Last week’s vicious Taliban armed attack on a supposedly well fortified hotel in Kabul and the reported discovery of suspected new cases of polio in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region along the Afghan border, at first sight may appear to be driven by radically different issues. But clearly they are not.
As militants charge through Afghanistan and Pakistan while the US-led western world prepares to pull out its troops from Afghanistan later this year, polio — the debilitating condition also promises to sweep parts of the embattled region.
For those familiar with trends across the two countries, polio continues to spread unabated. In recent months, poorly paid volunteer health workers venturing out in parts of Pakistan to deliver anti-polio drops to under-aged children have faced armed attacks.
Though the resistance to the worthwhile cause of protecting children against polio began with a myth which suggested that anti-polio drops were harmful for children, it has become locked up in the ongoing battle between the Pakistani state and its opponents. In Afghanistan too, the battle against polio is tragically a cause under attack.
Going forward, it’s not just the armed resistance by the Taliban and their affiliates which will increasingly challenge the state in both of these countries. Unfortunately too, the pushback from the mindset which is opposed to the already tenuous writ of the state must be taken into calculation.
In the short term, clearly, the battle against the Taliban has to be fought and won decisively if Pakistan is to survive as an enlightened country, conceived by its founding father — the late Mohammad Ali Jinnah. This must involve supporting the Pakistan army and building up its capacity to fight as a central feature in this battle.
Tragically though, controversies within Pakistan are hardly helpful. On Friday, an expected cabinet meeting due to take place in Islamabad amid expectations of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government about to grant trade concessions to India, was called off at the last minute.
Exactly how the sequence of events in the background forced this U-turn remains unclear. Not too long ago, Sharif’s government appeared eager to go ahead with a move that has been opposed by many quarters.
While relaxing trade concessions on imports from India in principle may benefit Pakistani consumers, the manner in which this was proposed to be done was controversial. Not too long ago, a Pakistani minister in a background session conceded that the ruling authorities practically ignored queries from the army on the conceived way forward for trade liberalisation with India. Given that Pakistan and India are known antagonists, keeping the army out of the loop on a significant policy shift hardly makes sense.
Needless dispute
Additionally too, Sharif’s government has indeed spoilt the atmosphere with the Pakistan army with the way it has pursued two other issues. On the one hand, the relentless pursuit of a controversial prosecution of Pakistan’s former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf on charges of treason, has forced about a needless civil-military dispute.
For Sharif, this pursuit may be meant to settle scores dating back to 1999 when he was forced out in an army coup led by General Musharraf. Yet, setting the precedent of prosecuting a former army chief at least theoretically creates the danger of other former and/or presently serving army officials being set for future prosecution. It is an ill-advised position to take as the ball gets rolling for an inevitable fight against the Taliban.
On the other hand, the way that Sharif has pursued negotiations with the Taliban has prompted widespread speculation over the Pakistan army being clearly at a distance from the process. As the army remembers its officers and soldiers who were sacrificed in more than a decade-long conflict with the Taliban, its hard to imagine how Pakistan’s top generals will reconcile themselves with a negotiated settlement with those responsible for the killings and also look straight into the eyes of their younger officers serving on the frontlines. Any future steps without the army on board will likely not just backfire for Sharif but indeed for Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the battle can indeed be fought militarily but not won conclusively without an accompanying political and societal push to defeat the militants. The stubborn case of the failure to tackle polio must speak volumes over the need to forge a multi-dimensional fight. For Sharif, supporting an inevitable military fight with the Taliban will not be sufficient grounds to rid Pakistan of the terrible challenge facing the country today. More vitally, the battle ahead has to be accompanied by a set of bold and far-reaching reforms.
The fight against polio for instance must include a bold and unprecedented push to mobilise not only a reliable security cover in support of volunteer health workers. More importantly, there must be an accompanying push to forge a badly needed and long overdue national political and societal consensus in support of this venture. More than ten months after Sharif won a rare third term as prime minister, neither his Pakistan Muslim League — Nawaz (PML-N) nor the parliament that the party dominates has begun decisively discussing the long overdue need to reform Pakistan.
The fact that one-third of Pakistan’s population lives in extreme impoverishment hardly helps to stabilise a country caught in the midst of the worst security crisis in its history.
More than 60 million Pakistanis in this category will include many who will be potentially willing to join the cause of the militants. While the tragic circumstances which engulf Pakistan and Afghanistan today are likely to get much worse, there is indeed hope to fight and win the battle. For Sharif however, the challenging question is just one; Will he bring himself together to win this fight the way it ought to be won?
Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.
