Book Review
By Yusuf Hussain
Hussain Haqqani elicits strong gut reactions in Pakistan, both admiration and
derision. I picked up his latest hardcover “Magnificent Delusions” hoping to
find a contemporary and lucid counter narrative to the “security state” theme in
Pakistan – even though the book’s focus is on USA-Pakistan relations. His
erudition and exposure are beyond doubt: He is Pakistan’s former Ambassador to
the USA and currently a scholar at a USA think tank, the Hudson Institute. Given
Pakistan’s intractable problems with the nihilist, aspiring-fascist TTP, I
thought this was an opportune time to be enriched by the perspective of an
avowed champion of liberalism. It is certainly a lucid and readable book –
peppered with anecdotes and historical references – and I did find a powerful
articulation of the counter narrative that I sought, but several of the thematic
analyses left me unconvinced.
Haqqani begins with a “bang and a wallop” calling into question the very
desirability of creating a state in the name of religion. That was a bit
disconcerting, but only because he has represented Pakistan in two different
countries as Ambassador. One cannot but help ask: If he had such a fundamental
disconnect with the raison d'etre of the country, why ever did he agree to
represent its interests and be its preeminent symbol in foreign lands?
Otherwise, the argument itself is perhaps worth having in a philosophical,
though not practical, sense – as water has after all flowed under the bridge.
Unless, that is, he is insinuating nostalgia for united India and a desire for
reunification that we encounter in the occasional Indian.
The author argues against creating a state in the name of religion. But, to
place the argument in the particular context of Pakistan, he should have
analyzed the implications of the alternative i.e. staying within the Indian
Union, equally rigorously. He should have traced the history of simmering
communal tensions in India, from intransigent grassroots segregation and
antipathy to the Hindu symbolism of Mahatma Gandhi to the rise of Narendra Modi,
and helped answer the question: Would Pakistani Muslims been better off as part
of India, or would there have been a long drawn out civil war far deadlier than
the suffering caused by Partition? After all, the motivations of Mr. Jinnah and
Allama Iqbal had both an analytical and experiential basis and energized and
rallied millions; they also deserved some “air-time.”
Haqqani's next major theme is that Pakistan, starting with Mr. Jinnah, was
unnecessarily paranoid about its existence. Now the author himself presents
several contemporary perspectives which were inimical to or else skeptical of
Pakistan’s existence: India, which withheld vital committed supplies,
Afghanistan, which refused to accept the Durand Line, and Americans and other
Westerners, who cherished secularism and were wary of a religious state. Add to
the milieu: the pronouncements of British and Indian leaders, who looked upon
Pakistan as a temporary anomaly, and the threat of revolutionary, expansionist
Communism lurking in the background. Would not any state in such a geo-political
vise be rightly paranoid? Like the self-revelatory title of a book by a founder
of Intel reads: “Only the paranoid survive.”
Another theme in the book is Pakistan’s sense of grandiosity: Mr. Jinnah is
quoted as stating to a Life magazine reporter that "the USA needs Pakistan more
than Pakistan needs the USA," causing the reporter to pejoratively call Mr.
Jinnah “a clever man who happened to create a country.” Well, even if we lend
credence to the views of a reporter, would it not be expected that the leader of
a new country, whose very existence is shaky, would try to project the
importance of his country in order to acquire international support? The author
reveals that Mr. Jinnah termed his country "the lynchpin of the world," as he
and subsequent leaders sought large amounts of American military aid – requests
that were apparently often met with incredulity. Was all this a "magnificent
delusion"? Well, history proved otherwise as Pakistan did become one of the
major recipients of American military aid, and a key player in the decisive war
of the last half of the twentieth century with Communism. Once again, if Haqqani
truly considered the founder of Pakistan to be delusional then why did he choose
to serve under the gaze of his large portraits in his ambassadorial offices in
Washington D.C. and Colombo, Sri Lanka? Would you expect a former American
ambassador, for example, to denigrate George Washington, who happened to be one
of the largest slave owners of his time, let alone call into question the
desirability of American independence from Great Britain?
Now one is not being jingoistic here. It would be a folly to state that
Pakistani governments did not make errors of judgement. And of course, it is sad
that scarce funds are being spent on arms rather than on the amelioration of
widespread poverty. But the characterization of Pakistan as deluded, (and as one
reads the book, one realizes that the title refers only to Pakistan, the USA is
at most “duped”) and the portrayal of the USA as a benign, if not avuncular,
power lacks nuance. The criticisms of USA foreign policy – from the waging of
offensive wars to the toppling of democratically-elected governments to the
support of dictators in the pursuit of self-interests – are too well-known to
merit repetition. Is it therefore possible that even if Pakistani governments
liked to fan public anti-American sentiment every now and then as part of their
“carrot and stick” policy, as Haqqani alleges, that America too was not entirely
above board in its dealings with Pakistan? Or are we to believe that the USA was
nothing less than a teacher, even parent, or at the least an Uncle –
pristine-intentioned, principled – seeking only to guide and groom its spoilt
charge?
India is dealt in a similar manner and is characterized as a docile status quo
power that is intermittently challenged by a belligerent, and unnecessarily
existentially-threatened, Pakistan ‘punching above its weight.’ India’s sense of
being ‘wronged’ by the partition of the subcontinent, its pervasive belief in
its aftermath that partition was a temporary price to be paid for independence
from the British, and its consequent attempt to strangulate the infant state,
are not investigated – beyond mentioning that some supplies were blocked.
Neither is the Kashmir issue discussed in terms of the emotions it has
historically evokes at the grassroots level in Pakistan or in terms of India’s
unconscionable stance particularly in the wake of its military invasion and
annexation of the independent states of Hyderabad, Sikkim, and Junagadh. India’s
role in the secession of East Pakistan is dealt with summarily and as an
inevitable and isolated reaction to Pakistan’s own follies, though it is now
widely acknowledged as being far more sinister. There is no mention of India’s
aggressive postures in other neighbouring states such as Sri Lanka, through
support to the LTTE, and obviously Pakistan, against whose Eastern borders are
arraigned the bulk of Indian Army attack formations and Air Force bases, and
along whose Western borders with Afghanistan are juxtaposed several Indian
consulates that allegedly support separatist and terrorist movements inside
Pakistan. Once again, the manuscript would have benefited from more nuance and
context.
Though mired in intrigue and controversy, Mr. Hussain Haqqani has been viewed as
a champion of liberalism and secularism – leitmotifs here as well. It is in this
realm, rather than in foreign policy, where the book manages a brief flourish.
He presents two intriguing propositions neither of which may be new, but which
nevertheless resonate: That Mr. Jinnah was largely unclear about how Islam would
inform governance in the new state. And that militancy is an inevitable
consequence of the creation of a state in the name of Islam.
While he successfully establishes the former proposition, but only implies the
latter, he does not explore causes in either case. Pakistan was envisioned and
created at a time when Western democracy had dealt itself near death blows in
the World Wars, capitalism had temporarily collapsed in the USA with the 1929
Stock Market crash, a sanguinary Communism was massacring its own citizens, and
Hinduism was but an anachronistic and racist ideology. So was it not
understandable that the founding fathers sought another option: one that sought
balance between the pursuit of happiness and that of compassion, between the
pursuit of wealth and that of spirituality, between individual initiative and
the public weal? Was it beyond belief that for this balance they sought an
Islamic framework? Mr. Jinnah did not want a theocratic state and he did
announce that personal religious beliefs were no business of the state, but at
the same time he did clearly envision some Islamic character for the state
portraying it as a “laboratory of Islam.” Well, laboratories can get messy! The
conflict between retrogressive, insular, even brutal Islam and Islam as a force
of modernization, intellectual ferment, and good governance has waged throughout
its history. What tips the scale in these battles? It would have enriched
liberal discourse if somebody with the credentials and intellect of Haqqani had
taken a stab at these questions.
Lest the very notion of a state informed by religion raise the hackles of
diehard secularists, one can refer to Javed Ahmed Ghamidi who opines that an
Islamic state should be secular and that any law legislated by an elected
assembly in a Muslim country is Shariah-compliant by definition. Or to Tariq
Ramadan who also believes that an Islamic state should be secular with every
religion being "equi-distant" from the state. His reasoning is that to make the
concept of an Ummah viable, the lowest common denominator of each Muslim states
practices have to be adopted and Muslim minorities in Non-Muslim states need to
be catered.
I appreciate Mr. Haqqani’s clarion call for “more butter, less arms.” Who would
not, when parts of the country appallingly compete with Sub-Saharan Africa in
malnourishment? But that does not explain why he did not even deign to mention
the inexcusable corruption of the democratic governments that he has served.
I do not impugn Mr. Haqqani’s intentions like some who accuse him of playing to
American or Indian audiences. As a former Ambassador and muse to Prime
Ministers, I believe that like any patriotic Pakistani, he seeks for his country
a tolerant, educated society, a democratic government, a well-fed, healthy
populace, and a military that can defend its borders. But “Magnificent
Delusions” is not going to help make much headway in that direction by fostering
a better understanding in its readership or changing mindsets.
It does not evolve liberal discourse; it does not engage rightists; it presents
the uninitiated with a skewed picture of Pakistan’s context and motivations; and
it provides grist to the self-righteous element in Indian perspectives. As a
Pakistani, it pained me to read this account by my country’s former Ambassador.