Think Like An Indian

The verdict is out: Pakistan’s latest ‘peace talks’ with India were anything but peaceful. Furthermore, insiders say that nobody really ‘talked’ either – rather, everyone ‘talked over’ each other. The ending was a bout between two immaculately dressed foreign ministers – one a verbose South Punjabi and the other an insipid South Indian – and a very cold departure from a very hot Islamabad by some very frigid Hindustanis.

But while Pakistan’s news cycle has quickly adjusted back to fake degrees and the charge of the Hillary brigade, Indian journos have refused to let go of their ‘Agra 2’ – the new version of a similar breakdown in 2001 when then president Musharraf visited the Taj and buried Vajpayee’s charms right next to Shahjahan’s beloved Mumtaz Mahal. Thus, an insight into what our friends on the other side are thinking is key…

Questioning peace, The Himalayan mulls: “While the Indian government is keen to mend fences with Pakistan, it will not compromise on its ‘core concern’, which is the repeated use of terror…India had grown at over 8 per cent after Mumbai and it will continue to grow…‘despite Pakistan’, the clear implication being that Pakistan needs the dialogue process more than India does.”

Blaming Qureshi, the Indian Express recalls: “Qureshi was not happy with an open-ended language like [talks would resume] “at an appropriate time” and wanted India to specify a timeline. India, on its part, said it was in no position to provide a timeframe as the progress and pace…are linked to…the Mumbai attacks investigation….There is also a sense of concern here at the way Qureshi conducted himself…and his ‘petulance’ that left the Indian side…surprised.”

Analysing Pakistan’s establishment, the Hindustan Times alleges: “When the prime ministers…met in Thimpu…Gilani indicated he had the full support of his military…When the foreign ministers of the two countries met in mid-July, the men in khaki were opposed…developments, say sources in both countries, led them to change their minds. The first development was the political resurgence of President Asif Ali Zardari. The Pakistan military has sought to marginalise him…The military’s view about the dialogue with India had shifted from support to strong doubt. One reason, say sources in Pakistan, was the establishment’s view was that a successful dialogue with India would only add another feather to Zardari’s cap.”

But, batting for Pakistan, the Bangalore Mirror cautions: “It’s so easy to blame Pakistan…But if the trust deficit between India and Pakistan has to be seriously addressed…then India should be willing…to accept that ‘composite dialogue’ is not a rhetorical ploy… but a reflection of how all conflicts in South Asia are basically interlinked…Like India in Kashmir, Pakistan has bled profusely in Afghanistan. It has a right to be concerned about the future of that country…Subsequently, India has invested heavily in Kabul…We remain the venal Karzai regime’s main backer. We have four consulates in Afghanistan and have given its government $1.2 billion in aid, a whopping sum for a country that is 99 per cent Muslim and with which we have no common border. We have also put up their new parliament building and chancery, and have helped train the Afghan army. In terms of one nation’s special interests that subvert another nation’s special interests, how is our involvement in Kabul different from that of Pakistan in Kashmir?”

Finally, sounding the doomsday alarm, the Hindustan Times declares: “‘In an unstable Pakistan…government and the army will become even more dependent upon China,’ the New Delhi-based Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses has warned…[The 156-page report] said: ‘…agencies in Pakistan will continue…using terror as a tool of pressure against India…an increasing unstable Pakistan may manifest in several ways – Lebanonisation (being divided into several small pockets) or…even face disintegration…The army will get more aggressive as it finds itself fighting to save Pakistan: and its own identity. This could result in more sabrerattling and brandishing of the nuclear threat…Within Pakistan, the society will get fragmented. The ethnic, linguistic and provincial fault lines may get accentuated. Insurgency in Balochistan might get worse. Sindh and NWFP will not remain unaffected. They will challenge Punjab’s dominance…’”

Thanks for playing ‘Think Like An Indian!’. Your prize: a different perspective. Come back soon.

An Open Letter to All Mutineers (abridged)

Dear Mutineers

We haven’t seen or heard from you in a while, thus this letter. Rumor is that you’re worried about the state of affairs in our land, grieved by the failures of the current dispensation . You claim that this country’s largest political party and its allies have been unsuccessful at tackling our existential issues: Water, Power, Economy and War. Of course, the reasons for this government’s fallibilities are many. Most are quantifiable, some inexplicable. Several are attributable to its own lethargy, a few to the Establishment’s tenacity.

But, back to planning coups: if you succeed, you will not enjoy any constitutional cover, nor much acceptance by the civilian political apparatus, the judiciary, or the international community. Your foreign and domestic enemies will summarily slam your actions as barbaric and undemocratic, isolating you further. Yet, if you don’t do anything, the current arrangement looks like it will collapse anyway. Thus, you face the ultimate political paradox, and it goes by the name of Pakistan.

So you love this land but loath the system and want to change it? Perhaps a look at the broader geo-political landscape will amplify your views…

Start with our ‘Brother Nation’. Turkey’s martial machine is as powerful as its counterpart here, but with critically different levels of public acceptability when it comes to political interventionism. Why does Turkey’s ‘national military‘ enjoy more political reception than Pakistan’s ‘professional military‘? Perhaps because all able-bodied Turk males serve with their armed forces, and are, in effect, a ‘part’ of the defense arrangement. Sure, most of them leave after a brief stint, letting the full-time corps conduct the serious soldiering, but the bond of militarized fraternity resonates across Turkey’s polity, much thanks to mandatory service. In effect, their ‘Deep State’ establishment is seen as a guarantor of national values (not the Constitution, thanks to several coups) with an accepted, even expected, level of intervention. Thus, it is a presence everyone can identify with, essentially because most Turk men have seen and served it from within. This makes for easy politicking, but more importantly, also injects a dose of nationalism that goes beyond banning fez hats.

Then there is Egypt, a quintessential police-state, which relies on two, interlinked commodities to survive: P.R. and Aid. The Pyramids, belly-dancing and Red Sea resorts bring in tourists, international goodwill and investment, while a working relationship with Israel guarantees State Department dollars. Were there no ties with Israel (a bullet that Anwar Saadat had to bite, literally) the Sphinx would have become another Moenjodaro: famous, unvisited and decayed. Thus, Hosni’s highhandedness is tolerated by the rest of the world, including most Egyptians themselves. Unless you’re in the Muslim Brotherhood or a liberal blogger, you learn to live with Mubarak’s regime. Why? Because you won’t get invaded like the Iraqis, you can’t rely on oil like the Saudis (you have none), and you are benefiting (albeit fractionally) from being the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world, second only to…Israel.

Finally, there is the Thai military, which in 2006 overthrew a corrupt yet elected government, only to have its tanks welcomed into Bangkok with flowers! Why? Because the revered King had given the generals a tacit thumbs-up to bring in ‘clean’ professionals to run things. Only recently did those military-backed technocrats feel the heat of that coup though violent protests, but the dual tactics of money and force, backed up with a smart televised statement (in English) from a good-looking Prime Minister and business-as-usual incentives to its thousands of tourists and investors, ensured the Thai regime pass off what seemed to be a massive upheaval as a hiccup.

Thus, three global precedents: gain political acceptability by inducting ‘the people’ into your ‘nationalistic fold’, like the Turks have done though mandatory service. Walk like the Egyptians and ‘bite the bullet’ to normalize ties with your mortal enemy – it will only earn you global acceptability that can be converted into tangible benefits for your people, and of course, emulate the Thai by finding some sharp professionals to ‘front the office’.

But the question remains: who is going to be your approving King?

Regards

WSK

Originally Published in The Express Tribune as “An Open Letter To All Mutineers” on June 3, 2010

Mad Hatters Are Not Welcome Here

Penned in a very opulent and undisclosed city-state

I’m on a working vacation. That means I have lots of options to do several things I can’t afford. These include movies. I’ve watched four flicks in four days. I’m broke, but thrilled.

“The Green Zone” was particularly resonant. The plot is simple: It’s 2003. Chief Warrant Officer Miller, U.S. Army, played by Matt Damon, decides to make things right when he discovers that the premise of his country’s invasion of Iraq is flawed. There are no Weapons of Mass Destruction. The American administration has chosen to fight a war it was itching for.

The post-screening review with my wife was even more resonant.

“What if the ‘shock and awe’ came to Pakistan? We have nukes and an inept government too,” she said. “What’s stopping the Americans?”

“But we’re not Iraq. We have a more developed polity, a vibrant press…and our military is in touch with theirs,” I defended.

“But they actually managed to pull Iraq off! The UN didn’t matter, nor did the lack of allies. In the end it just took a couple of guys in the White House to declare war.”

She said it first. Wars are fought by States. Behind the States are Institutions. Behind the Institutions are Actors. They decide. And history happens.

In geo-political terms, Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, is probably the most important man (thus, actor) in Pakistan. That means that he is probably one of the most important men/actors in the world. The bearers of information know little about Kayani, yet obsess over the minutiae about the man. From his chain smoking, to his humble roots, to his golfing, the press does its best to size him up.

America’s military leader, Admiral Mike Mullen, when asked about what he thought about his relationship with Kayani, referred to the non-fiction bestseller: “It is said in that part of the world, after one cup of tea, you are strangers. After two cups you are friends. And after three cups of tea, you become family. I’d like to believe I am working on at least my second cup of tea with him.’

Wow. America’s most powerful warrior has gone on record that he wants to be friends with our most powerful warrior! So what do we have to fear from the Americans (and their alleged Blackwater/de-nuking/colonization-via-KLB hocus pocus)?

Nothing. If we follow the political science theorem of actors, as long as General Kayani wears four stars, nothing. Consider.

General Kayani has critically influenced the reshaping of America’s diplomatic approach to Pakistan: I like to call it ‘Dual Diplomacy’. That means that not just the ‘civilian diplomats’ (Holbrooke, Gates, Clinton) touch base with him whenever they are here, but the ‘military diplomats’ (Mullen, Patraeus, McChrystal) say hello too.

This is a rarity. America doesn’t send its soldiers to do the government’s job, especially Democrat Administrations. But Kayani is such a vital factor in the ‘Af-Pak’ equation, that this unique approach has been tailored just for us! Remarkably, Admiral Mullen has actually acknowledged Pakistan’s concerns about India’s alleged involvement in Balochistan, and even discussed it informally with the Indians. The cups of tea may have paid off!

The General also seems a more proactive administrator compared to the civilian government. A week before the Strategic Dialogue in Washington last March, Kayani chaired a meeting of top federal secretaries to mull over the agenda for the critical summit. It was unprecedented, but required. The P.M. house wasn’t interested in doing it, nor was the Foreign Ministry. If they were, they would have done it, right? Aren’t they in power?

So if it all boils down to actors, then we have the right guy, even the right guys, calling the shots: Kayani seems ‘on it’. He and Mullen are pals. Mullen and Gates respect each other (the latter hired the former). Gates and Obama are on the same page (the latter retained the former from a previous administration). Obama has co-authored a massive aid bill for Pakistan, visited Karachi as a student and even enjoyed sampling qeema and daal.

Given the circumstances, it’s the perfect balance of actors for Pak-American ties. But to borrow a line from another fantastic movie I just saw (Alice in Wonderland), any alterations to this strong cast would only make life “curiouser and curiouser” in Pakistan. No offense meant to eccentrics, but Mad Hatters are not welcome here.

Published simultaneously with editing in The Express Tribune

The Might (and Plight) of Pakistani Media (Part 2 of 3)

(Part 2 – Journalists and Generals)

Last week, I tried to connect the dots that line the burgeoning and anarchic landscape of Pakistani journalism.

Tracing the media’s inherent biases that are related to its structural efficiencies and/or deficiencies, I questioned the media’s use of language (English versus Urdu) in targeting, developing and exploiting preordained opinions among sectors of the polity and also presented evidence of how its family-owned nature allows for ‘personal’ agendas to be inducted into the national information mainstream.

For example, around the time I ‘got the call’ earlier this year from the Express Tribune to write a column, the death anniversary of the founder of Pakistan’s largest media group was running as headline news.

In every bulletin that ran that day on the country’s most popular television network, millions were reminded and updated about the religious ceremonies commemorating the founder’s demise. Thus, on a random day in January, a cult of personality for one of Pakistan’s most powerful media moguls was being propelled along with breaking news about Osama bin Laden’s latest audio recording and the national cricket team’s dismal performance against the Australians.

This ‘internal focus’ of the Pakistani media is another rare yet critical occurrence that needs to be studied. Often, this self-obsession also manifests itself through the clear political alignments and re-alignments of media houses with the different special interest groups and institutions that govern Pakistan: the establishment.

A case in point is the media’s complicated relationship with the cornerstone of the Pakistani establishment: the military, which is Pakistan’s feared ‘state within the state’ and most powerful and organized institution.

That’s right. Journalists and Generals. Working together. Advertently and/or inadvertently. Consider.

During the last days of the Musharraf dictatorship, the media took on the Army by leading the charge against the former general’s quasi-parliamentary government. Though he had effectively been its midwife, the media played a heroic Brutus to Musharraf’s praetorian Ceasar. While thousands scoffed at the bias, millions lauded this pro-democracy power play.

After Musharraf, however, the media warmed up to the military but through a different, more commercial dynamic. It readily absorbed a surge in the military’s public relations expenditure as billions of rupees worth of airtime was purchased by the Armed Forces on all mainstream channels during last summer’s Swat Offensive (when there were alarming reports that the Taliban were a 100 kilometers from the capital, Islamabad). This investment, along with carefully placed news stories about Taliban atrocities that were a product of trips ‘arranged’ by the Army for journalists to the warzone, compounded by an actual increase in terrorist activities across the country as the militants ‘overextended’ operations into Pakistan’s urban centers, managed to turn the tide in the media in favor of the military.

Suddenly, mainstream news channels that had been ambivalent at best about the war effort were airing patriotic songs and stories about the gallant soldiers of the Pakistan Army. Military funerals – never aired on national television before, even though the Army has been taking casualties for several years – were now being timed for live broadcast coverage.

Language changed too, of course; “militants” and “extremists” were now, unequivocally, “terrorists”. Not since the blitz of mainstream American media after 9/11 (which played a critical role in empowering the Bush White House to invade Afghanistan and Iraq) have I witnessed such a ‘pro-establishment’ editorial shift in media.

Although engaged in the conflict since 2001, Pakistan, it seemed, had finally gone to war.

Serving with one of the of the country’s premier media groups, witnessing this sudden u-turn was significantly more dramatic, even bizarre.  Stories from freshly hired ‘defense connection’ correspondents were now leads. Our broadcast ‘run-down’ was dominated by ISPR generated briefs which we were made to assume had the highest editorial sanctions. And it wasn’t just us. The same pattern was being repeated everywhere else. From inside the media foxhole, it was quite a turnaround.

However, as Pakistan’s War on Terror evolves, the local media continues to change its focus as well, presenting its views through another lens. While cross-border drone strikes by the U.S. into Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan increase in frequency, the media’s support for the war effort in that theater of conflict is shifting, powered by what seems to be a wave of anti-American bias.

Is this editorial shift developing due to U.S. involvement in the affected area – a media-generated thumbs-down for disappointing America’s noblesse oblige? Watch this space for furthering that debate.

Also published with edited changes in The Express Tribune on April 22 as “The Evolution of Our Media – Part II” on