Grappling with a Pakistan on the brink is far more dangerous

Raju Korti
Among the countless devious and dubious records to its credit, the one that I find perpetually congruous is Pakistan's penchant to exist in a state of constant flux. A country born out of tumult and chaos struggles to eke out a survival with never ending labour pains. That rough and tumble now threatens to explode in its own face. If you think this is sadistic pun given the country's fatal and neo-natal fascination for nuclear bombs, you got it right.

In one of my many blogs on Pakistan, in 2009, I had prophesized -- as if it needed great profundity -- that "incommoded under the superincumbent weight of its own political, religious, global and economic contradictions, the country was accelerating a death wish and it was only a matter of time before the brink would be on the wall. That "this matter of time" took 14 years is a surprise tribute to Pakistan's resilience in withstanding trials and tribulations of every conceivable hue, but its present economic crisis threatens its very survival.

It might be easy as an Indian to watch this drama unfold with a certain glee as Pakistan hurtles towards what appears to be an imminent economic collapse but the neighbouring country has always been a theatre of the absurd with problems of its own making. The fact is a destabilised Pakistan is far more dangerous because whatever stability one associated with it in the past, one could dismiss threats emanating from it as mere sabre rattling.

The trouble with Pakistan -- and its record is a testimony -- is it is a country run by fringe elements and that includes its army which has bled it white while religious extremism have had a free run with political establishments exploiting them for their own survival. As one of their own ministers said recently, Pakistan sowed the seeds of terrorism and is paying the price for it in its own backyard. Before that, prime minster Shahbaz Sharif admitted that having lost three wars to India, Pakistan had learnt its lessons and now wants peace. This is no belated wisdom. If you thought it has learnt its lesson, in the same breath, he put the resolution of Kashmir issue as paramount for any reconciliation. For Pakistani political establishment, Kashmir is a raison d'etre. but it is a remedy worse than the disease. The resolution of Kashmir, if at all, will make them redundant.

Do not be taken in by the reparative tone in Sharif's statement. As the impending economic doom threatens to envelope the country, India has to be alert to its attendant risks. In the midst of a disintegrated  economic algorithm - falling rupee, mounting inflation and debts, skyrocketing prices of basic commodities, rapidly dwindling forex reserves, erratic power outages, shortage of fuel and what have you -- the fringe elements, in their fanaticism and anarchic wont -- are seeing a chance. For India, the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) will be a massive challenge as its neither-here-nor-there population seeks a merger with India more for their own survival and economic well being and not because it has any affinity for India. In the present matrix, it is better off as a shock absorber between India and Pakistan's clutch plates. 

I might be wrong but I am inclined to believe that the present Indian government may not be so charitably disposed as the one during 1971 when refugees from East Pakistan trickled into India in the wake of a war that fractured Pakistan and brought Bangladesh on the world map. This refugee crisis, although happening under different circumstances, will not just be an economic burden but also a law and order issue. From the Pakistani point of view, this inadvertent merger with PoK -- notwithstanding the section in India which subscribes to forcible takeover of PoK -- will be a body blow to its esteem. Whichever way you look at it, it is a perplexing scenario.

At the moment, there are far more important things that Pakistan needs to come to grips with. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) seems to have taken a ruthless Shylockian approach in bailing it out, expecting a pound of flesh that just isn't there. Worse still, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, China and other countries that it believes are allies, have not been exactly compassionate. Beyond political expediencies and geostrategic compulsions, the world knows Pakistan cannot be anybody's baby. Hanging precariously from a cliff edge, Pakistan has no chance but to toe lines and allow itself to be exploited. From India's perspectives it could be a bad augury as China, which has been brutal with Uighurs, will use Pakistan's economic meltdown to its own advantage. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) will have reason to simmer again.

The situation today is far removed from what it was in 1962 or 1971. In the event of an armed conflict, the present Indian government will not soft-pedal and most likely retaliate with similar force. Let me reproduce what I wrote in another blog more than 14 years ago. It is still relevant with some noises in Pakistan wanting to use the N-bomb as an arm-twisting tactic to extract economic aid from the world: This what I wrote:

"Pakistan is clueless and/or impassive about tackling its own burgeoning domestic problems but never loses an opportunity to throw on India's face its readiness to press the nuclear button at the slightest provocation.
So what is it that makes this rather failed State, where non-State actors have been calling the shots for decades now, rely so furiously on the nuclear threat? Why does even something as routine as cancellation of talks for normalisation of bilateral relationship, makes it step on the gas and indulge in fulminations of a nuclear war?
Each nation has a doctrine to deal with possible nuclear threats. For Pakistan, it is majorly India. For India it is Pakistan and China. For the US it is Russia, China, North Korea and many more where it often pitches in as world policeman. On the brink given the problems that surround its neighbourhood and helpless because of an intransigent and crazy military establishment, this doctrine stares India in the face with alarming regularity. The threat of a full-scale military offensive was never as pronounced as it is now after the attacks in Pathankot and Uri but the Indian response continues to remain calibrated and somewhat frustrated. The dynamics of what accrues between the two countries in the wake of their tumultuous division and subsequent deep-rooted hatred has gone far beyond the realms of conventional diplomacy.
There is still a faint glimmer of hope to believe that the Pakistani military establishment realises it would be a blunder to provoke an attack that would spell end to its country's existence on the world map. But it will not need much for the country's army -- which has thrown all civilian and democratic norms to the wind -- to acerbate a war, learning little from the three lost wars in 1965, 1971 and 1994. What began as a bluster from then President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto about staging a "thousand-year war with India" has now assumed a grotesque obsession to acquire nuclear weapons on the perceived threat from India.
I am sold out on the theory that Pakistan should be allowed to die under its own weight. A debilitated economy and the ferment in Baluchistan, Karachi, Punjab are proof enough of its dysfunctional politics. Pakistanis are themselves not very optimistic about the country's future as a secure, developing and modern country. There is a talk that Pakistan relies on the US but they know that this economic and military aid is not without its pound of flesh. For the Americans, Pakistan is no more than a conduit for their geo-political interests. Delhi and Rawalpindi know this very well. As far as China is concerned, it is obvious that there has been some buttressing of Pakistan at state level but on other fronts there is scope for lot of justified scepticism. There is little social, cultural or emotional attachment between the peoples of the two countries. The Chinese don't have to be intelligent to know that Pakistan is a convenient shoulder to fire at India. They do not contribute funding for health, education and other forms of development in Pakistan. In the continued stalemate with India, China is not known to have done much to serve Pakistani interests. My gut feeling is China will not do anything to underwrite or protect Pakistan if it comes to a full fledged war. They know that the best weapon against any enemy is another enemy.
Crippled with inherent problems of militancy, unemployment and low growth rate, Pakistan is forced to raise the nuclear war bogey in an attempt to show that its power emerges from its weaknesses within. Pakistan can administer to itself a lethal injection and does not need any external threat to use it."