Asim Munir’s true purpose may not be a total war with India but a military coup in Pakistan

PAKISTAN IS NOT A STATE. It is a state of mind, conceived in a strange suprema­cism, bred in distance from other faiths, and sustained by a self-corroding hatred of Hindus that demanded the separation of some Muslims from the motherland in the absurd cause of purity. It was born from a theory of distance from Hindus, first articulated on the Indian subcontinent by Shah Waliullah, and revived after a long convalescence of two centuries by the politics of Partition in the 1940s, championed by a leader who had little understanding of Islam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, but took advantage of a slogan that was tantamount to apostasy, ‘Islam in Danger!’, to destroy the unity of India. Jinnah’s spur was more personal than collective for he wanted to be ruler of a country, which was impossible for him in united India.

His legacy was hatred, and its prime derivative, violence; first in the form of war, and now in the manifestation of terrorism. He ordered the first war against free India, in October 1947; his successors, despite repeated defeat in conventional war, have made the evil of terrorism, the massacre of innocents, a crime in any religion or civilisation, into their creed for survival. Barbarism is the daily diet of a country that never had moorings in rational doctrine, and continues to be an exemplar of continuing collapse. Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, which till a decade ago was inflicting savage havoc across many parts of India, has now honed in on Kashmir as its prime battlefield.

Jinnah’s latest reincarnation, Pakistan’s General Asim Munir, who has never been famous for intellect or indeed military genius, made a bold incursion into public life last week with a justification for terrorism, in yet another loud and incoherent advocacy for the war of a thousand cuts, which is Pakistan’s phrase for terrorism. Munir justified the existence of Pakistan, and his ambitions for Kash­mir’s separation from India, by reiterating the tired cliché that Muslims are “differ­ent from Hindus in every possible aspect of life”: “Our religions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid there. We are two nations, we are not one nation.”

Someone should give General Munir some lessons in elementary math­ematics. He must learn how to count.

Perhaps the general has pronounced amnesia. He quite forgot that the two-nation theory became three nations in 1971, not because Bengali Muslims were less Muslim but because they were less Pakistani. They liberated their country and renamed it Bangladesh. Despite the onerous and often hypocritical efforts of the latest unelected government in Dhaka, led by Muhammad Yunus, to justify a sudden friendship with Islamabad, his government was forced to demand billions of dollars in reparation for the massacres committed by the Pakistan army in Bengal between March and December 1971.

It is possible that Pakistan’s mosques and cantonments are under strict orders to erase this genocide from personal and public memory, and that an estimated 10 million Bengali Muslims and Hindus fled to India for safety, re­turning to their land only after the murderous Pakistan army had been driven out of its dictatorial control of both wings of the country after a full-scale war.

Asim Munir was three years old when the two-nation theory exploded, but perhaps his father, an Imam, forgot to tell him about the birth of Bangladesh. It is likely that the schools he went to pretended that Pakistan was born in 1947 and reborn in 1971 with the expulsion of “Hinduised Bengali Muslims”.

On April 16, General Munir set out the agenda for a renewed war of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir. We do not know whether he had the authority from the professed government in Islamabad, led by the Sharif brothers, to do so. But that may be irrelevant. The Pakistan army has not taken orders from Pakistan’s politicians since 1957. Munir set off the alarums of war with a declaration that Kashmir “was our jugular vein, it is our jugular vein, we will not forget it… We will not leave our Kashmiri brothers in their historical struggle”.

Is there a credible reason, or two, for this sudden intervention? Munir has been famous for his silence since he was appointed army chief but perhaps he was biding his time, building his strength within the command structures of his force. He could have been impelled by a factor outside his control: the growing prosperity within Jammu & Kashmir as the peace dividend has brought its rewards in the last five years. It could be an anxious effort to obfuscate a changing reality.

In October 1947 Pakistan set off what has become history’s longest continuous war with an arbitrary invasion of Jammu & Kashmir when the political future of this princely state was still on the discussion board: a Maharaja was still in office; the British were still present on the subcontinent through Lord Mountbatten; India and Pakistan had got self-government but not full independence since they remained Dominions in the British Empire. Pakistan promised Kashmiris a place in an earthly Paradise as an alternative to “Hindu-infested” India. More than seven decades later, the evidence is in, and it is visible in every statistic on an economist’s chart and every photograph in the media. Indian Kashmir is enjoying an unprecedented economic boom while Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir has become perhaps the most wretched province of a sinking country whose shrinking wealth continues to be usurped by an avaricious army in the name of security.

Pakistan was created in 1947 through an artificial insemi­nation between Islam and nationalism, a construct which had no antecedent in history and remains an absurd anomaly in contemporary reality. If Islam was sufficient as the basis of a nation-state, why would there be 22 Arab states? They even have language in common. If Islam was enough to glue geography, culture and separate forms of identity, why would Pakistan and Afghanistan be separate countries? The Taliban currently in power in Kabul were sustained during their long exile in Quetta and the Frontier of Pakistan, but they showed absolutely no desire to amalgamate Afghanistan with Pakistan after their return to power. For them, as for others, Afghan identity is the rationale for Afghan nationalism. This does not make them less Islamic. Any sociologist will tell you that there are 72 recognised identities within Islam. Does Munir, who presumably follows Hanafi Islam, regard Ismailis and Bohras as ‘true’ Muslims?

The irony is that Islamic doctrine has no ambiguity about the multi-cultural reality of this world. Allah in the Quran is always defined as Rabb-ul aal-amin, or God of the universe, not just Rabb-ul Muslimeen, or God of Muslims. God has sent the message in every language; the Quran is the last message. Allah created every human being; it is for God to judge, and not for us.

Pakistan, a unique and negative experiment, was fashioned, with the help of the imperial British, out of the false notion that Islam was in danger, and had to be consequently protected by Partition. The concept that Islam can be in danger is heresy, apostasy, or shirq. If, as Muslims believe, Islam is the true faith, it cannot be in danger. Only a false faith can be in danger.

Yes, Muslims can be in danger, as can Christians or Parsis or Buddhists, or those who feel they are underprivileged castes in Hindu society. Buddhists and Muslims have been virtually eliminated by the atheist regime of communist China, which does not seem to bother the great Muslims of Pakistan one bit. If General Munir mentions Uighur Muslims, he will probably be deposed immediately because the ruling cliques that have made Pakistan their private property know that they cannot survive without Beijing’s protection. In a very relevant sense Pakistan continues to remain a dominion, but this time as part of the Chinese domain.

If people have a grievance, or feel fear, in a modern polity, then there are political solutions to such problems. If partition were the only answer, then every land would be a conglom­eration of farcically independent districts and villages. There would be hundreds of Americas, Russias, and Chinas.

India’s democratic Constitution has displayed remarkable flexibility in finding answers for the perpetual problems that accompany coexis­tence; that is the supreme virtue of democracy. Dictatorships impose solutions, some good, some unacceptable.

Asim Munir’s true purpose may not be a total war with India, although one can never predict which way a desperate coin of fortune might flip. A war between nuclear powers is not something one can contemplate with any equanimity. On a more realistic level, even a conventional war could further fracture a decom­posing Pakistan.

It seems more likely that Munir has announced his doctrine for an army coup as Pakistan’s civilian politicians once again wither and self-destruct. This speech is a possible manifesto as he reinvents himself as another Zia-ul-Haq, who seized power in 1976 from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto was eventually eliminated through a judicial murder. Bhutto’s daughter Benazir was assassinated with far less ceremony, during a public proces­sion. The Pakistan army offers only two options for enemies: prison or death. Nawaz Sharif survived in exile only because he had powerful friends in Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan’s generals have given their nation nothing con­structive in the past. That has not diminished their fantasies about the future. Dr Strangelove is back in power in Pakistan.

India-PakistanMuhammad Ali JinnahPahalgamPakistan ArmyPakistan’s army chief Asim MunirShehbaz Sharifterror attack