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"If you ask me what Pakistan's real tragedy is, I'd say it's this: those whom the state loves don't love it back. Its greatest beneficiaries — the elite — have never truly cared about the country. Keep showering us with perks and privileges, they demand, or we'll walk. And the state keeps obliging, thanks to elite capture. It's the ordinary people — the ones who suffer most during crises — who have kept the idea of Pakistan alive."
These are the words of a foreign friend who has studied Pakistan's politics closely.
Despite my decade-long efforts to flag every major challenge, strange things keep happening. If you think raising concerns with those in authority might help, please don't kid yourself. It takes too long to bring them up to speed. And once they've been briefed, they respond with a cluelessness that is anything but endearing.
Try following up and you'll find they've forgotten the entire exchange. It's like that movie 50 First Dates, where Drew Barrymore's character suffers from short-term amnesia. Or like what the hyperintelligent beings say to Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, when they try to convince him to sell them his brain in exchange for a simple electronic one - rhetorically asking who would miss it - and he says he would. Their chilling reply: You'd Be Programmed Not To.
The phenomenon I'm referring to is the exponential rise of centrifugal forces across all smaller provinces at once. It seems those who want to see the country unravel are either growing desperate or believe the goal is within reach. If online subcultures are any guide, a concerted effort is also underway to plant seeds of doubt in the Punjabi mind.
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov's summation of Soviet ideological subversion merits attention. He said: "Ideological subversion or psychological warfare is the slow process which basically means to change the perception of reality to such an extent that, despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their communities and their country. It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.
The first one being demoralisation. It takes 15-20 years. Demoralisation is the great brainwashing where you sow demoralising seeds of doubt in the minds of the citizens of your enemy country. They are programmed to think and react in a certain pattern. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behaviour. The next stage is destabilisation which takes two to five years." It is followed by a crisis stage that lasts six weeks, and then comes normalisation - meaning invasion.
Now let's revisit a document that captivated our chief detractor — India — twenty-five years ago and became its go-to guide for dismantling Pakistan. So much so that the four intelligence agencies which brought the incumbent party to power, and the party that has ruled India for the past decade, reached consensus on it. Only recently has Prime Minister Modi started focusing on peaceful coexistence, for which he may now come under fire.
These are direct quotes from the US Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) 1999 Summer Study Final Report titled ASIA 2025, organised by the Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Net Assessment, 25 July-4 August 1999, Newport, Rhode Island.
"Pakistan is near collapse. Ongoing economic crises, internal ethnic conflict, and increasing inability of the government to provide law and order make Pakistan increasingly unstable. Sindhis, Baluch, and Pathans, who have long resented a Punjabi-dominated Pakistan, rebel. Mohajirs (Muslims who emigrated from India after the 1947 partition) take to the streets. Islamic extremism adds to the instability in two forms: Taliban destabilization efforts and the growing power of the Jamaat-i-Islami party. China's resurgence and belligerence in East Asia prompts tacit US-India cooperation."
"Pakistan's government is paralyzed and losing control of Islamic forces in the country. Islamic extremists infiltrate Kashmir in growing numbers and escalate violence. India demands that Pakistan end the Islamic incursions. When Pakistan fails to respond, India moves into Azad Kashmir and amasses forces on Pakistan's borders. Pakistan issues a nuclear ultimatum. The Chinese echo the ultimatum and mobilize along India's eastern flank to sever the Mizoram-Nagaland-Assam-Sikkim outpost and threaten to use 'all available means to stop Indian aggression.' The United States urges restraint. It sends naval forces to the Bay of Bengal and warns China to stay out."
"Fearing Pakistan may use nuclear weapons, India launches an unsuccessful conventional strike. Driven by a 'use it or lose it' syndrome, Pakistan launches nuclear strikes. Based on reports that radical Islamists in the Pakistani military, joined by the Jamaat-i-Islami, are seizing the remaining weapons, the US launches conventional strikes on Pakistan's nuclear sites - to preempt a full-scale nuclear exchange."
"The US strikes by deploying deep-penetration warheads launched from B-2s. Faced with US-Indian cooperation, China backs off."
"Total anarchy prevails in Pakistan. The Indian army moves in to restore order. As the country disintegrates, its regions accede to India. The Sindhi, Baluch, and NWFP parliaments vote to join an Indian-led confederation. Punjab, isolated, is compelled to follow."
"The disappearance of Pakistan and emergence of the Indian Confederation have cascading effects across Central Asia. Afghanistan is pushed over the edge and dismembered by its neighbours. Regional powers extinguish the Taliban's power. The remaining Pashtun rump state joins the Confederation. Iran, the big winner, aspires to create a greater Persian state and aligns more closely with the Indian Confederation."
As I keep pointing out, since the publication of this report, the US may have moved on — but the Indian mind has not. And while the cast of characters may evolve, the endgame always resembles the chessboard laid out above. The question is not why this future looms — but why we keep rehearsing it with such alarming precision.
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