The foreign minister of Afghanistan, Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit to India could prove more productive than any side would have anticipated. The optics generated by both sides could lay the foundation for a more salient role for India in the region, thus increasing its room for manoeuvre in the ever-shifting chessboard of diplomacy and security.
Thanks to the Pakistan military’s ever erratic and consistently inconsistent policy in the region, the Taliban seem to have become quite estranged from its south-eastern neighbour, and are walking straight into the Indian sphere of influence with quite a spectacle. This should not come as any surprise.
Pakistan has been run and ruined by inept and extremely corrupt military generals for almost all of its history. Whether directly in khaki or in mufti under the guise of a nominal civilian rule, they have been wielding a nail-studded baton to heavily bear upon all spheres – from education to media policies, developmental strategies to religious orientation, and orchestration of foreign policy to economic direction.
But this time around, its interference has become so glaringly obvious and irritating to the common sight that the independent politicians, a limited few that the tactless Army has not been able to buy or bury underground, have renamed it as a hybrid regime. The majority of the common people endorse the designation with indignation rising every day.
Though there is little in the shape of any independent press left in Pakistan, and therefore the things might have felt ‘hunky dory’, a phrase overused by the former military dictator, General Musharraf, who died unceremoniously in exile a few years back. But social media has ruined it for the ‘duffer’ generals, an adjective added to their designation by late Asma Jehangir, a relentless human rights defender who valiantly fought them till her last breath.
Despite their brutality to curb dissent, the crescendo of insubordination against the military and calls for a revolution are growing with conviction and purpose. This is shaping the anger against the military into a full-blown hatred.
The campaign that started via cyclical protests against the ‘stealing of the elections’, a blatant and rude embezzlement and overturning of the people’s will that had overwhelmingly favoured Imran Khan, the former Prime Minister. During his short tenure, Khan fell out with the Army after he resolutely refused to fulfil many erratic demands of the corrupt men in uniform. As a result, the military engineered a coup ousting Khan, whose refusal to cower down turned him into a political celebrity and a heartthrob.
The hybrid regime – a puppet force of discarded politicians – also pejoratively called ‘the Form 47 regime’, has effectively ceded control to the military.
Under the banner of the ‘Form 47 regime’, the military has since killed hundreds of dissenters, mainly political, and bombed its own civilian populations to take control of their lands for minerals, precious stones and other resources. The army has also arrested and tortured thousands to force the locals to leave the areas so the military could indulge in the loot.
Despite being nakedly brutal with no checks or balances, the public anger continues to grow, often vocalised through small, impromptu public demonstrations or a daily barrage of social media posts and commentary.
So far, this brutality has produced a status quo. Despite the rising public sentiment to reclaim their democratic choices and rights, there has been little or no success in pushing the military back. One of the reasons is the continued US support and appeasement of the junta.
However, the public anger has galvanised public interest into a domain hitherto embargoed from public imagination – the unprecedented levels of corruption within the military. Since the incarceration of Imran Khan, there has been growing public scrutiny of the corruption within the military ranks and its vast networks of wealth generation, from outright smuggling to ransom networks.
While the ‘free media’ – from traditional television networks to the old-fashioned and declining newspapers that have ceased to innovate and have become relegated to margins – have adopted almost the Soviet levels of self-censorship to produce a narrative of a stable and progressing country shining through a heap of broken glass fashioned into a crude kaleidoscope for some timely entertainment.
As a result, the public has become estranged and turned to social media where media commentators and activists, mostly in exile, produce a diametrically opposite picture with a mis-en-scène that is totally ruined, stained and burnt out. The everyday discussions on social media expose rampant and growing violence, corruption, and lawlessness that have turned the country into a brutal concentration camp, run and managed by the power-hungry, corrupt, inept and ruthless generals. As the public calls for a change in political direction are voided by the continued brutality, there is a growing perception that the Army is the root cause of all evils.
There is a burgeoning demand for removal of corruption within its ranks; busting of the smuggling networks that it runs across the countries including the Iranian crude transported in millions of barrels every month; the drugs and other contraband that is procured or produced under its vigil within the designated safe zones and supplied across geographies within and outside; counterfeit or currency manipulation rackets that are spread through chosen money lenders; and other criminal networks that include kidnappings have all become pet topics of everyday discussion.
Thanks to the social media warriors, the army’s continued interference in public and political matters, murder of political activists, prison sentences to politicians on phony or fabricated charges, the legal juggernaut that is produced almost daily to hinder dispensation of justice from the pliant courts, and above all the funding, support, and renewing old or producing new terrorist outfits and causing deaths in public squares through terror activities and everything else that can be added to this ever-expanding palette of retrogression and sickness is suddenly all making sense to the public.
For them, the enemy that hid for long through proxy iterations is actually within their ranks, and with a ghastly sight to behold. But it deems itself holy by virtue of its brute power, and therefore, cannot be touched.
In the public imagination, and off-the-radar banter in social gatherings or across social media, the conveniently growing ‘terror attacks’ against anyone – from journalists to politicians, and civil society activists to environment warriors – everyone that is critical of the military’s growing interference in public life, and wants it to be confined to the barracks or demands constitutional rights is killed by ‘unidentified gunmen or militants’.
The growing and unanimous public response to such acts of terror, whether conducted through bomb blasts, targeted killings or through kidnappings or torture deaths, is distilled through a short two-sentence slogan: ’yeh jo dehshat gardi hai, Iss kay peechay wardi hai’ (The uniform is behind all this terrorism).
Another slogan that was popularised by the Pashtun activists and has since become a country-wide cry for instant catharsis alludes to the Army’s involvement in dozens of everyday murders that continue across the country, mainly in Balochistan and the formerly tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, again attributed in official speak to ‘unidentified people’.
Whenever an activist, a journalist, a human rights monitor or any civilian of high or no consequence is killed in a bomb blast, kidnapped or tortured to death, the public would validate their anger and frustration by repeating the chorus – yeh jo namaloom hai, yeh sab ko maloom hai. The slogan that roughly means that everyone knows who the unknown is, has become a chant of defiance and ridicule across the spectrum, whether loudly or in small friendly meetings or through social media.
Under this backdrop, the latest conflagration along the Durand Line that resulted in the killing of soldiers – Pakistani and Afghan – carries a strong hint of a Pakistani military escalation designed to fan an open conflict with Afghanistan, a vision that fits with the US President Trump’s idea to regain a foothold within Afghanistan.
The skirmishes started when the Pakistani army jets bombed deep inside the capital Kabul, apparently on a camp of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, a militant group created, supported and facilitated by the Pakistani military for more than a decade. It was only after these militants realised they were being used by the military that they rebelled and started attacks in a blowback. The Taliban, for reasons including ideological, operational and political, refuse to fight them on behalf of Pakistan.
While the Taliban cannot escape the blame after taking over Afghanistan, they have raised a valid question on the capability and capacity of the Pakistan army to intercept and intervene while these militants cross into Pakistan. Such an interrogation affords more credibility to the deep corruption within the Pakistani military, and focuses public gaze back on its corrupt leadership for failing its people while indulging in unbridled privileges and corruption.
That a new relationship between Afghanistan and India has put pressure on the Pakistan Army and its activities in the region has become all too obvious. It will further curtail its influence within Afghanistan while advancing its declining image among its public.
To stem the tide, the generals seem to have already gone back to their favourite playbook - prepare a new wave of insurgency in Afghanistan through a hurriedly assembled and unworkable coalition of the discredited former warlords.
The ISI, through its old networks of subterfuge, is also trying to cause divisions within the Taliban ranks. If this new plan succeeds, Afghanistan could, yet again, become a terror hub in the region, causing chaos and violent disorder beyond its porous borders.
Under these circumstances, the Indian outreach to the Kabul government is pragmatic and demonstrates positive diplomatic progress. This approach could serve as a template for cultivating strategic partnerships across the subcontinent for achieving more substantive outcomes and establishing greater strategic depth in the region.
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