Domestic violence plus separatists’ pressure, Pakistan is plunging into a perfect storm of threats on the two fronts—internal and external.
The internal threats are economic stagnation, growing poverty and inequality, lawlessness, the pervasive corruption, regional conflicts, ethnic divides, sectarian killings and clash of institutions. The external threats are the imposed conflicts with the ever ready enemies to destabilize the country by organizing themselves against Pakistan on Eastern and Western fronts.
A close look into the prevailing situation makes all too clear that Pakistan is passing through one of the most troublesome periods of instability in its history. The rising extremism, failing economy, political instability and chronic underdevelopment are intensifying feelings of hatred among the masses against injustices meted out to them in almost every field of public activity, which are resulting into unprecedented political, economic and social disorder.
The country seems to be on a downward course due to the fact that its leadership is not adequately addressing either internal violence or the needs of the people. The governments’ policies are self-serving and far from meeting needs or expectations of people, due to which there arises problems on all levels of national development.
The internal wrangling always mired efforts of dysfunctional civilian governments to control the situation. The elites give preference to their interests over population and help institutionalize deep-rooted patronage networks, widespread corruption and significant structural distortions in tax collections etc. And it is because of their willingness to exploit ethno-sectarian divides for political gain that caused further violence and instability.
Thus the government reforms are impeded by strong organizational resistance, which continues to exert pressure all time. As a result corruption, service politics, nepotism and favoritism, power brokers, entrenched feudal interests, and a marked civil-military imbalance continue to hold influence at the cost of public interest.
The external threats have also taken its toll no less than the internal wrangling when both combine to affect the structural reforms. Due to its involvement in the war against terror, Pakistan faces challenges virtually in every aspect of its external relations.
As regards the fluctuating relations with India, there can hardly be traced any period where one can assess that both Islamabad and New Delhi have shown enough maturity to decide the major issues between them in better interest of the people of the two countries. The Indo-Pak border, which is secured by the two countries through nuclear weapons, is one of the most tense borders on the planet. Cross border violence causes escalating the prospect of full-scale war between the two sides.
Besides, the role which the two countries have to play in Afghanistan is another episode that causes escalation in the fluctuating relations between Pakistan and India. Actually Pakistan has different perception and national interests on Afghan security and stability, which further escalate its relations with the United States and causes cross border violence.
To weigh all factors we can conclude that the increasing security concern causes diversion of massive amounts of resources for defence purposes, living a little room for internal problems to be resolved. Pakistan currently invest a major portion of its resources in the name of security as the anti-state forces are combining themselves on all fronts to weaken the country by dividing people along political, ethnic and religious lines besides fueling the flames to turn the already volatile conditions into a major flare-up.
An in-depth study of the factors involved behind the fiasco in broader context shows that the anti-state violence and sectarian intolerance is increasing with the growing demands of the society and consistent failure of the government to meet the needs of people over a period of decades. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening and there exists nothing in reality to plug the gap except official rhetoric without any real-world performance.
That’s why despite robust military operation and improved counterinsurgency efforts, there seems a little success and the gains are likely ephemeral because the root causes of militancy remain unaddressed that is political instability, lack of administrative control and economic stagnation, all poses a major threat to the future stability of the country.
Every government that came into power tried to approach the problems with selective attempts to address public grievances, which could not work to alter the fate of people. Instead these threats kept on increasing and left governments with a little breathing space to accomplish the much desired objectives of peace and progress, besides they led to the fear of disintegration along political, ethnic and religious lines, which poses a danger to everyone and may turn into a huge collapse to the unity of Pakistan.
Actually the efforts of governments were always faltered and many reform programs ended up remaining rhetoric due to political opportunism with the government making only superficial attempts to rectify many of its deep-rooted structural problems. The government of course spent money, but it has placed too much emphasis on allocating resources with little emphasis on ensuring a meaningful outcome.
What is in fact needed is a comprehensive strategy to invest on people through public welfare activities, besides urgent planning for ending the ever increasing crisis in order to bring peace and stability.
Therefore, the need is to devise a national policy that could bring peace in the country. And the same would be possible with open mindedness, which can be expected when the country’s political leadership comes up with some consensus decisions and strategy to deal with militancy that has severely affected the national economy and caused huge losses to human lives.
Now there should be a major shift in policies to tackle the situation like this. The leaders must focus on investing in its peoples welfare to address their core grievances.
They should give priority to internal needs over dealing with external threats by devoting themselves to the welfare and future of the people. As such there must be a better planned and well managed stabilization strategy to address the causes of extremism, which would need a large scale reforms.
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