Declan Walsh, who covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and South Asia for The Guardian and The New York Times from Islamabad and New Delhi, in his new book The Nine Lives of Pakistan shows Pakistan in a different light than what it is seen in contemporary perception.
He speaks to Pushkar Banakar about his new book and what led to Pakistan’s crumbling democracy and why he was ousted from the country.
Pakistan is widely considered a failed democracy but you in your book have illustrated the country as a beautiful one. What makes you feel contrary to the ‘normal’ view?
I’m not sure that democracy and natural beauty necessarily correlate, but I certainly did find Pakistan to be an engaging place to live and work. Certainly, there were times when I was frustrated, worried and even scared. By the time I left, I had deleted the names and numbers of an alarming number of contacts who had died prematurely after being kidnapped, bombed or assassinated. There were other times when I was inspired or touched by people I met, or exhilarated by my reporting experiences. Those two extremes could be linked – sometimes it was in the moments of adversity that I found most to admire. As a reporter, that’s the kind of complexity that makes for interesting stories.
The role of the military in Pakistan’s affairs is beyond doubt. Yet, you paint the picture of Zia ul Haq as a pious man. However, you describe General Parvez Musharraf differently. Can you please elaborate? Both being military men, who do you think damaged the country more?
They did different kinds of damage. Zia was the ideologue, a pious man who exploited religion to project his authority and strength. He imported an ascetic, Wahhabistyle flavour of Islam from Saudi Arabia and introduced sweeping legal and social changes that still haunt Pakistan today — the blasphemy laws, the coddling of jihadi militants, and so on.
Musharraf claimed to be the opposite: a secular modernizer who liked whisky, dogs and fashion shows. He reformed some of the hated Ziaera Hudood laws. But his ultimate loyalty was to the military, which meant that many of his so-called reforms were superficial, even though it wasn’t reciprocated. When the contradictions of Musharraf ’s rule became too glaring, his fellow generals let him fall. Musharraf grappled with the demons Zia had created, especially the jihadi groups. But while he tried to tame some, like the Pakistani Taliban, he co-opted or protected others, like Lashkar-e-Taiba. It pointed to the broader truth: the damage done by both leaders was also the bidding of an unaccountable institution, the military, which is the real story.
Speaking of Benazir Bhutto’s failure, you say that her constant grappling with the Army was the main reason. Is it fair to say that any leader in Pakistan is deemed unsuccessful if he does not enjoy a good equation with the military establishment?
The historical record is clear: it never ends well for Pakistani politicians who clash openly with the military. The hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, under General Zia, in 1979, was a trauma for the political class that continues to reverberate today. It established a powerful precedent: this was how far the generals were willing to go to maintain their grip. Success, however, is a different matter. Prime Minister Imran Khan has avoided tensions with the army by surrendering control of the most important issues: Afghanistan, India, militancy, national security. But that’s left him in the passenger seat of power, stewarding an ailing economy and overseeing fearsome repression of the free press. Two years on, I don’t think even his most ardent supporters would say that he’s delivered on his promises.
You were sent away from Pakistan. According to you, what factors were responsible and do you think the military establishment played a role in your ouster?
The letter announcing my expulsion, which was handed to me at midnight just before the 2013 election, was written on Interior Ministry paper. My visa was being cancelled on account of my “undesirable activities,” it said. I quickly learned, through a senior contact at the ISI, that it was behind the expulsion. After I landed in London, I spent several years trying to figure out what those undesirable activities were. It became a starting point for the book, a mystery to be solved.
Manto is not the first person that comes to mind when a normal person thinks of Pakistan, given its current place in the global order. What drifted you to draw a literary analogy while describing Pakistan?
As I tried to make sense of the chaotic, often confusing events that were unfolding before my eyes in Pakistan, I found myself being drawn to the country’s history as a means of understanding them. Even though my book is about contemporary Pakistan, I felt it was important to root in the narrative in a short, early chapter that describes the country’s origins in the heady politics of pre-partition India. I focused mainly on Jinnah, but I also wanted to feature a secondary character who could provide a voice for the many Indian Muslims who were not so politically invested in partition, and had a more ambivalent attitude in the run up to 1947, and immediately afterwards. Manto was a perfect fit. A Pakistani friend gave me a volume of his short stories years ago, and I’ve devoured most of them. For the purposes of my book, he had the added advantage of being a gifted writer whose acid, brilliantly observed short stories reflected how the tumultuous events of that time affected ordinary people.
You have described Balochistan extensively in the book where you speak of the attempt to assassinate rights activist Asma Jahangir and the suicide attempt of journalist Hamid Mir. What do you think is the bone of contention between the Pakistani establishment and the Baloch provincial government?
Although Balochistan accounts for a giant slice of Pakistan - 43 per cent of the country’s landmass — many of its people have always been reluctant Pakistanis. In the late 1940s, parts of present-day Balochistan acceding to the new state. Further revolts, large and small, erupted, in the 50s, 60s, 70s and again in the mid-2000s.
If you ask a Pakistani general, he’ll blame this sorry state of affairs on Baloch tribal chieftains who have refused to relinquish their vast privileges, often at the cost of developing their own people. Ask many Baloch, and they will fault the Punjabi generals who they accused of coveting their land, which has great geo-strategic value, and their resources – vast amounts of copper, iron, gold and other minerals lie unexploited beneath the soil of Balochistan. More broadly, that dispute is emblematic of a wider tension between marginalized ethnic and regional groups in Pakistan – the Baloch, Sindhis, Pashtun among others – and the Punjabi-dominated center.
The military, whose leaders are drawn mostly from Punjab, have little time for ethnic separatists they say are undermining the unity of Pakistan. But I would argue that the way they deal with those complaints — military operations, gross human rights abuses, political castration — is only further destabilising the country.
From your rich experience of the functioning of the country, what do you think is in store for Pakistan in the near and far future and what are the things that the country needs to do to have a better bearing for itself domestically and also in the global order?
There’s enough in that question for an entire other book. What I would say is that even during the darkest times in Pakistan, I was struck by the country’s immense potential. I regularly met Pakistanis who inspired, impressed or humbled me, and who seemed determined to improve their country despite the adversity, and the huge forces that silenced or held them back. They hold the key to Pakistan’s future – if they can be given a chance.