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Musharraf is between a hard place and a rock. As he gives into Indian positions on the bilateral issues he appears weak and helpless. With a reputation as a commando officer if he continues with Pakistan`s traditional hardliner positions he risks blocking a possible peace in South Asia. Domestically he lacks credible political support to implement the policy of enlightened moderation but by accommodating India he is trying to show that with the enlightened moderation in international dealings he can help improve Pakistan’s economy. Over last three decades Pakistan’s educational system has turned largely dysfunctional as the number of madressah grew from 4,000 to 20,000, which are more than 16,000 high schools in the country. Musharraf has conceded to an American suggestion to reform education Although the enlightened moderation at home is linked to rapidly improving the quality of educational system he knows that to survive in domestic politics he has to depend on several feudal lords (Chaudhry’s and Gujrals) of Punjab who have politically no use for the concept of enlightened moderation. This article reviews current development that impact peace in South Asia.

Economy and Benefits of Peace with India:

Economically with a GDP growth of about 6% Pakistan did much better than India prior to 1971 and during Zia ul Haq periods. With ‘cold war’ rhetoric for over three decades, a population growth at over 2% per year and setbacks in proxy or terrorist wars around Pakistan for over two decades the economic gains were wiped out by late 1990s and Pakistan had suffered economically to a point that when Musharraf came to power in 1999 the first admission he made to public was that Pakistan was broke, leaving an impression that it was on the brink of being a failed state.

Kargil happened because Indians were sleeping on the watch, Pakistani army believed with the WMD deterrence they were immune from Indian retaliations and also because Musharraf had underestimated India`s resolve to defend its geographical integrity. He suffered a humiliating defeat at Kargil Heights. After 9/11/01 he had little choice to immediately become an American `lap dog` and until a few months ago the one phone-call Musharraf tried and failed to win at the negotiating table a South Asian version of the ‘cold war’ against India.
Mindful that time had run out for ‘cold war’ diplomacy, that there was no way Pakistan can benefit from proxy/terrorist war against India, and that the American largesse’s were not guaranteed for future, he adopted a charm offensive during his cricket diplomacy with India and reluctantly began to take steps that conflicted with current Pakistani public opinions, the anti-India, war-like public displays by its armed forces and belligerent rhetoric by its officially controlled media.

For example, an Op-ed (The News, May 15, 2005) stated: "Whereas citizens, unlike their rulers, have consistently backed greater accord with India, the rhetoric churned out over the decades by the officially controlled media and the contents of the educational curriculum have helped establish an unfortunate mindset of hostility, most notably in the Punjab." She observed that the rulers of the land are unwilling to talk openly of eradicating the culture of war after she noted that "the recent removal of the monumentally ugly replicas of the Chaghai Hill where nuclear weapons were tested in 1998, and the Ghauri missile from near Lahore`s Railway Station comes as a huge relief."

During cricket diplomacy about two month ago, the plain fact was that India had not made any concessions at all to Musharraf. India`s position on territorial adjustments, on Kashmir, on the priority of CBMs, etc remained the same. Pakistan had to do more adjusting than India. This is indicated by two realizations; India dominates in South Asia in the balance of power, both economic and military and Pakistan can gain economically by re-establishing policies for bilateral trade ties through the CBM process.

Enlightened Moderation:

General Musharraf (The Washington Post, June 1, 2004) stated that “we must adopt a path of moderation and a conciliatory approach to fight the common belief that Islam is a religion of militancy in conflict with modernization, democracy and secularism. My idea for untangling this knot is Enlightened Moderation... the Muslim world should shun militancy and extremism and adopt the path of socio-economic uplift.” Logically the phrase ‘enlightened moderation’ may be a misnomer. One is either “enlightened” or not. But, one cannot be “enlightened” in “moderation”. One can be asked to drink in moderation or eat in moderation, but not be “enlightened” in moderation. Anyway, Musharraf often invokes ‘enlightened moderation’ to justifying dropping hardliner positions to resolve international disputes and whenever he is incapable of apprehending perpetrators of domestic terrorism.

For example, Musharraf’s enlighten moderation has a long way to go to translate it to civil society or resolve potential serious domestic law and order situations due to terrorism by the Islamists and such criminal troublemakers of Pakistan. Continued Islamisation will produce more serious threats within Pakistan and intensify internal conflicts. At this point the support for Pakistan inside Kashmir is at its lowest. Musharraf understands that as long as he is a part of the global war on terrorism, the Americans will cut Pakistan a lot of slack, but their fundamental perceptions about terrorism have changed to a point that terrorism driven proxy wars against India are unsustainable.

Musharraf has softened hardliner position in recent months to resolve contentious issues with India. It is in India’s national interests to let Musharraf know that India too will cut him slack without compromising on India`s known positions including no territorial adjustments, controlling sources of river waters in South Asia and effective calibrated implementation of the CBM processes, etc.

Musharraf is not a fool as his tenure is subjected to maintaining an improved economy for Pakistan. The economic assistance and diplomatic support that became available to Pakistan in the post-September 2001 period enabled the country to salvage its faltering economy. The promises of aid are subject to annual approvals by American Congress, where support for Pakistan is volatile. The potential volatility of foreign economic assistance has forced Musharraf to accept India’s positions so that Pakistan can benefit from increased bilateral trade and possibly an Iran-Pakistan-India and may be China gas pipeline as additional confidence building measures are gradually put in place.

For Musharraf the domestic challenge comes from the highly skewed economic development in addition to the law and order problems posed by Islamists and jihadis. The fruits of Pakistan’s economic recovery after September 2001 have hardly reached the common people. Increasing inflation, spiraling prices of the utilities and food items have accentuated economic pressures on the common people. Poverty and under-development have increased alienation at the popular level. Because the mainstream parties are restrained from engaging in sustained mobilization, such alienated classes are vulnerable to Islamic ideological appeals.
Maintaining internal law and order is a problem for Musharraf. Implementation of the enlightened moderation within the country will require Musharraf to eliminate Islamists from the ranks of Pakistani police and army. The Pakistani police is remarkably inefficient in tackling the criminal troublemakers as most of its cadres, from the low to the high end of the spectrum, are themselves conservative like the Islamists. Judging from the human rights violations by the Punjab police against women marchers in Lahore, the Pakistani media reported (Daily News, May 16, 2005) that within Pakistan “enlightened moderation” lives more in rhetoric than reality.

Education:

General Musharraf’s often uses slogan “enlightened moderation” but so far these are empty words in dealing with internal politics. To keep political support, short-term expediency takes precedent before the long-term interests of the country. Despite his promise to reform the country’s madressahs, nothing has been done despite the passage of several years in office. At Deeni Madaris Conventions, (last one was in 2004) speaker after speaker routinely claim that no government attempt to change the curricula in the seminaries would be tolerated. Politicians like Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the president of the official Muslim League laude the role of the madressahs in ‘protecting the religious frontiers of Pakistan.’ The fiery speeches by clerics are routinely praised and supported by ruling elite and political opportunists. The leading politicians supporting Musharraf deny that any of the madressahs were involved in terrorist activities.

The success of the enlightened moderation program at home is linked to reforming Pakistan’s largely dysfunctional education system. Musharraf has problems with his hand picked political operatives who not only draw political strength from the madressah management hierarchy but also do not subscribe to the concept of enlightened moderation. With support like this, no wonder Musharraf’s ‘enlightened moderation’ has remained just a slogan. In an Op-ed (Dawn, May 22, 2005) the following observations were offered with respect to madressah being facilities for indoctrinating potential terrorists:
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Before the advent of Zia ul Haq, the number of madressahs in the country was put at around 4,000. Their number now, according to Chaudhry Shujaat, is 20,000. He couldn’t be wrong nor exaggerating for he was a minister in the cabinets both of Zia ul Haq and Nawaz Sharif. He should also be believed when as interior minister of Musharraf’s government he affirms on the basis of a survey his ministry conducted that madressahs do not impart military training to their pupils.

But he misses the central point of the argument. Indoctrination is more important than drills. Once the years of parochial instructions in madressahs and haranguing in the neighbourhood mosques have mentally prepared the youth to take up arms for a cause or against those who stray from the right path, it takes only a few weeks of training to learn to fire them. The supply of arms is cheap and abundant and, in these times of clashing ideologies and interests, the lures to use them at home and abroad are many. For the unemployed seminarians, it is not just a mission it is subsistence as well. General Musharraf’s reform plan for madressahs has made no headway in five years because his chief political adviser, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, and his religious affairs minister, Ejazul Haq, both are averse to it. They draw political strength from the madressah management hierarchy. Obviously, they do not want to strike at the base of their own power.

The madressahs are citadels of orthodoxy even if they don’t preach militancy or impart military training. Their present number, if Chaudhry Shujaat’s count is correct, is 20,000 and growing. The number of high schools in the country is less than that — just about 16,000. The number of students in the madressahs and high schools, according to one estimate, is almost equal — around 1.6 million. The schools, too, will be contributing their share to orthodoxy and extremism. Musharraf’s enlightened moderation thus would be losing, and not gaining, adherents with the passage of time as an increasing number of madressah alumni join the country’s political cadre.

To reverse the tide of extremism it was expected of Musharraf to choose leaders and parties who shared his view of a liberal and tolerant society even if it was not democratic. The fact is that many in his government, or riding his bandwagon, hold the view that the Taliban represent quintessential Islam in public life and by their rule in Afghanistan they had set an example for Pakistan to follow. To them the mass murders of the Hazaras, the humiliation of women and the destruction of the Bamiyan statues (sacred to Buddhists and a heritage of all mankind) were but justified crimes in the pursuit of a pure Islamic order.

Recent statistical figures for higher education are alarming. Pakistan, like other agrarian countries, is facing an acute deficit of knowledge and none of its universities ranks among the world’s top 500. Pakistan has about sixty universities. Out of 7,000 faculty members in Pakistani universities, only 1,700 possess PhD degrees. Pakistan lacks good Ph.D. holders, who could be research supervisors as well. Only 2.9 per cent or so of the students in the 18-23 years age group have access to higher education in Pakistani universities. This speaks of the quality and quantity of education in our country.

Up to the early 1970s, the universities sent their faculty abroad to good universities. Ph.D. holders from there were a few in number but their degrees were well received. Later, cultural scholarships were given to non-English speaking countries. Ph.D.s can be obtained locally but there are drawbacks, as plagiarism is common. In many cases, the supervisors are “the ghost authors’ of the theses. It is a positive development that two foreign examiners will evaluate Ph.D. degrees. But still there are pitfalls in this scheme.

Pakistan has been left behind in the field of science, technology and education because a low priority had been given to education by most of the earlier governments. Plans are to train some 20,000 students for the PhD level education in the top universities in the West so that each of 60 public sector universities can have 300 to 400 PhDs as faculty members, which will form the core faculty so essential for improving the quality of education in research institutions.

To train 20,000 Ph.D. in the West would require more than a decade and in an unlikely event that in a decade Pakistan has 20,000 additional Ph.D. in place, it will require about four decades of sustained development to train world class graduates in sciences and technology fields to realize benefits of this proposed solution.

In addition to reforming madressahs to eliminate hate and intolerance inducing teaching methods Pakistan needs to reorient its policies from confrontation to a lasting peace and prosperity in South Asia for at least five decades to be able to catch up with developed nations. No wonder Musharraf is so eager to make peace with India.

Anyway one looks at it Musharraf is in a no-win situation of his own making.

More reasons why Musharraf is in a no-win situation:

Musharraf has aggressively followed a corrupt practice that allows serving and retired army officers, mostly generals with no business experience and background to run a variety of highly technical to non-technical civilian businesses. Pakistan`s government says the armed forces run a total of 55 businesses, ranging from small bakeries to huge industrial establishments. The army also has business interests in the energy and banking sectors, leasing, insurance, travel, pharmacies, gas stations, security and textiles. According to the opposition parties, "The armed forces` commercial interests are taking a toll on their professional commitments and capabilities."

Kishan Bhatia, Ph.D.

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Pakistan’s Educational System March 22, 2005