IN last week’s article I proposed that General Pervez Musharraf and his administration should work diligently towards creating a large regional association of Muslim states in West Asia. The first step towards the achievement of this objective could be the formation of a regional economic and trading bloc involving the seven “stans” — Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Together these seven states have a population of 223 million, a gross domestic product of $114 billion, and per capita income of $ 512. There are large deposits of oil and gas in Central Asia waiting to be tapped. Since the countries are small their domestic demand for energy is insignificant compared to what they could produce. They, therefore, must look for export markets and these exist in Europe, China, Japan, and India. But for the transportation of oil and gas building an extensive network of pipelines is needed that has access to the sea. This is where Pakistan enters the picture. Pipelines connecting India and the Arabian Sea with the enormous gas and oil deposits in Central Asia will have to pass through Pakistan. For that to happen a regional trading arrangement that involves both Afghanistan and Pakistan with Central Asia is the most logical way to proceed.

But hydrocarbons are not the only resource that provides economic salience to the seven “stans.” The region has an enormous — and yet to be fully appreciated — agricultural potential. As China and India become the world’s “elephant economies” their demand for agricultural products will increase to the point where it would exceed by a wide margin the ability of domestic agriculture to meet it. The seven “stans” — in particular Pakistan but also parts of Central Asia — could become important suppliers of food and agricultural inputs into industry. Cotton is the most obvious example of a commodity the “stans” can supply to the world’s large economies.

And then there is human resource in which the industrial countries are already experiencing a growing deficit. Not only that, the Central Asian countries with rapid fertility declines of recent years will also need to import workers with appropriate skills in order to modernize. Pakistan, by far the largest country in the region in terms of the size of its population, could become an important source for trained people who will be needed once the area begins to develop rapidly.

But before this region made up of the seven “stans” begins to move economically, it must cross some hurdles. There are at least four that must be tackled and Pakistan may be in a position to help the area to surmount at least three of them.

Let me first deal with the hurdle in which Pakistan for obvious reasons cannot be of much help. A number of Central Asian countries are weighed under a great deal of external debt which they have been unable to service from their limited export earnings. Their problem is even more severe than that of Pakistan. For some of them, the outstanding debt is equivalent to four-fifths of the gross domestic product. The ratio for Pakistan is about 55 per cent. The severity of the problem has been recognized by the creditor countries and Britain has announced a special initiative to deal with it.

There are other hurdles the Central Asian countries face in which Pakistan could provide help by setting an example. In the article today I will deal with two issues — the importance of getting the world to develop the right appreciation and knowledge of the area and the role of Islam in governance. Next week I will take up the question of political development.

The world must get to know this area. As Ahmed Rashid points out in his new book, Jihad: the Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, the countries in question are beautiful, unsettled and — with the exception of Pakistan — scarred by their Soviet heritage. “...the vast, empty landscape [of Central Asia] dotted with Oases of vibrant populations and political ferment, sitting on the world’s last great untapped natural energy resources, is still almost unknown to westerners, as it was to Europeans in the Middle Ages.”

The industrial West will want to know this region better before it is prepared to pour resources into its development. The region will be able to develop only after the Western corporations feel comfortable in their knowledge of the area and are prepared to bring in the billions of dollars of investment needed to exploit the enormous riches of this place.

In projecting a new image to the world, the “stans” could learn a lesson from Turkey’s experience. In spite of the efforts launched by Kemal Ataturk several decades ago to modernize — if not Europeanize — Turkey, the country’s reputation remains poor. A recent book on the country by Stephen Kizner (Crescent and Star: Turkey between two world wars) puts the problem as follows: “Many people view modern Turkey as a backward land plagued by vast social inequalities, grotesque human rights violations and a callous, corrupt and militaristic regime.” Kizner, a sympathetic observer of Turkey, is frustrated that that unfortunate image continues to persist in the western mind.

There are three things that have given Turkey its bad reputation. The first is its Muslim identity which, in spite of protestations to the contrary, remains a liability in the west. Unfortunately, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network have not helped to overcome the prejudice against Islam and its followers the West has harboured for centuries. That is why it is so important to project diligently and constantly a different image of Islam — a project that General Musharraf seems to have assumed for himself. I will pick up this subject in a moment.

The second reason for Turkey’s inability to gain a better reputation for itself is its uneven democratic record. Like Pakistan, it has found it difficult to develop a political system that can develop on its own without being prodded by the military. This is a subject to which I will return in the third article of this series to be published next week.

Let me now address the issue of religion and the Muslim state. The seven “stans’ will need to define the role of religion in the way they govern themselves. This is one place where Pakistan, under the leadership of General Pervez Musharraf, seems ready to lead. Peter Bergen, reviewing Ahmed Rashid’s recent book for The Washington Post, paints an interesting picture of what he saw of Pakistan’s emerging role in Central Asia.

“Visiting Kabul in 1993, I struck up a conversation with a group of soldiers outside the bombed shell of a stately old palace,” he writes. “They were under the command of the Afghan Islamist militant leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and confidently assured me they would soon export the Islamic revolution northwest deep into Central Asia, to the storied formerly Muslim lands of Samarkand and Bukhara. At the time, I took these bold declarations to be simple bravado... I was wrong.”

That Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was a creation of Pakistan — in particular the Inter-Services Intelligence — is now well known. There is a strongly held belief in several western quarters that the ISI at some stage was following the dream of bringing all the seven “stans” under the yoke of radical Islam. This approach led to the advance of the Taliban into Afghanistan, to the sponsorship of the Taliban who, in turn, came under the influence of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network.

It took the terrorist attacks of September 11 on America for Pakistan to recognize that it was pursuing the wrong course. It was wrong not only because all that Osama bin Laden had done and was threatening to do was against the norms of civilized behaviour. It was also not in conformity with the basic tenets of Islam. And, finally, it was against the national interests of Pakistan.

General Pervez Musharraf changed all that following the terrorist attack on America. He joined the American led coalition against terrorism with global reach and, at the same time, began to re-define the role of Islam in the Pakistani society. During his stay in Washington — especially when addressing the American audiences — he emphasized that the Islam practised by the majority in Pakistan was not the Islam advocated by Osama bin Laden and his followers. Pakistanis were moderate in their view; religion for them was a private matter, not something to be projected by the state; they were tolerant of other religions and respectful of the rights of the minorities. Above all, he explained, Pakistan did not believe in exporting its religion and its system of values to other countries and societies.

In his appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, President Musharraf was asked whether Pakistan would partner the United States as the latter extends its campaign against terrorism to other countries. The questioner wanted to know if President Musharraf was prepared to assist Washington in its campaign against Iraq. “We have plenty of problems of our own to keep us busy for a long while, why would we want to extend ourselves to other countries” was the gist of his response. In other words, Pakistan will not export any ideology — Islamic or otherwise — to other countries and would not be engaged in advancing the interests of any country, including the United States, to places outside its borders. The “stans” themselves came under the influence of Islam not by force exercised by a conqueror. They turned to Islam as a result of the work of a number of enlightened sufis whose message was centred on tolerance, compassion and brotherhood. That type of Islam could become the basis of ordering lives in these countries.

I indicated above that Pakistan along with the other “stans” in the Central Asian region must cross at least four hurdles before the economically powerful and industrialized world would take serious notice of it. The first was to reduce the burden of external debt so that domestic resources can be put to use for development. The second was to increase the outside world’s knowledge of the region and its awareness of the enormous economic potential it possesses. The third was to persuade a somewhat sceptical world that the people of the region are not the followers of radical Islam. In so far as the political system is concerned — the fourth in my list of hurdles to be crossed — it should be secular, not an extension of Islam. How could the region move towards such an outcome and how Pakistan could help is a subject I will take up next week.

SOME reports from Islamabad speak of a possible ban on what are described as ‘minor’ political parties. One should like to hope that this is only speculation or a balloon sent up to gather public opinion. Whatever be the intention, let it be said straightaway that this idea should be rejected — once and for all time

In the first place, the very suggestion of a ban should be repugnant to minds wedded to the basics of democratic culture and ethos. No individual or government has any right to ban anything except under law. Every act presupposes a person acting. If a ban is to be imposed, who will impose it? No individual or institution can claim to be empowered to suppress a political entity, or any individual for that matter. Only an infallible hand can claim the prerogative to exercise such power. No human hand is infallible.

It is said that ‘minor’ parties are to be considered for this proposed guillotine. What is the measure to determine whether a political party is ‘minor’ or adult, or mature or major?’ From the hints available, the measure being considered is a minimum of ten per cent of the total vote “at the last election.” What on earth invests the last election with the authority to determine the fate of a political party? The last election was not the last word, was it? Many people have gone on record to insist that there was much about those elections that should raise grave doubts about that exercise being reasonably free from flaws.

Tides turn, don’t they? There is no way one can rule out the possibility that a party that could not muster 10 per cent of the vote at the last elections may have grown in popularity and may do significantly better at the next polls. At the end of the Ayub era, not many could foresee that the Peoples Party would turn the tables on the establishment and the parties favoured by it. Before the polls the PPP was a ‘minor.’ After the count it was the baby David that had the Goliath flat.

The point is that a political party cannot be condemned on its past. What alone counts is the present. And the only judge of the present status of a political party is the voter of today, not of the last elections. Before the actual poll count no party can be declared as minor, and throttled without a trial at the hustings.

While there is little justification for looking down upon the so-called minor political parties, there is not a great deal to be said for the so-called major political parties, particularly the Muslim League and the People’s Party. Both have had ample opportunity to serve the nation as the government. Both have remarkably unflattering records in office. It should be noted that both have had sufficient opportunity to serve as the opposition. Both only made a hash as the opposition also.

In the mind of the bemused public the Muslim League and the People’s Party are the ‘major’ parties and the rest are the ‘minor’ parties. Besides, nobody really knows how many parties there are in the ‘minor’ category. Only an election will tell.

Of the major parties, first take a look at the Muslim League, the oldest political party in the country. It is a shredded debris of what it once was as the embodiment of Pakistan movement and its epoch-making triumph over half a century ago. To begin with, nobody can for sure say how many Muslim Leagues there are and in what condition. You do have bits and pieces of the Muslim league in the hands of assorted operators, few of them with glittering record.

These fragments of the Muslim League in various hands are more like toys than living political organisms. Nobody can tell with any confidence which of the so many Muslim Leagues is really alive or has any promise of survival or revival. Who knows which one of these splinters (if any at all) will manage to secure even ten per cent of the total vote, come October?

As for the People’s Party, there is not much to be said, except that it is certainly not in the best of shapes as an election fighting machine. Maybe not as broken as the Muslim League, the PPP is far from united. Indeed, it is a house divided by the same family. Besides, what would one say of a party claiming the people’s support and unable to stand on its feet because its ‘life’ chairperson is in exile. A party with strong popular credentials on the basis of public support would not be so utterly dependent upon one personage. Besides, is there any way to reconcile a ‘life’ chief of a living party with democratic pretensions.?

As usual, the bureaucrats have put the issue of political parties on its head. The government has no right to be discriminating among the political parties, big or small, major or minor. It must remain scrupulously above the fray. There is certainly a duty for the government to perform, without playing the favourites game. What ought to be done is to set out the needed disciplines.

In order to be considered as a political party, the entity should have: 1) primary membership; 2) a constitution approved by primary members; 3) leadership elected by primary members, or in accordance with its constitution; 4) it should be able to come clean about its funds and finances; 5) it should have an election programme, call it a manifesto, if you like. All of this should be transparent.

Relevant documents and record should be filed with the Election Commission and also made public. A political party should be prepared to be x-rayed by the public eye. The law should ensure that this is done and seen by the public to have been done satisfactorily.

These are the minimum basic requirements that must be fulfilled before any entity can claim the status of a political party and the right to participate in election as a political party. How many existing major political parties would be able to satisfy these minimum conditions?

A DISTINCTION has to be drawn between private grief and public sorrow. Private grief is something intimate, it touches us and we are saddened, as much for our selves as for the person who has passed away and we say that one more light has been extinguished.

Public sorrow is general, in a sense, anonymous and it creates in us a disquiet, a vague apprehension and sometimes anger and then we turn the page of the newspaper. In the category of public sorrow would be the murder of Daniel Pearl, the horrific sectarian killings (in a mosque) in Rawalpindi, the deaths of 57 people as a train carrying Hindu zealots was torched by a mob in Godhra and the apparently mindless killing of six airmen by a colleague at Sargodha.

These incidents have nothing in common except the senseless waste of human lives. There is so much violence in our lives that newspapers should carry a warning that its contents could offend those who live by honest dreams and who place a value on human life.

I lead a retired life, the only labour I put in is writing this column and a couple of others. Given my energy-level, this seems quite enough. This allows me to do some reading and watch a lot of cricket on television. But the peace of mind I seek is elusive for I still care about the world I live in and this world seems to be spinning out of control.

The old order, such as it was, has changed, a good riddance in some respects but the new order that is emerging promises only strife. An unsafe world is being made more unsafe, whether by wars, terrorism being a kind of war as is anti-terrorism, or economic deprivation which is creating more and more of the desperately poor or pollution or drug addiction. Any way one looks at it, there are no blue skies beyond the storm clouds.

The most alarming of these incidents and the one that carries bitter memories is the communal violence that is sweeping Gujrat like a bush fire that carries the risk of spreading far and wide and which is being fuelled by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the most fundamentalist of Hindu militants who in the past have spared neither Muslims nor Christians in their campaign of primeval hatred.

It has not been established who was responsible for torching the Sabarmati Express, that is to say who played Mark Anthony in enraging the mob. It is being alleged that opposition Congress councillors from Godhra were responsible. The most lunatic has come from George Fernandes whose own background as a rabble-rouser is well documented.

He has demanded an in-depth probe to find out whether Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was behind the attack on the Sabarmati Express. “ISI has in the past tried to create a divide between Hindus and Christians by attacking churches in southern parts of the country. A thorough inquiry has to be carried out,” he has said. I cannot think of a more irresponsible allegation, one that is calculated to stoke the fire rather than douse it.

George Fernandes is a Christian and to blame the burning of churches on the ISI is not only a damnable lie but he needs to seek forgiveness and made to do penance. This is a defining moment for Indian secularism and a litmus test for Vajpayee’s government. Indian troops are massed on Pakistan’s borders. There are more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan. Nothing must be said or done that will put the lives and properties of these Indian Muslims at risk.

George Fernandes needs to be rebuked, if not dismissed, for fanning the flames of communal hatred. The Indian government has shamelessly blamed Islamic extremists sponsored by Pakistan to cover up its own failures and crimes and done their best (or worst) to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state, redoubling their efforts since September 11. They have sought to divert attention away from their own Hindu fundamentalists and extremists of which the Vishwa Hindu Parishad with its own army of kar sevaks is one.

The irony is that Mr L.K. Advani who is the Home Minister (and thus responsible for law and order) is one of the three cabinet ministers charge-sheeted by the CBI for his role in the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992. It is a sad commentary that in the war against terrorism, the focus has remained on Islamic extremists and no notice has been taken of Hindu terrorist groups who roam the Indian countryside in their robes of piety targeting not only minorities but persons of their own faith but who are untouchables being of the lowest caste, or no caste.

I lived in Bombay in pre-partition India. Bombay was a cosmopolitan city and people of every faith lived there in relative peace. I would never had foreseen that this city would become the fortress of Shiv Sena and a Bal Thackeray would arise to spread the gospel of hatred. It would seem that it doesn’t take much to bring to the fore the bigotry that is only skin-deep. But in the present day and in the culture of violence that has become the predominant culture, communal violence in India carries far greater risks than ever before.

One hopes that the Indian government and the people are alive to this as indeed are those who are waging a war against terrorism. Pakistan has every right to be concerned about the fate of Indian Muslims but their safety and that of other minorities is the responsibility of the Indian government, a responsibility it must own. It must not take the easy way out by blaming external enemies unless it considers the kar sevaks of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to be on the payrolls of some foreign agency.

PRESIDENT Musharraf’s recent visit to the US was the first official one, as his earlier two visits in 2000 and 2001 related to the UN sessions. President Bush sounded a special note of cordiality, and promised a long-term relationship, since there was convergence in the interests and goals of the two sides, and the US was committed to maintaining a presence in the region.

President Musharraf himself sounded a positive note about the durability of the friendship, revived in the aftermath of the terrorist incidents of September 11, that highlighted Pakistan’s critical geo-strategic location and transformed a relationship that had progressively got attenuated after the end of the cold war. Veteran US diplomat, Ambassador Dennis Kux, who has specialized in South Asia, has compared the history of US-Pakistan relations to a roller-coaster ride, with spectacular highs and lows. After Pakistan had joined the western military pacts in 1954 and 1955, there was a decade of close relations, with Pakistan receiving substantial economic and military aid.

However, with the start of the Kennedy administration, which was strongly influenced by pro-India academics, a certain distancing took place. This became serious after the US rushed large-scale military assistance to India as its forward policy along its undefined Himalayan boundary with China precipitated a conflict with Beijing in late 1962. As this was in violation of the understanding between Pakistan and the US, Pakistan felt perturbed, and there was a realization in Islamabad that it was not desirable to put all its eggs in the American basket.

The improvement in Sino-Pakistan relations that took place after 1962 was viewed with disapproval in Washington, so that the relationship with the US plummeted. The Indo-Pakistan war of 1965 witnessed an arms embargo by the US on both combatants that hurt Pakistan much more than India and China emerged as a reliable friend. Another high in Pakistan-US relations emerged after Pakistan turned its friendship with China to advantage in facilitating a rapprochement between the US and China in 1971. However, the “tilt” in US relations towards Pakistan did not prevent India from capitalizing on the political mishandling of the East Pakistan crisis in the war of 1971, when the country was dismembered. The US role was crucial in discouraging India from diverting its victorious armies from the East to West Pakistan.

A low in bilateral relations followed during the Carter administration which imposed sanctions on Pakistan in early 1979 because of its nuclear programme, started as a response to India’s nuclear test of 1974. However, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan towards the end of 1979 revitalized the US-Pakistan alliance. Islamabad became a “frontline state” and the main coordinator of the Afghan resistance as well as of international diplomatic pressure on America’s cold war rival. US backing to Jihadist organizations in the proxy war against the Soviet Union left a legacy that was to destabilize the region after the US walked away following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.

The end of the cold war in that year brought about a transformation in US perceptions that resulted in an almost 180 degree turn in its policies towards South Asia. The western academics decided that the next threat to the West, after the defeat of communism, would come from the Islamic world. The other potential threat was foreseen from the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In both these contexts, Pakistan was seen in an adversarial light, and the 1990s witnessed a progressive tightening of sanctions against Pakistan, despite efforts by its ruling circles to reassure the US. India was now seen as a strategic partner, as China gained strength, and its large market was found to be an additional attraction for US policy makers and business circles.

The Pakistan-specific Pressler Law took effect from October 1990, as a result of which economic and military aid from the US dried up, and even military sales were stopped, adding to the disparity in the military balance in South Asia. Inept political governments in Pakistan compounded the economic malaise through wrong policies and corrupt governance. India tried to take advantage of the growing western concerns over terrorism by trying to have Pakistan declared as a terrorist state on account of its alleged sponsorship of insurgency and terrorism in Occupied Kashmir.

As the Hindu extremist BJP assumed power in India in 1998 and carried out a series of nuclear tests, followed by threats and intimidation against Pakistan, Islamabad felt obliged to respond through nuclear tests of its own. The resultant US sanctions added to the pressure on Pakistan’s economy, whose foreign exchange reserves stood at 1.5 billion dollars as against over $30 billion in the case of India. When the military government assumed power in October 1999, a third layer of “democracy” sanctions was imposed, so that from having been America’s most allied ally in the 1960s, Pakistan became the most “sanctioned” country in the world.

In the meantime, the US declared that the focus of terrorism in the world had shifted from the Middle East to South Asia, with Afghanistan and Pakistan identified as the centres of Jihadist culture. Washington had rained cruise missiles on Afghanistan in August 1998, following the terrorist attacks on two US embassies in Africa, that were traced to Osama bin Laden, head of the Al Qaeda terrorist network living under the protection of the Taliban regime in that country.

The events of September 11, 2001, changed the situation radically, as the US traced the terrorist outrages in New York and Washington to the Al Qaeda network and its leader. As the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had not cooperated in handing over Osama, as required under Security Council resolutions of 1999 and 2000, the war declared by the US against terrorism targeted Afghanistan, for which Pakistan’s support was imperative. President Musharraf was confronted with a demand either to cooperate or be marked down as an ally of terrorism. He took a quick decision to join the coalition against terrorism, despite the risk of opposition from religious groups supportive of the Taliban.

Pakistan has extended unstinted support to the war against terrorism, and put up with many adverse consequences, including an economic downturn, influx of more Afghan refugees and internal political pressures. The US has recognized the significance of Pakistan’s supportive role and has begun treating it as a partner in the war against terrorism. It has lifted sanctions and initiated many moves to compensate the country for the sacrifices it has made and the risks it has taken in the process.

India’s goals and tactics have complicated the situation for Pakistan in the aftermath of the September 11 events. New Delhi had expected that with the nexus it had established with the US against terrorism prior to those events, it would be able to exploit them to its advantage against Pakistan, especially in Kashmir. However, when Pakistan became the key partner of the US in the war against terrorism, India stage-managed many incidents to get Pakistan declared a “terrorist” state. Since the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament on December 13 last year, it has concentrated its forces along Pakistan’s border, to compel Islamabad to ban militant groups accused of complicity in terrorist attacks in India, and to get the custody of a number of “terrorists” said to be in Pakistan.

As the US was also concerned over certain militant groups in Pakistan, President Musharraf announced some decisions in his address to the nation on January 12. These included banning of several extremist groups, the arrest of their leaders and a clear indication that Pakistan would follow the path of a progressive, enlightened and democratic Islamic state. These decisions were appreciated by President Bush in his State of the Union address in late January. The US also tried to play a major role in defusing the situation created by the concentration of Indian forces along Pakistan’s borders, though without much success yet.

Three major aspects of the post-September 11 relationship with Washington need to be evaluated: political, economic and military. In the past, the ups and downs had mainly to do with the nature of US interests in the region. It is natural to ask, therefore, whether the US interests in the region would be durable or would wane after the terrorist threat has been eliminated. The declared position is that the terrorist threat will have to be handled on a long-term basis and therefore the US would have to stay in the region for a long time.

Furthermore, the US interest is not limited to terrorism, but also has economic and strategic dimensions, notably with regard to Central Asia, whose energy resources hold great interest for the West. Therefore, the US interest in using air base and port facilities appears to be of a long-range character.

Some related considerations deserve attention. The US has shown a strong interest in maintaining the relationship it has established with India, which it sees not only as a major market but also as a strategic partner in its concern vis-a-vis the Indian Ocean region and China as a potential Asian superpower. The persistence of the Kashmir dispute that pits India and Pakistan against each other is a destabilizing factor.

Therefore, Washington can be expected to take a greater interest than in the past in facilitating a dialogue between the two to help achieve a solution that would bring peace and stability to the region. India is being cultivated as a major partner on account of its size and political and military potential. However, Pakistan has its own importance on account of its immediate role in the war against terrorism, its strategic location on the route of access to Central Asia and its potential to influence the Islamic world.