If Pakistan’s past year was a reflection of its future, the country is poised to carry on with a two-stage journey — that’s one step forward, followed by two backwards. The past year began with a new determination led by General Raheel Sharif, the Army chief, to step up the fight against Taliban militants in the wake of the December 2014 Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar, which led to the tragic deaths of more than 140 children.
The stepped-up fight took the army into dangerous and uncharted territory with a determined push to clamp down harder on Taliban strongholds in the north Waziristan region along the Afghan border. The year-end has seen the Pakistan Army take charge of that region, while the Taliban have retreated either closer to the Afghanistan border or inside Afghan territory.
In the southern port city of Karachi, a relative calm has begun to return in the wake of a tight law enforcement operation carried out by the Rangers, a paramilitary force backed by the Pakistan Army. The consequence of that clean-up operation has been a visible decline in the kind of bloody lawlessness that once plagued Karachi. Yet here too the success can largely be attributed to an army-led push.
Risk of a blowback
These events must only raise troubling questions over the future of Pakistan. The failure to follow up these successes with a long-term consolidation essentially means that the risk of a blowback against the success story remains dangerously alive.
While the push against the Taliban has broken new ground, Pakistan’s ruling political structure has remained out of step with the security establishment. More than a year after the carnage in Peshawar, it is hard to discern either a comprehensive debate in parliament to help chart out a coherent route for the future or a well thought-out security policy with the backing of the political mainstream.
One outcome of the Pakistan Army’s success has indeed been the popularity gained by General Sharif. In parts of Karachi, the returning calm has been followed by posters bearing the image of the general, labelled with kudos, sponsored by members of local business associations.
To some, this has only enhanced the political risk surrounding Pakistan’s democracy, marked by warnings ranging from a military-backed regime to an outright coup. The latter can safely be ruled out for the moment, given that the Pakistan Army simply has too much on its hands. But this thinking indeed comes from Pakistan’s history as a country that has been ruled by the army for more than half of its life as an independent state.
And yet the current trends in Pakistan are equally to be blamed for the emerging risk, if indeed there is one, to the future of civilian rule. More than two years after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned to power for an unprecedented third tenure, his regime has neither shown the vision nor the capability to tackle some of Pakistan’s worst challenges.
The past year has been earmarked by the government claiming success over what it has described as a fresh economic upturn, with elements like the continuation of a loan programme from the International Monetary Fund. Across selective neighbourhoods in big cities, notably in Sharif’s home province of Punjab, flashy projects are being touted as ample evidence of an emerging success story. If indeed this ill-advised move continues, Sharif’s home city of Lahore will witness a theme park — already dubbed as Pakistan’s first ‘Disneyland’. That will follow the arrival of a fancy bus route built on an elevated platform. There is also a plan to build an urban fast train.
But across Pakistan, including areas not too far away from Lahore, dismal human conditions continue to haunt the country for the foreseeable future. While the arrival of 2016 will be marked by a lot of pomp and gaiety in the elite circles of the country, Pakistan’s poorest neighbourhoods will hardly notice any difference in the daily grind.
Never-ending energy crisis
Across the country, anywhere between one-third to half of the population still lives in abject poverty. The children from this section of society, if indeed they are fortunate enough to attend a poorly-functioning government school, will never be able to ride the high wave of success. An illness across such families will only lead to treatment at a poorly-performing government hospital, armed with the reputation of adding to the illnesses of the patients instead of curing them! Similarly, the poorest households continue to suffer from a virtual absence of economic opportunities.
Against this background, Pakistanis are justified in asking a pertinent question: Is it worth celebrating the coming of the New Year? The answer to that question depends on where they stand in the social hierarchy. Daily electricity cuts have become the hallmark of a country that continues to grapple with a never-ending energy crisis. Given such circumstances, it will be difficult for the public to be optimistic about the future.
On the contrary, a well-endowed household that remains well insulated from the hardships will find little reason to genuinely lament such a reality. In a country where the gap between rich and poor is fast widening, it truly depends on which side of the fence one is. And that’s precisely why the army’s success against militants is hard to accept as evidence of a sustainable and long-term change.
Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.
