Pakistan's State Security: Colonial History and Postcolonial Development PDF

Introduction Abstract The introduction of this book begins by stating that Pakistan’s India-centred problématique of State security has been manufactured by the condominium of the religio-military and politico-bureaucratic classes that constitute the country’s power elite. Such a narrative, accordin...

Introduction Abstract The introduction of this book begins by stating that Pakistan’s India-centred problématique of State security has been manufactured by the condominium of the religio-military and politico-bureaucratic classes that constitute the country’s power elite. Such a narrative, according to the introduction, tends to get substantiated through the public discourse on national security that got mediated through the speech acts of this condominium of power elite. This kind of a public discourse manifested as an irredentist defence and foreign policy that the condominium dexterously advertised at home and abroad. Underpinning the process of the construction of such a public discourse for this chapter has been the constant retelling of the narrative of injustice and suffering that was engendered at the very inaugural moment of the State’s inception. What lies beneath such a narration is the ways in which geographically, economically and militarily, negotiations leading to the State formation of Pakistan, which was instrumentalised by way of the partition of the Indian subcontinent, emerged as a kind of transaction that merely earned deprivation for Pakistan. Considering this, the chapter argues that the inaugural moment of Pakistan, tends to resurface as a tale of intense anguish and agony in the national imaginary of the country. It is this very agony that factors deeply in the shaping of an India-centred State’s security problématique of Pakistan. This chapter attempts to establish an epistemological linkage between colonial history and the processes of postcolonial political development, for the purpose of understanding the problématique of State security in South Asia. It has been done on the foundations of the contention that what determines the problématique of State security in the region, is the complex trajectory of the processes of colonisation, decolonisation and postcolonial political development. The chapter argues that the roots of this complex trajectory can be traced to the historical connections between the modern and contemporary eras of the Indian subcontinent that is conjoined together by the multifaceted impact of colonialism. It is this very connection of historical epochs that factors deeply in determining the nature of conflict in the subcontinent. This has been the case as the genealogy of the unending subcontinental conflict is linked to the colonially induced structures of cartography, fixity of political territoriality, sovereignty and the nation-State, which were conceptualised in terms of post-Enlightenment European values of modernity. Hence, the chapter argues that to make sense of the broad dynamics of the problématique of State security in South Asia, we need to understand the ontological intersectionality between the history of colonialism and the contours of postcolonial political development in the region. Such an intersectionality has been situated in this chapter, in terms of a twin epistemological framework, consisting of the notions of “political decay and the ‘legitimation crisis’”. chapter 2|33 pages Westphalia and Its Discontents Abstract This chapter argues that the interplay of the question regarding the nature of postcolonial citizenship, and the limits of religious belief, considerably moulded the processes of State-making and the structuring of political community in the early years of Pakistan’s history. Such an interplay manifested in the form of a normative contest between the notions of territorial nationalism and confessional Islam. This kind of a contest strongly underpinned the competing public discourse on the modes of State-making and the structuring of political community in the initial years of the creation of the country. The genealogy of such a normative contest can be traced to the partition of the Indian subcontinent, which produced two antithetical ideas of the State. On the one side of the dialectical divide existed the Westphalian idea of the modern State. And on the other side was the phenomenon of the ideational constitution of the State according to which it was more of an ideological construct. Such a dialectical divide was enacted during the early years of the history of Pakistan, on a theatre that was constituted by the competing interpretations of the notions of nation and nationalism, State and citizenship, and the functional versus the metaphysical dimensions of religion that got germinated as the outcome of the complex trajectory of colonial transition, decolonisation and the problems of postcolonial political development. This chapter attempts to analyse the multifaceted and multilayered character of such competing interpretations, for the purpose of understanding the complex process of State-making and the structuring of political community in the early years of postcolonial Pakistan. Pakistan's Tryst with Postcolonial History and the Ontology of Its State Behaviour Abstract This chapter attempts to understand Pakistan’s tryst with postcolonial political development and its impact on the States’ security problématique of the country. To do this, it begins by examining the reasons for the origin of the weak State syndrome in Pakistan. It does this by elaborating upon the role of five domestic factors that are rooted in the legacy of colonial history in the emergence of the weak State syndrome. They include the nature of social property relations dominated by the landed aristocracy, the legitimation crisis faced by the political class, the lack of constitutionalism on the part of the bureaucracy, the influence of the army in an overdeveloped State, and the hegemony of the Islamists in determining the idea of Pakistan. Besides, the chapter also discusses a significant international antecedent that has factored deeply in moulding Pakistan into a garrison State that is encircled by the presence of highly securitised borders. Such an international antecedent has been the geo-strategic and politico-economic disputes with India that comprise of the territorial contest over Jammu & Kashmir, the Rann of Kutch and the Siachen glacier. Situating upon this discussion, the chapter offers a historical sociological account of as to how the Pakistani army has assumed a class character. By doing this, the chapter explores the modes by which such a class character of the Pakistani army has contributed significantly in engendering of the weak State syndrome in the country. The 1947 Cataclysm and the Making of Pakistan's India-Centred Problématique of State Security Abstract This chapter argues that at the bottom of Pakistan's postcolonial predicament that manifests in the form of the security problématique of the State, lies the legacy of the colonially crafted contours of subcontinental cartography. One critical representation of such a legacy has been the contested territoriality of Jammu & Kashmir, which has factored deeply in determining the contours of the irredentist security and foreign policy of Pakistan. For this chapter, the issue of Jammu & Kashmir has largely been responsible for the making of Pakistan into a revisionist State that is guided by the principle of cartographic fundamentalism. It happened with the first Kashmir War, which became the defining moment in the history of the evolution of Pakistan's identity, enforcing upon it the compulsions of revisionism and cartographic fundamentalism to protect that very identity. Since then, Kashmir has emerged as a metaphor that simultaneously represents three foundational contours of the identity of Pakistan: territoriality, community and religion. This chapter discusses the modes by which the interplay of such a three-fold identitarian conundrum of Pakistan tends to have largely contributed towards the strengthening of the genealogies of the country’s India-centred State security problématique. By mapping such a multifaceted and multi-layered identitarian phenomenon, the chapter also shows how postcolonial cartography has acted as a trope to mirror the crucial questions of national identity and existence in the context of Pakistan that is being mediated vociferously through the material metaphor of the territory of Jammu & Kashmir. Constructing the Threat of a Hindu India Abstract This chapter begins by arguing that at the bottom of the India-centred State’s security problématique of Pakistan, lies the question of identity that is crafted in terms of the origin and creation of the self and the antithetical identity of the other. In the case of Pakistan, the discourse pertaining to the self/other, places India at the opposite end of the spectrum of antithetical identities. This chapter shows how in the pursuit of such a discourse, the politico-strategic, socio-cultural, and psychological instrumentalisation of ideology tends to have played a crucial role. Such a critical role is manifest in the scripting of the portrait of the competing identitarian imageries of the self and other in the context of Pakistan. Further, owing to this kind of contested ideological images, conflict with the other tends to emerge as an existential predicament. In the making of such competing ideologies, the religio-cultural genealogy is also pivotal. In accordance, an Islamic Pakistan is counterpoised with a Hindu India. In this way according to this chapter, Islam has not only acted as a deontological postulate that can be employed to sacralise the domestic political space in the context of Pakistan, but it has been the prominent political ideology that has defined Pakistan's identity and framed the vocabulary of its nationalism in opposition to the idea of India. Situating itself upon this discussion, the chapter argues that it is this very notion of an oppositional nationalism that considerably allowed Pakistan to construct the synecdoche of the enduring rivalry with India. Conclusion Abstract The concluding chapter of the book indicates that at the bottom of the India-Pakistan conflictual conundrum lies several substantive issues, such as the border disputes of Sir Creek or the Rann of Kutch, the Siachen Glacier, the Indus River water sharing and the territorial contest of Jammu & Kashmir. In any case, as the conclusion argues, what this book has intended to decode is the modes by which the condominium of power elite in Pakistan tends to package such geo-political, geo-strategic and the geo-economic issues with the cover of religio-military ideology. By doing this, according to the conclusion, the book has sought to argue that the condominium of the power elite of Pakistan endeavours to present a reductionist perspective to the questions concerning the India-Pakistan conundrum by presenting a suboptimal picture of the issue. This suboptimal portrait is minimalised in a manner so as to visualise India-Pakistan quagmire purely in terms of a reductionist religio-military ideology. In other words, for the condominium of the power elite in Pakistan, the country’s conflict with India is less a product of the geo-political, geo-strategic or geo-economic concerns and more of a reflection of the challenge to Pakistan's religio-military ideology. In this sense, finally the conclusion argues that, for the ruling elite of Pakistan, India is largely an ideological nemesis, and it is not visualised by Pakistan as a mere threat that emanates out of a geo-strategic exigency.