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Pakistan, 11/1/07
Key Lecture Points:
• On October 18, 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned from exile to Pakistan to prepare her political party for Parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2008. Hours after her triumphant return, Bhutto narrowly escaped assassination when bombs targeting her motorcade exploded in Karachi. The bombings killed 135 people.
• Bhutto’s return highlights the tenuous political position of Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff. Musharaff faces opposition from secular leaders, such as Bhutto, who criticize his links with the Pakistani military intelligence agency (ISI) which has maintained and fostered Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist groups, including those that support the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the same time, Islamicists, particularly in Pakistan’s minority Pashtun territories in the north, criticize Musharaff for his secular views and especially his alliance with the US since 2001.
• Musharaff’s Pakistan has been an important partner in the US effort to root out Osama bin Laden and his Taliban supporters in Afghanistan. But Musharaff’s inability to crack down on Taliban supporters in northern Pakistan has frustrated the US. Many analysts believe that the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is where bin Laden is hiding.
• In addition to Afghan relations, any discussion of Pakistan must also include the longstanding conflict between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. Since the partition of the former British East India in 1947, Pakistan and India have fought three separate wars. While current relations are more peaceful, Indo Pakistani relations always have a potential flashpoint, the disputed region of Kashmir. Given that both Pakistan and India are nuclear states makes any potential conflict between the two countries very risky.
Exploration Questions:
• What are the main reasons for the political instability of Pakistan?
• The US has taken a lead role in brokering a power sharing agreement between Musharaf and Bhutto. What would be the reasons for taking such an approach and what are the potential drawbacks?
Reflective Questions:
• Do you recall the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the political parties involved? How was this event reported in the US?
• Have your perceptions of Pakistan changed over the course of your lifetime? In what way?
For More Information:
• CIA Factbook on Pakistan: www.cia.gov
• BBC Coverage of Pakistan Elections: http://news.bbc
Books For Further Reading:
• Khan, Yasmin. The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan. Yale University Press, 2007. 251 pages.
Description: Khan examines the context, execution, and aftermath of Partition, weaving together local politics and ordinary lives with the larger political forces at play. She exposes the widespread obliviousness to what Partition would entail in practice and how it would affect the populace. Khan underscores the catastrophic human cost and shows why the repercussions of Partition resound even now, some sixty years later.
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• Bose, Sumantra. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace. Harvard University Press, 2005. 307 pages.
Description: Bose explains the intricate mix of regional, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and caste communities that populate Kashmir, and emphasizes that a viable framework for peace must take into account the sovereignty concerns of India and Pakistan and popular aspirations to self-rule as well as conflicting loyalties within Kashmir. He calls for the establishment of inclusive, representative political structures in Indian Kashmir, and cross-border links between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir. Bose also invokes compelling comparisons to other cases, particularly the peace-building framework in Northern Ireland, which offers important lessons for a settlement in Kashmir.
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