I AM suspending for a week the series of articles on the rise of extremism and radicalism to write about a matter of equal import: the evolving situation in Balochistan after the death of Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti in an encounter with the military. The facts surrounding this tragic incident are still not clear. Did the authorities launch the operation with the aim to kill the Baloch leader? Or was the sardar’s death the result of the collapse of the cave in which he was hiding and which had come under heavy military assault?

If the intent was indeed to kill, what did Islamabad hope to achieve by carrying out such an act? Was the action motivated by the fact that Balochistan now straddles an exceedingly sensitive geographic space? There may be nervousness in Islamabad that without a quick solution the problem could become even bigger, begin to undermine the integrity of the country and involve a number of powers in the affairs of the country.

The government has issued several statements detailing the circumstances that led to the sardar’s demise. These have left an impression of near-panic among policymakers in Islamabad. The killing itself may also have been an act of desperation on the part of a regime that seemed to be at the end of its wits in solving the problem posed by Sardar Bugti and some of his other colleagues.

There have been some high-profile killings in recent times carried out by the state in several parts of the Muslim world. These include the targeted assassinations of Palestinian and Lebanese leaders by Israel. They were justified on the ground that the leaders killed were waging war against innocent people. It was such a killing of a Hezbollah leader several years ago, that brought Sheikh Nasrallah to power in the organisation. More recently, the Americans carried out an operation that resulted in the death of the Jordanian fighter, Abu Musab Zarqawi, who was, at the time of his death, the most wanted man in Iraq.

Neither the killing of the Hezbollah leader, Abbas al-Musawi, nor that of Zarqawi bought peace for their opponents and pursuers. In both cases, those who killed them created martyrs for the causes they had been pursuing. History has shown time and again that political assassinations don’t solve political problems; they simply exacerbate them.

When the state goes after the life of its opponent it is always a reflection of desperation; of not having in place a strategy to deal with the situation that has created opposition in the first place and that expresses itself through the use of violence. When US President George W. Bush said soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks on his country that he wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive, he was expressing Texas-style frustration with an opponent who seems committed to carrying out extreme acts of violence.

President Bush, in dealing with the problem of Islamic extremism, has shown three attitudes that have proved to be remarkably counterproductive. Unfortunately, they have set a pattern that tempts other world leaders. President Bush thinks in simple, black and white terms; things are either right or wrong, people and states are either good or evil. People and nations are either friends or foes. Friends should be coddled; foes should be punished. This leads to the adoption of a clean public policy the pursuit of which, unhappily, leads to unclean ends.

Second, he tends to personalise issues; those in opposition are branded as enemies he is happy to see eliminated. Ron Suskind in his recent book, The One Percent Doctrine, tells the story of how, on the report that Ayman al Zawahiri had been killed, and knowing that President Bush would welcome the gesture, the authorities had flown a man’s head in a special box. It was believed to be the head of Al Zawahiri. Bush was informed that he would be presented with the trophy and was very disappointed when DNA evidence showed that the head in the container belonged to somebody else.

The Third attribute that distinguishes President Bush’s style of leadership is that once having reached a public policy conclusion, he shows no willingness to change. ‘Resolve’ in his diction is a sign of political manhood. Not staying the course is seen as a manifestation of weakness. There is a lesson to be learned by all political leaders that the characteristics that have distinguished the tenure of the American president don’t lead to good policies.

It took several years of experience, most of it not very comfortable, for the American leadership to recognise that capturing or killing the leaders of extremist Islam will not result in the problem simply going away. In the articles I am writing for this space on extremism and radicalism within Islam I am trying to develop an understanding of why these movements have grown and taken such a firm hold over significant segments of the Muslim population.

The same is true of the problem Islamabad is currently facing in Balochistan. Several missteps have created a large following among the people of Pakistan’s largest (in terms of size), smallest (in terms of economy) and the poorest and most backward (in terms of the income per head of the population) province. It will take some deft policymaking by Islamabad to solve the problem before it really shakes the foundations of the Pakistani state. These foundations in any case are not very strong; they should not be subjected to any more tremors.

In this two- part article, I will examine not how the tragedy surrounding the death of Nawab Bugti occurred but why it happened. I will then go on to speculate how it would affect future developments in the country given its sorry history and how it might affect Pakistan’s relations with the world outside.

I will make three points in this article. One, the problem that resulted in the unfortunate and tragic death of Nawab Bugti has deep historical roots. It is only when a proper examination is made of how deep these roots go that Islamabad will be able to deal with the problem.

Two, the use of extreme force is never a workable solution for a problem that has deep roots. It only serves to sustain violence as a way of political expression. Three, for the problem to be solved it will require the involvement of not just the Baloch people, it will need the full participation of people from all parts of Pakistan. Only a genuine democratic process and participatory reflection on the part of all people will bring that about.

Let me begin with history, a subject that we have neglected in Pakistan to the extent that the making of public policy does not benefit from learning from its lessons. Our leaders are not aware of the country’s history and we teach it poorly in our schools and universities. In this context, it would be helpful to recall that the province of Balochistan that we know today was not a province in 1947, the time of Pakistan’s birth.

It has also a very different history compared to the country’s other provinces. Its incorporation in Pakistan also happened in ways that were different from those used to bring other provinces into what came to be called Pakistan. The Baloch story begins from the time of the founding the state of Pakistan. The way the people of the province became the citizens of Pakistan and the way they were initially governed left a deep impression on their political psyche and informed their later attitude towards central authority.

Although the British accepted the “idea of Pakistan” and agreed to the creation of an independent state for the Muslims living under their domain, they were prepared to grant that right only after the people living in the provinces that had a Muslim majority had expressed their wish to separate in an open and transparent way. They wanted the approval of the people who would be most affected by the design they had in mind.

A complicated procedure was devised to enable the people to express their preferences. Chaudhri Muhammad Ali in his book, The Emergence of Pakistan, describes the process chosen for Bengal and Punjab, the two Muslim-majority provinces where there was a sizable non-Muslim presence. The Congress party’s acceptance was given on the condition that the same logic would apply to these two provinces.

“Both in Punjab and Bengal, the same pattern of voting was followed. After the majority in the provincial assembly voted in favour of joining a new constituent assembly, separate meetings of the Muslim majority districts and the non-Muslim majority districts were held. The representatives of the latter voted by a majority for a partition of the province, and the former also by a majority against it. Since the vote by either group for partition was decisive, partition was declared.

East Punjab and West Bengal decided to join the new constituent assembly of the Indian Union; West Pakistan and East Bengal decided to join the new constituent assembly of Pakistan. Elections to the Pakistan constituent assembly from East Bengal and West Punjab were held in due course. The Sindh legislative assembly decided by a majority to join the constituent assembly of Pakistan.”

The North West Frontier Province went through an entirely a different process. The proposal to hold a referendum in the province was mooted by Jinnah and the Muslim League but was strongly resisted by the Congress and Ghaffar Khan. They were in favour for a vote in the assembly which may have opposed the creation of Pakistan and supported union with India. But Jinnah prevailed and the referendum was held on July 6, 1947. There were 289,244 votes cast for Pakistan against 2,874 for India.

This was resounding popular support for the idea of Pakistan among the Pakhtuns although, shortly before the votes were cast, Ghaffar Khan, encouraged by the Indian leaders and Afghanistan, had raised the possibility of an independent Pakhtun state. Wrote Chaudhri Muhammad Ali, “the slogan of an independent frontier state or Pakhtunistan had been provided for the Khan brothers by Gandhi. Behind this demand was the far-reaching strategy of re-absorbing the province at a later stage after continuity with it had been gained through the state of Jammu and Kashmir.” In this early history are the seeds of some of the misgivings Pakistan continues to entertain about the longer term intentions of some leaders in India.

(To be concluded)

IT takes something truly terrible to get Afghanistan on the front pages these days. Fourteen British servicemen lost as a Nimrod crashes makes the dismal, dramatic leap required: a single squaddie killed in some distant shootout can’t command such salience.

That is only the drip-drip-drip of tragedy as usual. Yet even before the Nimrod came down there had been seven British military deaths in and around Helmand province since the beginning of August. The toll for one month and four days is now 21. That, by fair (accidental) means and foul, is a far more dire rate than in Iraq, where 17 British military men have died this year so far.

Southern Afghanistan is currently the most dangerous place open for UK soldiering business. Yet only this year, when still supposedly fit for purpose as defence secretary, John Reid said he hoped the 3,000 Brits he was sending to hold the ring for civil reconstruction work would “leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot”.

Forget old WMD debacles, if you can, for here’s something arguably worse: simple idiocy without duplicity. We were supporting the Karzai government in Kabul. We had aid workers, reconnaissance officers and spooks on the ground. Yet we wandered into this killing field, eyes open and mouth blathering emptily. And the blather continues.

It continues when Des Browne, the Scots lawyer now deemed fit for MoD purpose, denounces the “typical dishonesty” of the Taliban in claiming a hit. (What, pray, has honesty got to do with a war like this?) It continues when Tony Blair yet again talks about “vital missions”. It continues when David Cameron pops up to declare that “Afghanistan cannot be allowed to slide back into being a failed narco-state and global exporter of terrorism at the mercy of a resurgent Taliban”. Just forget the recycled rhetoric, chaps. Concentrate on a few stark facts, wincingly revealed.

This new, democratic Afghanistan has seen drug production soar, not dip. Thanks to the southern provinces, it’s back at No 1 on world export maps, a narco-state supreme. And related terrorism grows by the week too. Most estimates pit 12,000 or so Taliban fighters against Nato’s far smaller forces, but the underlying problem is much bigger than that. Do you count “criminal elements” that join in the mayhem because they work for drug warlords who want to carry on trading? Can you keep track of itinerant Chechens and Saudis dropping in for a scrap? Where do you draw a border line when just over a nonexistent border lie the badlands of Pakistan, a refuge that has sheltered Osama bin Laden and co since 9/11?

Lieutenant General David Richards, British commander of the Nato-led forces in Afghanistan, seems notably short on blather. This is “persistent, low-level, dirty fighting”, more “intense and prolonged” than any other conflict in half a century. You have to go back to Korea to find UK forces so continually and indefinitely under attack. “We need to realise that we could actually fail here,” he says.

Gen Richards, of course, wants more battalions, kit and choppers. He’s got his orders and that “vital mission” to accomplish. So the natural (political) tendency will be to go on scraping together more men and munitions as and when available. That’s the dynamic drift beloved of leaders who can’t bear the thought of thinking again. “No turning back” is their rallying cry — until, later on, it becomes “stop digging”.

What, if it met in frank secrecy, would any sentient Nato conclave conclude about this mission improbable? That Afghanistan, over centuries, has been the graveyard of occupying forces, however benevolent their intention: a great-game venue for losers only. That the aid poured in thus far, with blithe promises attached, has been far too puny to make a difference (and far too channelled through America’s favourite American contractors). That people who hoped for something better have slowly lost heart and belief. That Karzai’s Kabul regime is mired in cynicism and stuck with a writ that doesn’t run much beyond the city’s boundaries. That, in bitter sum, there are no firm foundations here to build on.

Welcome to the quicksands, then. Welcome to a border that can only become more lethally porous as Pakistan’s military regime grows feebler. Welcome to a growing bind back home as army recruitment falls ever further behind target as young men reckon the risks of death too high. (The only recruits this conflict seems to be recruiting are young British Muslims.) Welcome to dirty, persistent, low-level pain. Are there other routes that might work better, or at least work a bit? There are, because reality always supplies them; but that’s not the immediate point. How many more graves do we have to dig before we decide to stop digging? —Dawn/Guardian Service

ONE of history’s most extraordinary phenomena seems to evoke little interest among people, journalists and historians: succeeding generations are utterly indifferent to the controversies that ravaged earlier generations.

Often, religious and political controversies caused upheavals in societies, leading sometimes to slaughter. But succeeding generations wondered what those controversies were about and why so much blood was shed.

We now know through history books how the Khulq-e-Quran controversy rocked the Abbasid state and society in the ninth century. It centred round the arcane question of whether the Quranic text was “created” or eternal. Often, heads rolled when a scholar gave an opinion that the caliph and the ulema around him did not agree with. When there was a new caliph who belonged to the other side, those previously on the right side of the state were persecuted.

Mamunur Rashid (813-833) made it a state doctrine in 827, and his successors — Mu’tasim and Wasiq — continued with his policy. Inquisition courts called ‘mihnah’ were set up to try those who did not believe in this doctrine. Among those tried was Ahmad bin Hambal. In fact, Wasiq had himself tried because he wanted someone to be executed. Mutawakkil (842-861) reversed the policy by decreeing death for anyone who believed in this Mu’tazillah doctrine.

If we say today that we really do not know what the controversy was about and how a position held on this or that side of the divide affected one’s faith or daily life, we could be forgiven, for the controversy raged 12 centuries ago. But, amazing as it may sound, barring some scholars, people less than a century later were completely indifferent to the Khulq-i-Quran question, which had caused so much bloodshed in their grandparents’ time.

Nearer in time and space we can go back to the 19th century and look at some of the controversies in the wake of the end of the “mutiny” and the consolidation of British power. The linchpin of this controversy was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. He wanted Muslims to acquire a “modern” education, which obviously could be done only through English. No one is on record as having opposed “modern” education; the opposition basically was to the learning of English.

Within a few decades, English had triumphed, for even the diehard among the ulema and middle class conservatives did not hesitate to send their children to Aligarh and other “English” institutions. Alongside the English-language question, absurd but highly emotional controversies raged round such inanities as eating with knife and fork or using chairs and tables for meals instead of the traditional fersh and takht. It was not uncommon among conservative circles to avoid visiting relations and friends who had adopted these “firangi” practices.

The next controversy was loud — literally and figuratively — for it concerned the loudspeaker. There was intense opposition in some religious circles to the use of the amplifier in mosques. Not all ulema opposed it, but there indeed were sections of religious opinion which considered the use of the loudspeaker un-Islamic. Like all religious controversies, this, too, could not remain an academic issue and generated much heat with considerable fatwa-issuing exercises on both sides.

As we can see today, we of the present generation only laugh at this. In fact, as irony would have it, today the use of the loudspeaker seems to have become an integral part of the rituals, for some people consider regulating the use of the loudspeaker as an attack on Islam. As for the “Islam versus socialism” controversy that rocked Pakistan in the seventies, we are too close to it to attempt an objective assessment.

Today, we are grappling with the meaning, interpretation and practical application of such words as secularism, religious extremism, fundamentalism and cultural and religious pluralism. Some sections consider secularism to be a threat to Islam and a negation of that word which was a rage a couple of decades ago but which is no more heard of with the same intensity — the ideology of Pakistan.

To the anti-secularism lobby, the ulema occupy a central position in the body politic. A law opposed by them is un-Islamic because they say so. The possibility that the vast majority of the lawmakers may agree with them is of no consequence to them. Their opinion, they insist, does not need a parliamentary certificate of approval, because they fear parliament is quite capable of making an un-Islamic law.

To the secular lobby, the parliament passing a law that goes against Islam is remote because the vast majority of the members of the National Assembly and the Senate is Muslim and will hopefully remain so. Its main argument is that ultimately law-making must be based on a rational discussion of a given issue, and the aim should be the people’s welfare, and this in no way conflicts with the Islamic principle of general good.

Both sides quote extensively from Jinnah’s speeches to establish their point of view to the exclusion of the other. Both are right just as both are equally wrong. Jinnah said nothing that cancels out the other, for a given occasion should decide, depending upon the nation’s needs, which of Jinnah’s precepts would need applicability. Likewise, one can quote the Quran and Sunnah profusely to emphasise solely Islam’s egalitarian character and exclude those injunctions that deal with purdah, sex and modest behaviour — and vice versa.

The truth is that neither can be suppressed nor can one aspect be over-emphasised, leading to lack of balance in society. Ultimately, it is the people’s needs that will determine priority for one, or a mix of both, depending upon what reason demands. If we continue to lurch from “system” to “system” and wallow in political and constitutional experimentalism, it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a compromise on these issues. Violence or even civil war will remain inherent in what at present is a low-intensity confrontation, unless we work out a method — not to develop a consensus (that is an impossibility) but to develop and hone a democratic mechanism for resolving what today are considered fundamental differences and irreconcilable positions.

Nowhere were the differences between the believers in secularism and their opponents greater than those in Turkey. Military interventions only delayed the Erdogan phenomenon. A remarkably intelligent man, Recep Tayyip Erdogan realised why Necemettin Erbakan’s relative extremism failed in a system where secularism had been well-entrenched since 1924. He led his party to a spectacular electoral triumph that has enabled the AKP to rule without a coalition partner. This was achieved by political means and without a renunciation of all that Ataturk stood for. In the meantime, the military’s hold on the National Security Council has been weakened.

In Pakistan, the secular and anti-secular views appear irreconcilable today; that may not be the case 25 years from now, provided the democratic process is allowed to take its course uninterrupted, with full freedom for all segments of society in a free play of pluralism. In such a scenario, in a quarter century or so, all parties, including those which today have reservations about a Muslim parliament’s ability to make “correct” laws, will have gained confidence in the democratic process and realised that getting laws of their choice passed by parliament was a better way of pushing their legislative agenda forward — better than the current belief that an unelected body of experts reserves the exclusive right to interpret Islam.