From Ram Raj to British Raj to Swaraj: The Genesis of Pakistan's Defensive Culture

by Major Randall Koehlmoos, USA, 48D

Pakistani perceptions of foreign subjugation, geopolitical insecurity, and ineffective government have generated a pessimistic Pakistani mentality best described as a defensive culture. British partition of the subcontinent in 1947 and the resulting inequalities, warfare, and bloodshed are painful historical events for Pakistanis and form the foundation for this mentality. The lack of assistance from the United Kingdom, United States, China, and the Muslim world during critical times in Pakistan's history repeatedly has frustrated the Pakistani people, and Indian geographic, economic and demographic dominance of the subcontinent further fuels this Pakistani defensive culture. Though bolstering national unity, Pakistani xenophobia leads to Pakistan's virtual slavery to the typecast of India as a Hindu bogeyman responsible for Paki-stan's domestic chaos. As Pakistanis seek revenge against India for past misadventures and view any compromise with this foreign hand as demonstrating weakness, bitter memories perpetuate this defensive culture and curtail hope for the future.

This article attempts to explain the underlying factors of Pakistan's defensive culture by examining these preceding contentious issues of foreign domination and international apathy. While I am alluding that Pakistani culture can be characterized in terms of a typical predisposition, the assumption that national stereotypes actually exist is still difficult to quantify as culture and individual beliefs are not uniform and static.¹ Pakistanis are very emotional about topics involving their livelihood, which manifests itself in feelings of superiority over other nations in general and Pakistan's favorite neighbor to the east in particular. The fact that Pakistan and India have more in com-mon--history, cultures, languages, religions, river sys-tems-- than perhaps any other two nations in the world may actually account for the majority of Pakistani feelings of insecurity.² Though domestic ethnic complexity is actually the dominating problem within Pakistan today, that particular discussion is beyond the scope of this article. The views presented here are based upon the observations of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Department of Defense or its Components.

Introduction to Pakistani Frustration

Contemporary Pakistan is a truncated caricature of what its supporters demanded on the basis of religion and culture over half a century ago. During the 1930's and 1940's, Muhammad Ali Jinnah's desire for Pakistan to be a secular and prosperous homeland for the Muslims of South Asia has instead become a state in which sectarian violence, ethnic tensions, and widespread corruption are endemic.³Pakistani society is now so fissured, rampant with military weapons, and overwhelmed by the spread of narcotics that authoritarian military rule has become the norm rather than the exception. In general, Pakistanis lack faith in civilian authority, and elected governments can only function with support of the army. Therefore, Pakistanis tend to believe in short-term solutions, in cutting corners, and in taking unnecessary risks because in a hyper-turbulent world, people cannot be relied on, and things are likely to change abruptly.

Many Pakistanis see themselves as the victims of a carefully planned conspiracy by Indian Prime Minister Nehru (the scheming Brahmin) and Lord Louis Mountbatten (the wicked Britisher) to deprive Pakistan of its just entitlements under the partition plan in the effort to see Pakistan fail as a nation.⁴ India, as the successor-state to the British colonial regime, received the majority of the trained administrative personnel, armed forces, and financial reserves of British India. Pakistan, as the seceding state, inherited very little. After Indian forces invaded the holdout princely state of Hyderabad (the temporary South Pakistan) the day after Jinnah died in 1947, the citizens of Pakistan suspected India possessed a plan to destroy their new country. Pakistan therefore developed a national security strategy based on a highly centralized state and powerful military establishment to counter the perception of Hindu India trying to undermine Pakistan's sovereignty. Pakistan has since tried to be a strong ally of both the West and the Muslim world, as geopolitical conditions made the search for external support a central feature of Pakistani diplomacy from the na-tion's inception. However, Pakistan's attempt to serve two masters has contributed to its political fragmentation.

Domination by Ram Raj (Hindu Rule)⁵

One perception within Pakistan is that 80% of Indians are vengeful Hindus who wish to destroy and then re-absorb Pakistan. The Muslim invasions of the subcontinent that began in the 11th Century defiled India and ended the 2,000-year domination by Vedic culture and the Hindu dynasties. Pakistani resentment is strong toward the perception of Hindus (specifically Indian and not Nepalese) as antagonists, far beyond just the inherent differences in the religions. In the 1920s Hindus advocated the shuddhi movement (the re-conversion of Muslims to Hinduism) because Hindus argued that most of India's Muslim population had originally been Hindu. During the centuries of Muslim rule, Muslims had forced Hindus to convert to Islam. The Indian Muslim League's two-nation theory of the 1930's stated the Hindu and Muslim communities within the sub-continent constituted two separate cultures, which gave rise to the idea of a separate nation for Muslims. Hindus were strongly united in opposition to the idea of a separate Muslim state that would divide Mother India. However, the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 voided the idea of a unified Muslim homeland as the total number of Muslims who existed in India and Bangladesh exceeded the number within Pakistan.

Resentment Toward British Raj (British Rule)

The nature of 190 years of British colonial policy from 1757 till 1947 is a great part of the contemporary Pakistani love/hate relationship with the British. After the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny and the resulting British retaliation and political takeover, the Muslims of India lost their kingdom, their Persian language, their capital city of Delhi, and their sense of identity. British deposition of the last Islamic Moghul emperor within the Indian Union in 1858 ended the long tradition of Muslim invasion and dominance of the subcontinent. The ensuing export of the subcontinent's wealth to England and the economically destructive results of a mercantile economy left the entire subcontinent in financial ruin. These political, cultural, and economic losses were devastating and caused lingering ani mosity today among Pakistanis, though contemporary Pakistani comments of indignation are often prefaced with positive references to wealthy relatives studying at Oxford or living in London.⁶

Partition of the Subcontinent

Pakistan's manner of creation begins to explain contemporary Pakistani character and behavior. Pakistani opposition to Indian as well as Britishers is firmly embedded in memories of partition and the deaths of between 500,000 and 2 million people. Pakistan and India blame each other for starting this savagery and the memories are still sharp today as the elders pass down the traumatic legacy of partition to subsequent generations. The Punjab in Pakistan took the brunt of the refugees during partition (both incoming and outgoing), which begins to explain the strong Indian animosity in Pakistani Punjab.

Indian Occupation of Kashmir

Both Pakistan and India are unbending in their resolve over Kashmir, largely because the Kashmir issue rests on the legitimization of the principles upon which each nation was founded. Kashmir is the test of Pakistan's founding ideology as the new home for South Asian Muslims because over 77% of the population of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 was Muslim. Pakistanis consider Indian possession of Kashmir as the unfinished business of the 1947 partition, arguing that if the Indian Princely States of Hyderabad and Junagad (both with Hindu majority populations and Muslim rulers) became part of India by force, then Kashmir (with a Hindu ruler and Muslim majority) should have became part of Pakistan.

Pakistanis believe Kashmir is disputed territory, that it currently belongs neither to India nor Pakistan, and that the question of permanent possession of the territory can be resolved only by the Kashmiri people exercising their moral and legal rights of political self-determination through an internationally administered plebiscite. Pakistanis see Kashmir as integral to their Islamic identity, dignity, and culture, and view the permanent loss to India of any portion of Kashmir as unacceptable.⁷ Pakistanis see Kashmir as symbolic of the moral criminality of Hindu minorities ruling Muslim majority areas against their wishes and thus of the continued need for a Muslim homeland (Pakistan) within the subcontinent. In the words of Sardar Mohammad Abdul Qayyum Khan, former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir (AK), "If we [Pakistanis] were to give up Kashmir, it would be like giving up Pakistan. It would be giving up your relig-ion you have a much greater responsibility of defending Islam at the same time...Pakistan and Islam have become synonymous defending Islam is the greatest responsibility that any Muslim country has today on earth."⁸

Legacy of the 1971 India-Pakistan War

Pakistanis refer to the Indian military victory and the secession of East Pakistan as the '71 debacle. The 1971 war strengthened India's position as the dominant power in the region, and India quickly became the first country in the world to recognize the newly formed People's Republic of Bangladesh. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had not only broken Pakistan in two, but she also captured 100,000 Pakistani prisoners of war. In a speech to the Indian Parliament, she claimed to have avenged history, as a Hindu woman had shattered the myth of the Muslim macho warrior. The final Pakistani humiliation came at the surrender ceremony in Dhaka when Pakistani General Niazi, commander of the forces of Muslim Pakistan, surrendered to the three generals of Hindu India--one being a Parsee, another a Sikh, and the third a Jew.⁹

This war disproved West Pakistani's assertion that the Islamic faith and a shared hatred of Hindu India provided an indestructible bond joining the two wings of Pakistan into one nation. Despite the common bond of Islam, profound differences existed between East and West Pakistan. East Pakistanis were of a different ethnic stock than the West Pakistanis (Bengalis verses Punjabis, Pathans, and others) and spoke a different language (Bangla verses Punjabi and Pashtu). In addition, the West Pakistanis regarded Bengali Islam as tainted by Hinduism and thus in need of purification (the same view taken by some gulf-state Arabs in regard to contemporary Pakistanis).

Past Political Betrayal

Pakistanis have great skepticism of foreign governments based on their perception of intentional discrimination against Muslims by the members of the United Nations and the less than active support the Organization of Islamic Council (OIC) gives to Pakistan. Pakistanis are frustrated by the lack of Western and Muslim support during the 1948, 1965, and 1971 wars with India, and of Chinese neutrality during the Kargil fighting in 1999. Pakistanis are leery to rely again solely on external assistance to guarantee their national security.

Pakistanis are especially skeptical of the United States because of the perception of previous US betrayals by not assisting Pakistan in its 1965 war against India, the US disregard of Pakistan after the Afghan war, and nuclear sanctions only on Pakistan and not India prior to May 1998. Pakistanis like many Muslim people inherently view the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) as the Christian powers fighting a continuing war against Islam under the auspices of combating terrorism. The zero-sum US approach to India-Pakistan relations and avoidance of making a lasting political decision supporting either nation has left Pakistan feeling that the United States was playing each against the other. Though Pakistan is tired of being a political one-night-stand for the United States, Pakistani insecurity with India remains the driving force behind Pakistani foreign policy and national security strategy and forces Pakistan to accept risk with the United States in the effort to acquire additional deterrents.

Geopolitical Insecurity

Pakistan is a narrow country with long frontiers and limited strategic depth as politics rather than common sense determined Pakistan's borders. China and Russia to the north hesitate to back Pakistan's or India's position on Kashmir for fear of stirring-up trouble with their own Muslim minorities, and the Pakistani border area with Afghanistan is a source of continuous instability. While Iran is possibly looking to adopt more pro- Western policies, some Pakistanis suspect Iranian support for the sectarian violence within Pakistan.

The unprecedented criticism from Pakistan's longtime ally China during the 1999 Kargil fighting particularly deepened Pakistani feelings of isolation. Though in the past China has been a supporter of Pakistan, problems between one-time strong allies Pakistan and China are growing. China charges that Pakistan has continuously failed to curb the activities of Islamic extremist groups involved in ethnic problems in China's western Xinjiang province. China considers Pakistan a friend who sometimes causes problems, similar to North Korea.

Pakistan is obsessed with India's military potential as India is the strongest regional power and dominates the Indian Ocean. After India detonated a nuclear device in 1974, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto immediately promised Pakistan its own nuclear weapon at all costs, even if it meant, "eating grass."¹⁰ Pakistan has made it clear that the smaller states of South Asia and the wider international community should judge Pakistan as India's equal. Conversely, Pakistan's continued refusal to acknowledge the realities of India's regional power status along with Pakistani efforts to destabilize India are a source of continued irritation to New Delhi.¹¹

Ineffective Civilian Government under Swaraj (Self Rule)

Pakistan has produced a series of extraordinary leaders, most of whom faced almost impossible odds in trying to hold Pakistan together while simultaneously moving the nation forward. Military leadership has become the norm, because Pakistanis often look to strong leaders in their search for a modern-day Saladin.¹²

Governance in Pakistan has always been a delicate balancing act between the military chiefs and the elected civilian government. Within this power-sharing arrangement, the military has important influence over foreign, security, and key domestic issues, and mediates confrontations among political leaders and state institutions. Although the civilian government enjoys considerable autonomy in political and economic management and exercises of state authority, it is always expected to consider the military's sensibilities. The army controls the country's nuclear program and maintains deep interest in the Kashmir policy. Senior commanders jealously guard the military's autonomy against civilian interference in internal organizational matters and service affairs.

Confusion over the role of Islam in Government

Since nationhood in 1947, the question of ideology has been raging within the country's political and social circles. The mainstream political parties have resisted the idea of turning Pakistan into a theocratic state, but the selective approach to Islamization has produced an authoritarian doctrine of nationalism and security based on Islam. Pakistanis seek identification with Islam as a persecuted minority to generate internal unity and external sympathy, but contemporary ambiguity about the domestic relationship between religion and government combined with the lack of recognition from the Muslim world for Paki-stan's accomplishments causes problems. Jinnah utilized Islam as the rallying point for his campaign of anti-colonialism and nationalism, but Pakistan's contemporary identity (secular verses sectarian) still remains politically sensitive and unresolved.

Great disagreement exists on how to accommodate both the Muslim belief that sovereignty lies with Allah and the democratic approach of sovereignty lying with the people. Jinnah declared that the state would have no business to interfere with the religious beliefs of individuals, but religious conservatives do not regard this as a policy- making speech. Pakistan is unique as the only country to have been created in the name of Islam, but the relationship between religion and the state is unclear. Pakistan sees Western attacks on extremist Islam as encompassing all of Islam, and often feels compelled to take radical approaches it actually disagrees with to achieve political security. Pakistan supported the coalition against Iraq in 1990 and the current GWOT, but must balance pressures from the United States with resistance from the religious parties within its own borders. It is interesting to note that Islamic fundamentalist parties have not been electorally successful over the years in Pakistan.

The future

Pakistanis are pessimistic that the near future holds change, but point to Europe's long history of wars and instability prior to achieving the European Union. Although Pakistanis see continuing cultural encroachment from the West and increasing instances of Hindu nationalistic violence in India as threats to Pakistan's stability, they see contemporary history destroying the remaining imperial states such as the USSR, Yugoslavia, and India, and believe that their patience concerning territorial claim over Kashmir will ultimately be rewarded. Some Pakistanis claim that India is in an early process of disintegration that will play out over decades, but doubtlessly will result in India's breakup into a panoply of states. Pakistanis also feel the world is at last waking up to the Kashmir issue and that Kashmir is now part of the international agenda. Pakistanis sincerely believe that all their country requires is efficient and effective leadership in order to become a great nation of the world.

US recognition for Pakistani participation in the GWOT would begin to break the chain of perceived betrayal. This recognition could also serve as a reward for Pakistani assistance to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan as well as supporting the collapse of the Taliban. Greater economic aid would need to accompany these thanks, because an ever-widening gap exists between what Pakistan expects as just reward for open alignment with the West and the actual dollar figure contemplated by Washington. Pakistani President Musharraf's credibility (and therefore the Pakistan Army's) is at stake if nothing positive comes from Pakistani participation in the GWOT.

Conclusion

Continuing instability has left the citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan with a pessimistic and defensive culture. Pakistanis see the legacy of Ram Raj from pre- Moghul times remanifested in the increasing levels of Hindu nationalism, extremism, and levels of violence against Muslims in India. The nationalistic ideologies that emerged during the British Raj and led to the partition of British and Indian India remain, and the problems regarding identity, ethnic and religious fervor, nationalism, and communal violence that partition sought to eliminate are still daily news and growing in intensity within Pakistan and all of South Asia from Kabul to Cox's Bazaar, Kashmir and Katmandu to Kandy. Since 1947 and the advent of Pakistani swaraj (self-rule), the perceived need to rely on outside entities and domestic military governments to ensure Pakistan's national security has left the government and people lacking in self-confidence.¹³ Recent literary titles such as Reodad Khan's Pakistan-A Dream Gone Sour (Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1997) and Sherbaz Khan Mazari's A Journey to Disillusionment (Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1999) point to and reinforce the mindset of political betrayal and dismay. Unlike Americans who easily cast away history and traditions, problems of the past plague Pakistani dis cussions of the future. One thing is genetically inherent in Pakistanis' minds though: Indians are the enemy and Hindu India is a threat to Muslim Pakistan.

Endnotes:

¹Taken from part of the critique of Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996) presented by Edward W. Said at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1998.

² Vernon Hewitt, The New International Politics of South Asia, St Martin's Press, 1997, p. 76.

³ Mohammed Ali Jinnah (the Quaid-i-Azam or Great Leader), Dec 25, 1876-Sep 11, 1948; founder and first Governor-General of Pakistan.

⁴ Golam W. Choudhury, Pakistan's Relations with India, Meenakshi Prakashan, New Delhi, 1971.

⁵ The reference to the Hindu god Ram symbolizes Hinduism overall.

⁶ Akbar S. Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan, and Islamic Identity, Routledge, New York, 1997, p. 43.

⁷ Pakistan did cede 5120 sq. km of Kashmir to China in 1963 to establish a delineated international border.

⁸ Address by Sardar Mohammad Abdul Qayyum Khan at the Pakistan Army Command and Staff College, Quetta, Pakistan, March 8, 1987.

⁹ Further information can be found in LtGen A.A.K. Niazi's book The Betrayal of East Pakistan, Manohar Publishers, New Delhi, 1998 and LtGen Kamal Matinuddin's Tragedy of Errors, Wajidalis LTD, Lahore, 1994.

¹⁰ Ahmed, p. 250.

¹¹ Hewitt, p. 32. Economically the Indian GNP is twice that of all the other countries of South Asia combined, and India's population is over three times the others.

¹² Saladin, the Muslim hero who defeated the second crusade.

¹³ As Sherbaz Khan Mazari wrote in Journey to Disillusionment (Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1999), he dedicated his book "To the people of Pakistan--leaderless and betrayed."

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