumanised, and
Islamabad has never had much interest in their daily
lives; these territories, however, have been integral
to the Pakistani (overwhelmingly Punjabi) military
leadership's concept of their 'interests of state'.
Pakistan's narcissistic Army has heaped limitless
contempt on civilian rule and institutions, and on
democratic politics. It is now time to challenge and
extinguish this myth. The fact is, the Army itself has
a disastrous record of incompetence that goes far
beyond the present crisis, and many a Pakistani
commentator has noted that each spell of military rule
in the country has culminated in a national
catastrophe: "Dictators took the country into foolish
and unnecessary wars, dictators who sowed the seeds of
Pakistan's break-up, dictators and shortsighted
intelligence chiefs who danced to America's tune and
turned Pakistan into a crossroads of international
jihad. The Pakistani dream, if ever there was one, has
been betrayed at the altar of this tradition."
Pakistan's Army is, in fact, at the heart of the
country's problems; it is no part of their solutions.
Claims that the Musharraf regime will bring back
democracy to Pakistan and remove corruption now stand
totally discredited - the Army has systematically
undermined democratic institutions and processes and
weakened mainstream political parties, and is itself
the country's most corrupt organisation, "and an
unchallenged holder of country's resources and
wealth". The enormous humanitarian tragedy brought
about by the earthquake - and the visible pattern of
the Army's response - has simply reiterated these
long-standing realities.
As an
aside, within this context, it is useful to note that
some Pakistani writers are plaintively asking why
India is "dragging its feet" on Gen Musharraf's
proposal to turn the Line of Control into a soft
border. Perhaps they have not noticed the nearly
40,000 killed in J&K by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists
over the last 17 years, and the continuing spate of
terrorist attacks and assassinations in the State by
groups headquartered in Pakistan. And while many in
Pakistan are today celebrating the 'humanity',
generosity and efficiency of the jihadi groups
involved in relief work, they will live to rue the
day, when these terrorist entities call their debt,
and a grateful and deeply indebted people respond in
large numbers by enlisting in the future armies of
terror.
(Daily Pioneer) |
