Can Pakistan Work? A Country in Search of Itself

When he founded Pakistan in 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah-an impeccably dressed Westernized Muslim with Victorian manners and a secular outlook-promised the subcontinent's Muslims that they would finally be able to fulfill their cultural and civilizational destiny. Although the new nation arose from a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence, and its fundamental premise was that Hindus and Muslims could never live together, its early years nevertheless held some promise of a liberal, relatively secular polity. But with time, Jinnah's Pakistan has grown weaker, more authoritarian, and increasingly theocratic. Now set to become the world's fourth most populous nation, it is all of several things: a client state of the United States yet deeply resentful of it; a breeding ground for jihad and al Qaeda as well as a key U.S. ally in the fight against international terrorism; an economy and society run for the benefit of Pakistan's warrior class, yet with a relatively free and feisty press; a country where education and science refuse to flourish but which is nevertheless a declared nuclear power; and an inward-looking society that is manifestly intolerant of minorities but that has never seen anything like the state-organized pogroms of India, Afghanistan, Iran, or China.

In The Idea of Pakistan, Stephen Philip Cohen sets out to understand this enigma of modern history. Cohen is the United States' leading analyst of South Asia, and this authoritative work of broad scope and meticulous research will surely become required reading on Pakistan. It also provides a view from the heart of the American empire, an analysis of how Washington can best advance its interests in South Asia. Cohen's facts are indisputable, his logic cold and clear, and his omissions deliberate and meaningful.

Ominous declarations of imminent chaos in Pakistan abound in the United States. Cohen aims both to raise warnings and to soothe fears. Although he acknowledges that profound problems plague both the idea and the reality of Pakistan, he distances himself from apocalyptic "failed state" scenarios. Catastrophic failure of this nuclear-armed state is surely a possibility. But Pakistan's fate will ultimately depend on whether its leaders can find an answer to the fundamental question that has plagued their fellow citizens for more than half a century: "How can we make the idea of Pakistan actually work?"

AN ARMY WITH A COUNTRY

According to a popular but rather humorless Pakistani joke, "all countries have armies, but here, an army has a country." Indeed, even when civilian governments have nominally been in charge in Pakistan, there has never been much doubt about who actually makes decisions there. In addition to holding political power, the Pakistani army controls vast commercial and industrial interests and owns massive rural and urban properties. As Cohen remarks, "regardless of what may be desirable, the army will continue to set the limits on what is possible in Pakistan."

General Pervez Musharraf, the country's current chief executive, seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, and there have since been several attempts on his life. After each, the media has warned of a nuclear state careening out of control, with radical Islamists fighting to get into the driver's seat. Cohen rightly dismisses this view as alarmist. If the general were killed, the army establishment would quickly replace Musharraf with another senior officer, and various measures-the installation of former Citibank executive Shaukat Aziz as prime minister, most notably-have recently been undertaken to protect against a leadership crisis. Cohen also breaks with Musharraf's staunchest international backers, who "see him as a wise and modern leader, a secular man who is not afraid to support the West or to offer peace to India, and a man who can hold back the onrush of demagogues and Islamic extremists." Cohen notes that "no serious Pakistani analyst sees Musharraf in these terms. ... If he resembles any past Pakistani leader, it is General Yahya Khan-also a well-intentioned general who did the United States a great favor."

The question of why the warrior class was never tamed by civilian rule points back to the founding of the Pakistani state. As the respected Pakistani scholar Eqbal Ahmad has emphasized, the civilian system of power was never regarded by Pakistan's citizens as just, appropriate, or authoritative. And despite Jinnah's declarations, the idea of Pakistan was unclear from the start. Lacking any clear basis for legitimacy or direction, the state quickly aligned with the powerful landed class: the army leadership and the economic elite joined forces to claim authority in a nation without definition or cohesion. In subsequent years, the government maintained the feudal structure of society and entered into a manifestly exploitative relationship with Pakistan's poor eastern wing (which became Bangladesh in 1971 after a short but bloody war). Even now, bonded labor is common, and many peasants live in conditions close to slavery. Politicians, with the exception of the mercurial demagogue Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, have made no attempt at reform, ignoring the hearts and minds of the masses in favor of cultivating elite favor and pursuing quick financial gain.