Mysteries of Pakistan’s meta-politics

Daily Times, June 16, 2006
SECOND OPINION: Mysteries of Pakistan’s meta-politics — Khaled Ahmed’s Review of the Urdu press

When a mystery has to be added to our meta-politics we ritually blame India for the misdeed. After that, everyone forgets the incident, because you can’t defeat India, bring it to judgement, and punish it for killing innocent people

In Pakistan a certain category of people get killed. The killers are never found and the deaths become mysteries. It began with Liaquat (Jinnah and Fatima Jinnah?) and ended with Zia. And now we don’t know who committed the Nishtar Park killing. Certain people keep pointing partisan fingers at their enemies but since it is meta-politics, we prefer not to react.

Writing in daily Pakistan (April 16, 2006) Tanvir Qaiser Shahid stated that it was Umar Saeed Sheikh who began contacting the military elements to inspire them to kill President Pervez Musharraf in the name of Islam. This was disclosed by a commando officer of the Pakistan Army, Lance Naik Aslam Dogar, who turned state witness in the 2005 case against eight terrorists.

He also disclosed that one Kashmiri Russian national Ikhlas Roosi had come to Islamabad from Uzbekistan in 2001 on behalf of the Tablighi Jamaat there to preach to the military elements in Islamabad. It was Roosi who convinced a group of officers to kill Pervez Musharraf on behalf of Tablighi Jamaat. Roosi was one among the eight under death sentence. Lance Naik Dogar met Umar Sheikh in 2001 and was converted.

Umar Saeed is a figure from our meta-politics. We can’t kill him and we can’t hand him over to the US or India. When we were “handling” him we had no idea that he would become a hot potato. The state was up to no good, including cannibalising its own people. Outsiders have written books about it, blaming the state of Pakistan. But Urdu columnists have written lyrically about his physical beauty. Tablighi Jamaat is apolitical, and kosher for top politicians’ sons, full stop!

According to daily Pakistan’s Sunday magazine (April 16, 2006) Umar Sheikh had conspired in 2001 to kill President Musharraf while the latter was taking a Pakistan Day salute in Islamabad — like the Egyptian president Sadat. Umar Sheikh had collected the money by looting a bank in Bahawalpur and bought ammunition and explosives from an agent in Mansehra, the centre of ISI-supported jihad. But the plan backfired and Umar Sheikh was arrested in 2002. The same material was used in 2003 when Musharraf narrowly escaped an attempt on his life.

Umar Sheikh is still our hero, just like AQ Khan. Looting banks like is a service to religion. That is okay too. Every outfit in jihad did it when the money was short. It is a kind of tax we all paid. The difficulty is that to keep the myth going we have to swallow a lot of facts and adopt the mudra of denial.

Columnist Nazir Naji wrote in Jang (April 16, 2006) that Benazir Bhutto was talking to Nawaz Sharif because Musharraf had finally decided not to make a deal with the PPP. The MMA could not be a partner of the ARD because it was already spoiled by concessions from Musharraf and would not settle for less. PMLQ was not able ideologically to oppose extremism in Pakistan. Only the PPP could do that.

The PPP has the right temperament but is up against a very strong lobby. In the past when it ruled it had to cohabit with Sipah-e-Sahaba in Punjab and ignore the killing fields. The PPP will not be able to do a Naseerullah Babar again because a new hand of cards has been dealt in Karachi. The PPP will have a hard time saving its secularism from being deflowered by its anti-Musharraf allies.

Columnist Hamid Mir write in Jang (April 17, 2006) that the Pakistan government was calling the April 11 Nishtar Park, Karachi, bombing the work of a suicide bomber so that a sectarian colour could be given to it. But an enemy could use a Muslim to carry out a suicide bombing by paying him a lot of money. The enemy was India. When India engaged in terrorism in Pakistan, we thought it was sectarian, but when something happens in India everyone thinks it is jihadis or Pakistan’s ISI. It was time we thought of naming India.

Yet the March 2005 suicide bombing of the Karachi American Consulate was the work of Al Qaeda. But in India there was the suicide bombing of Ram Mandir in 2005, followed by cycle-bombings in Lahore, followed by explosions in New Delhi. In 2006 there was bombing in Benaras which was followed by the suicide bombing of Nishtar Park. But the bombing of Jamia Masjid in New Delhi after that could not have been the work of Pakistan; that was India warning the Muslims of India.

Hamid Mir ignores the broad hints being thrown by Qazi Hussain Ahmad (MQM did it!) and Sunni Tehreek (Sipah-e-Sahaba did it!) and wants to stick it on India. After that, everyone forget the incident! Because you can’t defeat India! The columnist wishes to help those who wish to add another item to Pakistan’s meta-politics.

Writing in Jang (April 14, 2006) Ikram Sehgal stated that Pak-Bangladesh relations had improved tremendously, with trade keeping pace with the emotion of friendship. It was no longer like 1971, which was now a part of the forgotten past. It would have suited India to have an East Pakistan hating West Pakistan but it made a strategic blunder by breaking Pakistan up.

It is true that India-Bangladesh relations are not good when Khalida Zia is in power. When Hasina Wajid is in power she loses support because she is seen to be pro-India. India’s blunder is not so costly, however. It has done the same sort of thing with the rest of its neighbours. And it is the neighbours who have suffered in the process more than India.

However, Pakistan’s strategic blunder in Afghanistan has hurt it. It joined the US in invading Afghanistan when the Soviets were there, then got behind the Taliban. In the fallout there are a number of Afghanistan’s neighbours who want a piece of Pakistan’s hindquarters for what it did. The domain of disorder that Pakistan created through jihad had to be brought into Pakistan. India did not have the strategic option of jihad — the privatised war that made everybody savage and corrupt. *