Jahangir's World Times First Comprehensive Magazine for students/teachers of competitive exams and general readers as well.
After the partition of the Subcontinent, India has made rapid growth and development in all spheres. But, unfortunately, Pakistan has been entangled in difficulties and lags far behind its eastern neighbour. Let us have a peep into the past to ascertain our future.
Musharraf fought loyally against terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda’s protectors, the Taliban, who governed Afghanistan until they were toppled by the Afghan warlords on America’s behest. However, the retreat of Taliban and their alleged havens in the mountainous tribal borderlands of Pakistan created a long-term problem for Pakistani leadership.
Though billions of US dollars poured into Pakistan in terms of Coalition Support Fund, yet Pakistan army couldn’t make any headway in driving Taliban out of Pakistani land. More perplexing is the fact that the Taliban regrouped in the border areas of Pakistan and made a strong comeback in the southern Afghanistan. This made many Congressmen ask with increasing stridency that what exactly America was receiving from Musharraf for its capacious military subsidies.
After the Taliban’s comeback, the US and Nato forces have been involved in the most-prolonged military action since the World War II. From an increasingly fractious and now dominant Democratic Party in the US Congress, the attacks on Musharraf, sometimes called a stooge and proxy of President Bush, increased markedly. Furthermore, Pak Army’s operations in tribal areas resulted in mass displacement of indigenous people (IDPs). In short-term, at least, the results of this policy were the radicalization of the local citizenry and rise of an unabating wave of suicide bombing in Pakistan.
Musharraf could not help his own cause by delaying the restoration of democracy. Although, Pakistan’s economy showed a marked improvement, yet it is also true that the key beneficiary of this dollar-inflow was Pakistan Army. Given the track record of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, Musharraf, unsurprisingly, displayed an obvious contempt for the political clan and placed his trust in his military comrades. But, the news of corruption remained widespread.
Musharraf also tried to suppress, by force, the radical clerics inside the Lal Masjid which only added fuel to fire. With an uncertain future of Musharraf, in the wake of mass protests and increasing opprobrium for him, the US State Department began to pursue options which would depict the Pakistan’s return to democracy. At this point, PPP chairperson and an astute politician Benazir Bhutto, who was also schmoozer with the western media and the political elite in Washington and London, put herself forward as the secular and anti-terrorist candidate capable of halting the Taliban surge.
Ms Bhutto believed that her moment had come and she has to make a triumphal re-entry into Pakistan’s politics. She thought it easy to force a weakened Musharraf to relinquish the chief of army staff post in order to run for the office of the president again. Benazir was the only alternative because Nawaz Sharif was loathed by him owing to the Plane Hijacking Case in which he allegedly almost killed Musharraf in his attempt to remove him from military command. The State Department eyed a Benazir-Musharraf alliance to improve Pakistan’s performance in ‘War on Terror’ while burnishing President Bush’s pro-democratic credentials.
Given Benazir’s abysmal record in office for two terms and a bitter history of relations with army, it was not sure that she could have been a solution to Pakistan’s long-term problems.
Elections were, somehow, held in February 2008. Though a coalition government, comprising two main parties in opposition to Musharraf, was installed, yet Zardari and Nawaz Sharif soon parted their ways. However, they later reached an accommodation to seek the impeachment of President Musharraf and the ‘dictator’ had no option but to resign.
It was the ultimate revenge of the demagogues; not surprisingly Zardari and Sharif soon fell out again, and it was Zardari who became Pakistan’s new President and was left to face an ongoing war against the Taliban. He had also to face intermittent waves of terrorist bombing, both inside and outside Pakistan notably the 26/11 Mumbai bombings, and a near-collapsed economy. Although in 2009 the Pakistan government finally launched an action to repel terrorists. India, however, remained the greatest threat to the country. With all ifs and buts, the PPPP-led government completed its constitutional tenure but remained largely unsuccessful to ‘take revenge democratically’.
‘Change’ was the catchword in the Elections 2013. PTI’s chairman, Mr Imran Khan, presented himself as ‘leader of the youth’ in such time-dimensions when youth was ready to accept him. Two rivals PTI and PML (N) were at daggers drawn during the election campaign. But when the elections were held, old players won dramatically. Now a number of issues are before the new elected government of PML (N) but whether it will withstand their fury and turbulence, time will tell and it is flying. Let’s pray that our future may not be like our turbulent past.
