The Idea of Pakistan

"Stephen Cohen has a similar thesis to Sherbaz Khan Mazari’s book but he also looks into the future. And the future he looks into and concludes about Pakistan is at odds with my final author MJ Akbar’s prediction of the future, where all you see is a void. Stephen Cohen makes the much more valid point that Pakistan is, in fact, a very stable country, because it has a highly educated, highly sophisticated establishment, which stretches through the military and into the land-owning classes and, through them, into the political parties. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Although he thinks it is a flawed democracy, he does not agree with the idea that it is a failed state. The idea of modernisation that animates the establishment is one that will result in defeating the forces of reaction which have been spawned even by some members of the establishment for ulterior motives. Therefore, in a sense, it ends on a note of hope which corresponds much more to my personal experience of Pakistan. I don’t think Pakistan is likely to explode or implode, which is the way it is often portrayed in India. I think it is precisely because of the reaction of the establishment to these forces that makes me believe that it is very difficult for the Pakistan state to disintegrate. As these hostile forces come out of their fortresses, threatening the life and lifestyle of the establishment, there is an army always waiting to push them back. The political elite, notwithstanding their internal differences, are united in their determination that they are not going to allow Pakistan to go the Afghanistan way. While the struggles between the forces of Islamisation and the forces of modernisation determine the narrative of Pakistan, at the end of the day, given the way that religious parties are rejected at every election in Pakistan, I am certain that the modernising majority will eventually prevail over the religious fanatics. India can help in the process by engaging with Pakistan, so that the perception of Indian hostility is reduced and Pakistan has a greater sense of security. Then it can work out what it wants to be instead of it always being a matter of not being India. They need to move from being a front-line state in somebody else’s interest, which is what they have done for the last half century, into becoming a front-line state in their own interests."