A Nation of Mistake

Biggest Mistake of Pakistan:

Nation of Mistakes: In 1947, a nation took birth on religious grounds, getting separated from India at the time of independence. During partition, citizen of both the countries had paid the price of independence, and hence had high level of feeling of nationality. As many Islamic states, Pakistan was also wanted to prosper and develop like them. Pakistani Leadership as well as Pakistanis would have high dreams and aspirations towards their nation. The geographical location of Pakistan was also favourable, as the all the trade routes from India to central Asia was through Pakistan and was geographically neared to gulf countries as well. But what were the reasons that a newly formed Islamic nation, full of enthusiasm and nationality, with a good demography, did not prosper? Was that a curse or the mistakes made by the nation?

From any new nation, few mistakes are always expected and both India and Pakistan had made several mistakes. But today we will discuss some blunders made by Pakistan which led them blead the 1000 cuts.

The first Blunder: After Second World war, the world powers had entered into the era of cold war. US and USSR were gaining power by developing new weapons, gaining new technology, making new alleys and engaging in Proxy wars. Both US and USSR were aggressively engaging with other nations to demonstrate their powers and the world was divided into two factions. At that time, developing nations such as India and Egypt had chosen to be non-aligned with any of the nations and made the third front.

However, in Yr. 1954 Pakistan chose to join the league of US, where US had supported Pakistan with financial Aid and in return Pakistan was US puppet in International Politics. The US aid had crippled the economy of Pakistan and they were getting dependent of US day by day. Also, this aid was directed to Pakistani Defence and hence the importance of Pakistani Defence has grown immensely in the nation. Then Pakistani defence was getting involved in all governmental decisions. This has led to adopting centralisation policy, where Pakistan with only 2 states (West Pakistan and East Pakistan) was established. There was no representation in Government from many rural areas of Pakistan, led to discomfort in many sections such as Pashtuns & Baloch.

The high involvement of Pakistani Defence in Pakistani Government had also led to biased judiciary, where judiciary had defended all the acts and principles of Pakistani Defence, under Law of Necessity. With these acts, the minorities in Pakistan were losing faith in the Pakistani Government as they were not heard and their democratic rights were being challenged every now and then. That was a virtual military rule were all were managed with a yard stick and there was no place for Diversity. The over power of military has led to several coup by the Military Generals and a parallel administration of Military/ISI in Pakistan.

On the contrary, In India, Judiciary was totally independent, Indian defence forces were having limited access in government policies and UNITY IN DIVERSITY was the key mantra.

The Second Blunder of Pakistan was the ignorance and nonacceptance of East Pakistanis. After independence, the east Pakistan was highly neglected in-spite of fact the one of the main reasons for the partition was the Bengal Massacre. East Bengal has to earn their own bread and no financial aid was provided to them. Also, the Pakistani defence forces were manhandling the citizens of East Pakistan and their voice was unheard. This had led to several unrests in East Pakistan. The worst decision of Pakistan was to not to accept the election result where the party of Mujibur Rahaman, Awami League won the majority seats in the election of 1970. Then Government had conspired against Mujibur Rahaman, which led to civil unrest and formation of Mukti Bahini – a Bangladeshi Force for freedom. The Mukti Bahini made ties with India and gain their Independence. The partition of Pakistani territory was the biggest loss to the nation. On hand Pakistan had not utilised the strengths of its geopolitical location where the Pakistan before Yr. 1972, was having the access of central Asia as well as South East Asia. Pakistan could enjoy the luxury of its strategic location however it was busy fighting with India.

The Third blunder was to engage with US in Afghanistan and nourish Taliban against the Afghani Govt. backed by USSR. In 1980s, Afghanistan become the proxy war land for USSR and USA. USSR was backing the legible govt. of Afghanistan; however, USA was backing the local rebel groups to over through the local government. US was very far from Afghanistan hence need a safe place for their army to land and operate. Pakistan was the perfect place for them. At that time Pakistan did not though that stability in the neighbouring country would be helpful for Pakistan prosperity, on the country Pakistan supported US for the sake of aid. Pakistan had also supported Taliban and trained then to fight against Afghanistan Army. Pakistan was infamous in Afghanistan as ‘the supari killers in Afghanistan’.

This has later led to rise of other terrorist groups against Iran and India. Pakistan has officially and unofficially supported some of the terrorist groups and facilitate them to prepare training centres as well as the launch pads. After some time, the terrorist groups were bulling the federal government of Pakistan. The terrorist groups were acting as a strong non state actors and were executing terrorist activities in India, Afghanistan and Iran in corporation with ISI.

Later on, in Yr. 1999, ISI, Pakistan Military and some terrorist organisations had crossed the limit and conspired against India to capture Kargil, with the intension to cut the only highway between Kashmir and Leh. Under General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Military backed militant groups had captured some of the Hill tops, at the time when military of both nations come down as the posts become inhabitable. India had won the war with heavy loses and expose Pakistan in International forums regarding state sponsored terrorism. At that time, US had to intervene and supported Pakistan and later on the situation was such that the coup by General Pervez Musharraf was inevitable. This event had once again destabilised Pakistan and pushed the development miles away.

The fourth Blunder of Pakistan was the extension of the third one. In Yr. 2001, world’s biggest terrorist incident occurs in US, the 9/11 attach. After that attach, US was on war against terrorism across the world and the main convict of the attach was hiding in Afghanistan and Pakistan. US has clear their stand on terrorism and ask Pakistan to be either fight against terrorism in Pakistan or no ties with US. Pakistan wanted to ride in both the boats as Pakistan could not control the terrorist organisation in Pakistan also don’t wanted to lose US. The terrorist groups were then backed by local parties and ISI/Military. Eventually the US had got Osama in Pakistan, which was the huge embarrassment for Pakistan. The US-Pakistan relation was gone for a toss. Pakistan later loses the US aid and the diplomatic relation with US. This had reduced the international investments and Pakistan was soon getting Isolated. Supporting terrorism has also cost a dent on the International image of Pakistan, that further led Pakistan in to FATF Grey List.

FAFT is a body founded by G7 countries to control over the money laundering through the channels of Smuggling of Drugs, Gold, Humans and what not. That money is later utilised for terrorist funding. FATF is being formed to track down all such transactions and based on the inputs they put the countries in to Grey list (if something fishy is going on) and Black list (if the state is sponsoring/facilitating the terrorist funding).

In the need of Investment, Pakistan committed the fifth and may be their final blunder as a sovereign nation. Pakistan was under Financial stress and needed some foreign investments. On the other hand, China was welcoming all the poor and needy nation to put them under one Road one Belt initiative, where china invests huge amount on non-potential infrastructure projects in poor and needy nations. Under OROB, China is being benefited in both ways. If the project goes well, then the repayment on high Interest rate will support China’s Economy and China’s Image will improve. If the project doesn’t goes well, China will negotiate other aspects in return of those loans, as they did in Hambantota (Sri Lanka). Now, Pakistan is also in that trap. CPEC – China Pakistan Economic Corridor is a subset of OROB, Where China is developing Gwadar Port and laying roads and railway tracks by issuing High interest loans to Pakistan. Ironically, under CPEC, those infrastructures have to be developed by Chinees companies. The money will flow from China and will automatically diverted to China. Now Pakistan Economy is in great Economic crisis, where the domestic demand is low due to high inflation, revenue collection is also low and Interest debts has raised to all time high. Pakistan is now bound to take IMF bailout package, which will relieve the Pakistani Economy but will produce great stress on Pakistanis.

What can happen Next?

Todays Pakistan is under tremendous pressure from Multiple ends. India has invoked Article 370, Pakistan to be under FATF Black list, IMF package have strict regulations & Term of Army general has been renewed for 3 more years. https://namastehumanity.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-nation-of-mistake.html?m=1 all are the clear indication of the 4^th Army Coup on Civil Government.