| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Khaled Ahmed Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 6 of 7
Another element in the evolution of this dynamic is a refocus on the struggle with India with regard to Kashmir. Explain how that struggle became different in the context of the dynamic that you've just described.
I think there was some kind of delusion in Pakistan that we had actually won the war in Afghanistan, that it was the Pakistani warrior who defeated the Soviet Union. I think that was a very dangerous way of thinking. We thought we could turn around and do the same kind of thing in Kashmir. The Kashmir conflict was not started by Pakistan. It started in 1989 as an uprising through internal causes. Pakistan simply saw an opportunity, and it used the same kind of surrogate warrior to go into Kashmir. And, of course, from then on, the conflict became intensified.
We should tell our audience that at the time that Pakistan was born and separated from what was then India, there was a promise on the table for a referendum for the people of Kashmir to decide which way they would go. The majority of people in Kashmir are Muslims, and that referendum has never come. So that's the background for this division.
The other element that we must touch on is nuclear weapons. What instability do they add to what you've already described as a very unstable situation, where the government, the state, is losing control of its society?
Pakistan actually put together the elements of this nuclear program during the Afghan War because in those days the United States was willing to look the other way. We had what we called then a "recessed deterrence." India knew that we had it, that we put together at least a few bombs, and that if India attacked through its conventional army, we could deter it through our nuclear capability. I think that deterrence actually held.
But then there was a great pressure from the hawks in Pakistan to actually test the nuclear device, and it is most unfortunate that we were driven by India to test in 1998. Our economy was almost in shambles, or our growth rate had touched bottom and we were on the verge of default. In '98, just after India tested, we also went ahead. That was a very unwise thing to do. Our economic crises dates from that year, and we are not out of it. On the other hand, when the Indians decided to test their nuclear device -- as part of their ambition to become a great power -- their growth rate was over 7 percent of the GDP, and the Indian economy was doing very well. When, after the tests, sanctions were imposed on both the countries, India suffered far less than we did.
There was a lack of realism in Pakistan. What Pakistan has not realized is that if you are an unstable country, and economically in a crisis, it doesn't really pay to have a nuclear device, because that device, too, becomes unstable. We know that there was at least one occasion during the prime ministership of Nawaz Sharif when our army chief tried to make a deal with Iran on the sale of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology, that there could be some kind of sale to Iran on nuclear technology. That's a very dangerous thing for a poor country to do, because that means that your nuclear weapon, instead of guaranteeing peace and security, has become a source of great danger to the world. It is only now that I personally feel that our nuclear program has become stable, that the world has come around to accepting Pakistan as a responsible state, simply because Pakistan has undertaken to join the world against terrorism.
Looking now at Pakistan's future, what do you see as the most positive factor in bringing the hope to realization that Pakistan will reform itself? And then, on the other hand, what do you see the greatest obstacle to reform of Pakistan, which we have described as a place where a fundamentalist ethic has taken hold, where the state has become an entity that is losing control of the society?
I think the biggest plus factor -- of course, most people will disagree with this -- is that Pakistan is really not a sovereign state, that it can be influenced very effectively from the outside. That means that the international community can get Islamabad to do things which are right for Islamabad. I don't think that there is much strength among those elements who wish to guide Pakistan out of trouble; that ability has diminished quite a lot. But the ability of the international community to mold Islamabad's behavior is much greater, compared to India, where the international community cannot do very much. I think that is the biggest promise, that Pakistan will mold itself to good counsel which comes from outside, because that counsel will be underpinned with economic assistance.
The great danger to my mind is Pakistan's inability to control its population. Of course, it's very difficult for the Muslims to have contraception, but if they put their mind to it, I think it's quite possible. It is only the radical Islamist man who actually opposes it, but there is a lot of evidence in Islamic thinking that you can actually have contraception, and prevent your population from breaking all bounds.
There are other respects in which Pakistan doesn't have control. For example, the underground economy, which seems to be very much involved in all sorts of contraband, including drugs and so on, which escape any kind of revenue generation for the state.
There are two or three things here. One is that Pakistan has been a den of smugglers, but I think that period has now passed. We don't have as much traffic of contraband as we used to. The other thing is, of course, our refusal to trade with India. There was a time when our prime minister and Prime Minister Vajpayee reached an agreement that Pakistan could trade with India without actually damaging itself. Because this trade at present is subject to non-tariff barriers, there is a lot of smuggling between India and Pakistan. And that smuggling, of course, goes on with the connivance of the border guards on both sides. Once relations normalize with India, and official trade actually goes forth, some of the smuggling will also go away. The economists always tell us that you cannot stop smuggling if you have non-tariff barriers. The only way to go is to just remove the barriers and render smuggling unprofitable.
And as far as the payment of income tax in Pakistan is concerned, it's nothing short of a calamity. Less than one percent of the population actually pays income tax. But that's not very far away from the kind of figure we have in India. There is a resistance to income tax payment. But if Pakistan were to turn away from war, the economy could actually turn around. Since 1998, when the sanctions were imposed on us for our nuclear test, no foreign investment has taken place, but also no internal investment has taken place. There's a flight of capital and capitalists from Pakistan, and that is because most people anticipate another war. Pakistan has to try very hard to remove this anticipation of war. If that is removed, the economy will pick up. Our economy can pick up much more quickly than India's. India's is a giant economy, it moves slowly, but Pakistan's economy is already more liberal than India's, and it can pick up very nicely. The process of globalization, although resisted in the Third World because of some bad experience, will be good for Pakistan because it will also water down some of the isolationist thinking that we have adopted over these years.
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